`Then we can't hope to be first. So we must be the biggest all means, Maria Giovanna, help Gino Capponi to persuade those old men to desert. You are so good with old: men.'
`Yes, mama.' Maria Giovanna wanted to be all the things her mother was. She wanted mama's instant brutality, the impatience of her greed, the sensations of her lusts, and her knowledge. Maria Giovanna often dreamed of hearing her mother's last will being read, to learn with exaltation that mama had left to her eldest daughter her soul.
`What of Ladislas's new war?’
'The new war will help everything,' the marchesa said contentedly. `It will show Cossa as the strongest of all of the cardinals, the only actual defender of the Church, out on the field of battle risking his life while the rest of them ponder the schism: in Pisa.'
23
The tiny, stately, neat-as-a-button Pope Benedict XIII descended with grace and splendour from the castle of Perpignan to the church de la Real to open his grand council on 15 November 1408. His nine cardinals were present, with four, patriarchs, three archbishops, thirty-three bishops and many prelates from Gascony, Savoy and Lorraine, Had there not been a royal prohibition on attendance at the council, there. would have been many more from France. Some did come in disguise to elude the guards set to stop them on the roads. Including the foreign ambassadors, there were fewer than 300 people present. The pope himself celebrated the mass, the Dominican Bishop of Oleron preached and King Martin of Aragon was the protector.
The first and second sessions were ceremonial but, at the opening of the third, Benedict rose and spoke on the importance of ecumenical councils, regretting that the Babylonian confusions of the time prevented him from calling one while he was under the domination of France. He had assembled this council, he told them, to reform the Church and to terminate the unfortunate schism. He explained that, in order to refute the lies which had been spread against him, he had written a full account of all of his works to date, which Cardinal de Chalant would now read.
It took from the third to the ninth session to get through the accounting.
On 21 November, the pope asked for the advice. of the assemblage as to his future conduct towards the resolution of the great schism, feeling that he might safely trust them with this inasmuch as the majority present were as Spanish as he was. The answers were supposed to be forthcoming on the 12 December but, due either to the difficulty of the question or to the long deliberation necessary, there was no reply until 1 February 1409. By that time, most of the members attending the council had departed. Only ten were left. They resolved that Benedict was free from all reproach for heresy or schism but that he should send a delegation to the forthcoming Council of Pisa empowered to effect his abdication in case of the removal of his rival, Gregory XII, for any cause.
The tiny, ancient, outraged pope answered them. `I shall do none of these things,' he said. He threatened to imprison Cardinal de Chalant, who led the delegation, in a place where he would never see the light of the sun again. In his reply to the world at large, and in particular to the delegation from Pisa who offered him safe conduct for thirteen months, he threatened to excommunicate anyone who took any measures to his prejudice or who dared to elect a new pope while, he was alive.
Meanwhile, at the New Year, 1409, the King of Naples had again maddened himself into a warlike intensity, urged on by Cardinal Spina, who called for the protection of his pope at Rome, the cardinal having been urged on by Rosa Dubramonte as her part in the marchesa's plan. For a handsome consideration, and to Cossa's consternation, Pope Gregory had transferred a deed to the papal states to Ladislas; and the king now had to attempt to take possession of the holding before reaching out to grab Florence„ Pisa and Bologna. In December he had amassed an army of 10,000 cavaliers and a large body of foot soldiers to march to besiege Baldassare Cossa at Bologna.
Cossa turned them back by March 1409, but Ladislas's army kept Cossa pinned down, preventing him from attending all but the last three sessions of the Council of Pisa, which opened in late March.
Nonetheless, and on a daily basis, the council was well advised of Cossa's sacrifices in their defence. They knew because the marchesa, her daughters and her agents told them that only Cossa's bravery and brilliance as the greatest soldier in Europe stood between them and their humiliation by a bloodthirsty king.
The lovely old city of Pisa was at this time under Florentine control, so anything which would bring money into the city was welcomed by the Medici. The Pisan duomo was one of the wonders of the world. Where could there be found so fitting an edifice for the meeting of such a council? Giovanni di Bicci di Medici marvelled.
After the war with Florence, which followed the transfer of the city by Gian Galeazzo Visconti to the Florentines, 6000 Pisans had joined Ladislas's army so there was plenty of accommodation for the congress of the spiritual and lay worlds. Embassies from England, France, Bohemia, Poland, Portugal and Cyprus attended. The entourages of the Dukes of Brabant, Anjou, Burgundy, Austria, Lorraine and Holland' were there. Almost every kingdom in Christendom was represented, except Scandinavia.
There were 18 cardinals in Pisa on the day before the council opened. 4 patriarchs, 10 archbishops, 70 bishops were on scene and 80 more represented, the leaders of 70 monasteries in addition to 120 who appeared by deputy, 300 abbotts and 200 masters of theology., The Universities of Oxford, Paris, Bologna and Prague were represented, together with the Generals of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers. Of the more than 600 ecclesiastics who were present, two fifths were French. The benevolent and guiding hand of Baldassare, Cardinal Cossa, was apparent in everything, as the marchesa and her agents reached out to all the holy men, spreading his messages. intentions, wishes and all, positive interpretations of these.
On the morning of 25 March 1409, the council assembled at the church of St Martin, south of the Arno river. Arrayed in their albs and copes, crowned with white mitres, the cardinals and prelates formed in procession and moved, lurching and swaying with lawyers' solemnity across the Ponte Vecchio until they turned off to the Piazza degli Anziani. Skirting the archbishop's palace, they reached the cathedral, which had been completed nearly 300 years before. On the long seat at the level of the great altar sat the cardinal bishops, the cardinal priests and the cardinal deacons. Behind them was a picture of Christ painted by Cimabue. Facing the cardinals were the royal ambassadors who were prelates. Behind them, on both sides of the nave, glorious with their layers of black and white marble, were the seats extending down to the door of the church for prelates in order of their seniority. Stools were provided for envoys from chapters and convents.
When all had taken their places, the mass of the Holy Spirit was celebrated by the aged Cardinal of Palestrina. The council was opened.
At the end of the second meeting, after the prelates had, knelt with their heads to the ground;, mitres before them, for the length of the miserere, after the deacon and sub-deacon had read the litany, after a prayer from the Cardinal' of Palestrina, they rose. The Cardinal of Salutes, habited as a deacon, read the Gospel. The Veni Creator was sung by the entire assembly, kneeling, then they put on their mitres and took their seats. The business of the council had begun.
The presiding cardinal deputed two cardinal bishops, two archbishops and two bishops to discover whether the popes, Benedict XIII and Gregory XII, were present at the council. Accompanied by notaries, they went to the doors of the cathedral and called out to Petrus da Luna and Angelus Corrario in Latin and in the vulgar that they in person, or their fully empowered protectors, should appear at once. The call was repeated three times without result.