Pope Leo died of an ulcer on the very first day of that year, and I believed for a while that it was already time for me to leave Rome, which became suddenly inhospitable without this attentive godfather, this generous protector, may the Heavens pour countless riches upon him, in the image of that which he always did himself!
I was not alone in thinking of leaving. Cardinal Julius exiled himself to Florence; Guicciardini took refuge in Modena, and all around me hundreds of writers, painters, sculptors and merchants, the most famous among them, prepared to desert the city as if it had been struck by the plague. In fact there was a brief epidemic, but the real plague was of another kind. Its name was declaimed out loud from the Borgo to Piazza Navona with the invariable epithet: Adrian the Barbarian.
The cardinals had elected him as if to repent. Too many accusations had been levelled against the papacy during the last pontificate, the Germans were supporting Luther’s theses by whole provinces, and Leo X was held responsible. Thus it was desired to change the face of the Church; the Florentine, the Medici who had become Pope at the age of thirty-eight and who had brought his taste for luxury and beauty to Rome, was succeeded by an austere Dutchman of sixty-three, ‘a saintly and virtuous man, boring, bald and miserly’. The description was Maddalena’s, who never had at any time the slightest sympathy for the new head of Christianity.
‘He reminds me too much of the abbess who persecuted me. He has the same narrow vision, the same desire to make a perpetual fast out of life, his own and the lives of others.’
At the beginning my own opinion had been less clear-cut. Although I had always been loyal towards my benefactor, certain aspects of Roman life wounded my inner faith. That a Pope should have declared, as Adrian had done, ‘I have a taste for poverty!’ was not displeasing to me, and the story which so amused the courtiers after the first week of his reign did not make me roar with laughter. Entering the Sistine Chapel, the new pontiff actually cried out at the sight of Michelangelo’s ceiling: This is not a church, but a steamroom crammed with naked bodies!’ adding that he had decided to cover these blasphemous figures with whitewash. By God, I could have let out the same cry. Mixing frequently with the Romans had removed certain of my prejudices against painting, the nude, and sculpture. But not in places of worship. Such were my feelings at the accession of Adrian VI. It is true that I was not yet aware that this former tutor of Charles V had been inquisitor of Aragon and Navarre before his arrival in Rome. In a few weeks he made a complete Medici out of me, if not by the nobility of my origins at least by the nobility of my aspirations.
This Pope began by abolishing all the pensions initiated by Leo X, including my own. He also cancelled all orders for pictures, sculptures, books, and building construction. In every sermon he fulminated against art, that of the Ancients as well as that of contemporaries, against feasting, pleasure and expenditure. From one day to the next, Rome became nothing but a dead city, where nothing was created, built, or sold. In justification of his decision, the new Pope pointed to the debts accumulated by his predecessor, judging that the money had been wasted. ‘With the sums squandered on the reconstruction of St Peter,’ members of Adrian’s circle used to say, ‘a crusade could have been armed against the Turks; a whole regiment of cavalry could have been equipped with the money given to Raphael.’
Since my arrival in Rome I had often heard talk of the crusades, even from the mouth of Leo X. But this was evidently some sort of ritual which had no real meaning, rather like the way in which certain Muslim princes talk about jihad to embarrass an adversary or to calm down some false bigot. It was quite otherwise with Adrian, may God curse him and all religious fanatics! He firmly believed that by mobilizing Christianity against Islam he would put an end to the Lutheran schism and would reconcile the Emperor Charles with the King of France.
The suppression of my pension and a call for universal bloodletting: there was certainly enough there to rid me of any desire to acclaim this Pope. And to prompt me to leave Rome as quickly as possible for Florence, whither Cardinal Julius had encouraged me to follow him.
I would probably have joined him had Maddalena not been pregnant. I had rented a three-storeyed house in the Pontine quarter. On the top floor there was a kitchen, on the second floor a living room with my desk, and on the ground floor a large bedroom which gave out on to a kitchen garden. It was in that room that my first son was born one July evening, whom I called Guiseppe, that is to say Yusuf, like the father of the Messiah, like the son of Jacob, like Sultan Salah al-Din. My wonderment was boundless. I stayed for hours caressing the child and his mother, watching them in their daily activities, particularly suckling, which never ceased to move me. So I had no desire to drag them on to the painful roads of exile. Neither towards Florence nor even towards Tunis, as was suggested to me that year, in curious circumstances.
One day I was in Cardinal Julius’ house, shortly before his departure for Tuscany, when a young painter introduced himself to him. He was called Manolo, I think, and came from Naples, where he had acquired a certain reputation. He hoped to sell his paintings before going back to his city. It was not unusual for an artist to come from afar to see the Medici, as everyone who knocked at his door could be sure that they would not leave empty-handed. This Neapolitan unrolled several canvases, of uneven quality, it seemed to me. I looked at them absent-mindedly, when all of a sudden I jumped. A portrait was just passing in front of me, quickly put away by Manolo with a gesture of irritation.
‘May I see that picture again?’ I asked.
‘Certainly, but it is not for sale. I brought it by mistake. It was ordered by a merchant and I must deliver it to him.’
Those curved lines, that matt complexion, that beard, that smile of eternal satisfaction… There could be no mistake! I still had to ask:
‘What is the name of this man?’
‘Master Abbado. He is one of the richest shipowners in Naples.’
‘Abbad the Soussi! I murmured a good-humoured curse.
‘Will you see him soon?’
‘He is often on his travels between May and September, but he spends the winter in his villa beside Santa Lucia.’
Taking a sheet of paper, I hastily scribbled a message for my companion. And, two months later, ‘Abbad arrived at my house in a carriage, accompanied by three servants. Had he been my own brother I would not have been happier to embrace him!
‘I left you in chains at the bottom of a ship’s hold; I meet up with you again and you are prosperous and resplendent.’
‘Al-hamdu l’illah! al-hamdu l’illah! God has been generous towards me!’
‘Not more so than you deserve! I can testify that even at the worst moments you never said a word against Providence.’
I was sincere. Nevertheless I could not keep my curiosity completely intact.
‘How did you manage to extricate yourself so quickly?’
‘Thanks to my mother, may God bless the earth that covers her! She always used to repeat this sentence to me which I eventually knew by heart: a man is never without resources as long as he has a tongue in his head. It is true that I was sold as a slave, my hands in chains and a ball and chain at my feet, but my tongue was not chained up. A merchant bought me, whom I served loyally, giving him all sorts of advice, enabling him to profit from my experience of the Mediterranean. In that way he made so much money that he set me free at the end of the first year and made me a partner in his business.’
When I seemed astonished that things had been so easy, he shrugged his shoulders.