Chapter 5

Cosimo’s Funeral

‘Yesterday I mentioned Maddalena. She had been Cosimo’s slave and had borne him a son, Carlo, who now holds high rank in the church.’

Savonarola frowned. Carlo de Medici? He knew that name. A cardinal, a newish one. But he hadn’t realized that he was the son of a slave. Then he remembered that the cardinal is black, yet with blue eyes. His mother must have had the same distinct colouring. Cosimo had brown eyes. How remarkable. What other secrets were going to emerge from these conversations? Now he was glad he had started returning to the privacy of his room each night and writing out copious notes on what he had heard that day. Lest his mind forget, of course. For personal use only, not to be shown or divulged. It did not break their agreement. Well, not the spirit of their agreement. Well, probably not. Did it?

She took a deep breath. ‘It was at Cosimo’s funeral, in the great church of San Lorenzo, that I first heard that Maddalena was dead. Her son, the cardinal, told me himself. It could not have been under worse circumstances.’

CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
Thursday 2nd August 1464

‘What did you say his final instructions were?’

Lucrezia is looking round the packed church. San Lorenzo is the gonfalon church of Leon D’Oro and the family church of the Medici. But it’s not her family church. The Tornabuoni chapel is in Santa Maria Novella and, try as she may, she can’t drag her allegiance away from it.

‘Carefully understated.’

Piero’s face is quite straight but she knows he sees the cynical side of it. Another example of watch what I do, not what I say … even if it is understated. And they could, she supposes, have paraded round the whole city, taking in all four quarters and every gonfalon, it is still, she is sure, quite different from what Cosimo had wanted and instructed. But then again, the survivors somehow always think they know better, don’t they?

She nods and looks sideways at her husband. ‘Carefully understated?’

‘It was meant to be a small affair.’ Piero is talking out of the side of his mouth. He’s always been nervous in his piety and feels embarrassed talking in church. ‘A private family affair. That’s what I asked for.’

She chances a glance towards him and sees the strain in his face. He’s insisted on doing the organization himself and she’s aware it’s tried his every capability. She’s seen his accounts. Ninety-four pounds of candles for putting in the church. Another 96lb of wax for torches carried by the priests and a further 97lb to provide the sixteen torches surrounding the body.

And not just any old wax – it’s best beeswax. Mind you, it does smell better. There’s nothing worse than a church full of rancid wax smoke.

And then there are the candles for the thirty days of masses to be sung afterwards. How the chapter and priests of San Lorenzo will manage to use another 170lb of wax candles for those she can’t understand. But no doubt they have to burden the rich to help lighten the load of the poor.

And then there’s the mourning cloth. Four slaves and five maids at 6 yards each seemed reasonable, with the same for thirteen gentlemen and officials. Another eight women including herself and her daughters required 9 yards each, as did each of the twelve men from the family, including Cosimo’s three sons. The only one who stood out was cousin Pier Francesco, who needed 11 yards, but he’s been fat for years now and will go the way of Giovanni if he’s not careful.

And then, of course, there’s Contessina. She looks across at her mother-in-law. Yes we know she’s in mourning, but 20 yards and 8 inches of black cloth and eight separate veils and two kerchiefs of black silk is, surely, overdoing it a bit? She looked like a trawler as she dragged that lot through the church.

Once this is all over Piero will start moaning about the expense. Still, he’s probably managed to do a special deal on a candle wax order of that size and all that cloth will have come wholesale. Surely?

She risks another look round. All the family officers are present: the canon, their doctor, their chancellor and the factors and stewards from Careggi, Fiesole and Cafaggiolo. In all twenty-five men. All nine women seem to have turned up. She can see Contessina, Maria Nannina, both widows Ginevra (Giovanni’s and cousin Lorenzo’s), Laudomina, Pier Francesco’s wife, and three others from the Vernio family. And for completeness, the five maids and all four of their remaining slaves, all, it must be said, looking very clean and smart.

What a pity Maddalena’s not here. She would have enjoyed this, especially the gossip afterward. For one moment just now she had looked round, expecting to see her. With a stab of pain down her left side, she realizes how much she misses Maddalena. Such an enigma. A slave in law, but a friend in reality, to everyone except Contessina. She wonders how she fares in the convent.

She takes one more look round. Across the church, a nice touch she thinks, someone has invited a few of the artists whose work has so glorified Cosimo’s life and who over recent years have been so close to them that they think of them as family. Michelozzo, of course, and Donatello are in the pew opposite hers and Sandro Botticelli, who has been living with them in the Palazzo Medici for the last two years, is beside them. Before the service he seemed quite overcome, but later, as they entered the church, she saw him laughing with Lauro, so he must have made quite a quick recovery. But then, when you are only nineteen, and sure you are invincible, funerals only seem to apply to other people.

Lucrezia had stopped speaking and was facing the window, but Savonarola could see her eyes were still far away, focused elsewhere.

‘Quite a crowd in the end, but it was nice of them all to come.’

Suddenly she turned towards him. ‘Of course, the one person who we all recognized was missing was Maddalena. We knew that once committed to a convent she could not easily gain a dispensation to leave, not even to attend Cosimo’s funeral. But seeing Carlo in the cortege, I went up to him afterward and asked if he had heard from her recently.

‘I have to admit I was embarrassed when he told me she had died six months earlier, when the earthquake, which, to be honest, we had not taken too seriously, had brought down part of the chapel roof in the Convento di Santo Damiano. The abbess, he said, had written to inform him of his mother’s death, but he had assumed we would all know already, so had not written to us himself. “I thought my father always knew everything,” was his comment, made somewhat acidly I thought. We all said a prayer for her. It seemed a bit late to do anything else.

‘Cosimo’s funeral itself was mercifully short, as was our walk home across the piazza. Later the Signoria decided that they wished to make some official recognition of his passing and passed a law declaring that in future he should always be referred to as Cosimo Pater Patriae.

‘There was, of course, an element of fear and uncertainty throughout the city. Many saw it as the old order passing and they wondered what the future would bring. We could hardly tell them that we had the same worries and so had Cosimo before he died. Nevertheless, many, both within the family and outside, knew that Cosimo’s death would leave a vacuum, and so, indeed, it turned out.’