Murder in the Garden of God (19 page)

Hearing that Montalto’s election was a sure thing, many other cardinals agreed to go along with it so that the new pope would never hear of any hesitation on their part. As one cardinal told another, “The party of Montalto is so much advanced that surely today he will be pope, and seeking to prevent it would be a waste of time and procure ruin for oneself, and shame, because they will do it without you.”
¹⁵

And so the Sacred College was mostly in agreement. They would elect friendly old Cardinal Montalto, an outstanding Christian, who had forgiven his nephew’s murderers, a gentle soul who would never hurt a fly.

* * *

On the morning of April 24, the smell of succulent roasted meats wafted through the Orsini palace in the heart of Rome. The rooms had been festively decorated with colored silks hanging from walls and draped around doors, windows, and columns. The silver and gold serving dishes gleamed from their recent polishing. Crystal decanters were filled with fragrant wine from the duke’s vineyards. In the enormous vaulted kitchen on the first floor, cooks baked huge pies and decorated the crusts with gold leaf. Musicians gathered in the balcony overlooking the great hall, tuning their instruments.

In her bedroom, Vittoria was laced into her best gown, perhaps the one made of solid gold thread. She put on her jewelry of gold, rubies, and pearls. She donned a gauzy headdress and dabbed her neck with the finest perfume. Now, today, she would finally, indisputably become the duchess of Bracciano. It would be the greatest day of her life.

Somewhere downstairs a fight broke out. A shot was fired. Those hearing the noise ran toward it and found the body of Paolo Giordano’s twenty-four-year-old servant, killed by an unknown assailant. They could hardly have a dead body in the palace with the wedding guests coming. Some of the men carried the body to the church next door so the priest, who had been preparing for the wedding, could say the prayers for the dead. Then they carted the corpse out the back door just as Vittoria, Paolo Giordano, and the wedding guests walked in the front. Many believed this was a frightening omen, a sign from God that this would be a blood wedding, bringing death and destruction to those who partook in it.

It is likely that Paolo Giordano had been told of his servant’s murder but didn’t care. He had trailed corpses in his wake for years, and it never seemed to bother him. Now, for the third time, he married his beloved Vittoria. And this time, having read the banns, and Gregory’s decree having died with him, they would be married for real.

After the ceremony, the wedding party returned to the palace and took their places in the banqueting hall. The music started. Wine as dark and red as blood was poured into crystal goblets. Food was brought in on gigantic platters, perhaps a peacock with his feathers sewn back on and flames shooting out of his mouth, or a giant pie with live rabbits inside. Vittoria sat in her chair next to the duke, and smiled.

Ironically, Vittoria and Cardinal Montalto, who had each been hot in the pursuit of splendor for so many years, achieved their goals in the same hour. For no sooner had the banquet started in full swing than cannon fire thundered forth from Castel Sant’Angelo. Immediately afterward, all the church bells of Rome pealed out their joy – the sign that the cardinals had elected a new pontiff. The priest who had married the couple recorded in his parish registry, right under the names of the duke and duchess of Bracciano, that within an hour of the wedding ceremony, he heard the cannon and the bells and knew that the pope had been elected.

The diners wondered aloud who the new pope could be, some believing it was this cardinal, others sure it was that. Paolo Giordano and Vittoria must have had a feeling of dread in the pits of their stomachs. And perhaps, under their forced smiles, they said to themselves silently,
Please God, let it be anyone but Montalto.

A rider raced into the courtyard of the Orsini palace and reined in his horse violently. He jumped off, ran into the palace and cried,
The pope has been elected! Signora Vittoria, it is your uncle, Cardinal Montalto!

She was now the duchess. But he was now the pope.

Part 2

Revenge Served Cold

Chapter 14

Pope Sixtus V

He then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.

But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed.

He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

“He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

“But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

– Mark 12

C
ardinal Montalto’s adoration occurred just as his supporters had planned. As the electors were assembling in the chapel, the master of ceremonies was reading the conclave bulls – lengthy documents that had to be read at the opening of the conclave and reread whenever another cardinal arrived. Cardinal d’Este interrupted, crying, “There is no longer time to read bulls! The Pope is made! Let us proceed at once to the adoration.”
¹

Numerous cardinals began to shout, “A pope! A pope! Montalto!” They surrounded him and threw themselves at his feet.

Most newly elected pontiffs cried from joy and humility. The cardinals certainly would have expected such behavior from a good-natured old soul like Montalto. But his expression didn’t change a bit. He didn’t cry; he didn’t even smile.

Now a scrutiny was held for the official vote count, and even Cardinal Montalto sat at his desk and wrote a name on the slip of paper. It was a unanimous vote for him, except his own vote, which he had cast for Cardinal Farnese, as he had often promised.

According to his chronicler, “Cardinal Montalto now began to raise the fog of deceit that he had kept secret for fourteen years, along with the great ambition that reigned in him. Impatient to see himself on the pontifical throne, and hearing most of the votes favorable to him, he straightened his neck and rose to his feet, and without waiting for the end of the scrutiny, left the chapel, and threw towards the door his cane that he had carried to lean on. He stood up straight and seemed several inches taller, and what was more astonishing was that he spat at the ceiling with such great force, that a young man of thirty could not have spat with more vigor than he.”
²
Then he knelt in front of the crucifix at the altar.

While the other cardinals were rubbing their eyes, wondering if perhaps God had suddenly healed the illnesses of their new pope, the shrewd Cardinal Farnese realized in an instant what had happened – they had all been hoodwinked. He turned to Cardinals San Sisto and de Medici and said, “Your plan seems to have been a mistake.”

Cardinal Montalto turned a frightening face back to the cardinals and cried loudly, “Mistake? What mistake?”

As cardinal deacon, Farnese was in charge of the voting. “The scrutiny wasn’t right,” he said, shuffling the vote slips.

“But Montalto said, ‘It was right,’ and knelt again, and started to sing a Te Deum so loudly that it echoed throughout the hall. When Cardinal de Medici saw this, he looked at the cardinal deacon and began to laugh, because only two moments earlier [Montalto] had done nothing but cough.”
³

According to custom, the conclave master of ceremonies asked the new pope if it pleased him to accept the papacy. Most new pontiffs nodded through tears or humbly said they were not worthy of it but would accept it as God’s will. But Montalto scornfully turned his back towards the master of ceremonies and, looking sternly at the cardinals, started speaking in the royal
we.
“We cannot accept that which we have already accepted,” he replied, “but if we could accept it another time, we would, because we know well that we have sufficient strength, vigor, and talent, through the aid of God, to reign over two worlds, not just one papacy.”
⁴

The master of ceremonies then asked him what name he would like to take, and Montalto, who had had the name picked out for decades, replied, “Sixtus V.” He had chosen this name to honor Sixtus IV (reigned 1471-1484) who had also been a Franciscan monk.

Behind the altar were several papal robes of different sizes, ready for a cardinal of any height or width. While the master of ceremonies dressed Sixtus in pontifical garb, those cardinals instrumental in his election came up to congratulate him. Cardinal de Medici, delighted he had raised his dear old friend to the papacy, used “great familiarity” with him – perhaps clapping him on the back. Sixtus cast him a scornful look and said, “Not so much familiarity with the supreme Vicar of Christ.”
⁵

Cardinal de Medici smoothly covered his surprise by saying that it was a very happy day. The pope replied ominously, “It will not be happy for everyone.”
⁶

Farnese then had the task of announcing to the world the results of the election and trying to look pleased about it. He and the pope went to a window fronting onto Saint Peter’s Square, and Farnese cried out, “Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum Italicus papam Dominime Felicem Montalti, Sacrae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem, qui sibi imposuit nomen Sixtus Quintus.”
⁷

We announce to you with great joy an Italian pope, Felice Montalto, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who will take the name Sixtus V.
Thousands of people had been camping out in the square for three days. When they heard the news, some were horrified that there would be “a deformed figure on the See of Saint Peter because they hadn’t yet seen him, forming their opinion on how he was usually, walking all bent over leaning on a cane, and that he had an indecent beard, that he wore long, and that he usually staggered on the street.”
⁸

But then a vigorous figure in papal robes presented itself at the window and extended a benediction. Many who had seen him before didn’t recognize him as Cardinal Montalto. “Who is the pope?” they asked. Many said, “This couldn’t be Cardinal Montalto, whom we saw falling down from weakness in the streets. Can that be the same man who couldn’t hold himself on his legs, who had his head always leaning on a shoulder? This person that we see today is so straight and so majestic.”
⁹

Cardinal Montalto had been best known for his charity during the famine. Many poor Romans were pleased that they finally had a pope who would think about them, and not just the rich and noble.

The foreign ambassadors were surprised by the election. “I must add that the election of Sixtus V is looked upon as the work of the Holy Ghost,” the Venetian Priuli wrote his Senate, “all the cardinals having so promptly cooperated in his exaltation, notwithstanding that the nephews of Gregory and their numerous adherents must have preferred any other candidate, knowing as they did how ill-disposed he was to Gregory, against whom, and those who governed for him or were near his person, he spoke ill, even in Gregory’s lifetime. Neither the enmity of Paolo Giordano Orsini, nor his endeavors with each cardinal of the Sacred College to plead with them, on his knees, that they not elect Montalto, nor the aversion of the whole Court, which, remembering the severities of Pius V, was against a pope who had been a monk, could prevail. Such attempts, and even greater considerations, are of no avail against the will of our Lord God.”
¹⁰

Sixtus was conducted to the papal apartments where he sat down and ate a dozen sugared biscuits and drank two glasses of red wine. All the cardinals left except for Bonelli and Rusticucci. “Illustrious father,” said Rusticucci, “it is no longer time to inconvenience yourself but to take a bit of repose.”

Sixtus replied, “Our best repose will be the efforts that we undertake with our pleasure.” In other words,
Don’t tell me what to do.

Rusticucci, who was already regretting the election, added, “Your Holiness speaks in a very different manner than the way he spoke yesterday in conclave and the day before yesterday with this cardinal here.” To which Sixtus snapped, “Because yesterday and the day before we were not pope, but now we are.”
¹¹

Cardinal Rusticucci noticed that the pope’s vestments were crooked and started to straighten them. But Sixtus cast him a scathing look and said, “Not so much confidence with the Vicar of Christ.”
¹²

Looking around the papal apartments, the two cardinals nervously began to give the pope’s servants orders for his comfort. “With a very serious air, Sixtus said, ‘Save yourself, if you please, the trouble. I myself know well how to see to the things of which I have need.”

Sixtus’s butler, who had served him for several years, asked him what he wanted to eat for supper, a request he always made at about that time of day. But this time, his employer stared at him haughtily and thundered, “Do you ask sovereign princes what should be served to them? You should cover our table as you would cover those of kings, and we will see what pleases our taste most.” The poor butler retired “in great confusion.”
¹³

Outside the papal apartments, red knots of cardinals stood around discussing the shocking transformation they had just witnessed. Farnese accused his supporters of betraying him. De Medici and Rusticucci felt like fools. “Of the rest,” Cardinal Santorio wrote in his autobiography, “there wasn’t one who denied that the nephew’s death, completely unavenged, and borne with so much patience, had summarily conferred the papacy on him.”
¹⁴

Later that afternoon, the new Pope Sixtus V sat on his throne in the papal audience chamber and accepted the congratulations of all and sundry who could squeeze themselves into the room. The pope graciously thanked his visitors for their good wishes. But when Paolo Giordano Orsini knelt before him, the pope said nothing. The duke kept sputtering congratulations, and the pope just glared at him, as if looking for splatters of Francesco’s blood on his ruff and doublet. Finally, in humiliation, the duke stumbled to his feet and left. He stopped by the palaces of Cardinal de Medici and Count Olivares, ambassador of Spain, to ask them to obtain for him another audience with the pope the following day.

When Paolo Giordano returned to the Vatican, the room was still packed with well-wishers, many of them asking the pope for favors. The new Vicar of Christ was supposed to be generous to others as a sign of gratitude to God for his good fortune. The most common request was the release of a friend or relative from prison and, indeed, most prisons were thrown wide open on a papal coronation day in memory of Pontius Pilate liberating Barabbas on the day of Jesus’s crucifixion. The individual who obtained clemency for the most murderers and robbers before coronation day was seen as being highest in the pontiff’s favor.

Pretending that the pope’s embarrassing silence of the day before had never happened, Paolo Giordano knelt before him again and cheerfully congratulated him. Then he asked him to release from jail a servant of his, the murderer Marco Bracciardini.

The pope silently eyed the duke, closely examining this bad seed, this rotten weed, which choked the life out of young and promising plants. At first, it seemed as if the pope would say nothing this time as well. Now Paolo Giordano, who had made popes tremble, began to tremble himself, and Sixtus was clearly enjoying it. Finally, the pope said, “No one desires more than I that in the future Paolo Giordano Orsini will lead a life worthy of Orsini blood and of a Christian nobleman. Whether or not he has done that up until now with respect to the Holy See, his family, and himself, he must ask his conscience. One thing is certain, however: the offenses done to Francesco, and to Felice, Cardinal Montalto, are pardoned.”
¹⁵

Then he rose to his feet and roared, “But if you offend Sixtus, if you offend Sixtus, he will not pardon you. I will be a good pope to a good Orsini, a terrible pope to a bad Orsini. Go now and immediately remove from Bracciano and your palace each and every bandit.”
¹⁶

One chronicler reported that, “Sixtus always had a marvelous efficacy in his speaking, but when he flew into a rage and threatened, accompanied by his natural pride, it seemed as if he were throwing thunderbolts.”
¹⁷

The duke, having been pierced by thunderbolts, stumbled awkwardly to his feet. Instead of walking slowly backwards and bowing three times on his way out the door as protocol required, he raced from the audience chamber as fast as he could, committing the huge faux-pas of turning his back on the Vicar of Christ. He huffed and puffed all the way to his carriage and ordered his coachman to drive post-haste to the palace of Cardinal de Medici. There he told him of his terrifying audience with the pope.

Though Sixtus had been pope for less than twenty-four hours, Cardinal de Medici well understood the mistake he had made in pushing for his election. The cardinal informed Paolo Giordano that despite Montalto’s earlier protestations of forgiveness, he had “a spirit inclined to vendetta … and he had used deceit to reach the threshold of the Vatican to be able with absolute authority to punish him who had offended him.”
¹⁸

The duke’s life, and Vittoria’s life, and the lives of all who served them, were in grave danger. If the new pope wanted to have them all executed, as absolute monarch he could do so immediately. “There is no time to lose,” the cardinal advised. “Obey him and save yourself because neither I nor anyone else can do anything for you.”
¹⁹

While Paolo Giordano had been calling on the pope, numerous grandees, ambassadors, and noblewomen had lined up to congratulate Camilla. That morning the Venetian ambassador and Cardinal Santorio viewed with pity Camilla’s scantily furnished rooms and noticed that the pope’s sister and her four young grandchildren wore ragged clothing. But an extreme makeover was on the way. Santorio wrote that suddenly “the militia surrounded the house, furnished the rooms, and made everything ornate and worthy of dignity. Alessandro was dressed in dark purple, the sisters splendid with necklaces of gemstones.”
²⁰
Within moments, the entire house and its inhabitants were transformed almost as quickly as the pope himself had been.