Chapter 3

Family Matters

He had been called. In an upstairs room of the guest house that Lucrezia reserved for herself and her family, Girolamo Savonarola took his place.

And waited.

To his satisfaction, the room was plain. The walls, though plastered, were un-frescoed, the floor of plain terracotta tiles and the ceiling of plainly-dressed chestnut beams and boards. Yet it had a comforting and welcoming atmosphere and as he looked around him, he realized that it was the warm golden light, streaming in through the large, south-facing window, which he had to thank.

Despite the welcoming atmosphere of the room, he found himself beginning to regret swearing to such stringent terms, beginning to question whether this woman really would tell him a concise and consistent story of recent events in Florence, and whether, in the process, she could help him to understand how that elusive society truly worked.

But what was the alternative? He had no one else he could approach. And besides, a deal had been struck, so now, surely, he must make the most of it.

Lucrezia entered and, without further ado, pointed him to a chair in the corner of the room. He sat. Immediately, he began to realize that the chair had been placed so that there could be no distractions. From where he found himself, Savonarola could not see anything out of the window. Instead his full attention would have to be on the woman in front of him, whether she sat in the chair she had her hand on now, or was pacing up and down the room as she had been doing for the past few minutes while he settled himself.

Now she in turn sat. He watched her closely as she prepared herself. His first impression, back there at the roadside, had been something of a disappointment. She was smaller than he had expected from her reputation: slight, yet not notably slender, being, as he now confirmed, somewhat heavy-limbed. A figure he had felt at the time that could almost be described as insignificant. Yet he remembered now what she may have lacked in stature she had immediately made up for in posture, for she had sat her horse, notably straight-backed rather than slouched, as so many noblewomen seemed to be when riding side-saddle.

Nobility, he had thought, dismissively, at the time. But that had been before she had spoken to him, before he had experienced those hawk-like eyes upon him and that mind concentrating on his every word, and choosing her response with a precision that had shaken him from any lazy assumptions and made him, in turn, concentrate to the full.

During her short interrogation of him at Casole d’Elsa he had hardly any opportunity to look closely at her. The candle-light in her Castello room had been poor and, in any event, he had been far too concerned with saying the right thing and convincing her to talk to him at all to worry about what she looked like.

Now, for the first time, as she settled herself and placed her notebook and reading glasses on her lap, he found he had the leisure and the light and allowed himself to examine her features properly.

Her face was by no means beautiful, indeed not even handsome, being narrow with a long chin and an even longer nose. A strange nose, he thought. Almost but not quite like a duck’s beak, low-bridged and then curving outward with a strangely flattened and pointed end. Her mouth could best be described as tight, thin-lipped, the very expression of silence. The eyes? He examined them as she sat, heavily hooded above and somewhat puffy beneath; small eyes (and, he supposed, short-sighted), careful if not distrustful eyes and, as far as he could tell, eyes without hint of merriment. There will be little laughter in this room.

A pious face, perhaps? Hardly sad but certainly serious in its evident pre-occupation. A face for receiving rather than giving. A face in retreat from the world: watchful, careful, uncertain, almost hesitant and, if one were to guess, the face of someone who is, or who has been, disappointed with at least some aspects of life.

Yet when she began to speak, as he remembered so clearly from their earlier conversations, he knew she would come alive and that plain exterior would quickly be forgotten. For it was then that the strength – the inner strength of the woman – would emerge.

He sat back and smiled inwardly. It is not what she looks like that matters but what she knows, and what she thinks and what she says. He knew her voice, although soft and quiet, would be confident and her opinions, once expressed, would be clear and concise and decisive. An impressive woman then; once understood. A woman, he decided, as she took her hand from the arm of the chair and folded it over the other in her lap, to be under-estimated at your peril.

Today she seemed nervous, but perhaps only with that degree of tension that infects a preacher before he goes before his congregation, aware that he has one and only one opportunity to get it right, to find the words, and to deliver them in a manner that will influence the crowd. It was a tension he knew well and it played no little part in the reasons he was here today.

It appeared that she was as aware, then, of the importance of the opportunity, as he was, and, in her own way, was equally tense. Perhaps, after all, our conversations will be as important to her as I hope they will be for me.

Lucrezia cleared her throat. ‘In trying to understand my family, the city and commune of Florence in which we live, and the actions we have or have not taken during our lives, I would like you to take some things into account.’

Almost startled that she had begun speaking, he remained passive, not even nodding. He had not yet worked out his part in these conversations. Absorb. Bide your time. Observe and think. Think, and remember.

‘No man or woman has complete freedom. We are all constrained, by history, by circumstances, by the world around us and particularly by the presence of those who are closest to us.’ As she spoke, Lucrezia seemed distracted by a thought. She put her glasses on the table beside her and rose from her chair. She walked to the window and looked out, perhaps surveying her work in bringing back to life the thriving resort now spread out below them. Then she nodded to herself, a decision made, possibly, and turned back to him.

‘In this life, you have to play the cards you are dealt. In Florence, perhaps more than in any other part of Italy, family, and I mean that in the widest sense of parentado, is everything. One generation shapes the opportunity for the next and early in life you have to make an important decision: whether to live within the prison cell of your parents’ attitudes and actions on your behalf, or to break out.’

Deep inside he felt his heart flutter. This was closer to home than he had expected. It was only by concentrating hard that he prevented his mind from drifting back to his own break with his parents and the agony it had caused all of them. But Madonna Lucrezia was moving across the room and the movement drew him back to the present.

She paused, her hand on the back of her chair, and then turned. Again she walked to the window. Savonarola shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This was going to take a long time. She began to speak again, turning as she did so, but this time remaining by the window. ‘Not all parental attitudes are beneficial. Our world is changing so fast that the previous generation is often left floundering by the circumstances we now face.’ The expression on her face hardened. ‘And not all parental actions are unselfish.’

He nodded inwardly, remembering how his father had tried to re-establish his own reputation by pushing him into a position in the Este Court.

But she was speaking of something different. ‘Fathers as well as husbands presume to make decisions on behalf of others, and too many women spend their lives playing a hand of cards dealt for them by a man. Please remember that when you judge us.’

She crossed the room, seeming suddenly to relax after establishing her ground rules, and sat in the chair. Savonarola noticed the wince in her expression as she sat and wondered whether the rheumatism she had referred to as they were talking earlier was causing her pain, or whether she had sustained some injury.

‘The advice I am about to give you may be the most important advice anyone ever gives you, regarding your proposed stay in Florence.’ She looked at him intensely and he nodded, swallowing hard, listening. Concentrating. ‘Remember this. When dealing with the Medici, things are rarely as they seem. My advice to you, Girolamo, is always to judge us by our actions and not simply by our words.’

As she said it, her eyes rested upon his, and opened wider. Wider than she had allowed them to do in their previous meetings. For a moment, she held him in a still, cat-like stare, and for the first time, he saw – really saw – the person behind them. His heart lifted. Yes, this is the woman. I have chosen the right one. She sees what others do not and as a result, she understands the depth of things that others merely ponder over. Yet at the same time, trapped motionless in that intractable gaze, he felt a silent shiver of fear. Be aware, there will be a price for such capability. This woman will be no passive commentator. She is a participant in the world I am asking her to tell me about and as such she will be assessing me, judging me, making decisions about what to tell me and what impressions to leave in my mind.

So began Lucrezia’s story, in her own words, with Savonarola on his guard, repeating her phrases in his head, filtering, editing, already prepared to apply her advice to everything she said herself.

Immediately he wondered why she had agreed to talk to him in this manner, how he could find the actions representing the truths behind her words, words that, if he took her literally, she had already admitted might sometimes be false, and would always need careful consideration.

Lucrezia leaned back in the chair. ‘I shall start seventeen years ago.’ She smiled and closed her eyes as she searched for the memories. ‘I remember the back end of that winter well. It seemed endless, hanging on, cold and depressing, affecting everyone.

‘In early February there had been talk of an earthquake, somewhere to the north of the city, although none of us in the family remembered hearing or feeling anything in Florence. The snow up in the Mugello had been so deep that year that the confirmation did not come to us for weeks. The church in Borgo San Lorenzo, they said, had been damaged and a few small old buildings had fallen to the ground. But Borgo was beyond our lands in the Mugello, further north, past Il Trebbio and beyond Cafaggiolo, and we thought little of it. Earthquakes are, after all, not uncommon in this part of the world, and the city had been unaffected.

‘Like everyone else, we were pre-occupied with the cold. The snow had begun falling shortly after Christmas and from that time onward it never left us. Not until the end of April. And then it only went because the winds were so strong that they blew the snow away from us. That spring there was no thaw, no melting snow, no flooding in the fields. Just dry cold replacing the earlier snow, the ground still hard as iron, and the Arno frozen solid for weeks on end.’

CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
Sunday 19th February 1464

‘The snivellers are living up to their reputation.’ Contessina turns her head to the open nave of the church, where the popolani are crowding together. ‘It’s disgusting. The noise from their snotty noses and their coughing is so loud you can hardly hear the choir, never mind the preacher.’

Lucrezia nods her agreement. Not for the first time she wonders why the Medici work so hard to give the pretence of democracy to such people. What do the popolani know of the great affairs of state? But Florence has declared itself a republic centuries before, and the city still takes such pride in its quaint belief that the rights of every man are being upheld, that it would be beyond heresy to suggest an alternative.

‘Maddalena believes it’s their diet that makes them so unhealthy. She says if wages were higher they would be better nourished.’ Lucrezia sees the anger rising in Contessina’s face and decides to tease her even more. ‘And then the churches would be places of silent worship.’

‘Pah!’ Contessina almost spits on the church floor in her disgust. ‘Maddalena thinks. I don’t give a fig for what that slave woman thinks, or says. Her opinions are of no value whatsoever. I don’t know why you waste time talking to her.’

‘Her father was a highly regarded physician. If he was here, I don’t believe Cosimo or Piero would suffer so from the gout. Apparently he cured almost all of the nobles in Palermo in his time.’

A sniff from Contessina. ‘Who says so? Maddalena? I don’t believe she’s a doctor’s daughter. Never have. Black slave, that’s what she is. Only good for cleaning, if you ask me.’

Lucrezia looks around to see if anyone is listening, but the ting ting of bells is competing with the row from the congregation and drowning out any murmurs of conversation. She’s used to Contessina’s bigoted comments, and considers they only diminish her in everyone else’s eyes.

‘Cosimo’s own physician would vouch for what she says. He knew her father. He has a great deal of time for Maddalena’s medical knowledge.’

‘Which physician?’ Contessina’s chin is high in the air, a sure sign she won’t change her opinion now.

‘Doctor Ficino. He told me himself.’

‘Diotifeci? You mean Marsilio’s father? Are you absolutely sure?’

Lucrezia nods, if only to hide her grin. ‘Knew him personally. In fact, I’ve known him confer with Maddalena to ask about some of her father’s more successful remedies.’

‘Speak of the Devil.’ Lucrezia waves as Lorenzo, looking and acting much older than his fifteen years, eases his way comfortably through the congregation and up the steps to where the nobility have set themselves apart. Giovanni is with him, as is Carlo, and so is Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo’s closest friend. ‘Shall I ask him?’

Contessina turns away, red-faced. ‘Don’t you dare.’

She is saved from further embarrassment as the service begins.

Lucrezia stopped and half-rose from her chair, as if changing her mind, and then sat back again, although now more upright. ‘But before we can speak of politics, I must talk of the bank, for at that time the Medici Bank was the seat of the family’s power and for much, if not most of the time, it was Cosimo’s quiet background generosity that kept the city solvent.’

Savonarola nodded. People like you to nod when they tell you things. It confirms that you are listening and gives them confidence without actually interrupting their train of thought. He saw the tiny reaction on Lucrezia’s face and satisfied himself that it worked for her too.

She continued, already appearing more relaxed. ‘I am sure history will remember Cosimo and his father, Giovanni di Bicci, as the great men who built one of the finest banks the world has ever known, and that view is, I am sure, entirely justified. But it is also incomplete. For I am equally sure that history will judge my generation as having destroyed what they had built up and such a judgement would be mistaken.’

Savonarola allowed himself a raised eyebrow and she nodded as if in confirmation. ‘Incomplete, then. The seeds of the decline in the Medici Bank had been sowed by Cosimo and, to a degree, even by his father, Giovanni di Bicci, himself, long before.’

CASA VECCHIA, FLORENCE
11th May 1437

‘Come, children. It is time for a special lesson. Your father is going to talk to you.’

Lucrezia looks at her brother Giovanni Battista and nods sagely. In the Palazzo Medici the phrase ‘your father’ means Cosimo to them too, as well as to Giovanni and Carlo and to Piero, although, being quite a lot older, Piero rarely spends time with his younger brothers or their adopted cousins.

Carlo and Giovanni Battista drop their wooden swords and begin walking dutifully along the corridor.

Giovanni runs across to Lucrezia and takes her hand. ‘Come on Krizia. Time for another boring lesson. I hope it’s not …’ he makes a loud snoring noise, ‘banking practice.’

Lucrezia laughs, as she does at almost everything Giovanni says, then she pulls a serious face. ‘Actually, I think it’s quite interesting.’

Giovanni lets go of her hand and starts mincing down the corridor. ‘Oh doo you? Actually? Well I think it’s boooring. Actually.’

Happily she grabs his hand and they run up the stair to the studiolo two at a time, shrieking.

‘Today I want to talk about banking practice.’ Cosimo is sitting on a small stool and the children are arrayed around him, on the floor.

Beside her Lucrezia hears a gentle snoring noise and has to pinch her nose to prevent herself from laughing. She can feel Giovanni vibrating with laughter beside her, but dare not join in, or even look at him. There seem to be special rules for Giovanni. He is able to get away with blue murder. But Cosimo is always strict with her.

She looks at Cosimo and nods. It’s what you’re supposed to do when people tell you things. It’s good manners. Maddalena has told her it’s all right to do it. It doesn’t really signify that you agree with them, but if you really disagree you have to cross your fingers behind your back. Then it definitely doesn’t count.

Maddalena knows these things. Maddalena’s special. You can tell because Cosimo treats her differently from everyone else. That’s because, secretly, Cosimo is in love with Maddalena. Girls can tell these things. Anyway, where else would Carlo have come from?

‘Never hang around the Palazzo della Signoria, as if it is the place where you do business. Only go there when you are summoned and only accept the offices that are bestowed upon you.’

Cosimo is repeating the mantra. She’s heard it before. Many times. But grown-ups repeat things to children because they think youngsters can’t remember things. But it’s not true. Giovanni says it’s because they’ve forgotten they’ve told you before. Giovanni knows everything. The problem is, you can’t tell when he’s joking.

‘Never make a show before the people but, if this is unavoidable, let it be the least necessary.’

Cosimo is still droning on. She catches Giovanni’s eye. He begins rolling his eyes and rocking his head from side-to-side. He’s managed to creep behind Cosimo’s shoulder, so his father can’t see what he’s doing.

‘Keep out of the public gaze and never go against the will of the people.’ Cosimo repeats the phrases often, always verbatim, and treats them with reverence – like quotations from the scriptures.

Giovanni leans towards her and whispers. ‘The Word of God the Father.’ He looks at her with a cynical half-smile on his face. The blasphemy, she is sure, is intentional and designed to challenge her. Lucrezia listens and absorbs. There must be some reason why Cosimo keeps on repeating these phrases.

The problem is, as Giovanni was the first to point out, Cosimo doesn’t always obey these rules himself. In the main, he follows his father’s guidance. He always rides a mule rather than a horse and is careful to present himself as a member of the popolari and not of the nobili when theyare out in public. But Cosimo’s father married his son to a Bardi – Contessina’s from one of the oldest noble families in Florence – and Giovanni says Cosimo will marry him to Lucrezia when they grow up. And she’s proud of her Tornabuoni name. And you could hardly argue that the Palazzo Medici shows people that you’re a commoner, can you?

Lucrezia looked up at Savonarola and smiled. ‘So what they said, and what they did, were poles apart, and even as a child, I recognized that.

‘Likewise with the bank. Giovanni di Bicci had established his Principles of Good Management, and in the year following Cosimo’s exile, while he was still feeling the pain of that experience, Cosimo applied the principles even further. The careful structure of a holding company, itself a partnership and being in separate partnership with each of the branches, was made secure by establishing each of those branches as an accomanda, a special type of partnership with liability limited to the extent of the invested capital and no more.

‘Inside that legal structure the management was equally secure. The manager of a branch would be chosen from the ranks and always based on many years of proven ability. He would move from being a salaried clerk to his first management responsibility, his reward for the first time including a bonus reflecting the profitability of the branch. And once he became general manager of the branch, he would be made a full partner, his reward a share of the profits and wholly dependent upon them.’

Lucrezia eased her back in the chair and winced. Across the room Savonarola saw her expression and again wondered what had caused it.

‘Protection, stability and motivation. They were all there in those early days.’ She shook her head. ‘But by the time I speak of, it had become very different, and in my opinion the blame can be placed in the lap of one man and one man only. During its period of expansion and profitability, the Medici bank had been run by Cosimo as sole director, employing Giovanni Benci as his general manager. But in 1455 Benci died and Cosimo, sixty-six years old and increasingly infirm, began to make terrible mistakes.

‘His first error was when winding up the holding company.’ Again she sat forward, but this time it was to raise a hand in explanation. ‘He had no choice. As a partnership, it had to be terminated as soon as one of the partners died. But he did not replace it with a new holding company. Instead he made the Maggiore, the senior, majority partners within the family, individual partners in each of the branches.’ She lifted her head and looked hard at him. ‘This made them individually liable for any losses those branches incurred.’

‘You mean they were personally liable because they were directly involved?’ Savonarola knew little of legal matters and less about banking.

Lucrezia nodded rapidly, as if the point was obvious. ‘Yes exactly.’

She paused, appearing to have lost her train of thought and Savonarola made a mental note not to interrupt again unless it was really necessary. It was better if she talked freely and openly.

‘The following year, he made matters worse when his younger son, Giovanni, was put in charge.’ Savonarola could see a softer expression cross her face and, seeing his response, she shook her head. ‘Please don’t misunderstand me. Giovanni was lovely, a charismatic, fun-loving man who could charm the birds from the trees. I will have much more to tell you about Giovanni. Supportive things. Favourable things. But the one thing he was not cut out to do in life was to run a bank.’ For a moment she paused, the smile still on her face, but then saw him watching her intently and hurried on. ‘Cosimo knew that and should never have appointed him, but we all loved him and since Piero, as the eldest son, was certain to be destined to follow his father’s political ambition, Giovanni was given the bank.’ Again she shook he head and in her expression Girolamo could see regret and, yes, compassion.

‘From the beginning it was a disaster and within three years Cosimo was forced to bring in Francesco Sassett, to help Giovanni by running the day-to-day operations. But that relationship only lasted for five years, until Giovanni himself died.’ As she said the words, she gave her head a sharp shake, as if forcing away an unpleasant thought.

This time Savonarola tried not to respond. She looked at him to see if he had noticed and, seeing no response, took a deep breath and continued. ‘It was a chance for Cosimo to appoint more professional managers to work with Sassetti, but instead he did the worst thing possible, and put my husband, Piero, in charge. If Giovanni was unsuited, Piero was a disaster. But even that was not to last and six years later my husband, in turn, died and Sassetti was left to run the bank alone. He is still there today and the bank, under his management, continues to decline.’

Perhaps angered by her own story, Lucrezia got up from her chair and began pacing up and down. She walked toward the window, then turned and glared at Savonarola as if, somehow, it was his fault.

‘I can tell you this. He would not still be there had the bank belonged to me.’

She shook her head and tried to calm herself. She walked to the window and looked out, her elbows resting on the windowsill. Then, with a resigned expression on her face, she turned and smiled. ‘But it didn’t. And it doesn’t. And there’s no more I can do about it.’ Between each phrase, she paused, each a long, deliberate pause, and Savonarola felt as if she was hammering the words into his head, one-by-one, establishing a principle that she considered important.

One thing is certain. She’s not afraid to hold opinions, nor to express them.

‘And before you ask the question I can see on your face. No. I do not entirely blame Sassetti. He could not help being a courtesan and an inadequate. I blame the man who appointed him, Cosimo himself.’

This time, Savonarola could not hide a frown. ‘Courtesan?’ The word seemed to slip out of its own accord.

Lucrezia shook her head at the interruption to her train of thought. ‘He told people what he thought they wanted to hear.’

She continued pacing up and down. Her face was quite animated, her voice high and, as she paced, she wagged the first finger of her left hand as if to concentrate and retain what she was saying. Finally, she lifted her head. ‘After that, through a succession of bad decisions, the weaknesses at the centre began to be reflected as weakness in the branches.’

PALAZZO MEDICI
12th April 1465

‘Piero! It won’t do. It simply won’t do.’ Lucrezia shakes her head at her husband and wonders why he can’t see the point. To her it’s so obvious. With Cosimo recently dead, Vernacci just resigned and her brother running their most profitable branch in Rome, the bank is collapsing before their eyes. And Piero can’t see it. ‘You cannot go on like this. The bank will become a laughing stock and so will you.’

‘I thought I already was. At least in your eyes?’ Piero looks downtrodden.

‘Oh Piero. Come on! Don’t go all maudlin on me. You know why the Milan branch was established, specifically to support the Sforza family at the Court of Milan. And you know as well as I do that one of the ground rules that Cosimo had been given by his father and which he preached to both of us as children, ad nauseum, was that the bank branches would always tie their business to trade and should never over-extend themselves by making large loans to kings, princes and condottiere. Cosimo knew the risks. The Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli banks had all failed for just this reason. Yet here we are, lending money as if it has gone out of fashion, to the Court of Milan and establishing what is, to all intents and purposes, a single-customer branch.’

Piero lifts his head. Apparently he has not lost all self-respect. ‘I know. But at the time, Cosimo had his reasons. Good reasons. You know as well as I do that he needed the support from Milan to secure his position with the Signoria, and Sforza needed our money to secure his own position as Duke of Milan. And with the government here in Florence having no money, the bank had to pay.’

She shakes her head because she knows he is right. ‘Yes I understand. But there are ways of doing things. You can’t throw away all good banking practice just because of political expediency…’ She pauses, thinking. ‘Not unless you want to lose the bank? Let it go? But if you do, who will pay for the costs of government? Although…’ For a moment she considers, but rejects the thought, and returns to her original theme. ‘In any event, now it’s got worse. You know what’s happened. Since Accerito Portinari came from Venice he’s effectively become number two to his older brother in the Milan branch. Yet this too is explicitly contrary to the operating rules of the bank. You’ve seen the rules. There’s nothing new about them. They were written thirty years ago.’

Piero shakes his head. ‘I admit it’s wrong, but it was a technicality. Father couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen next.’

Lucrezia looks to the sky for inspiration. How can her husband be so obtuse? ‘It was obvious what was going to happen next. Cosimo should have seen it coming a mile away. He knew that under the legal agreement, if Pigello died, the partnership had to continue until the end of the contract, with Pigello’s heirs. That’s what the agreement said. Cosimo knew that. He signed it. It’s not as if he didn’t know who Pigello’s heirs were, is it? His minor children and their guardian, Accerito. Wonderful! So now we’ve finished up with a malformed branch, run by a weak and inadequate manager, and in personal partnership with the Maggiore, leaving them, as individuals, and that includes you, by the way, personally responsible for its losses. Piero, it could hardly be worse.’

Piero lets out a long sigh. Lucrezia can see he has no answer and she does not expect one. Not in the immediate future anyway, but he has to face up to the seriousness of the situation and start putting some corrective measures in place. Otherwise…

She can’t let him off the hook. Not until he accepts the seriousness of the problems.

‘Rome is just as bad. And yes, I’m talking about my own brother. For years that branch was managed, and managed well, by Roberto Martelli, but in his absence, and yes, I know he had obligations as Podestà of Prato, you gave responsibility to Leonardo d’Angelo Vernacci.’

Piero nods. ‘He was a good man.’

‘I know he was a good man. That’s the point I’m trying to make. But then, at the following New Year, Roberto decided to make some changes, didn’t he? Including a promotion of my brother to look after bills of exchange and correspondence.’

‘That was six years ago.’

‘I’m coming to that. We all know the work given to Giovanni Battista was considered managerial work and, as such, it amounted to a promotion for him. Now I know Vernacci never liked my brother, and you know he had his reasons. He had to complain about his work often enough over the years, didn’t he? So understandably, he didn’t take to changes being imposed from outside while he was nominally in charge, and responsible for the branch. Naturally and quite rightly, he complained to Giovanni in his capacity as director of the bank.’

‘I know all this.’ Piero looks irritable, perhaps because he knows what’s coming.

But Lucrezia is galloping now and does not intend to stop. ‘Yes, I know you know. War broke out, didn’t it? And my brother decided he was being wronged and, without my knowledge, he complained about this apparent mistreatment to you. He wrote to you, didn’t he?’

‘And I replied, almost immediately. I took your side and your brother’s. I wrote to Vernacci to argue Giovanni Battista’s case.’ Piero’s voice is plaintive.

‘I know you did. That’s the point I am making. You should not have done so. It was completely inappropriate for you to do anything. Giovanni is running the bank, not you.’

‘But I’m head of the family.’

Lucrezia shakes her head in despair. ‘What’s that got to do with it? The Medici Bank is a legal entity, with a partnership agreement, appointed directors and branch managers and a proper reporting structure in place. It’s not part of the family.’

‘But we own it.’ Piero looks bewildered.

Lucrezia shakes her head in despair. ‘Then you speak to the director of the bank and put your point of view, quite rightly, as one of the partners. But you don’t stick your nose in and override the management.’

‘But nothing happened.’

‘No. Not then it didn’t. But then, six years later, Roberto died and then so did Cosimo. In the spirit of the headless chicken, you still postponed a decision, which left the most profitable branch of the bank without leadership and with festering disagreements within.’

‘Yes, that’s true, but then in March, Giovanni Battista wrote to me and threatened to resign because he said life under Vernacci was impossible.’

‘Yes, and what did you do? Against my strong advice, you played the dutiful husband, obeyed the obligations of parentado and put family before professionalism. My brother got the job and Vernacci, an excellent manager, was sacrificed.’

Piero shakes his head. ‘Isn’t that what I was supposed to do? I’m your husband and he’s your brother.’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘It all seems quite straightforward to me.’ Lucrezia opened her hands in supplication and frustration. ‘Do you wonder that the bank is in decline now?’ She stood at the window and pointed down to the efficiently-running business below, stabbing with her forefinger.

‘Look at this. I know how to run a profitable business. And, as I am sure you know after talking to my staff, I know how to support a team of managers, how to give them authority, and how to motivate them to run the business profitably on my behalf. If you went to Pisa and spoke to Francesco the Goldsmith, who looks after my affairs there, you would get the same reply. So don’t blame me for Cosimo’s failures in later life.’

It was not a comfortable ending to their first conversation, but as Girolamo Savonarola walked back down the staircase, he was clear about one thing. He understood now how this lady thought and what made her passions boil. Yet something didn’t ring true. Why did such an apparently confident lady feel the need to force her opinions upon him quite so assertively?

He was also left with a surprising and, to him, an uncomfortable possibility: that the bubble of reputation around Cosimo de Medici might one day be pricked and the reality found to be very different.