The Family - Mario Puzo [127]
After several minutes they stopped in front of a heavy carved wooden door, and the cardinal knocked. An elderly man with crossed eyes, long gray hair, and a sly smile opened the door to let them in.
The cardinal introduced them. “Giovanni Costa, I bring the great Cesare Borgia, captain general, to see your statues.”
Gio Costa was effusive in his greeting, and enthusiastically led them through his shop to a courtyard filled with statues. Cesare looked around the cluttered workspace. On tables, and all over the dust-covered ground, there were arms, legs, unfinished busts, and other bits of half-sculpted marble. In the far corner of the courtyard, there was an object draped and covered with a cloth.
Curious, Cesare pointed to it. “What is over there?”
Costa led them to the covered piece. With great drama, and a grand sweeping motion, he whisked away the cover. “This is probably the most magnificent piece I have ever had in my possession.”
Cesare involuntarily drew in a breath as his eyes fell upon an exquisitely carved white marble Cupid. Its eyes were half closed, with full lips curved sweetly, its expression at once dreamlike and filled with longing. So translucent it seemed carved of light, with wings so delicate they made one believe that the cherub could take flight at will. The beauty of it, its sheer perfection, took his breath away.
“What is the price?” Cesare asked.
Costa pretended not to want to sell it. “When it becomes known that I have it,” he said, “the price will go through the sky.”
Cesare laughed and repeated, “How much will you take for it now?” He thought of Lucrezia, how she would love it.
“Today, for Your Eminence, only two thousand ducats,” he said.
Before Cesare could say anything, Cardinal Riario began to circle the piece, studying it closely, touching it. Then he turned to Costa and said, “My dear fellow, this is not an object of antiquity. My senses tell me it is something done quite recently.”
Costa said, “You have a good eye, Cardinal. I did not proclaim it to be an antique. But it was not finished yesterday, rather, last year. By a very talented young artist from Florence.”
The cardinal shook his head. “I have no interest in contemporary works; that is not what I collect. And certainly none at that exorbitant price. Come, Cesare, let’s go.”
But Cesare stood his ground, fascinated. Then, without further consultation or bickering, he said, “I don’t care what it costs or when it was carved; I must have it.”
Costa apologized. “The profit does not all belong to me, for I must send the artist and his representative their price. And transportation is costly . . . ”
Cesare smiled. “Your job is finished, for I already said I must have it. And so I will give you what you ask. Two thousand it is . . . ” he said. Then, as an afterthought, he asked, “What is the name of this young sculptor?”
“Buonarroti, Michelangelo Buonarroti. He shows some talent, yes?”
Rome was wild with rumors. First it was said that Cesare had struck down another brother, but once he denied it publicly that rumor was quickly replaced by another. Now the citizens gossiped that the Orsini, angered at Lucrezia’s governing of Nepi, had taken their revenge on her husband, an ally of their enemies, the Colonna.
But in the rooms of the Vatican there were other concerns. The Pope, hit by several bouts of syncope, was becoming weaker, so he had taken to his bed. Lucrezia, who had stayed at her husband’s side during his early recovery, now often left Sancia to care for her brother while Lucrezia ministered to her father. He seemed frail, and was comforted by her company.
“Tell me the truth, Papa,” she asked him one day. “You had no part in the attack on Alfonso, did you?”
“My sweet child,” Alexander said, sitting up in bed. “I would not lay a hand on the one who brought you such happiness. And that is why I have placed such security at his doors.”
Lucrezia was comforted knowing her father had not ordered the harm that had befallen her husband. But at the very moment that the Pope was reassuring