Murder in the Garden of God (30 page)

The contention over Bracciano was just one of many problems that would conveniently disappear if the duke were to die before the trial was over. Virginio would immediately inherit the duchy to the satisfaction of the de Medicis. Lodovico Orsini, horrified at any dishonor staining the family name, was apoplectic at the thought of Paolo Giordano being found guilty of murder, and a guilty verdict would not be delivered to a dead man. Pope Sixtus, too, stood to reap great advantage by the duke’s demise coming sooner rather than later; he would not have to wreak public vengeance on a man he had pardoned.

* * *

On Wednesday, November 13, the duke had difficulty breathing, the flesh on his massive chest weighing heavily on his sodden lungs. His doctors bled his arm and ordered him not to eat anything for several hours, as “the violence of his illness was caused by the great abundance of crude humors, which could only be subdued by abstinence.”
⁹
Naturally, the recommendation of abstinence was not well received by the duke.

“As soon as the doctors left the room, he wanted to eat and drink as usual, there being no one who dared to contradict him. After eating he repented of it immediately and had such a serious flux of mucus in his throat that he lost consciousness, and two hours before sunset he also lost his life.”
¹⁰
Vittoria had been sitting in the room listening to his labored breathing. Suddenly, she realized it had stopped. She shrieked.

According to one contemporary, as Vittoria gazed on her husband’s corpse, she realized the brief glory of her life as a duchess was over forever, and the Peretti family, which she had always scorned as being far beneath her socially, “was now rising to greater and greater happiness,” according to a relatione.
¹¹

Had it all been for nothing?

She grabbed a pistol in the duke’s room and tried to load it to shoot herself in the head, but her servants prevented it. One of them ran out of the room to hide the gun, while others got thick ropes and tied her hands.

Chapter 23

The War of the Furniture

My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest.

She roars at me; therefore I hate her. Has not my inheritance become to

me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and

attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour.

–Jeremiah 12:8-9

“H
e passed to the other life with some suspicion of poison,” according to one contemporary report of Paolo Giordano’s death.
¹

Indeed, many whispered that the grand duke and the pope had conspired to poison him. Bent under the weight of pork chops as he was, rotting from the inside out, the duke had clearly been a dying man. Yet, his ox-like constitution could possibly have dragged on a few more months. Had his gangrenous carcass finally, with a heaving groan, succumbed to the deadly doses of steak and cake and given up of its own accord? Or had his lumbering mass been gently pushed over the edge by a little something in his wine?

“The death of Signor Paolo Giordano,” reported one
avvisi,
“for a legion of reasons, could not have come at a more convenient time.”
²

Having recovered from her burst of suicidal desperation, Vittoria dried her tears, sat down at her desk, and wrote a begging missive to Bianca Cappello, grand duchess of Tuscany.

To the most Serene Signora and my most respected lady,

Because I am obliged to inform your most serene Highness, as my lady and signora, of every piece of news, even though I am certain it will displease you infinitely, nonetheless because of my debt to you I must inform you of the unexpected loss that I have had today of my lord consort, and most illustrious and excellent lord duke. I hope that your Excellency has compassion for my troubles, and I supplicate you, with every affection of my heart, to deign to protect my affairs… I pray God, who has been pleased to afflict me with this incomparable loss, to give to your most serene Highness every sort of great happiness.

From Salò, November 13, 1585
³

There would be no answer. Vittoria also wrote letters to the dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, to the Senate of the Venetian Republic, and to Cardinal Farnese – employer of her brother Flaminio and enemy of the de Medicis – informing them of her husband’s death and asking for their protection.

In her flurry of correspondence in the hours immediately following her husband’s death, Vittoria did not write to Lodovico. This was because she and Marcello had conspired to hide the furniture, which they knew Lodovico would claim for Virginio, and hoped to get it as far away as possible before he found out. When the duke died, the wagons had been on the way from Padua to Salò. Marcello sent a rider to inform the drivers to turn around and take the road for Chioggia, fifteen miles from Venice at the southern tip of the Venetian lagoon. There the items would be loaded onto a ship and taken south to Pesaro. From there they would be taken to a secret destination, where the Orsinis couldn’t get their hands on them.

But one of Paolo Giordano’s servants wrote to Lodovico to inform him of his cousin’s death. The Sicilian Patrizio, who hated Vittoria as a social climber trying to siphon off Orsini patrimony was appalled that she hadn’t let Lodovico know immediately. Lodovico received the letter at four hours past sunset on Friday, November 15.

According to Francesco Filelfo, Lodovico’s secretary “Signor Lodovico sent this news post-haste by courier to the most excellent Signor Virginio in Florence, giving an account of the event to the most serene grand duke and the most illustrious Cardinal de Medici, to whom he wrote to ask what approach would be the best to take. The following morning, for the dignity of the death of so signal a personage, and to make sure that the furniture of that lord, which was of notable value, did not meet a bad end, Signor Lodovico resolved to go in person to Saló for his obligation to the family, and for the particular affection he had for Signor Virginio, and to look after everything until the messenger returned from Florence.”
⁴

Lodovico had missed the funeral, held earlier that day, to which Vittoria hadn’t invited him. Paolo Giordano had been carted across the little road that passed by the Saló palace and buried in the Church of the Capuchins in a specially made, extra-wide coffin. Most people were buried the day after death, but Paolo Giordano was buried two days afterward, probably because they couldn’t jam him into a regular casket and needed an entire day to fashion one to fit. Vittoria hoped to move him to the Basilica of Loreto at some point in the future, once the Orsini chapel had been built there.

At dawn on the morning of November 16, Lodovico left Padua for Salò, ostensibly to give his condolences to Vittoria, but really to start carting the furniture away. En route he ran into a messenger bearing him another letter from Patrizio, stating that Vittoria and Marcello had sent off the duke’s valuable furniture to hide it from him. Lodovico was livid. He sent Filelfo on a fast horse to Chioggia to meet with the mayor and explain that the duke’s rightful heir was being robbed of his inheritance. Filelfo did so, but the items had not yet arrived. The mayor set watches on the roads into the city.

Lodovico galloped toward Salò and met Vittoria’s carriage on the road. She was leaving the sad, beautiful palace of death and returning to Padua. Lodovico accompanied her on the return trip, galloping beside her as a most unwelcome companion. He informed her that he would have the furniture sent from Chioggia to Padua, where it would be placed in escrow until the court could ascertain its rightful owner.

Vittoria agreed to the escrow and gave Lodovico a copy of the will. Looking it over, Lodovico saw just how much money Paolo Giordano had left her, but he remained unperturbed, believing she would never get it. According to one contemporary source, Lodovico “negated [the will] for his suspicions that such cases suggested feminine arts, when women find themselves the bosses of the will of aged lovers.”
⁵
He was much more concerned with the
mobili
and saw to his relief that the will did not give her the duke’s furniture, jewelry, and other items, though it mentioned a codicil which she had not attached.

When Vittoria emerged from her carriage at the Palazzo Foscari, it is likely that she carried her jewelry boxes inside with her as ladies kept such valuables close at hand when traveling. To her great annoyance, no sooner did she set them down than Lodovico began rifling through them, but “it didn’t seem to him that he found the quality and quantity of jewels that he thought he would find at the death of Signor Paolo.” Vittoria must have surmised that Lodovico would try to steal her jewels and had probably hidden the best pieces. Women in danger of losing their valuables often sewed them into the linings of their clothing, or in the hems of their skirts.

Lodovico couldn’t exactly start ripping her dress off, though the thought must have occurred to him, but he did lecture her sternly. “He got into a quarrel with the widow Accorambona, warning her that for the service of Signor Don Virginio, and of the family, to whom she was so obligated, she should give him all the jewels which she had received from the deceased signor, in whatever manner she had received them.”
⁶

Vittoria may have hidden the jewelry, but she would have a harder time stuffing armoires, silver platters, and wall tapestries up her skirts. And whatever Vittoria had up her sleeve, it couldn’t be the dead duke’s horses and carriages. Lodovico assumed that he could easily take possession of the furniture, which would be guarded by the authorities until he had proved his legal case.

On November 21, the items finally arrived in Chioggia. The mayor turned the wagons around once again and sent them with an armed guard to Padua. Vittoria wrote a letter to the mayor of Padua agreeing to the sequestration of the furniture until she could send a notarized copy of the will and codicil.

But Lodovico had tasks to perform other than fighting over the will, tasks to honor the departed. He arranged for Vittoria’s servants to dress in mourning, which meant buying black cloth and having outfits hastily sewn. Black cloth was draped over all mirrors, tables, and doors in her Paduan palace. Satisfied with himself, he wrote to Virginio and the cardinal, letting them know he had honorably provided for mourning. He also sent them copies of the will and boasted that as far as the furniture was concerned, they had nothing to fear.

While Paolo Giordano’s will was Vittoria’s most valuable possession, it could also spell her own sudden demise if the fury of the de Medicis and Orsinis reached a fever peak. Her brother Ottavio, the bishop of Fossombrone, feared the will was not a windfall so much as a possible tragedy for her. He wrote her prophetically, “Evil oppresses me, and I am terrified of worse.”
⁷

Vittoria, too, must have been worried. Again, she tried to line up the protection of the powerful. On November 22, she wrote once more to Bianca Cappello:

I have returned to Padua to the same palace that the most excellent lord my husband had taken for his residence, from where it seemed I should make reverence to your most serene Highness, letting you know that at Salò I have left all my joy, having deposited that blessed corpse of my signor with as much honor as possible in the Church of the Capuchins. On this occasion I beg you to take me under your protection, which I have asked you other times. And reverently I kiss your hands.
⁸

On the same day she wrote the duke of Urbino:

To the most Serene and Revered Lord,

After having buried that blessed corpse of his Excellency, my lord, and having done it with the most honor possible, I went to Padua the next day where I find myself awaiting some order from your Highness, and it seemed I should give you this news out of my duty. I ask you again, with every affection of the heart, to protect me and my affairs, which your Excellency has always said that you would do for me. I humbly kiss your hands.

From Padua, November 22, 1585.
⁹

Though Vittoria had hoped for protection from Bianca Cappello and the duke of Urbino, she was counting on the good will of the Venetian Senate, renowned for protecting the downtrodden, the hunted, and the unfortunate. Ambassadors waving warrants from the most powerful princes in Europe were often received with a yawn and a shrug as the lion of Saint Mark fearlessly shielded Europe’s outcasts under his enormous wings.

Vittoria wrote a heartbreaking letter to the Senate, “in which she depicted the miserable dangers of her youth and solitude, expressing her firm hope in the magnanimity of Venice as the only salvation for the abandoned.”
¹⁰
It was a letter designed to win their favor.

Strangely, she also wrote the pope. If all else failed, perhaps she could rely on his former avuncular tenderness if she declared her intention to become a nun. She had always been a devout Catholic, confessing and taking communion frequently, fasting and praying. The events of the past four years must have exhausted her, and perhaps she would find peace inside convent walls. Certainly, having renounced wealth and the world, she would no longer be a threat to the de Medicis and Orsinis.

The governor of Rome, Mariano Pierbenedetti, whom Sixtus would make a cardinal in 1589, was a good friend of Camilla’s. He told a
relatione
author that “Accoramboni, finding herself after the death of her husband between the difficulties of the present and the fear of the future, or pushed by necessity, or touched by God… thought of retiring to a convent in Rome to lead a religious life.” But convents required an admission fee of a few hundred scudi, and “because she was not rich, as others imagined, but finding she did not have the means to move, or provide for herself, she took the chance of confiding her needs to the pope, whose greatness of spirit she had more than once recognized. She wrote to him of her idea and asked him to give her 500 scudi.”

Surprisingly, “The pope was happy at this news and replied that he would give her as much help as she needed, commanding that she be sent 500 scudi.”

Why would Sixtus, the brutally just sword of God, give money to Vittoria to enter a convent? Perhaps he thought she had not known about the murder plans and had only flirted with the duke out of her love of finery. After Francesco’s murder, it was likely her ambitious family had pushed her hard into the duke’s open arms. Even if he did believe her guilty to some degree, Sixtus, who always had a sweet spot for her, may have hoped she could find redemption by devoting the rest of her life to God.

But when Camilla heard the news, she was horrified that Sixtus was going to aid the murderer of her son. “Camilla, whose heart had never been healed of the wound the death had caused, was not pleased at the pope’s liberality to bring to Rome the person whose proximity could renew the pain she felt at losing her son.”
¹¹

Frowning at his sister’s protests, the pope said, “If this poor girl, who has recognized her sins and repented of them, wants to return here to serve God, how can we, who are his Vicar, refuse to help her? We want at all costs to help her.”
¹²
And so, even if it had all been for nothing, Vittoria would be assured of at least one path to safety if she didn’t end up getting the furniture.

The de Medicis, frustrated about the furniture stuck in escrow, had a back-up plan as well. Temporarily stymied in Venice, they could make sure that the Accorambonis had no access to valuables closer to home. Cardinal de Medici had heard that Paolo Giordano had given Vittoria jewels and other valuables when he first whisked her from Rome to his villa at Magnanapoli a few days after Francesco’s murder. She had deposited these items with her sister Massimilla in the Tor de Specchi convent; religious houses often served as safe deposit boxes because nuns rarely stole anything. At the cardinal’s request, Sixtus put these items in escrow for the time being. No Orsini and no Accoramboni could lay their hands on them. The pope said he didn’t want so much as “a metal screw to leave the convent.”
¹³