CHAPTER 36

EARLY IN AUGUST Agnolo was arrested in Prato and would remain in prison there until his fate was determined: exile or death. Donatello decided therefore that I should go to Prato to learn the precise charges against him and then to Florence to seek the intervention of Cosimo de’ Medici. At the last moment Donatello said that Pagno would accompany me since he might prove more persuasive with Cosimo. I was offended by this, of course. I had designed and executed the two gold manuscript caskets for either side of his private altar and I had long served as copyist for his most prized Latin scrolls and I had proved useful in transferring his gold florins to San Miniato al Monte only days before his arrest and exile. And he had told me he would not forget me. Did all this count for nothing? But Donatello pointed out that it was Pagno whom Cosimo had requested to pose for the bronze bust that now stood in his great salon and that Cosimo was ever devoted to youth and beauty. I did not point out that at thirty-five years Pagno had not been a youth for some time and that Cosimo’s love of beauty was limited to bronze and paint and parchment. Instead I offered a grudging, “As you say.” Thus it was with no good feeling between us that Pagno and I set out for Prato.

“That bronze bust of you counts for much with Donatello,” I said. “Let us hope it counts for as much with my lord Cosimo de’ Medici.”

“I may yet prove of some use,” Pagno replied. And with that said, and pondered, we kept the rest of our thoughts to ourselves.

* * *

WE ARRIVED IN Prato late in the morning of August 17. It was a cool day for August, with a soft blue sky and the promise of more clement weather. There was birdsong and the lowing of cattle in the fields and we found ourselves full of excitement and energy. Suddenly a good feeling sprang up between us.

As we entered the main square, the Piazza San Giovanni, we had our first sight of Donatello’s pulpit on which we had both worked but which we had never seen fully assembled. It was a glorious thing, all white marble with a gold mosaic background and a bronze capital. A gigantic umbrella of holly oak spread its shadow over the pulpit and threw into relief the row of seven huge panels where singing and dancing putti were praising God for his mighty acts. It was at once both gigantic and airily beautiful, a perfect site for the annual display of the Virgin’s sash. Pagno pointed out the putti he had carved and, in a moment of truthfulness, admitted how much inferior they were to Donatello’s. He expected me to agree, but—as Donatello’s bookkeeper and accountant—I was lost in my own thoughts about payment for the finished work. It was now 1447 and Donatello and Michelozzo had still not received their final payment of—I think I remember correctly—some seven hundred lire.

“The rich are just like us, only stingier. They don’t pay their bills.”

“How can you think of money when you look on something this magnificent?”

“I lack your poetic soul, Pagno. And remember, I keep the books.”

And so our mood turned sour again.

* * *

PAGNO AND I refreshed ourselves with a tankard of wine before braving the prison. A pretty serving girl lingered at our table, attracted I must admit by Pagno rather than by me, but I fixed her with a look and told her that she was very fair. Pagno seemed mindful only of what lay ahead of us at the prison.

“This is no easy task,” I said, trying to put aside the sour mood.

“It’s for Donatello. We owe him much.”

We drank some more. The serving girl flashed me a generous smile.

“You were ever close to him. To Agnolo, I mean.”

“And you were his brother.” Pagno laughed a little to let me know he was joking.

“Attenzione!”

“He’s of an age when he should have put all this behind him.”

I passed up the easy joke of “behind him” and said, “He has thirty-three years now. He is the age of Jesus.”

We pondered this sobering thought and had another tankard of wine.

“It’s time,” Pagno said. “We must look in on our brother prisoner.”

We finished our wine and made ready to go but first I asked the serving girl her name and she replied, “Marguerita” with such sweetness that I knew she would let me purchase her affection for an hour or an evening. I told her I hoped I would see her again.

The prison was located just off the Piazza San Giovanni. It was a makeshift affair, a series of cells in the basement of the Palazzo Pretorio, the ancient castle that served as government offices for the Podestà. We approached the gate and explained that our desire was to speak with a prisoner. The guard at the door was unoccupied and free to make difficulties about our request.

He asked if we were the prisoner’s lawyers and, since we were not, did we come with governmental authority? Were we representatives of the Podestà or the Otto di Guardia? Were we relatives of the prisoner?

“He is my brother,” I said. “In a sense.”

“In a sense?”

“We were raised by the same parents. I had a different father.”

“So you are half-brothers?”

“In a sense.”

“What was your brother’s alleged crime?”

“Sodomy.”

He gave a half smile at this. “Not a first charge, I think.”

“There have been several charges.”

“Torture perhaps. Perhaps death.”

“We would like to see him.”

“You can hope for exile.”

“If we could see him . . . ?”

Pagno slipped a silver florin into his hand and the guard nodded, satisfied, and led us down a steep flight of stairs to the prison cells.

The air was cold and stank of sweat and urine with hardly any light to see by. There was the prison noise you would expect—fighting and cursing—but as the guard appeared leading two strangers the cells nearest us fell quiet. Our eyes adjusted to the gloom and we could make out cells full of prisoners, ten or twelve to each cell. They were starved-looking, lost behind their iron bars.

“Mattei!” the guard shouted. “Agnolo Mattei!”

There was no immediate response and so the guard said, “He is not here,” and turned to lead us out.

“Agnolo!” I called out and again, “Agnolo!” One of the prisoners shouted, “He’s here,” and pointed to what looked like a pile of rags beneath a bench.

Agnolo got up slowly from the floor and approached the bars where we stood waiting. He clung to the iron grill for support and the other prisoners gathered around him to listen in. “Twenty minutes,” the guard said and left us.

Agnolo stared at us with glassy eyes, empty. I could hardly bear to return his gaze. He was filthy, of course, and he looked near death. He was so thin that the flesh seemed to have fallen away from his body leaving only a skeleton. His eyes were sunk deep in his head and his cheekbones appeared about to poke through the flesh. I thought of my Franco Alessandro and his five arrests and I prayed that he was not again in jail.

Agnolo coughed and for the first time I felt pity for him.

“I knew you’d come,” he said and, reaching through the bars, he took my hand in his. “You are a true brother.”

“Are you well?” Pagno asked nervously and I looked at him as if he were mad. “I mean, have they set the charges against you? And can we help?”

“My friend,” Agnolo said. “My true friend.”

“The charges,” I said. “What are the charges against you?”

“The charge is rape. But the boy offered himself. I paid. It was not rape.”

“Was he a boy still? Was he underage?”

“He was fifteen. And willing. He gladly took money, but after his arrest he gave up my name. It was his father who claimed the act was rape.”

“So do they all,” one of the prisoners said, leaning on Agnolo’s shoulder. “We are worth more to them in fines than what we pay to fuck them.”

One-fourth of the sodomite’s fine was paid to the anonymous denouncer. Everyone knew that.

“We want to get you out of here, rape or not,” Pagno said. “We are going to seek powerful intervention. In Florence. You know the man. Do not mention his name here.”

“Is it Cosimo?” Agnolo asked. “If it is Cosimo he will surely help me.”

The prisoners looked at one another, surprised.

“Tell him I too am innocent of rape,” a prisoner said.

“And I.”

“And I.”

“We need the name of the boy’s father,” I said. “Whisper it to me.”

He whispered the name of Rinaldo di Bino and I had him repeat it for surety and I turned to leave. I was surprised to see Pagno lean against the bars and kiss him lightly on the lips, like a saint with a leper.

We retraced our steps down the corridor and up the stairs where the guards saw us out.

* * *

PAGNO THOUGHT TO set off at once for Florence but I wanted to linger in Prato for the rest of the day. In truth I wanted to revisit the Tintori where the wool dyers worked at their boiling vats and I wanted to revisit the Camposino San Paolo where I had first met Maria Sabina and, yes, I wanted to revisit Marguerita, the willing serving girl from the taverna, and have sex with her.

“At a time like this?”

“We would be late getting to Florence if we left right now and besides Prato is my home city. I served as a Brother of Saint Francis here.”

“But you want to go whoring, Brother Luca.”

“I am a weak man. I confess it.”

Pagno was defeated by this and said simply, “As are we all.”

So we visited the cathedral and studied the outdoor pulpit again for a long time and then Pagno accompanied me on a walk through the Tintori and the Gualdimare, with a pause I did not explain at the ruined houses in the tiny Camposino San Paolo. I said an Ave there for the repose of the soul of Maria Sabina and another for the good health of my wife Alessandra. Pagno was surprised to see me mumble my prayers and make my sign of the cross because, though he did not say so, he had come to think I was without religious feeling.

“Alessandra lived here,” I said. “My wife.”

Pagno nodded, given over to his own thoughts.

We returned to the cathedral, and as it grew dusk we found an inn just off the Piazza San Giovanni and rented a room for the night. We sat down to a trestle table and were brought a stew of lamb and vegetables and some stout bread. We ate in silence.

“I can think only of that boy,” Pagno said, and pushed aside his half-empty plate. “He looks to be dying. All bones and misery. He stinks of death.”

“He is in prison. And he is thirty-three.”

“He was uncommonly fair at sixteen,” he said.

“I thought at that time that he was . . . special to you. You seemed always to have a smile and a good word for him and more than once I saw you giving him money.”

He said nothing for a while, merely toying with the spoon in his empty bowl. “Yes, I purchased him. More than once. I was but twenty-two years of age, and curious. And as I said, he was very fair at sixteen.” There came into his face the flicker of a smile.

I was astounded. Here was Pagno who was so concerned about sin when we went whoring and yet now he calmly admitted to having purchased the sad favors of a wanton boy and seemed to think it a small thing and no sin at all.

“And was that not sin?”

“Oh yes. And I knew it at the time. But it is a common sin among men our age who cannot afford to marry and whose blood is up and who do not frequent the brothels.”

“But it is a better sin, and more wholesome, to fuck a woman.”

He turned away from the raw edge of my language.

“It is what God intended,” I said.

“God intended charity and justice, only that. But he understands our weakness, as you yourself say.”

For some reason I was deeply moved by what he said—only charity and justice—and so I made light of his words. I pushed back my bowl and emptied my tankard of wine. Deliberately raw, I said, “It is time for me to get some charity and justice of my own,” and I touched myself there where I had already begun to get hard.

Pagno shook his head in disgust and got up from the table.

“We leave at first light tomorrow,” he said.

I set off to find Marguerita, which was quickly done for she was waiting outside the taverna and the evening, though brief, was highly satisfying.

The next morning at first light Pagno and I set off for Florence.

* * *

PAGNO HAD PRIVATE audience with Cosimo de’ Medici while I waited in an anteroom so dim they had lit candles. When they finished talking, Cosimo escorted him out and greeted me warmly. He promised to do all that was possible, he said, but laws must be observed and must be seen to be observed. But for Donatello’s sake and to honor that bronze statue in his garden he would do all he could to assure that Agnolo suffered no permanent harm.

He did not say that he would intervene in the local justice system of Prato so that in the end Agnolo would walk free—exiled but free—and ready once more to become the central burden of our lives. But it was so.

AS FOR ME, I had taken to heart Pagno’s talk of charity and justice and, mindful of Alessandra’s long patient love, I had decided I must sign the papers that would set her free.

“We have done well,” I said. “It has been a good marriage.”

“We had four sons,” she said.

“And Donato Michele will be a priest.”

She began to cry softly. I knew why.

“You cannot blame yourself . . .”

“I cry for the two babies,” she said. “And for Franco Alessandro.”

She had loved them well, all of them, I told her.

“And you,” she said.

She put her hand in mine, but kept me at a little distance.

“And now that he is gone—my Franco Alessandro—I have an ill life. Only think, Luca. You will have such a busy life away in Padua, a good life, you will have Donato and Pagno and Michelozzo and . . .”

“And Agnolo,” I said with a grimace. “Always Agnolo.”

“I ask only that you set me free to be a nun,” she said.

“It is what I want and need,” she said.

“Is it so much to ask?” she said.

I looked at her with longing.

“It is God’s will,” she said finally and her voice was sad and bitter.

In her words I heard the words of Franco Alessandro and for a moment I knew and understood. I kissed her softly and told her that God desired charity and justice and so I would set her free. That night we slept close, touching, and I did not lay hands on her.

It was a bright, clear morning with no cloud in the sky when I said good-bye to Alessandra and left for Padua. The year was 1447.