CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

Evil is often spoken of me, but I let it pass.

—RODRIGO BORGIA, POPE ALEXANDER VI

Giulia

If there’s anything you must never say to a Florentine, it’s that Florence is the little sister of Rome. Any Florentine citizen will puff up like a toad and then proceed to list all the glories of their fair city, from the enormous dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore (“Far finer than the Basilica San Pietro!”) to the bridges over the Arno (“Far fewer dead cats in our river than in your Tiber!”). So unless you have a great deal of time to spend listening to a huffy lecture on all of Florence’s admitted glories, it’s better just to keep from making any comparisons at all. But Florence is a little sister to Rome, and in more than just her size. Rome is a courtesan in her prime, ripe and perhaps decaying a little under the façade of her cosmetics, but flaunting herself in spite of it: luscious and foul-mouthed and funny, praying and swearing and laughing all at once, speaking a dozen languages and spreading her skirts and her arms wide for all the pilgrims and travelers of the world. Florence is a girl just come from a convent: beautiful but self-contained, a little wary, a little prim. Rome is the hub of all Christendom; you can see a thousand new faces a day and never repeat a one, and Romans react a thousand different ways to any dilemma. In Florence everyone seems to know each other, and whether for good or ill, they all react as one.

And in January when I went to visit my sister, Florence was not only an insular city but a frightened one. Frightened, but strangely exalted, and what a mix it was to see on people’s faces.

“It’s all the fault of that wretched Savonarola,” my skinny and acerbic older sister fretted. But even in the safety of her own cozy sala, she gave a quick glance to make sure the maids were busy clearing the credenza at the other end of the room, and the servers occupied decanting the wine rather than eavesdropping on our conversation. I hadn’t been in Florence a day before I knew about Savonarola’s Angels: the young men and boys of Florence who had answered all that Dominican thundering from the pulpit to join God’s militia. That nice young page with the chestnut curls—who knew if after cena he might slip out of the house, don a white robe, and join bands of fellow Angels in singing hymns and roaming the streets looking for sinners to reprimand? Best to be careful; Savonarola had a great many Angels. Much like God Himself, I suppose, though I doubted God’s angels were quite so obnoxious and pimply.