The Medici Murders by David Hewson

Author:David Hewson [David Hewson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

‘I don’t understand the signature,’ I said, rereading our translation by Luca’s side. ‘The name’s wrong.’

Luca was insistent. ‘No. The name’s right. It’s an old Tuscan version, “Michelagniolo”. He never wrote it as “Michelangelo”.’

He ran his index finger down the page and stopped on a curious character. ‘Look at the way he writes “che”.’

I’d barely noticed for trying to make out the words. But it was quite unusual. The three letters ‘c’, ‘h’ and ‘e’, turned into a single new form, the ‘h’ stabbing down into the top of an extended ‘c’ below, with a stem across the rising line to form the ‘e’. It looked like musical notation newly invented, yet, after a moment’s hesitation, was easily recognisable.

‘Is that cancellaresca?’

Luca shook his head. ‘It’s him. I remember getting a lecture on it from Lucia when the Accademia hosted an exhibition of his correspondence. This was a device he invented to compress those three letters into one. Michelangelo never stopped creating, you see. It’s all very …’

‘Convincing?’ I suggested.

‘It seems so. Ordinarily we would start from the position that these documents are fake, and our job is to overturn that verdict.’

That, I thought, was the exact opposite of what Duke Godolphin expected of us.

‘The jury is still out,’ I said, and turned to the second letter.

It was dated 3 February 1548, just over three weeks before Lorenzino’s assassination at the Ponte San Tomà. The handwriting was much the same, down to the unique ‘che’. The page was yellowed, like its counterpart. Hardly surprising, I imagined. A raven’s feather, a bottle of ink, a sheet to write on; the means of penning a letter couldn’t have changed much in a little over eleven years, any more than Michelangelo’s handwriting had. The man’s circumstances had altered completely, however. Pope Clement VII, the Medici who had freed him from Alessandro’s fury on condition he went to work, was dead. The triple crown was now worn by Paul III, who had pressured Michelangelo into finishing his vast Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, a massive task that would take him four years fraught with arguments and, as we’ve heard already, result in a work so full of nudity the Church immediately set about toning it down.

So the Michelangelo of 1548 was a different man to the one who seemed to have written the cautious missive to Lorenzino, with a none-too-subtle hint that he was furnishing a weapon suitable for murder from the villainous Benvenuto Cellini. Adored by Paul III for all their occasional disagreements, lauded as the greatest artist the world had known, he now seemed unassailable.

Though the letter appeared to paint a different picture.

Antonio, amico,

Your wretched correspondent writes from the pit of sin that is Rome. Expect no good news. I must warn you that I’m barefoot and naked, so to speak, and work for the holy slave master day and night. My life is only hardship and toil, penury and exhaustion. Fame means nothing, nor the dream of love or the simple affection enjoyed by ordinary men.

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