The Tragedies of the Medici Part 21

Medici as his putative father!

Piero made light of this charge--he was well used to that sort of thing, but, with rare effrontery, he held the infant at the font, whilst Panciatichi absented himself, and Eleanora made a tacit avowal of his parentage. The relations between Carlo and his wife had quite naturally never been of the best, and as gradually fears of death, upon the scaffold faded, or by a retributive d'Antonio hand, and he found himself the untrammelled master of his actions, he began to resent the callousness of the arrangement with Duke Cosimo, after 1570, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Eleanora's intrigue with Don Piero clenched the matter of her cohabitation with her husband. Carlo refused her both bed and board, and, in the spring of 1578, he forced her into the Franciscan convent of San Onofrio da Foligno--a favourite place of sanctuary for dishonoured gentlewomen!

Poor, sinful, sinned-against Eleanora, the pathetic example of a young and beautiful life wasted and corrupted by the ill-conditioned l.u.s.ts of a profligate lover and his libertine son! With her freedom of action absolutely curtailed, and her complete isolation from her family, the gay and attractive mistress of Castello and of the Medici Palace at Pisa, with countless admirers and many lovers, was indeed an object of sympathetic commiseration. To be sure, the Cavaliere made ample provision for his wife's maintenance, appointed a small suite of attendants, and permitted her to carry with her many cherished bits of furniture and _bric-a-brac_. He likewise committed to her charge both her children, and offered no objection to occasional visits to his mother of Don Giovanni de' Medici, now a growing boy of eleven.

The Grand Duke Francesco cordially approved this arrangement. With respect to certain jewels and personal effects which Eleanora retained, the Grand Duke made an order that, as they belonged to _Guardaroba_ of the Sovereign, they should be deposited, during the period of her residence in the convent, in the State Treasury.

Then a thick veil was drawn over the life of Eleanora di Cavaliere Carlo de' Panciatichi, and the gates of the convent were closed upon her, never to be opened for her egress! Her beauty and her talents, and the gaiety of her manner were matured, cultivated and restrained in harmony with her melancholy surroundings. Youth gave way to middle age, and middle age to the crepuscule of life, and the seasons came, and the seasons went, and one life in that sanctuary seemed fated to go on for ever. Forgotten and unvisited, Eleanora, the _druda_ of Cosimo I., cast off and spurned; the _innamorata_ of Piero de' Medici, wronged and despised; the wife of Carlo de' Panciatichi, divorced and cloistered, lived on and on, far beyond the scriptural limit of threescore years and ten--the pathetic victim of a callous world.

In the _Libri di Ricordanze_ of the convent is a notice for the year 1634, which startles the sympathetic reader of the tragedy of Eleanora degli Albizzi: "Upon 19th March of this year there pa.s.sed to a better life the most ill.u.s.trious Lady, Donna Eleanora degli Albizzi de'

Panciatichi, who had resided in this monastery for fifty-six years, and had reached the ninetieth year of her age. She lived in the odour of sanct.i.ty with the devotion of a religious, and endowed the monastery with a goodly bequest." The _Cosa di Cosimo--per il piacere di Cosimo_!

as time-serving, unfatherlike Messer Luigi degli Albizzi called the immolation of his fair young daughter, had become the Bride of Christ!

And what of unsympathetic, violent Carlo de' Panciatichi? Well, he, too, got his deserts. The very year after he had put away his wife, he again made himself liable to execution for murder. One morning a servant of his, Sebastiano del Valdarno, who had not been paid wages due to him, ventured to remind his master of the circ.u.mstance. Cavaliere Carlo, who could never tolerate demands for money with equanimity, was enraged by the man's presumption, and, seizing hold of a heavy pouch full of bronze _denari_, he flung it at the unlucky fellow, saying--"Go to h.e.l.l and take your money with you!"

The impact fractured the man's skull and he died in hospital! Again Panciatichi was condemned to a heavy fine, with the capital sentence _in contumacia_, by the _Otto di Guardia e Balia_. He was conveyed to prison, the old _Stinche_, until he paid the fine. Eleanora, in her convent, heard of his punishment, and actually rendered him good for evil, as a tender-hearted and suffering woman would quite naturally do.

She pleaded with the Grand Duke Francesco for his deliverance, and joined her son, Don Giovanni de' Medici, in her appeal.

Cavaliere Carlo de' Panciatichi was not set free till November 1581, when he had fully paid all the claims preferred against him by the family of the man he had slain, which included a provision for a certain _contadina_. She was a superior domestic servant in the employment of the Panciatichi family, and a personal attendant upon Eleanora. Madonna Ginevra, she was called, and she had two little girls. Whether these children were the Cavaliere's, no one has related, but upon the death of their mother they, too, found asylum at the convent of Sant Onofrio, and were tenderly treated by sad and lonesome Madonna Eleanora--a sweet and pathetic action indeed!

The Cavaliere raised his head once more under the guilty rule of Grand Duke Francesco's murderer, the unscrupulous Cardinal Ferdinando, and by him was appointed a Gentleman of Honour and a member of the new Grand Ducal Council of Two-Hundred. He died long before his doubly-wronged, unhappy wife, Eleanora, on the 27th February 1620.

With Cammilla de' Martelli came the end of the prosperous reign and the end of the profligate life of Cosimo de' Medici, last Duke of Florence and first Grand Duke of Tuscany. She was the youngest of the two daughters, the only children, of Messer Antonio di Domenico de'

Martelli, and his wife, Madonna Fiammetta, the daughter of Messer Niccolo de' Soderini, a descendant of that earlier Niccolo, the self-seeking and unscrupulous adviser of Don Piero de' Medici.

The Martelli traced their origin through two lines of ancestry: to the Picciandoni of Pisa in the thirteenth century, and to the Stabbielli of the Val di Sieve in the fourteenth. They appear to have settled in the Via degli Spadai, and to have "hammered" among the armourers there, so successfully, that their name was given to the street in lieu of its more ancient designation.

Messer Domenico, Cammilla's great-grandfather, was one of Savonarola's keenest opponents, chiefly in the interests of the Medici, and the great Cosimo counted him among his most trusty friends, but he suffered for his fidelity by being a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1531, by one Paolo del Nero.

Another relative of Cammilla died tragically, Lodovico, who was killed by Giovanni Bandini in a duel at Poggio Baroncelli in 1530--a duel fought for the hand and heart of the beauteous Marietta de' Ricci, a relative of that other fateful flirt, Ca.s.sandra, who was the cause of Pietro Buonaventuri's tragic death, and died by the knives of a.s.sa.s.sins.

The Martelli were a.s.sociated with many of the pious works of the Medici: for example, they a.s.sisted munificently in the building and endowment of the great church of San Lorenzo. In some way or other Messer Antonio had lit on evil days, at all events he appears to have lost the banking business, which had been mainly operative in the raising of his house, and had reverted to the less lucrative but still honourable occupation of his family--the craft of sword-making. He carried on his business in a house which he rented under the shadow of the Palazzo Pitti.

Both Cammilla and her elder sister Maria were good-looking girls. The latter, in 1566, married a wealthy shoemaker from Siena, Gaspare Chinucci, but her husband divorced her; and then Duke Cosimo caused her father to marry her, in 1572, to an opulent foreign merchant--Messer Balda.s.sarre Suarez, who had come over from Spain and was a protege of the d.u.c.h.ess Eleanora.

Cammilla, born in 1547, possessed all the personal attractiveness which distinguished her mother, whose sister, Nannina, the wife of Messer Luigi degli Albizzi, was mother of Eleanora, Duke Cosimo's _druda_.

"Tall and of a good figure, fair complexion, with light hair, and a pair of dark eyes like two brilliant stars, she was also most graceful in her carriage and manner, full of intelligence in conversation, and quite naturally fond of admiration and amours." This is a contemporary word-picture of the physical and mental charms of one of the most lovely girls that ever tripped merrily along the Lung' Arno Acciaiuoli--in the footsteps of Beatrice de' Portinari.

That promenade of Prince Cupid was always thronged by the belles and beaux of Florentine society. There the young men, and old men too, could meet and salute their _innamorate_. Duke Cosimo had not observed for nothing the daily walk of his fascinating young neighbour, he never overlooked a pretty face and comely figure, and his heart was large enough to entertain the loves of many women! His experience was very much like that of Dante Alighieri, who one day saw his Beatrice "in quite a new and entrancing light."

It was in May, in 1564, when all was gay and fresh in Florence, that Duke Cosimo chanced upon Cammilla de' Martelli, as he pa.s.sed on his way from the Pitti Palace to Castello, to dawdle with the lovely Eleanora degli Albizzi, her cousin. Something prompted the Duke to accost the maiden,--her blush and his own tremor revealed delightful possibilities quite in his way! Very warily he approached Messer Antonio. His idea was probably to keep Eleanora at the Villa del Castello, and to take Cammilla away to his favourite residence, the Palace at Pisa.

If Don Francesco and d.u.c.h.ess Giovanna were aggrieved by the intrigue already going on, it was conceivable that the trouble would be greatly intensified by a second. Cosimo did not wish their increased displeasure nor publicity, so, for a while, he kept his hopes and his intentions to himself. At last, inflamed more and more by the fresh, unsullied beauty of Cammilla, he broached his proposition to Messer Antonio. Greatly in need of money, and hoping much from court patronage, the unnatural father determined to follow the example of his brother-in-law, and surrender, for a worthy consideration, his child as a "_Cosa di Cosimo il Duca_."

The cast-off Eleanora was married, as we have read, to Cavaliere Carlo de' Panciatichi in September 1567, and on 28th May--eight months after--Cammilla de' Martelli gave birth, at Pisa, to a dear little girl, the latest child of Duke Cosimo! This was by no means to the mind of Duke Francesco, and news of the birth quickly reached the ears of the Pope. His Holiness at once despatched a courier to Duke Cosimo, urging him to legitimatise the child by his immediate marriage with the mother.

This was not at all what the Duke wanted; he preferred, of course, to be quite free to love any girl or woman that he might single out.

Nevertheless the pressure was so great that he was compelled to yield; and, in January 1569, he took Cammilla to be his wedded wife, but not to share his Ducal t.i.tle! That was forbidden by the emphatic opposition of the acting Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, and by the direct intervention of the Emperor Maximilian.

Messer Antonio de' Martelli was in ecstasies, and his unconcealed delight gained for him the nickname "_Il Balencio_," "like Whalebone"!

It is said that when his wife's kinsman, Alamanno de' Pazzi, ventured to congratulate him at his house in the Via Maggio, he found the place gaily decorated, and musicians playing before the door!

"What is this brave show for, Messer Antonio?" he asked.

"Why, Ser Alamanno, I have married my daughter to the Duke Cosimo.

Rejoice with me to-day. We have now no relations but Emperors and Princes, what would you!"

Cosimo created his wife's father a Knight of the Order of San Stefano and endowed him with a good annual income. At the same time he advanced Madonna Maria di Balda.s.sarre Suarez to the rank of a Gentlewoman of the Court, and caused unhappy Gaspare Chinucci to be banished out of Tuscany; some indeed say that he even instigated his a.s.sa.s.sination!

Messer Suarez was promoted to an honourable place at Court, and his name was changed to Martelli. Two sons and a daughter blessed his union with Madonna Maria. Violante, as the girl was christened, grew up, as beautiful as her aunt Cammilla, with a pair of eyes like hers, and nothing could restrain the pa.s.sion of that young libertine, Don Piero de' Medici, for love of her--he was indeed his father's son!

Nevertheless she was not to be his _innamorata_ alone, for Cardinal Ferdinando also "came and saw and conquered," and young Violante became his chief mistress in Florence--the rival in his affections of his father's fascinating young wife, her aunt Cammilla.

In 1570, Cosimo went in State to Rome to be crowned by the Pope as first Grand Duke of Tuscany. From his Holiness he obtained a reversion of the t.i.tle in perpetuity for his descendants. The Easter of that year he spent at the Pitti Palace, and then he hurried off to Castello to pa.s.s the rest of his days with his dearly-loved and charming young wife.

Once there, he dismissed almost all the members of his suite, retaining only two secretaries, a chaplain (!) and two couriers, wis.h.i.+ng to lead the quiet life of a country gentleman. He apportioned to his wife Cammilla four gentlewomen as maids of honour. Henceforward neither Cosimo nor Cammilla were seen but rarely in Florence. They spent their time together either at Castello, at Poggio a Caiano, or in Pisa.

December and May had been mated--the former had his consolations, but the latter pined quite naturally for young society. Love is cold and love is captious where age and temperament disagree. Cammilla sighed for the gaieties, the pleasures, and gallantries of Florence. Love's young dream had not been hers, she had not chosen her ancient lover. But admiration for her sprang from a likely though an unexpected quarter, and her cavalier was not warned off by a jealous husband, as was poor Eleanora degli Albizzi's.

The Grand Duke Cosimo, to the very last, kept up the appearance of religion, if not its realities. The fact that a son of his was a member of the Sacred College, and a possible occupant of the chair of St Peter, covered a mult.i.tude of sins; not that Cardinal Ferdinando was a mirror of virtue or an example of sanct.i.ty.

Ferdinando's relations with Francesco and Bianca were as bad as could be. His arrogance and extortions rendered his presence at the Florentine court unwelcome and even dangerous. At Castello and Poggio a Caiano, on the other hand, he was an honoured guest, and, for lack of lovers, his young stepmother was not displeased by his attentions. Cosimo kept her strictly in seclusion, and she had not the courage, or, be it said, the impudence of her stepdaughter, the d.u.c.h.ess of Bracciano. The loves of the Cardinal and Cammilla were in secret and unprovocative; indeed, the Grand Duke encouraged the intrigue, as being "for Cammilla's good."

Here was a pretty state of affairs. One son, Piero, the seducer of his mistress, Eleanora degli Albizzi, the other, Ferdinando, the lover of his wife! It would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to exonerate Cosimo from the blame of Cammilla's unfaithfulness. If she sinned, she did so helplessly.

Alas, that she listened not only to the amorous vows of Ferdinando, but also gave credence to his views concerning the Grand Duke and Grand d.u.c.h.ess in Florence. She knew, of course, that there was no love lost between herself and them; and she was quite ready to entertain the evil insinuations which the late d.u.c.h.ess Giovanna had ventilated with reference to Bianca.

This cabal was perfectly well known to the Grand Duke Cosimo, but he let matters take their course; all he cared for was the embraces of his attractive wife and the flatteries of his hypocritical son. The death of d.u.c.h.ess Giovanna threw Ferdinando and Cammilla more than ever into one another's arms. What, and if Francesco and Bianca died without male heir! Why, on the death of Cosimo, Ferdinando and Cammilla might succeed to the Grand Ducal throne. This was the temptation which the Cardinal placed, like a young bud, in Cammilla's bosom. She was but human--very human; she had been slighted by the non-allowance of rank as Grand d.u.c.h.ess. Perhaps Destiny had still that distinction in reserve. She would wait.

The pathos of Cammilla's life deepened during the last four years of Grand Duke Cosimo's life. He became a constant sufferer with many infirmities. The strenuous life he had lived, with its exercise of l.u.s.tful love and lurid hate, tried to the breaking point his iron const.i.tution. Gout was his direst torment, a malady productive of ill-humour at its worst, and poor Cammilla, lonely wife, nurse, companion, had none to share his impatience.

Her own health gave way under the strain, and her indisposition pointed to apoplexy and to mental trouble. But deliverance came at last. On 20th April 1574, Cosimo breathed his last at Poggio a Caiano, in his fifty-fifth year. By his death-bed there watched only his chastened wife and his sanctimonious son. Of his other surviving children, Isabella--once his favourite--had suffered for sixteen years the misunderstandings and the heartburnings which her heartless marriage-contract had imposed; she was estranged from him and from Cammilla, and from the Cardinal. Piero was a wastrel, the exponent of his father's worst pa.s.sions--Piero, "_Il Scandalezzatore_" as he was rightly called. Francesco had borne ten years' embarra.s.sment as quasi-ruler of the State, subject to ceaseless cautions and contradictions: he was, in no sensuous or homicidal sense, his father's son. All three stayed markedly away from Poggio a Caiano.

Almost the first act of the new Sovereign was the enclosure of his father's young widow in a convent! He placed her first with the Benedictine nuns of the Vergine dell' Annunziata delle Murate, and then in the n.o.ble sanctuary of Santa Monica, not with her poor cousin Eleanora degli Albizzi away at Foligno!

This certainly appears to the ordinary reader of romances a cruel and unjustifiable act, but to the student of diplomatic expediency, it was a foregone conclusion. The security of Francesco's rule depended entirely upon the suppression of dynastic intrigues. The person of Ferdinando was una.s.sailable; as a Prince of the Church he had prerogatives which could not be removed by any temporal sovereign. All that Francesco could do was to forbid his presence upon Tuscan territory, and this he did.

It does not appear that the unhappy Cammilla de' Medici was harshly used; indeed her residence within the convent was made as agreeable as possible, and she had the privilege of receiving visitors, other than political. Madonna Costanza de' Pazzi and eight other n.o.ble ladies were attached to her suite, with five Gentlemen of Honour and several domestics.

Cavaliere Antonio de' Martelli pleaded in vain his right as father of Cammilla to take her and her child back under the parental roof. The Grand Duke was immovable in his resolution, he counselled the father to let the matter rest, and gave him and Madonna Fiammetta free access to their daughter, but, on no account, was she to visit them.

As in the case of Eleanora degli Albizzi, an inventory of jewellery and other treasures was made, and whilst Cammilla was permitted to retain certain articles, such objects as were regarded as the property of the reigning Grand d.u.c.h.ess were transferred to the _Guardaroba_ of Bianca.

Apparently Francesco determined that no action of his against his father's widow should be construed into a menace against his Government.