A Trembling Upon Rome Read online

  A Trembling Upon Rome

  Richard Condon

  Richard Condon

  A Trembling Upon Rome

  God averted His eye

  As the purpled cardinals

  Raised up the lie

  Of a guilty Church,

  As unctuous Latin psalms

  Were chanted,

  As Johannus Hus ranted,

  As the cardinals swayed And slanted

  In mincing lurch,

  Jewelled rings extended

  To hope, knee bended,

  Aspergilla tended,

  Censers carrying out the search.

  Choirs shrilled their hymns to power,

  Holy, holy be its name,

  Eternal light and shining tower,

  Sword of might and sacred flame.

  The Keeners' Manual

  `If the future and the past, really, exist, where are they?' St Augustine

  Part One

  1

  I am Franco Ellera, who has been the chamberlain, companion, bodyguard and counsellor to a pope. I became a cardinal of the universal church as a service to my master. I was born a Jew, I have lived as a Jew, and I will die a Jew. My master's lifetime is over, my own is nearly done. The Church accused my lord of a catena of crimes – heresy and simony; murder, sodomy and fornication – when he was merely a man who put power and its sensuality foremost among the things which people need.

  His story must be told to raise up his memory so that his life may be seen for what it was, an achievement and an adventure. His place is among the great men of his time. We lived among them and beside all of them: the kings, the popes, the cardinals and the great soldiers. I knew Cosimo di Medici well, and Sigismund, King of Hungary, King of the Romans, King of Bohemia, and the Marchesa di Artegiana. I knew the great cardinals D'Ailly and Spina. I supped with the woman who rid this earth of King Ladislas of Naples. I knew the warrior archbishop John of Nassau and the Duke of Anjou. These people, were the keys to the kingdoms of earth in our time.

  The estate of a pope has no peer: an emperor follows him and a king is correspondent; a high cardinal next in dignity: then a king's son, an archbishop his equal; a duke of the blood royal; a bishop, a marquis and earl co-equal; then a viscount, legate, baron, suffragan and mitred abbot; down through doctor of divinity and protonotary to master of chancery, parson, vicar and yeoman of the crown; to worshipful merchants and rich artificers, gentlemen well nurtured and with good manners.

  But, a pope is supreme. The Apostles said, 'Behold here are two swords, and the God of Christendom replied that this was enough but not too many. He who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of peter wrongly interprets the word of the Lord when He says, `Put up thy sword in its scabbard.' Both swords, the spiritual and the material, are in the power of the Church; the one, indeed, must be wielded for the Church, the other by the Church; the one by the hand of the pope, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the pope. The ecclesiastical power is verified by the prophecy of a Jew, Jeremiah, who said, `See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms – and the other things which follow. Therefore, if the earthly power err, it shall be judged by the spiritual power; if the lesser spiritual power err, then it shall be judged by the greater, a pope. A spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one, Every human creature is subject to a pope.

  That is how the Christians were all taught that it should be. But that is not how the mockery of time saw it happen.

  Baldassare Cossa, my master, a great condottiere, the eldest son of the feared pirate family of Procida, creator of the papacy of Alexander V, friend of kings and Cosimo di Medici, the scourge of Ladislas and thus the saviour of Italy, the shatterer of the great schism of the Church, the beloved of countless women and ruler of Christendom which is the world of men, became Pope John XXIII.

  I was born in Hamburg in 1355, twelve years before my master. Our city, with others in the league, served as an intermediary between Western Europe and the East – as did Italy. But the Italian East and our East were different things. Their East was older and richer. Ours was in the process of colonization. Russia – if one could call it that and not Western Tibet, for the Mongols ruled there – was in a state of primitive barbarism, covered with forests and fringed by a sea rendered inaccessible by ice.

  My father, a cannoneer, was killed at Helsingborg defending the league against Waldemar IV. I was ten years old when my mother, with about a hundred other young German widows, took me aboard a Hanseatic cog in a convoy of six cogs and two escort ships, to sail for the island of Sicily, where husbands were waiting for them. When we were well into the Mediterranean Sea, two ships of the Cossa private fleet attacked us. Our cogs were sunk. My mother drowned. I remember her so well and I love her to this day. I was pulled out of the sea and thrown like a fish into the bottom of a boat. I slept there until I was flung ashore, dragged to a warehouse and locked in, alone and frightened. That is what I remember about my origins.

  In time, I was told that I was the slave of Baldassare Cossa, the eldest son of the Duke of Santa Gata, whose pirates had drowned my mother. All the German women who survived were sent off to the slave market at Bari to be sold. My mother escaped that disgrace.

  Baldassare Cossa, my master, was five years old. I was seventeen. The duke gave me my new name. I had a serviceable and honourable name Franz Heller which my family had defended throughout time, but to the duke I was nameless. He said at my Christian Baptism ceremony; laid on to entertain his crew ashore, and which I could do nothing to prevent, ‘Ellera means ivy in the Italian language and this Franco Ellera will cling to my son.'

  All the Cossas had been pirates for three generations, marauding from the two mile long island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. which they possessed entirely. I was happy on Procida. They were kind, hearty people who lived out their good health on top of their skins. They ate constantly and well. They made love without shame.

  The two peaks of Vesuvius rose into the perfect sky south-east of us. Sometimes it sent up columns of smoke which the Cossas told me was proof that there was a hell. It was such an Italian claim to make. They had murdered my mother yet they insisted that we were looking all day at the proof of hell:

  The Cossas were large-scale pirates, putting to sea in two great war galleys. La Palazzina was eighty feet long with an overall breadth of nineteen feet. Its oars were arranged on two levels. It was fitted with two masts and lateen sails, manned by a hundred oarsmen and fifty soldiers, all of whom had been sworn in on the gospels. Its poop was protected with fortified towers and, at the bow, there was a castle equipped for offence and defence. With the second galley, three carracks and seven smaller craft, the Cossa stronghold at Procida numbered 766 people, counting sailors, rowers and fighting men, with land-based chandlers, armourers, agents, ecrivains, spies, merchants, slave masters, priests, nuns, wives and children. Baldassare Cossa's father, head of the family, was not only a Neapolitan duke but held four baronies in the kingdom of Naples. His titles, conferred upon his family by popes and kings, included Conte di Troja, Signore di Procida, and Marchese nel suo Libero de Protonotari Partecipanti, as well as Duke of Santa Gata. Baldassare Cossa was his heir.

  My five-year-old master instructed me to call him Cossa. He never changed those orders. His father told me, `He has no mother. I could have found a woman to raise him, but clearly God meant him not to have a mother so I prefer that he be raised in the company of fighting men. That will serve him better as he grows older. You will be in charge of him.'

  My work was to see that Baldassare Cossa was clean and that he worked at his studies. Our teacher was a young priest named Father Fanfarone, a ve
ry stupid fellow, who had good Latin and no interest in religion whatsoever. He had become a priest because he was so lazy. We learned Latin, Italian, history, writing, numbers and singing. I had a magnificent voice. Cossa had a fair voice. He was young.

  Cossa taught me the Neapolitan dialect. I taught him German. He was only a child but as he grew, I gave diligent attendance on him. I was certain to be courteous, glad of cheer, quick of hearing in every way, and ever on the lookout for things to do him pleasure. In the morning, against my lord should rise, I took care that his linen should be clean. I would hold out to him his tunic, then his doublet while he put, in his arms, then his vamps and socks so that he should go warm all day. I would draw on his sock and his hose by the fire and lace or buckle his shoes, and truss him up to the height that suited him, put round his neck and on his shoulders a kerchief, then gently comb his head with an ivory comb and give him water wherewith to wash his hands and face. This and more I would do for him from the time he was five years old until his death long, long years after. He knew from the beginning that I was his slave but, through our lifetimes, never treated me as else than his true friend. for as I was kind and good to him as a child, he was kind and sweet and good to me as a man.

  The Duke of Santa Gata's captains taught us the arts of war on land and sea. I was included in this instruction so that I might protect the boy wherever he went. On our third raiding voyage aboard La Palazzina, when Cossa was ten years old (I was twenty-two, very big and strong, and as tall as any soldier in the crew), the ship we attacked, a Dutchman, had a company of fighting men waiting for us in its hold. They put up a bitter battle before, that prize was taken.

  I stowed Cossa in a deck locker while the fighting swirled all over the ship. A swordsman backed me across the deck. As we fought, I tripped going backwards. He rushed in to kill me. I was in bad trouble. Cossa stepped out, struck a dagger into his back, had the coolness to pull it out, then stepped back into the locker: a classical exercise for a boy that young. He saved my life that day, and he would save it again. How much I wanted to be like him.

  In 1379, when our education-at-war was as complete as a going business had the time to make it, his father told Cossa that he had been awarded an appointment to the University of Bologna to study law.

  The molten sun bore down with heavy heat upon the shed which was the port captain's office on Procida when Cossa and I stood before the duke's table, myself two paces to the rear of Cossa. The duke said, in a voice like chains falling on stones, `Piero Tomacelli, Bishop of Santa Grazia di Traghetto, is our man in the Lateran palace. It was he who interceded with His Holiness Pope Urban to get you the appointment to Bologna. Over the years we have paid Tomacelli a lot of money to keep us well with the Church and to guide the throne of Naples to view our business benevolently.'

  He smiled with that enormously pleasing family smile which burst out of the saturnity of Cossa faces to win anything they chose. The duke had a magnificent smile, but his teeth were old. Cossa's smile until he was an old man was a really beautiful thing to see. His teeth were perfect white and, even. It was said of Attila the Hun that he was one of the most charming men in history. Cossa's smile, in the same sense, seldom meant what it seemed to convey which was loving regard, open honesty and an entreaty for sincere friendship.

  `I have written to your Uncle Tomas in Rome,' the duke said. `He will arrange a meeting with Tomacelli, Don't waste time trying to flatter him or to fool this bishop. He is the complete Neapolitan whom I hope one day you will become. Now – Baldassare – hear me well. As you excel at Bologna, Tomacelli will be watching you from Rome. As your excellence assures him of your promise as a lawyer, Tomacelli will be plotting for you, and advancing your cause with the pope.'

  'But we worked hard to excel at arms,' Cossa protested. `How can that serve me if you make me a become a lawyer?'

  `Wait and see,' the duke said. 'Do you think you know anything outside Procida? You are going from a life of freedom to one that will be dominated. So did every other successful man. Never forget that the Church has run all the lives in Europe for a thousand years. The Church didn't get where it is on theology, my son. The hierarchy of the Church is a hierarchy of lawyers. Rich bishops, princely cardinals and sainted popes – all of them are lawyers.' He got up suddenly. `The carrack is waiting for you at the quay. It will take you, the escort, horses and some gold to the mainland. Tomas is waiting for you in Rome.' He embraced his son and held him closely. He stared at me intently and spoke to me over Cossa's shoulder. `He can go to any heights in the Church if he learns to think like the rest of this family,' he said.

  Our carrack ploughed across the Gulf of Gaeta, cutting through the August heat to the mainland at Terracina, where we unloaded horses, food, gold and men: Cossa's armed escort, (of which I was in charge) were the companions and servants of his lifetime, but casual employers, not so close to him as I was. Father Fanfarone, always referred to as his `chaplain', was Cossa's favourite priest because Fanfarone had so little interest in religion that he never annoyed Cossa with urgings that he confessor attend mass and because he was so blissfully stupid He was a fairly good forger and was assigned to keep up a cheerful correspondence with the duke in Cossa's name and writing. The duke had decided that a chaplain with Cossa's permanent household would create a most favourable impression upon the university prelates who would report student progress to Rome.

  The second man in our entourage, as far as I was concerned, was Geoffredano Bocca, the master cook of the Cossa fleet. His bracioline made with beef, ham, breadcrumbs and parsley were the finest sausages I have ever eaten and within me was the sausage-eating compulsion of hundreds of thousands of frozen Germans. I tell you that, when he laid out layers of wide noodles with-alternating layers composed of that same compelling bracioline in minced form, then added his own secret sauce, then hard-boiled egg and two kinds of those cheeses which have made Italy the triumph of body and mind that it is, then sprinkled with what he says is just grated cheese but which anyone who has ever tasted it knows is the powder of a master alchemist, I renounced once again – it happened every day I ate Bocca's cooking – Germany and all the world except Naples. Before each meal he cooked for me, he would say with that mysterious smile, `I am going to put something secret in your food. I will not say what it is, but after you eat it you are going to be able to do things like you have never done them before.'

  The third man was a silent physician from the Adige (which the Italians consider as being far to the north!), Count Abramo Weiler, a healer who was bound to the Cossas because of his compulsion for ruinous gambling. The duke cured him by taking him aside and telling him that he would kill hire if he ever gambled again. He said that, whether he killed hint himself on Procida or in Naples, or whether he had to send men to kill him wherever Count Weiler chose to gamble, he would disembowel him and leave him to die in terrible pain, alone. Weiler told me that he totally lost interest in gambling after, that, but still continued to calculate the odds on almost everything, if only in his head.

  The last man, deservedly so on any list, was Luigi Palo, who did Cossa's (our) dirty work. He carried the title of Cossa's squire. He was a villain who would steal, maim, traduce, procure or kill for Cossa, a specialist humbly offering his specialities. The duke had reasoned that, during the ten years Cossa would study at Bologna, lie would occasionally meet people who would offend him gravely. This being certain, given Cossa's particular character, the duke did not want it to happen that Cossa (or I) take any direct revenge personally – for that could go against Cossa's record in Rome – so Palo was sent along as the surrogate avenger of affronts and to undertake any necessary task that could be potentially damaging to Cossa's honour.'

  The age of the members of Cossa's permanent party was, on average ten years older than Cossa, but he was the leader: Dr Weiler was the oldest, Cossa the youngest; Father Fanfarone the stupidest, Cossa the wiliest; Bocca the most garrulous, Cossa the most laconic; Palo thee cruellest, Cossa the
most deadly. How would I rate myself against Cossa now that I have graded the others? I was the most serious, Cossa the most devious.

  2

  We rode into Latium, Fanfarone complaining about his backside all the way, through. Cisterna di Latima to Velletri and Albano to Rome. We rode through a land which had settled into four social divisions just as in Germany: knights and their retainers, who lived in castles or keeps;: merchants, artificers, tradesmen and their dependants, who filled the towns, farmers, who lived in wattled huts under the protection of their lord., spiritual and/or temporal; and the clergy. The world was divided into an uncounted but gigantic mass of Christians and Mahometans with, here and there, pockets of Jews. The knights, merchants and farmers took their places by right of birth and inheritance. The clergy had to work then way up by the devious rules of the Church.

  When we reached Rome, I as leader of our party (even if Cossa wasn't aware of that, but his father had put the entire expedition in my charge, sought out the house of Cossa's uncle in the Via Artanis, off the Tiber across from Vatican hill. Rome was a collection of shanties, thieves and vermin. The Black Death had reduced its population by one third, to 17,000. The city was wracked with factional strife among -the Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, Gaetani, Copocci, Stefaneschi and Annabaldi families. As we rode along the river on our first night, on a guided tour of the city by Cossa's Uncle Tomas, we saw wolves wandering near St. Peter's. `If this is Rome,' Cossa said, 'Bologna must be only a clearing in the forest.

  `Bologna was a city when Rome was a, village,' his uncle said. `Rome looks like this because: it has lived off the papal interests like a mendicant. The whole population has allowed itself to depend on the hordes of pilgrims and litigants the papacy brings to Rome.'