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wall, the high stonework of which was reinforced by sixty square towers. When
seen as we saw it from the nearby hills, the city was truly impressive, its
interior dotted thickly with church spires, with here and there the palaces of
the wealthy rising amid acres of lesser construction. The Arno made a lopsided
bisection of the city, and its waters, half mud, half rainbow, flowed out of
it bearing all the colors of the Clothmakers Guild, as well as the sewage of
seventy thousand people. As we passed inside the walls I saw that the Guild
artisans with their dyes and fabrics seemed to occupy all the banks and
bridges of the river. The streets of Florence stank, like those of any city of
the time; but there was also splendor in the air.
The population was still much reduced from the pre-plague days of more than a
century before, and considerable tracts within the walls had been denuded of
buildings by fire and decay, had become gardens in which a million flowers
grew along with plots of vegetables and fruit.
Just as foulness and beauty were mixed in the city s water, and stench and
perfume in its air, so its mansions and hovels stood cheek by jowl in what
appeared to me at first as a total confusion of society. Actually there was a
logic.
By tradition each Florentine family, however wealthy or poor it might become,
still dwelt in its ancestral quarter.
There was no enclave of the rich, no slum to confine the poor. The larger and
finer houses contained within their
walls their own storerooms, stables, and sometimes shops none of this city s
upper class disdained the touch of money or the business of buying and
selling. These facilities would be of course on the ground floor, with
gardens, halls, and courtyards added when there was room. The preferred living
quarters were on the level just above. A floor or two above that dwelt poor
relations, guests of secondary importance, and servants, in cramped apartments
more exposed than those on the first floor to summer s heat and winter s cold.
On the day of our arrival in the city the weather was still quite warm, and my
companions had been wondering aloud whether the chief men of the Medici clan
might not be found in one of the family villas that were scattered through the
surrounding Tuscan hills, rather than in town. But as matters turned out we
found them in the city palace, still working to master the turmoil of business
matters brought on by the death of Cosimo.
The Medici palace was, as it is today, a massive stone building near the
church of San Lorenzo, rectangular as a modern apartment block on the outside,
and decorated with great art to which I at the time was almost indifferent.
The outer walls of the ground floor were of simple, roughly dressed blocks of
stone; the masonry of the second level followed the Doric pattern, and that of
the third, the Corinthian. But as I say, such niceties were at the time quite
lost on me, a rude barbarian soldier. Once inside the first courtyard, my
fellow travelers dismounted and hurried at once into a private room to make a
confidential business report to some official of the family bank. After I had
goggled at the statuary for a while I too got off my horse and was courteously
conducted to another room, where I presented to another officer my letters of
introduction and credit from King Matthias. I realized that if my project was
to thrive in
Florence, I had best get off on the right foot with the Medici.
The preparations at Visegrad for my mission had been as thorough as they were
secret, and the letters were in several languages, including of course
Italian. In those of that language I was named rather ambiguously as Signore
Ladislao a fair translation of my Christian name and all the letters promised
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royal gratitude for any assistance given me.
The merchants who had traveled with me had doubtless speculated among
themselves about my unspecified mission for Matthias, but had accepted the
letters with little open comment. Now the Medici official, after a first
reading, borrowed the documents from me, politely enough, and gave orders that
I should be provided with suitable refreshment after my long journey. The
weather being quite warm, I was led to a shaded table set in an open
courtyard.
At any given time in that house it was more likely than not that some group of
folk were banqueting. And though my interest in most kinds of food has long
since waned, I can still remember . . . to gorge oneself whenever it was
possible to do so was then the European standard of behavior. But not in
mannered Florence. It was in Florence that
I, the rough soldier, first saw a table fork, though that was on a later day.
On that first day I dealt forkless with sausages, slices of melon, boiled
capon, and pastries of whose elegant existence I had never before dreamt. I
fell to with a will.
Presently some of the men who had shared the road with me appeared, smiling,
to join me at table. While they were busy answering some of my questions
concerning the city s history and customs, a young man I did not know came
into the courtyard. He was dressed in new, rather simple clothing, cut of the
best cloth. In a grating voice, and with a sad-faced courtesy and gravity
beyond his years, he addressed me as Signore Ladislao and made me welcome to
the house of his family. He was introduced to me, between mouthfuls and
without ceremony, by one of my former fellow travelers. This youth was of
course Piero s eldest son, Lorenzo, later to be called the Magnificent; and
when his own hour came for subtle rule in Florence, he would wield more power
than many an anointed king, and his patronage of art would markedly surpass
even that of King Matthias.
On that day in the late summer of 1464, however, Lorenzo de Medici was only
fifteen years of age though there were moments when his swarthy face, with its
grim eyes, shave-resistant stubble, and the natural beginning of a furrow in
his brow, looked thirty-five. Already the elders of his family had begun to
trust him with minor diplomatic work. Beside him at my table now stood his
little brother Giuliano, only ten, but already an apprentice Medici and at the
moment sober as a German count. In those days childhood was a rare thing, for
people of any class.
Lorenzo, however precocious, had not recognized my name. He had seen my
letters, though, and could identify importance. He sat down at table and
munched a piece of fruit while like a seasoned diplomat he killed time and
sounded me out with a discussion of relatively neutral topics: the death of
the Pope, the sad state of Italian roads.
Then presently Lorenzo s father hobbled into the courtyard to join us. Here
was the ruler, certainly, and I rose to my feet; but Piero s gnarled hand
waved me to sit down again. Leaning on the table for support, he handed me
back my letters, and bade me stay as a guest in his house for as long as I
might choose.
Lorenzo too had sprung up with alacrity, that his father might have the seat
at my side. And Piero knew who I
was; I could see it in his eyes as at last, he settled himself on the bench
beside me with a groan.
Is it possible, Signore Ladislao, that we have met before? Have you lived in
Targoviste, perhaps?
My old Wallachian capital. I doubted, though of course I could not be sure,
that Piero himself had ever dragged
his gouty frame that far from home. Medici merchants had certainly been there,
though. Where in the known world had they not been? I admitted cautiously that
I had once lived in that city.
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Then perhaps, continued Piero, you were there some eight years or so past
when an incident occurred that caused one of my family s most dependable
trading representatives to bring back a strange report. Despite the man s good
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