Page 1 of The Medici Return

PROLOGUE

CATHEDRAL OFST. MARY OFTHEASSUMPTION

SIENA, ITALY

MAY9, 1512

GIULIANO DILORENZO DE’MEDICI KNEW THIS WAS HIS FAMILY’S LASTchance at redemption. A single attempt. That is all fate would allow. Their legacy was one of risk and reward but, of late, only failure had come their way. He was thirty-three years old and the titular head of the ancient Medici clan, the great-grandson of Cosimo de’ Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Quite a pedigree. And quite the accomplishment for a third son. Since 1494 he and his entire family had lived in exile, banned from his beloved Florence, stripped of all rights and titles as punishment for his older brother’s grave political mistake.

“Piero was a fool,” Pope Julius II bellowed. “Feeble, arrogant, undisciplined. We knew him.”

An insult? For sure. But not a lie.

The Medicis had effectively ruled Florence since the start of the fifteenth century. Piero assumed the family leadership in 1492 when their father, Lorenzo, died. Two years later Charles VIII of France crossed the Alps with an army, intent on conquering the Kingdom of Naples. To get there, though, Charles had to pass through Tuscany, so he sought out Piero to both support his claim to Naples and allow his army to pass. Piero, ever the arrogant fool as the pope had just described, waited five days before responding that Florence would remain neutral in the conflict.

Which enraged Charles.

So the French invaded Tuscany.

Piero attempted to mount a resistance, but he received little support from the Florentine elite, who had no taste for war. Eventually Piero, on his own, met with Charles and acceded to every French demand, including surrendering control of key Florentine fortresses and towns. His attempts at a negotiated peace were met with outrage and the Medici were forced to flee, the family’s grand palazzo in Florence looted and burned. Piero, for all his mistakes, acquired an insulting moniker.

The Unfortunate.

To say the least.

“My brother has been dead nine years,” he calmly said to Julius. “Drowned after the Battle of Garigliano.”

“And you were but a boy at the exile, a gifted youth I am told, moving from court to court, searching for a home.”

“That is true. But now I am grown and do not intend to repeat my brother’s mistakes.”

The pope pointed a finger his way. “What you wish, is a reprieve.”

He let the insult pass and merely said, “We simply want to return to our home.”

The Medici started as farmers, from the Mugello region north of Florence, who tended their vines and oxen. The origin of the family name remained a mystery.Mediciwas the plural ofmedico, medical doctor, yet there were no healers in the lineage. Instead, they became bankers, insanely wealthy, connected to most of the other elite families—the Bardi, Altoviti, Ridolfi, Cavalcanti, and Tornabuoni—through marriages of convenience, business partnerships, or employment. They were the spoke of the wheel, thegran maestro, unofficial heads of the Florentine republic for over a hundred years.

Until Piero the Unfortunate’s mistake.

“Come closer, Medici,” Julius said, adding a wave of his arm.

The pope sat on a marble seat beneath the cathedral’s unique octagonal pulpit. Eight granite and marble columns supportedsculpted scenes that narrated the life of Christ, the message one of salvation and the last judgment. Fitting for this confrontation.

Giuliano stepped forward, but stopped a comfortable distance away. He’d been advised not to approach too close. His spies had also reported that the pope, nearing seventy years old, was riddled with gout and syphilis, in constant pain. The old man’s head hung bent with exhaustion, the brow still high and wide above a large and pugnacious nose. A beard fell from the chin, a sign he’d been told of Julius’ personal mourning of his recent military loss of the city of Bologna. Beards had been forbidden by canon law for centuries but, as was common with Julius, he lived by a different set of rules.

The pope had been born near Savona in the Republic of Genoa, of the House of della Rovere, a noble but impoverished family, then educated by his uncle, a Franciscan monk. He rose to be a cardinal at age twenty-eight thanks to his uncle, who became Pope Sixtus IV, and steadily climbed within the church through three more pontificates until finally claiming the throne of St. Peter in 1503.

A soldier in a cassockwas how Julius had come to be described.Terribilità, awe inspiring, that’s what the Italians called him. One of the most dynamic personalities to ever reach the papal chair. Nothing of a priest existed about him except for the dress and name. Never much of a diplomat, always a warrior. Plain-spoken to the point of rudeness, he belonged to a class of men who simply did not rest. Every moment, every thought was geared to a purpose. He drank, swore, was willful, coarse, bad-tempered, and impossible to manage. Yet he was also incapable of baseness or vindictiveness and he despised informers. Everywhere he saw and sought greatness. His faults arose from his relentless candor and uncontrollable temper, both of which Giuliano had to guard against.

“Medici,” Julius said, “people are flattering us, telling us grand things, but we know better. We cannot stand on our feet for more than a few moments. Walking has become a chore. Food isrevolting. The trip here today took all the energy we have, and our strength diminishes from day to day. Pain is a constant companion. We will not live much longer.”

He refused to take that bait. He knew that Julius had been near death before, the latest incident a few months back when he supposedly lay dying and the cardinals began openly plotting his succession. But the old man had rebounded thanks to that famed iron constitution. And many of those cardinals had been fired or dismissed. They learned the hard way not to assume a man of Julius’ power and strength would die easily. Better to wait until the body was cold and in the ground. But for what Giuliano had in mind for the Medici family, he needed Julius alive, strong, and feared.

“Did you travel here from Urbino or Venice?” the pope asked.

“Venice, Holiness.”

“But that is not your home.”

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