Murder in the Garden of God (10 page)

Cardinal Montalto “armed himself with an incredible humility and unheard-of patience. He pretended to not stir up the water entombed in his guts, or show that weakness of spirit that he naturally possessed, and in short, he seemed another Montalto in his dress, his gestures, words, and actions.”
²³

Gregory XIII was not fooled by Montalto’s sudden docile demeanor, and actually thought less of him for it. “Pope Gregory knew that Montalto was a bizarre spirit who had suddenly changed nature,” the chronicler reported. “He firmly believed that this appearance of humility, which he showed to everyone, was full of deceit, whereupon the pope, who hated deceitful men, could not like him, and this reconfirmed his initial opinion.”
²⁴
The pope told his inner circle to “beware of that great charnel-box of a grey friar” and took away his important Church positions.
²⁵

One day in February 1581, as Gregory left a religious function at Saint Mary Major, he saw the nearly-finished villa of Cardinal Montalto rising up three stories, each one decorated by magnificent Ionic, Doric, or Corinthian columns. The pope remarked, “Poor cardinals do not build palaces.”
²⁶
As soon as he reached the Vatican, he yanked Montalto’s annual “poor cardinal” pension of 1,200 scudi.

The cardinal immediately took down the arms of Gregory XIII, which he had posted above his gate, and put up those of his deceased friend, Pius V. Nor did he actually lose a dime. Grand Duke Francesco of Tuscany, eager to win Montalto’s vote for his candidate in the next conclave, bestowed on him an annual pension of 1,200 scudi.

If Cardinal Montalto could not win over the pope, he could work on the other cardinals who were, naturally, more important in the next conclave than Gregory, who would not be voting. He often visited them and invited them to the breezy delights of his vineyard, complimenting them on their wisdom and noble families. And, to appear to be less of a threat as a potential future pope, he took to leaning on a stick and coughing. A sick old man would never be able to rule the patrimony of Saint Peter by himself. He would have to rely on diligent cardinals, giving them most of the power so he could rest in bed and pray. Even Montalto’s servants believed in his infirmities. They told their friends on the streets of Rome, “At the moment our master lives, but soon we will be without him.”
²⁷

The cardinal enjoyed spending time with Camilla’s family, where an inordinate amount of his energy was expended in trying to keep Vittoria happy. In good weather he spent his days in his vineyard. Gazing out over Rome, he made future pontifical plans for the city, and here his three years in Venice came to his aid. Not all that time had all been spent in bickering with monks, booksellers, and politicians. For the first time ever, he had seen what a beautiful, orderly, and well-planned city looked like. Saint Mark’s Square was the most gorgeous sight in Europe at the time. Rome had nothing like it.

Even Saint Peter’s Square, the center of the Christian world, was half its modern size, surrounded by barracks and tiny dark streets. The front of Saint Peter’s Basilica was composed of five buildings of different heights and architectural styles, cobbled together over time. Montalto decided that when he was pope, he would have to do something about that hodgepodge of a square. And then there was the nagging problem of the dome. The original basilica, built by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, had been mostly razed as a much larger church was going up around it in fits and starts, but mostly in fits. For decades in the sixteenth century, the great dome, which was to serve as a shining beacon to all Christianity, had remained half-built, with trees growing out of crumbling piers.

Montalto tasked Domenico Fontana, the architect of his villa, to come up with engineering solutions to Rome’s daunting problems. Born on the shores of Lake Lugano in 1543, Fontana, too, was a man of humble origins, hard work, and the stubborn courage required to tackle the most formidable challenges. Together they made plans so that on the first day of Montalto’s papacy – whenever that might be – they would be ready to start making changes.

Once the home of more than a million people, Rome now had barely 80,000. Trees and shrubs covered two-thirds of the city, mostly on the ancient Seven Hills, where the lack of water prevented human habitation. The aqueducts would have to be repaired to irrigate the parched earth, opening up huge new sections of the city for shops and residences. And the maze of undulating medieval streets in the center, choked as they were with the newfangled coaches, would have to be widened, even if it meant tearing down the most revered structures.

By early spring 1581, Cardinal Montalto’s gorgeous villa was finished enough for him to move in. With a glad heart, he packed up his trunkloads of religious books destined for the new library he had built, and his few other possessions, and left the hot, riotous Via Leutari for the cool serenity of the vineyard. He could be immensely proud of himself. Through his brilliance, hard work, and more recently, his good nature, Felice Peretti had risen from a pig sty to a cardinal’s palace. Now he was poised to fulfill the childhood prophecy and become the next Vicar of Christ.

True, Pope Gregory, who hated him, was taking an unconscionably long time to die. And the Accorambonis were chomping at the bit to become the rich and honored relatives of the next pope. But Cardinal Montalto had made plans not only for Rome, but for his entire family. Those who would benefit most, of course, would be Camilla, Francesco, and Vittoria, but Francesco’s sister Maria, her husband, and her four children would also reap rewards, as well as all of Vittoria’s relatives. They only needed to have a bit more patience.

Chapter 7

Murder in the Garden of God

A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself:
but the simple pass on, and are punished.

–
Proverbs 22:3

O
n the night of Sunday, April 16, 1581, Camilla Peretti’s house on the Via Leutari was entombed in darkness. The day was long over, the candles snuffed out. After supper, the embers in the kitchen hearth had glowed briefly, then cooled to gray ash. The noises of the day had trailed off into silence. Gone was the thudding of footsteps on wooden floors, the creaking open and slamming shut of doors. Gone were the measured notes of conversation of the Peretti adults, the cries and squeals of children, the gossip and yelling of servants. Perhaps, as midnight approached, there was only the sound of mice nesting in the walls or scuttling across the floor in search of a crumb.

Outside, the street so teeming with life during the day was also mostly mute. The constant clattering of horses and carriages, the shouts of coachmen, the curses of suppliers pushing heavy carts, the lilting greetings of neighbors – all had vanished into the night. Perhaps now and then a horseman galloped past, or a carriage rattled by, hurrying home to safety after late night revelry.

Francesco and Vittoria were asleep when her maid Caterina knocked loudly on their bedroom door. It was unusual to be disturbed at such an hour unless a family member was ill or news leaked out that the pope had died. Surely, something of great moment was happening. Francesco opened the door, and Caterina gave him a note which, she said, had just been delivered by Domenico Acquaviva, known as Mancino, a friend of Marcello’s who was well-known to Francesco.

The note was from Marcello, begging Francesco to meet him in the Sforza garden on Monte Cavallo, one of the hills of Rome. Marcello was in great danger and urgently needed Francesco’s help. Francesco must have believed that Pallavicino henchmen were hot on his trail, hoping to avenge Marcello’s stabbing of the cardinal’s brother the summer before. And Marcello, concealed in the garden, was too terrified to move. When Francesco asked Caterina where Mancino was, as he wanted to find out more about Marcello’s situation, she said that Mancino had handed her the note and departed.

As Francesco pulled on his hose and doublet, he told Vittoria that her brother was in trouble and needed his help. He grabbed his sword – only a fool walked out at night in Rome without a weapon – and roused a servant to accompany him holding a lantern. Vittoria followed him down the winding stone stairs and into the courtyard, and right behind them came his mother, his sister, and other women of the household who had been awakened by the messenger banging on the street door. In robes and nightcaps, holding candles high and squinting in the darkness, they asked what was going on.

When Francesco told Camilla that he must go immediately to help Marcello, she “begged him insistently many times that he not go out at that hour,” according to the chronicler. “Camilla, his mother, told him many reasons to stop him, founded on the importunity of the hour, the immediate departure of the messenger as soon as he had passed on the note, and of many cruel crimes happening during the pontificate of Gregory XIII, who was then reigning.”
¹

Now Vittoria, too, chimed in, imploring Francesco not to go. It was one thing to dream of being the duchess of Bracciano, but it was quite another to send young Francesco off to a brutal death in a garden. Perhaps she was suddenly afraid. The women began to cry and got on their knees in front of Francesco, begging him to wait a few hours until dawn and then go out with a company of armed servants to find Marcello. Perhaps Marcello wasn’t even in Rome and this was some trick to ambush Francesco. Why hadn’t Mancino waited to speak to him and lead him to the spot on Monte Cavallo where Marcello was hiding? The story didn’t make sense.

But at no point did Vittoria tell her husband why she, in particular, feared for his life. She neglected to mention that both Paolo Giordano Orsini and Marcello wanted her to become a widow, and this note was an invitation to certain death. She should have confessed her foolish flirtation, barred the door with her body, thrown her arms around his knees. Camilla could have ordered her male servants to hold Francesco until she could send for Cardinal Montalto to sort out the mess. But Vittoria, other than joining with the others in asking him not to go, said nothing.

Francesco, loyal to Marcello, and boosted by that feeling of immortality that propels the young to heroism and idiocy, “scorned all these reasons … He left then armed only with his sword, leaving in his mother’s heart the dolorous presage of misfortune at hand.”
²

The women, kneeling with outstretched hands, saw Francesco and his servant disappear down the domed passageway that led to the street, the lantern casting monstrous shadows on the walls. The heavy door thudded shut behind them. And at this moment, if not before, Vittoria’s guilt was made manifest. She let Francesco walk out the door without telling him the truth. In that moment was conceived all the pain that was to come.

It is hard for us today to understand the unutterable darkness of a city without electricity after sunset. With no moon, the traveler was sunk in blindness, wrapped in the black velvet embrace of night. It was almost impossible to make out the streets and the outlines of buildings. The light of a single lantern was almost swallowed in darkness.

But on that cool spring night, Rome was partially lit by a moon three-quarters full. Francesco picked his way through the silent silver streets, between the looming buildings, following his servant holding the lantern high. It was a long walk to the Sforza garden through narrow twisting roads with many turns. For Rome had few long, straight streets, but many little ones that dead-ended into palaces or gardens.

Even if there had been no murderers waiting for him at his destination as Camilla feared, the journey itself was dangerous. Bandits, lying in wait for foolish late-night passers-by, could have robbed and knifed him. But Francesco arrived safely at Monte Cavallo. He climbed a twisting path up the hill around Pope Gregory’s summer palace, the Quirinal, and its extensive gardens. He skirted the Grimani vineyard and finally approached the gate of the Sforza garden.

Three guns went off, and Francesco fell to the ground, his sword untouched in its sheath. Numerous assassins raced out of the bushes and stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and chest to make sure the deed was done, and there would be no lingering recovery with a still-married Vittoria. The servant with the lantern raced screaming back to the Peretti house, and the assassins melted into the night, leaving Francesco’s bloody body in the dirt.

The servant banged on the door, sobbing and babbling wildly. Camilla and Vittoria, who had been waiting anxiously, opened it, and the servant announced to Camilla that she no longer had a son. The women began to wail. The entire household was roused, the family, the servants, all running to and fro crying, praying, screaming. Camilla sent a messenger to Cardinal Montalto with the news.

Cardinal Montalto had not been more than a few weeks in his new villa. On spring nights a calming breeze swept through his rooms, whispering ancient wordless secrets to help him sleep. But this night his sleep was broken by a servant standing by his bed with a candle.
Your Reverence must rouse yourself. Your nephew Francesco has been murdered in a garden. Signora Camilla needs you.

There are transformational moments in certain human lives when grim reality comes hurtling down at us like the heavy metal cleaver of a guillotine. Life is forever sliced cleanly in two – the before, and the after. Nothing will ever be the same again. Crushed by loss and injustice, hope is shattered and joy vanished. Should healing ever come, it will leave deep thick scars, and any happiness will be of the muted variety. And this was just such a moment in the life of Cardinal Felice Montalto.

All churchmen, and indeed, most Catholics, kept an altar in or near the bedroom, and now Cardinal Montalto availed himself of his. Silently, the cardinal threw himself in front of the crucifix and prayed. He must surely have prayed for the repose of his beloved nephew’s soul. But perhaps he uttered another prayer. A prayer that God would grant him the means for vengeance.

The cardinal got dressed and rode to the house on the Via Leutari. The wails of the women could be heard on the street. He entered, “without at all dropping his guard, nor discomposed in any way, and went immediately to the apartment of the ladies, and with admirable and prodigious intrepidness gave them consolation, and stopped their cries.”
³

The cardinal then ordered servants to fetch Francesco’s body to his villa, which was not far from the murder scene. Camilla must have come with him, carrying a bundle of hastily gathered burial clothes for her son. Probably Vittoria and Maria came as well. We can imagine Cardinal Montalto looking at the corpse before the women washed it. Francesco’s torso had been blasted with gunshots, his neck and chest covered with blood and gore. And, behind his stoic mask, perhaps the cardinal remembered Jesus’ words,
I
am come not to bring peace but a sword.
Would that time come?

We can see Camilla, throwing herself on her son’s corpse, salty tears on her lips as she kissed the cold flesh. And Vittoria, where was she? Did she cry and fling herself on the body, or was she weeping silently in the corner, riven by guilt?

An hour before the sun rose, Rome started to wake. Calling gruff greetings to one another, tradesmen pulled their heavy creaking carts through the streets of pewter-colored light. As the light brightened to silver, donkeys laden with produce brayed in protest at their owners coaxing them to market on the nearby square. The footsteps of servants on their way to work clicked on the stones, their voices rising even as the silver light warmed to rose gold.

The Italian love of drama ensured that news of a tragic midnight murder flew through town on the wings of dawn. Francesco’s was not the only murder that night, but his was the most interesting one. He was, after all, the nephew of a cardinal with papal aspirations. And all Rome knew that Paolo Giordano Orsini, the duke of Bracciano, wanted Francesco’s wife for himself.

That this poor young man was, quite possibly, murdered by the powerful duke, was the most horrible, delicious gossip. Servants told their masters, masters told their friends, and the friends who went out for early morning shopping told shop owners who told their families living upstairs. Some people sent notes around to their acquaintances,
Have you heard…?
And by the time the pink-gold light of day was starting to warm the city, just about everyone knew.

There is a fleeting moment in the early morning when the shadows of houses, still clutching the coolness of night, are forced to relinquish their grip as light and warmth conquer them. At this moment on the morning of April 17, 1581, the body of Francesco Peretti, cleaned up and dressed in his best slashed doublet and hose, was carried on a bier to the Church of Saint Mary of the Angels right across from the Villa Montalto.

It was usual in sixteenth-century Italy for a dead body to be put on view. Perhaps because of their love for saints’ relics, Catholics enjoyed gaping at corpses, especially those who had died young and violently. Such viewings not only provided entertainment in an age before television, but also served as a valuable morality lesson. Death was just around the corner for everyone, so they had better well behave.

Bodies decayed quickly in the heat, and some of the most august funerals featured black taffeta fly swatters for mourners to fend off flies sprouting from maggots devouring the corpse at the altar. As unappetizing as that was, the greater concern was illness caused by unburied bodies, which could spread rapidly. The body was usually buried in the church nearest to the place of death. If the family wanted the body in a more distant family vault, they would dig it up a year or two after death, during which time it had been reduced to non-infectious, non-maggoty bones, and then move it in a second funeral ceremony.

Sometimes in the sizzling heat of a Roman August, bodies turned black and swelled to such alarming proportions that they had to be pummeled into caskets. The worst cadaverous embarrassment occurred when the tongue swelled stiffly out of the mouth and turned raspberry-black, like an obscene blutwurst sausage that could not be jammed back in to present a politely decorous body to viewers. In 1503, even a pope suffered this indignity, the Borgia, Alexander VI.

Disgusting corpses were thought to be a sign of God’s displeasure; Catholics were delighted to hear that no sooner had Martin Luther died in 1546, than his body turned black and gave off a loathsome stench. Miraculously preserved bodies, on the other hand, especially those that emitted the delicate scent of roses, signaled God’s favor.

There are no reports of Francesco’s body being black and stinking, or pink and fragrant. It was, most likely, an ordinary corpse except for the grievous wounds on the head and neck, wounds which could not be hidden by the largest ruff. Cardinal Montalto said the funeral Mass with no pomp, and oddly enough, no tears, and buried his only nephew. There is a frightening, alien place beyond tears that most people never reach. But Cardinal Montalto would now live there for the rest of his life.

That morning the pope was going to hold a consistory, an important meeting of all the cardinals. It was the only official Vatican business that remained on Cardinal Montalto’s calendar since Gregory had taken away all his positions. Naturally, everyone assumed the poor old man, coughing, leaning on his stick, would stay home sobbing over his bitter loss.

But a loss that requires vengeance also requires calculation. Even if Paolo Giordano’s guilt became painfully clear, it would be ridiculous to suppose that Pope Gregory, who had a hard time executing the most heinous serial killer of low birth, would ever punish a Roman duke. This particular duke was closely allied with the ruler of Tuscany, Francesco de Medici, who still considered himself Paolo Giordano’s brother-in-law although poor Isabella had been strangled five years earlier. The Italian concept of family firmly embraced in-laws and former in-laws, and a stain upon the Orsini name would discolor the de Medici name. Tuscany, which shared its southern border with the Papal States, would never permit scandal, let alone punishment, to harm Paolo Giordano, even if his in-laws loathed him.