I SHALL skip over some intervening circumstances, and tell how Pope
Clement, wishing to save the tiaras and the whole collection of the
great jewels of the Apostolic Camera, had me called, and shut himself up
together with me and the Cavalierino in a room alone. [1] This
cavalierino had been a groom in the stable of Filippo Strozzi; he was
French, and a person of the lowest birth; but being a most faithful
servant, the Pope had made him very rich, and confided in him like
himself. So the Pope, the Cavaliere, and I, being shut up together, they
laid before me the tiaras and jewels of the regalia; and his Holiness
ordered me to take all the gems out of their gold settings. This I
accordingly did; afterwards I wrapt them separately up in bits of paper
and we sewed them into the linings of the Pope’s and the Cavaliere’s
clothes. Then they gave me all the gold, which weighed about two hundred
pounds, and bade me melt it down as secretly as I was able. I went up to
the Angel, where I had my lodging, and could lock the door so as to be
free from interruption. There I built a little draught-furnace of
bricks, with a largish pot, shaped like an open dish, at the bottom of
it; and throwing the gold upon the coals, it gradually sank through and
dropped into the pan. While the furnace was working I never left off
watching how to annoy our enemies; and as their trenches were less than
a stone’s-throw right below us, I was able to inflict considerable
damage on them with some useless missiles, [2] of which there were
several piles, forming the old munition of the castle. I chose a swivel
and a falconet, which were both a little damaged in the muzzle, and
filled them with the projectiles I have mentioned. When I fired my guns,
they hurtled down like mad, occasioning all sorts of unexpected mischief
in the trenches. Accordingly I kept these pieces always going at the
same time that the gold was being melted down; and a little before
vespers I noticed some one coming along the margin of the trench on
muleback. The mule was trotting very quickly, and the man was talking to
the soldiers in the trenches. I took the precaution of discharging my
artillery just before he came immediately opposite; and so, making a
good calculation, I hit my mark. One of the fragments struck him in the
face; the rest were scattered on the mule, which fell dead. A tremendous
uproar rose up from the trench; I opened fire with my other piece, doing
them great hurt. The man turned out to be the Prince of Orange, who was
carried through the trenches to a certain tavern in the neighbourhood,
whither in a short while all the chief folk of the army came together.
When Pope Clement heard what I had done, he sent at once to call for me,
and inquired into the circumstance. I related the whole, and added that
the man must have been of the greatest consequence, because the inn to
which they carried him had been immediately filled by all the chiefs of
the army, so far at least as I could judge. The Pope, with a shrewd
instinct, sent for Messer Antonio Santacroce, the nobleman who, as I
have said, was chief and commander of the gunners. He bade him order all
us bombardiers to point our pieces, which were very numerous, in one
mass upon the house, and to discharge them all together upon the signal
of an arquebuse being fired. He judged that if we killed the generals,
the army, which was already almost on the point of breaking up, would
take flight. God perhaps had heard the prayers they kept continually
making, and meant to rid them in this manner of those impious scoundrels.
We put our cannon in order at the command of Santacroce, and waited for
the signal. But when Cardinal Orsini [3] became aware of what was going
forward, he began to expostulate with the Pope, protesting that the
thing by no means ought to happen, seeing they were on the point of
concluding an accommodation, and that if the generals were killed, the
rabble of the troops without a leader would storm the castle and
complete their utter ruin. Consequently they could by no means allow the
Pope’s plan to be carried out. The poor Pope, in despair, seeing himself
assassinated both inside the castle and without, said that he left them
to arrange it. On this, our orders were countermanded; but I, who chafed
against the leash, [4] when I knew that they were coming round to bid me
stop from firing, let blaze one of my demi-cannons, and struck a pillar
in the courtyard of the house, around which I saw a crowd of people
clustering. This shot did such damage to the enemy that it was like to
have made them evacuate the house. Cardinal Orsini was absolutely for
having me hanged or put to death; but the Pope took up my cause with
spirit. The high words that passed between them, though I well know what
they were, I will not here relate, because I make no profession of
writing history. It is enough for me to occupy myself with my own
affairs.
Note 1. This personage cannot be identified. The Filippo Strozzi
mentioned as having been his master was the great opponent of the
Medicean despotism, who killed himself in prison after the defeat of
Montemurlo in 1539. He married in early life a daughter of Piero de’
Medici.