MAY 22ND, 1498
There is a demon leering in the corner of his cell. It’s just a small one, no more than a misshapen head with a pair of hands attached below the neck. Girolamo scowls at it. It opens its mouth wide and sticks out its tongue, which is forked, and longer than its body. He throws his sandal at it and it scuttles away, crablike, on its bent fingers. He walks over and retrieves the sandal, turning it over in his hands, smoothing the creases in the worn leather. The sole is starting to come loose, but he will never again cobble it back together, nor ever again wear out more shoe leather.
There is a powerful comfort in knowing nothing else you do in this world can matter, that everything that can be done has been done and very soon you will be with God.
Girolamo has been tortured, confessed, recanted his confession, tortured again, and confessed again. His shoulders have been dislocated from their sockets and thrust roughly back in eight times. But now he is beyond it all. It is the night before his death, or to put it plainly, as he does in his most secret thought, his martyrdom. It’s pride to think that, of course, pride, his besetting sin, now and always. Yet he cannot imagine a more spectacular martyrdom than to be burned in the great Senatorial Square, on the very spot where he raised his own Bonfire of the Vanities. He will die as saints and martyrs die, die like those who provide examples of faith for those who come after them.
He is done with everything, and everything is done now. It is the last night of his life. He is in the prison cell they call the “little inn,” halfway up the tower that tops the Senatorial Palace. When the bells are rung to announce the beginning or the end of the day, the whole tower seems to ring, and his head with it. Most prisoners are held in the dungeons of the People’s Palace, the fortress prison near the Arno. There their friends and enemies can call to them through the bars. Up here he is entirely out of anyone’s reach. From below, this tower top seems delicate and tiny and graceful with its winding stairs twining around it. Though he has spent so much time in this palace, he never had cause to come up so high, before he was forced to it. The tower surprised him in its substantiality. The walls are thick, and made of solid golden stone. The airy lightness is an illusion, caused by a limited point of view, as is so much in this world. The little inn is a sturdy cell, reserved for Florence’s most dangerous prisoners. Old Cosimo de’ Medici was held here once, and famously bribed his way out with a thousand florins to the guard and three thousand to the captain. He said later they must have been the two stupidest men in Florence, because he would have paid hundreds of thousands of florins, all his fortune, for his life and liberty. Girolamo wonders what his friends have paid to come to visit him. It won’t have been money.
The cell has a curved roof, which magnifies and echoes every sound. It has a straw bed, a stool, a cess bucket, and a piece of wood he uses as a writing slope. It is smaller than his cell at San Marco, but not by much. The door is locked and barred on the outside. There is a window in the door which his jailors can open, but he can not. He is surprised how difficult he finds it, being unable to leave. Noise of people in the square rises up to him, but he does not think they can hear him. He sings psalms sometimes, from memory, more as an aid to prayer than in hope of being heard.
His window looks south. He can see the River Arno winding through the city, and two of its bridges. He can see the spire of the church of Santo Spirito, an Augustinian monastery, and he can just make out the canted roof of the convent of Santa Lucia, where he cast out the demons and found the green stone. He can see the top of Capponi’s house, and the small houses of many poor Florentines. He watched the sun sinking spectacularly in a blaze of orange and gold. He will never see it set again, and he will see it rise only once more. There will be no sunrises or sunsets in Heaven, but there will be, he is confident, something even better. He believes what he said to Angelo, that part of God’s reason for providing Earthly beauty is to remind us of Heavenly beauty, part of loving perishable things here on Earth is so we can learn to love what we will find in Heaven.
They came to arrest him on the eighth of April, fighting their way in at San Marco, and dragging him out of the library. Poor Valori was killed in the fighting. The Wailers rioted, and many of them were killed. The wrong eight names had been drawn out of the bag, names of Furious and the Ballsy, who united together against him. His own supporters have not protested as strongly as they might, now that Capponi and Valori are dead, and he has been weakened and discredited, by the death of Charles, and by his weakness in the face of the attacks, and worst of all by the failure of the firewalking.
He has spent the last weeks imprisoned in this cell feverishly writing, using paper and ink that was smuggled in to him. He wrote as fast as he could, barely stopping to eat and sleep, keeping at it constantly despite the pain from his dislocated shoulders. They tied his wrists together behind his back and hoisted him up by them, then abruptly dropped him, again and again, until he would have said anything, did say anything, to stop the pain. In everything else throughout his life he has felt very powerfully that he is the protagonist, the subject, the focus of attention, active. For years he has known his words are the fulcrum, that he has the power to change the world. Through torture alone he was made into a passive object. It was done to him, and he found that utter helplessness terrible. He has tried, since, even with so little life left, to get back into control. He does not want to be a thing, acted upon, unable to act. Writing is agony still, even though his shoulders were roughly reinserted into their sockets so he could sign their confession.
He has prayed, loudly, for his jailors and his torturers, and prayed for them also in fervent silence and all sincerity. He would have no man damned on his behalf, not even his enemies. God forgive them, he thinks, and tries hard to find forgiveness in himself. He can quite easily forgive the rough-handed men who held the ropes, even for their laughter and scoffing. It is with the soft-handed men who ordered it that he has to struggle. As for the Pope—he forgives him. Alexander Borgia. Like everyone, Girolamo had thought Sixtus was the worst pope there had ever been or could ever be, until Borgia surprised them all by surpassing him. Perhaps Borgia isn’t the Antichrist after all, perhaps there are worse depths yet to come and a trough of evil ahead worse than he can imagine. But no. He shakes his head. He forgives the Borgia pope, or he tries hard to. They have truly been cursed with a terrible run of popes, but with God’s help and a tremendous amount of prayer and repentance he believes Christendom can still recover, be healed. Perhaps at the next conclave they will elect a truly holy father. Though the Sword of the Lord will come from across the Alps to destroy Rome, he still knows that, in the uncomfortable manner of prophecy.
He starts up in his chair, then settles back into it carefully, trying not to jar his shoulders. It is too late to warn anyone, even if there were anyone to listen. He has warned them already. He has given his last prophecy, muttering it as he handed over the papers that afternoon. Rome will fall in the time of a pope named Clement. Some things can be changed and some can not, and this has the weight of inevitability. But maybe his pure Dominican brothers and the Wailers will be able to use his knowledge to avoid being caught up in it when it comes.
Since they brought him back after he signed the false confession, in the two weeks they left him alone in his little cell at the top of the tower, with all Florence spreading out beautiful and corrupt below him, what he has been writing frantically is not a true confession, nor the history or autobiography his brothers urged him to write, and probably hoped right up to this moment that he was writing. What would be the use of the story of his life, of the spectacular rise and fall of a man of God? There will be others to write that, if it is to be of use. His own words would only muddy the waters.
Instead, he has written a fervent intense meditation on two of the Psalms. He, who confessed to lies under torture, has considered Peter, who denied Christ three times and yet was still the rock on which Christ built his church. He has thought deeply about the Psalms, written by David, a sinful man.
Girolamo’s little book has been completed and smuggled out. It will be printed, and read. His death will make it notorious for a little while, but perhaps it will help bring people to God. He has been so focused on finishing it these last days that he feels empty now. His last book, done, and the last night of his life running out. One more sunrise. He will hear the birds at dawn once more, and the morning bells, passing the time between this tower and the tower of the People’s Palace, and then he will hear the great bell, the Leone, ringing for his execution. Burning is a horrible death, and there will be pain, but it will only be for a little while, and then an eternity with God. He believes he is prepared to die. He has long known that his life would not be long.
The demon has crept out again and gives a desperate shriek, startling him. Girolamo is out of all patience with it. He has been too despondent to attempt to banish it, but now he forms a circle between his finger and thumb and speaks the words. The name of Christ thrills through him, as always. Still shrieking, the demon disappears through his fingers, going back to Hell, where it came from. He brushes his hands together briskly, then wipes them on the skirts of his habit. Despite his weakness, his false confession, he is glad to learn that he still has that gift of God’s grace, the power over the denizens of Hell.
He kneels to pray. He does not intend to sleep tonight. He means to spend his last night on Earth in prayer and contemplation and examination of his soul, ready for his last confession.
He is surprised a little while later when the comforters arrive. They are members of the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Croce al Tempio, commonly known as “the Blacks.” They’re wearing black robes and pointed white hoods, with holes cut out for their eyes and mouths. He approves of the purpose of the hoods, which is to eliminate the visible Earthly social distinctions between man and man, and make everyone equal, as they are before God. He finds the sight of them now disconcerting. He doesn’t know who the men are under the hoods, whose side they are on. He knows they are unlikely to be allies, his jailors will have been careful about that. They could be enemies, Lukewarms or Furious Ones come to try to trip him up at the last moment. If so, he is confident that his faith is too strong for them. He would have preferred to spend his last night alone, without this kind of uncertainty. He says as much.
“We have come to pray with you,” the taller one says, and Girolamo can tell by his voice that he is a little afraid of him, even now.
“Then we will all pray together,” he says, making his naturally harsh voice as gentle as he can.
Of course, he can’t see their faces under the hoods, but their shoulders relax a little. He has sometimes come into conflict with the confraternities, many of whom remain stubbornly loyal to the exiled Medici and adhere to the Ballsy despite everything. But he has never denied that they have a place in God’s city, an essential place. Charitable works are important. Lay holiness is very important. Whoever these men are, and whoever selected them from their brethren to send to him tonight, they have chosen to do this charitable work, for the sake of the city and their own souls. He honours that. Christ told us very specifically to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and visit the imprisoned. The confraternities do these things. But he wishes he could see their faces, more than just the occasional glint of their eyes through the slits in their hoods. He can’t always judge someone’s soul from their face, but he has so much less to go on without it. The little cell feels crowded with the three of them in it.
The shorter man has a bag, and he busies himself for a little while emptying it. They have brought books of prayers, and devotional pictures, which he draws out one by one. Last, he pulls out a crucifix which Girolamo recognises at once, it is his own simple wooden crucifix, from his cell in San Marco. Girolamo’s heart goes out when he sees it. Some brother at the monastery must have pleaded with these comforters to bring it. He is moved almost to tears by this simple act of charity, of love. He takes up his crucifix—it is the length of his arm, and it has stood in his cell for years. The Saviour looks at him in sorrow and pity, as always. The sight of it here and now does give him genuine comfort. He strokes the figure’s cheek gently. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. That is all he has ever wanted in everything he has done.
He prays with the comforters then, and accepts their assurance of what he already knows, that death is short, eternal life is long, that God will accept a truly contrite heart. They tell him that if he is innocent, then so were the martyrs, and he should, like them, accept death joyously. He knows that one of the purposes of the comforters is to make executions seemly. Public executions are part of civic life, and it does no one any good if they lead to riots or uprisings. That’s a very real danger tomorrow. The city is divided on a fine line now between those who love him and those who hate him. He is in full agreement with the Senate. A riot would do nothing but make things worse for his own people. There should be no more violence in his name. There has been too much already. Many of those who love him are poor and unarmed, and there are a great many of them. Of his enemies, many of the Lukewarm and all of the Furious are better off—they have knives and swords and arquebuses. It is his friends who will suffer, needlessly, if there is a riot. The power of the Wailers comes from their numbers and their moral authority—the plain fact that they are doing what everyone says ought to be done, following the Gospels. He has made it hard to speak against these things. He fears the pendulum will swing too far the other way once he is gone. But he also knows, bone deep, with true prophetic certainty, that soon, after his death, but soon, within the lifetime of people living today, Christ will be crowned King of Florence. Camilla and Isabella have seen this too. The work he has done here will flower. The seed will not all fall on stony ground.
The other purpose of the comforters, the important one, is to save souls. These men under their disguises might be of any class but the lowest, but they are laymen. No monks or priests do this work, though there will be a priest later, on his way to the scaffold, who will hear his confession and give him his last communion. He hopes it might be a friend, or at least not an enemy. He made confession that afternoon, so has little to confess but ever-resurgent pride, losing his temper at the demon (if that is a sin), and the difficulty of the struggle to forgive his enemies. It might be hard to summon the humility to confess even these things to an open enemy, at least to do it with a truly contrite heart. He asks the comforters if they know who his confessor will be.
“It is God who hears your confession,” the shorter comforter says.
“But it is to the priest I must speak it, and who will absolve me in God’s name,” Girolamo says. “Do you know who it will be, so I can prepare myself?”
“It will be the bishop of Vasona,” the taller one says. The shorter one makes a motion of cutting him short, but he goes on. “Oh what can it hurt for him to know that now instead of tomorrow?”
Of course. Brother Benedetto, the bishop of Vasona. He is the witness sent by Pope Alexander Borgia from Rome to witness Girolamo’s torture. The Pope had wanted Girolamo sent to Rome, where the torture would no doubt have been longer and more inventive. Brother Girolamo smiles. Florence let him down, they betrayed him and tortured him. But Florence had not betrayed him so far as to send him into the Pope’s clutches, to Rome. Girolamo has never seen Rome. Well, he will not see it now, and he is glad. Brother Benedetto is a bad Dominican and a greedy man, but it could be worse.
“Thank you,” he says. “It’s good to be prepared.”
“But you’ll make a good confession,” the taller one urges.
“I will do my best,” he says, as patiently as he can.
“After you confess, and take communion, you’ll go out into the square, and they’ll strip you of your habit,” he says.
The shorter comforter tuts.
“After,” Girolamo echoes. “Thank you.” It is good to know, to build up a picture of the order of things.
“Then they’ll lead you out to the scaffold, and hang you over the flames.”
“The rope will kill you, not the fire,” the shorter one adds. “Many fear the flames unnecessarily. You’ll be dead before you feel them. Unless you fall the wrong way.”
“The wrong way?” Girolamo asks, thinking this must be part of the technical process of hanging, which these men must have witnessed close up many times, and with which he had never concerned himself. In Ferrara they more often used a headsman with an axe, and he watched that done, from prurient curiosity, when he was a boy. He wonders how many executions these men have seen. The work of the confraternity is voluntary, unpaid, earning merit in Heaven. Some men do it for a year or two, others for decades.
“They say after they’re dead good men fall forward onto their faces, meaning they’re going to Heaven, but bad ones fall on their backs, meaning they’re going the other way, where they’ll feel the flames all right,” the short man says.
“There’s no need for that, and it’s rank superstition,” the taller one reprimands his brother. “If you make a good confession and are truly repentant, God will open his arms to you, even though you are a sinner.”
“We are all sinners,” Girolamo says. “So I will confess, and then be cast out of the Dominicans, and then walk to the scaffold?”
“After you’ve been stripped to your white robe, we’re to lead you past the rest of the Pope’s tribunal, and then past the Standard-Bearer and the Eight, and then out to the scaffold,” the tall one says. “But there might be a wait, they’ll strip you first and then the other two, and then you will each be excommunicated…”
“What?” The word bursts from Girolamo without any volition.
“You know you are excommunicate,” the shorter one says, sharply.
Girolamo rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he says. “But my brothers? They are to be … executed beside me?” He almost slips and says martyred, which doubtless they are all thinking, but it would be wrong to speak it aloud, unmannerly, despite what they have been reading to him from their comforting manual which draws explicit parallels between execution of criminals and martyrdom.
“Silvestro and Domenico will be executed with you,” the taller one confirms.
“Then can I see them? Go to them now? Could we all go to them and offer them comfort?” he asks, urgently. It seems the world is not yet quite done with him.