Leo Africanus

~ ~ ~

I no longer saw land, nor sea, nor sun, nor the end of the journey. My tongue was salty, my head felt sick, misty and painful. The hold in which I had been thrown smelled of dead rats, mouldy planks and the bodies of the captives who had haunted it before me.

So I was a slave, my son, and my blood felt the shame. I whose ancestors had trodden the soil of Europe as conquerors, would be sold to some prince, some rich merchant from Palermo, Naples or Ragusa, or, even worse, to some Castilian who would make me drink all the humiliation of Granada every minute.

Near me, weighed down by the same chains, the same ball, ‘Abbad the Soussi lay upon the dust, like the most wretched of servants. I looked at him, a mirror of my own decline. Yesterday he was still proudly strutting about on the bridge of his caravel, distributing kicks and laughter, and the entire sea was not broad enough for him, nor the swell sufficiently raging.

I sighed noisily. My companion in misfortune, whom I thought was asleep, replied without even opening his eyes:

‘Al-hamdu l’illah! al-hamdu l’illah! Let us thank God for all his blessings!’

This was hardly the moment for me to blaspheme. So I confined myself to saying:

‘Let us give thanks to Him at all times. But what would you like to thank Him for at this very moment?’

‘For having spared me from rowing like these unfortunate galley slaves whose moaning breath I can hear. I also give thanks to Him for having left me alive, and in good company. Are these not three excellent reasons for saying al-hamdu l’illah!’

He sat up:

‘I never ask from God that He should preserve me from calamities; only that He should keep me from despair. Have faith; when the Most High leaves go of you with one hand, He catches hold of you with the other.’

‘Abbad spoke the truth, my son, more so than he thought. Had I not left the right hand of God at Mecca? At Rome I was going to live in the hollow of His left hand!

The Year of San Angelo

925 A.H.

3 January 1519 — 22 December 1519

My abductor was a man of renown and of pious fears. Pietro Bovadiglia, a venerable Sicilian pirate, already in his sixties, several times a murderer, and fearing to offer up his soul in a state of plunder, had felt the need to make reparation for his crimes through an offering to God. Or rather through a gift to His representative on that side of the Mediterranean, Leo X, sovereign and pontiff of Rome, commander of Christianity.

The gift for the Pope was myself, presented with ceremony on Sunday 14 February for the feast of St Valentine. I had been forewarned of this the previous evening, and I had stayed with my back leaning against the wall of my cell until dawn, unable to sleep, listening to the ordinary noises of the city, the laughter of a watchman, some object falling into the Tiber, the cries of a newborn baby, disproportionate in the dark silence. Since arriving in Rome I often used to suffer from insomnia, and I eventually came to guess what it was that made the hours so oppressive; far worse than the absence of freedom, or the absence of a woman was the absence of the muezzin. I had never previously lived thus, week after week, in a city where the call to prayer did not rise up, punctuating time, filling space, reassuring men and walls.

I must have been shut up in the castle for a good month. After the dreadful sea journey and countless stops, I had been landed, without ‘Abbad, on a quayside in Naples, the most populous of the cities of Italy, and then driven alone to Rome by road. I was only to see my companion three years later, in curious circumstances.

I was still in chains, but, to my great surprise, Bovadiglia thought it well to apologize:

‘We are in Spanish territory. If the soldiers were to see a Moor without chains, they would attack him.’

The respectful tone let me hope that from now on I would be less harshly treated, an impression which was confirmed after my arrival at Castel San Angelo, an imposing cylindrical fortress to which I had been brought up by a spiral ramp. I was put into a little room, furnished with a bed, a chair and a wooden trunk, as if it was a modest hostelry rather than a prison, apart from the heavy door, duly padlocked from the outside.

Ten days later, I received a visitor. Seeing the attentiveness with which the guards welcomed him, I understood that he was a close associate of the Pope. He was a Florentine, Master Francesco Guicciardini, governor of Modena and a diplomat in His Holiness’ service. I gave my own personal particulars, my names, titles and distinguished achievements, not leaving out any of my missions, however compromising, from Timbuktu to Constantinople. He seemed delighted. We spoke to each other in Castilian, a language which I understood well enough but in which I could only express myself with difficulty. So he made himself speak slowly, and when I apologized politely for the inconvenience which my ignorance involved, he replied with great courtesy:

‘I do not myself know Arabic, which is nevertheless spoken all round the Mediterranean. I should also present my excuses.’

Encouraged by his attitude, I uttered several words of vulgar Italian, that is to say Tuscan, as well as I could, at which we both laughed together. After that, I promised him in a tone of friendly defiance:

‘Before the end of the year, I shall speak your language. Not as well as you, but sufficiently to make myself understood.’

He acknowledged this by a motion of his head, while I continued:

‘However, there are some habits which I shall need time to acquire. Particularly the Europeans’ way of addressing the person they are speaking to as “you”, as if there were several people, or “she” as if to a woman who is not there. In Arabic we use the familiar you to everyone, prince or servant.’

The diplomat paused, not so much to think, it seemed to me, but rather to invest the words which were going to come with due solemnity. He was sitting on the only chair in the room, dressed in a red bonnet which outlined the shape of his head, giving him the air of a conspirator. I was sitting on the trunk, a pace away from him. He leaned over, pointing a predatory nose in my direction.

‘Master Hassan, your coming here is important, supremely important. I cannot say more to you about it, because the secret belongs to the Holy Father, and he alone will be able to reveal it to you when he judges it opportune. But do not think that your adventure is due to pure chance, or to the innocent caprice of a corsair.’

He pondered:

‘I am not saying that the good Bovadiglia has crossed the seas in search of you. Not at all. But he knew what sort of Moor should be presented to the Holy Father: a traveller, an educated man. More than this, he has alighted upon a diplomat. We were not hoping for so much.’

Should I have felt flattered to be such a good catch? In any case, I showed neither pleasure nor annoyance. Above all, I was greatly intrigued, and intent on knowing more about it. But Guicciardini was already getting up.

He had scarcely left when an officer of the guard came into my cell to ask me whether I needed anything. Boldly, I asked for clean clothes, a little table, a lamp, and something to write with, which I obtained in the course of the day. That very evening, the character of the meals changed: instead of beans and lentils I had meat and lasagne, with red wine from Trebbiato, which I drank in moderation.

The Florentine did not take long to convey to me the news for which I was hoping: the Pope was going to receive me, from the hands of Pietro Bovadiglia. The pirate and the diplomat arrived together in front of the door of my cell on St Valentine’s day. The Pope was waiting for us in the castle itself, in the library. Bursting with fervour, Bovadiglia threw himself at his feet; Guicciardini helped him to get up, confining himself to a deferential but brief kiss of the hand. I came towards him in my turn. Leo X was motionless on his armchair, his face clean-shaven, all round and pleasant, his chin pierced with a dimple, his lips thick, particularly his lower lip, his eyes at once reassuring and inquiring, his fingers smooth with the smoothness of one who has never worked with his hands. Behind him, standing up, was a priest who turned out to be an interpreter.

The Pope put the palms of both hands on my bowed back, whether as a sign of affection or of taking possession I do not know, before saying a few words of thanks for the pirate’s benefit. I was still kneeling, kept thus deliberately by my new master who only permitted me to get up when the Florentine had led my kidnapper outside. For them, the audience was at an end; for me, it was just beginning. In an Arabic strongly tinged with Castilian turns of phrase, the interpreter conveyed to me:

‘A man of art and learning is always welcome among Us, not as a servant but as a protégé. It is true that your arrival in this place has taken place against your will and through means which We cannot approve. But the world is so made that vice is often the arm of virtue, that the best acts are often undertaken for the worst reasons and the worst acts for the best reasons. Thus Our predecessor, Pope Julius, had recourse to a war of conquest in order to endow our Holy Church with a territory where it can feel itself safe….’

He broke off, realizing that he was going to make reference to a debate of whose basic premises I was entirely ignorant. I took advantage of this to venture a timid opinion:

‘In my view, there is nothing scandalous in that. The caliphs, the successors of the Prophet, have always commanded armies and governed states.’

He listened to the translation with unexpected interest. And hastened to question me:

‘Has it always been thus?’

‘Until the moment when the sultans supplanted them. The caliphs have since then been confined to their palaces.’

‘Was that a good thing?’

The Pope seemed to attach great importance to my opinion. I thought very hard before expressing myself.

‘I do not think that it was. As long as the caliphs were rulers, Islam was radiant with culture. Religion reigned peaceably over the affairs of this world. Since then, it is force which rules, and the faith is often nothing but a sword in the hands of the sultan.’

My interlocutor was so satisfied that he called his interpreter to witness:

‘I have always thought that my glorious predecessor was correct. Without his own army, the pope would only be the chaplain of the most powerful king. One is sometimes forced to make use of the same arms as one’s enemies, to go through the same compromises.’

He pointed his index finger towards me.

‘What you say gives Us comfort. Bovadiglia has been very lucky. Are you ready to serve Us?’

I mumbled some words of acquiescence. He acknowledged this, not without a somewhat ironic grimace:

‘Let us accept with resignation the decrees of Providence!’

Before continuing, speaking faster, with the interpreter barely keeping up with him:

‘Our adviser, Master Guicciardini, has spoken briefly about the importance of that which we expect from you. We shall speak about it to you again when the time comes. Know only that you arrive in this blessed city at the most difficult moment in all its history. Rome is threatened with destruction. Tomorrow, when you walk through this city, you will feel that it is growing and becoming more attractive, just as, on the branch of a majestic old tree which has dried up a few buds burst forth, a few green leaves, a few flowers resplendent with light. Everywhere, the best painters, the best sculptors, writers, musicians, artisans, produce the finest works under Our protection. Spring has just begun, but winter already approaches. Death already lies in wait. It lies in wait for us from all quarters. From which side will it reach us? With which sword will it strike us? God alone knows, unless He wishes to take such a bitter cup from Our lips.’

‘God is great!’ I said spontaneously.

‘God protect us from all the sultans!’ the Pope went further, his expression suddenly joyful.

That day, the interview went no further. Leo X promised to call me again. On returning to my cell, I found that new directives concerning me had been issued: my door would no longer be locked before nightfall, and I could wander as I pleased within the walls of the castle.

When I saw the Pope again a week later he had prepared a serious programme especially for me. Henceforth my time was to be divided between study and teaching. One bishop would teach me Latin, another the catechism, a third the Gospel and the Hebrew tongue; an Armenian priest would give me Turkish lessons every morning. For my part, I had to teach Arabic to seven pupils. For this I would receive a salary of one ducat each month. Without my having expressed the slightest protest, my benefactor admitted with a laugh that it was a refined form of forced labour, adding however that this programme was proof of his own enthusiastic interest in me. I thanked him and promised to do my best to show myself in no way unworthy.

Henceforth, he would summon me each month, alone or with my teachers to test the state of my knowledge, particularly of the catechism. In his mind the date of my baptism was already fixed, as well as the name which I should bear.

My year’s captivity was thus without pain for the body and highly profitable for the mind. From one day to another I felt my knowledge increase, not only in the subjects which I studied but equally from the contact with my teachers, and with my pupils, two Aragonese priests, two Frenchmen, two Venetians, and a German from Saxony. It was the latter who first mentioned in front of me the increasingly bitter quarrel which had set Leo X against the monk Luther, an event which was already threatening to cover the whole of Europe with fire and blood and which was going to bring upon Rome the most heinous of calamities.

The Year of the Heretics

926 A.H.

23 December 1519 — 12 December 1520

‘What is the Pope for? What are the cardinals for? What God is worshipped in this city of Rome, entirely given over to its luxuries and pleasures?’

Such were the words of my German pupil Hans, in religion Brother Augustine, who pursued me right into the antechamber of Leo X to win me over to the doctrines of the monk Luther, while I entreated him to keep silent if he did not wish to end his days at the stake.

Blond, bony, brilliant and obstinate, Hans would take a pamphlet or a brochure out of his bag after each lesson, which he would begin to translate and comment upon, pestering me incessantly to know what I thought about it. My reply was invariably the same:

‘Whatever my feelings might be, I cannot betray my protector.’

Hans seemed upset, but not at all discouraged, and would return to the charge after the next lesson.

He realized that I listened to his words without annoyance. To certain of them at least, which sometimes brought back to my memory a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, prayers and blessings upon him! Does Luther not commend the removal of all statues from places of worship, considering that they are objects of idolatry? ‘The angels do not enter into a house where there is a dog or a figurative representation,’ the Messenger of God has said in a well-attested hadith. Does Luther not say that Christianity is none other than the community of the believers, and ought not to be reduced to a Church hierarchy? Does he not affirm that the Holy Scripture is the sole foundation of the Faith? Does he not hold up the celibacy of the priesthood to ridicule? Does he not teach that no man can escape from that which his Creator has ordained for him? The Prophet has not said otherwise to the Muslims.

In spite of these similarities, it was impossible for me to follow my own rational inclinations on this subject. A ferocious struggle was taking place between Leo X and Luther, and I could not give my support to someone unknown to me at the expense of the man who had taken me under his wing and had treated me thereafter as if he was my progenitor.

Of course I was not the only one to whom the Pope said ‘My son’, but he said it differently to me. He had given me his two first names, John and Leo, as well as the name of his distinguished family, the Medicis, all with pomp and solemnity, on 6 January 1520, a Friday, in the new basilica of St Peter, still unfinished. On that day it was crammed with cardinals, bishops, ambassadors and numerous protégés of Leo X, poets, painters, sculptors, glittering with brocade, pearls and precious stones. Even Raphael of Urbino was there, the divine Raphael as the admirers of his art used to call him, not seeming in any way weakened by the disease which was to carry him off three months later.

The Pope was triumphant beneath his tiara:

‘On this day of Epiphany, when we celebrate the baptism of Christ at the hands of John the Baptist, and when we also celebrate, according to Tradition, the arrival of the three Magi from Arabia to adore Our Lord, what greater happiness could there be for us than to welcome, into the bosom of Our Holy Church, a new Magian King, come from the furthest corners of Barbary to make his offering in the House of Peter!’

Kneeling facing the altar, clad in a long white woollen cloak, I was bemused by the odour of incense and crushed by so many undeserved honours. None of the people assembled in this place was unaware that this ‘Magian King’ had been captured on a summer night by a pirate on a beach in Jerba, and brought to Rome as a slave. Everything which was said about me and everything which was happening to me was so insane, so immoderate, so grotesque! Wasn’t I the victim of some bad dream, some mirage? Wasn’t I really in a mosque in Fez, Cairo or Timbuktu, as on every Friday, my mind affected by a long sleepless night? Suddenly, in the heart of my doubts, the voice of the Pope rose again, addressing me:

‘And you, Our well-beloved son John-Leo, whom Providence has singled out among all men…’

John-Leo! Johannes Leo! Never had anyone in my family been called thus! Long after the end of the ceremony I was still turning the letters and syllables over and over in my head and on my tongue, now in Latin, now in Italian. Leo. Leone. It is a curious habit which men have, thus to give themselves the names of the wild beasts which terrify them, rarely those of the animals which are devoted to them. People want to be called wolf, but not dog. Will it happen to me one day that I shall forget Hasan and look at myself in a mirror and say: ‘Leo, you have shadows under your eyes?’ To tame my new name I soon arabized it; Johannes Leo became Yuhanna al-Asad. That is the signature which can be seen under the works which I have written at Rome and at Bologna. But regular visitors to the papal court, somewhat surprised by the belated birth of a brown and fuzzy Medici, immediately gave me the additional surname of Africanus, the African, to distinguish me from my saintly adoptive father. Perhaps also to prevent him making me a cardinal as he had done for most of his male cousins, some at the age of fourteen.

On the evening of the baptism, the Pope called me to him. He began by telling me that I was henceforth a free man, but that I could continue to live in the castle while I found lodgings outside, adding that he was anxious that I should continue to pursue my studies and my teaching with the same assiduity. Then he took a tiny book from a table which he placed like a host on my open palm. As I opened it I saw that it was written in Arabic.

‘Read it out loud, my son!’

I did so, leafing through the pages with great care:

‘Book of the prayers of the hours… completed on 12 September 1514… in the town of Fano under the auspices of His Holiness Pope Leo —’

My protector interrupted me in a trembling and unsteady voice:

‘This is the first book in the Arabic language which has ever come off a printing press. When you return to your own people, take it carefully with you.’

In his eyes, I saw that he knew that I would go away again one day. He seemed so moved that I could not prevent my own tears from flowing. I bent to kiss his hand. He pressed me to himself and embraced me like a real father. By God, I have loved him since that moment, in spite of the ceremony which he had just inflicted upon me. That a man of such power, so venerated by Christians in Europe and elsewhere, should be so moved at the sight of a tiny book in Arabic, produced in the workshops of some Jewish printer, seemed to me worthy of the caliphs before the age of decadence, such as al-Ma’mun, the son of Harun al-Rashid, may the Most High bestow His mercy upon the one and the other.

When, on the morrow of this interview, I left the walls of my prison for the first time, free, my arms swinging, when I walked across the bridge of San Angelo towards the Ponte quarter, I had no feelings of resentment or bitterness about my captivity any more. A few weeks of heavy chains, a few months of soft servitude, and lo and behold I had become a traveller again, a migrant creature, as in all the lands where I had sojourned and obtained, for a while, pleasures and honours. What a lot of streets, of monuments, men and women I longed to discover, I who in a year knew of Rome only the cylindrical silhouette of Castel San Angelo and the endless corridor which connected it with the Vatican!

I was probably wrong to let myself be accompanied on my first visit by the irrepressible Hans. I immediately made my way straight ahead, towards the Via dei Banchi Vecchi before turning left into the famous Via del Pellegrino, to admire the shop windows of the goldsmiths and the displays of the silk merchants. I would have stayed there for hours, but my German was becoming impatient. Eventually he pulled me by the sleeve, like a hungry child. I forced myself, even apologizing for my frivolity. Were there not so many churches, palaces and monuments to admire in our neighbourhood? Or perhaps he wanted to take me to the Piazza Navona, quite close by, where, it was said, there was a ceaseless spectacle, of tumblers at least, at all times?

Hans was not thinking about any of this. He led me through narrow alleyways, where it was impossible to pass without stepping over heaps of rubbish. Then, in the darkest and most foul-smelling place, he stopped dead. We were surrounded by filthy, skeletal idlers. From a window, a woman called us to join her in exchange for a few quattrini. I felt terrible, but Hans did not move. As I glared at him he thought it as well to explain:

‘I want you to keep this vision of wretchedness constantly in front of you when you see how the princes of the Church live, all those cardinals who own three palaces each, where they compete in sumptuousness and debauchery, where they organize feast after feast, with twelve kinds of fish, eight salads, five sorts of sweets. And the Pope himself? Have you seen him having the elephant which the King of Portugal gave him paraded up and down with great pride? Have you seen him throw gold pieces at his jesters? Have you seen him hunting on his estate at Magliana, in long leather boots, riding behind a bear or a wild boar, surrounded by his sixty-eight dogs? Have you seen his falcons and goshawks, brought for gold from Candia and Armenia?’

I understood his sentiment but his behaviour annoyed me:

‘Show me rather the monuments of ancient Rome, those of which Cicero and Livy have spoken!’

My young friend seemed triumphant. Without saying a word, he started to walk once more, with such a firm step that I barely managed to keep up with him. When he decided to come to a halt, half an hour later, we had left the last inhabited streets far behind us. We were in the middle of a vast empty space.

‘Here was the Roman Forum, the heart of the old city, surrounded by bustling quarters; today it is called the Campo Vaccino! And, in front of us, do you see Monte Palatino, and over there, to the east, behind the Coliseum, Monte Esquilino? They have been empty for years! Rome is no more than a large market town camping out on the site of a majestic city. Do you know what its population is today? Eight thousand souls, nine thousand at most.’

That was far fewer than Fez, Tunis, or Tlemcen.

Going back towards the castle, I noticed that the sun was still high in the sky, so I thought it as well to suggest to my guide to take a walk in the direction of St Peter’s, going through the fine quarter of Borgo. We had hardly arrived in front of the basilica when Hans launched once more into a crazy diatribe:

‘Do you know how the Pope wants to finish building this church? By taking the Germans’ money.’

Several passers-by were already congregating around us.

‘I have visited enough monuments for today,’ I begged him. ‘We shall come back another time.’

And, without waiting for him for a single moment, I ran to take refuge in the calm of my former prison, vowing never to go walking around Rome with a Lutheran guide.

On my next visit I chanced to have Guicciardini as companion, who had just returned from a long visit to Modena. I imparted to him my deep disappointment, particularly after my visit to the Campo Vaccino. He did not seem particularly affected by it.

‘Eternal city, Rome, but with lapses,’ he declared with wise resignation.

Before continuing:

‘Holy city, but full of impieties; idle city, but one which gives the world a masterpiece every day.’

It was a joy for the spirit to walk alongside Guicciardini, to take in his impressions, his comments, his confidences. However, there were certain inconveniences: thus, to get from the Castel San Angelo to the new palace of Cardinal Farnese, less than a mile away, took us nearly two hours, so great was the fame of my companion. Some people greeted him as they passed by, while others dismounted in order to engage him in long private conversations. Having extricated himself, the Florentine would return to my side with a word of apology: ‘That is a fellow countryman who has recently set up in Rome’, or ‘That is an extremely influential bursar’, ‘That is the postmaster of the King of France’, and even, on two occasions, ‘That is the bastard of Cardinal So and So.’

I had shown no surprise. Hans had already explained to me that in the capital of the Popes, though teeming with men of religion, nuns and pilgrims from all countries, the mistresses of the princes of the Church had palaces and servants, that their offspring were destined for the highest posts, that priests of lower rank had their concubines or courtesans, whom they flaunted without shame in the streets.

‘Lust is less of a scandal than sumptuous living,’ said Guicciardini, as if he had followed the development of my thoughts step by step.

He continued:

‘The lifestyle of the prelates of Rome costs vasts sums, while nothing is produced in this city of clerics! Everything is bought in Florence, Venice, Milan and elsewhere. In order to finance the excesses of this city, the Popes have started to sell ecclesiastical titles: ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand ducats for a cardinal. Everything is for sale here, even the post of steward! As that was still not enough, they started to sell indulgences to the wretched Germans! If you pay, your sins are forgiven! In short, the Holy Father is seeking to sell off Paradise. It was in this way that the quarrel with Luther began.’

‘So this monk was right.’

‘In one sense, yes. Except that I cannot help thinking that the money collected in such a questionable fashion goes towards the completion of the Basilica of St Peter, and that part of it is devoted not to banquets but to the noblest creations of the human spirit. Hundreds of writers and artists are producing masterpieces in Rome before which the Ancients would turn pale with envy. A world is in the process of being reborn, with a new vision, a new ambition, a new beauty. It is being reborn here, now, in corrupt, venal and impious Rome, with money wrested from the Germans. Is that not a very useful sort of waste?’

I no longer knew what to think. Good and Bad, truth and untruth, beauty and rottenness were so muddled up in my mind! But perhaps that was it, the Rome of Leo X, the Rome of Leo the African. I repeated Guicciardini’s formulations out loud, in order to engrave them upon my memory:

‘Idle city… holy city… eternal city…’

He interrupted me in a voice grown suddenly despondent:

‘Accursed city as well.’

While I gazed at him, awaiting some explanation, he took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

‘I have just copied out some lines written by Luther to our Pope.’

He read in a low voice:

‘You, Leo, the most ill-fated of all, you are seated upon the most dangerous of thrones. Rome was formerly a gate of Heaven; it is now the gaping abyss of Hell.’

The Year of the Conversa

927 A.H.

13 December 1520 — 30 November 1521

What a Saturday of happiness in my life was 6 April of that year! However, the Pope was angry. He thundered so loudly that I stayed motionless for a long moment in the antechamber, protected from his shouts by the heavy carved double doors. But the Swiss who accompanied me had his orders. He opened the door of the study without knocking, almost pushed me into the room and closed the door firmly behind me.

When he saw me, the Pope stopped shouting. But his eyebrows remained knitted together and his lower lip was still trembling. He indicated that I should come nearer with a signal from his smooth fingers, which were drumming feverishly on the table. I leaned over his hand, and then over the hand of the person who was standing on his right.

‘Leo, do you know our cousin Cardinal Julius?’

‘How could I have lived in Rome without knowing him?’

This was not the best reply in the circumstances. Julius de Medici was certainly the most flamboyant of all the princes of the Church, and the Pope’s trusted associate. But the latter had been reproaching him for some time for his escapades, his love of ostentation, his rowdy love affairs, which had made him the favourite target of the Lutherans. On the other hand, Guicciardini had spoken well of him: ‘Julius has all the qualities of the perfect gentleman, a patron of the arts, tolerant, good company. Why the devil should anyone want to make a man of religion out of him?’

In a red cape and skull cap, a fringe of black hair across the breadth of his forehead, the Pope’s cousin seemed engrossed in a painful meditation.

‘The cardinal must speak to you, my son. Sit yourselves together on those chairs over there. I myself have some mail to read.’

I do not believe that I am mistaken in stating that the Pope did not miss a single word of our conversation that day, since he did not turn a single page of the text which he had in his hands.

Julius seemed embarrassed, seeking some sign of complicity in my eyes. He cleared his throat discreetly.

‘A young person has just entered my service. Virtuous and beautiful. And intelligent. The Holy Father desires that I should present her to you, and that you should take her to wife. Her name is Maddalena.’

Having delivered himself of these words with a visible effort, he turned to other matters, asked me about my past, my travels, my life in Rome. I discovered he had the same appetite for knowledge as his cousin, the same rapture at hearing the names of Timbuktu, Fez and Cairo, the same respect for the things of the mind. He made me swear that one day I should commit an account of my travels to paper, promising to be my most eager reader.

The great pleasure which this conversation gave me did not however greatly reduce my profound suspicion towards the proposal which had been made to me. To state matters frankly, I had no desire at all to find myself the belated husband of some adolescent girl whose advanced state of pregnancy would set all the tongues of Rome wagging. However, it was difficult for me to say ‘No’ in a single word to the Pope and his cousin. Hence I formulated my reply in sufficiently roundabout terms to enable my feelings to show through:

‘I put myself in the hands of His Holiness and His Eminence, who know better than I what is good for my body and my soul.’

The sound of the Pope’s laughter made me jump. Putting down his mail, he turned round to face us squarely.

‘Leo will see the girl this very day, after the requiem mass.’

In fact that day was the commemoration, in the Sistine Chapel, of the first anniversary of the death of Raphael of Urbino, whom Leo X used to cherish more than all his other protégés. He often called him to mind with an unfeigned emotion, which made me regret having known him so little.

Because of my long period of seclusion, I had only met Raphael twice; the first time briefly in a corridor of the Vatican, the second time at my baptism. After the ceremony he had come up, like so many others, to offer his congratulations to the Pope, who had put him beside me. A question was burning on his lips:

‘Is it true that there are neither painters nor sculptors in your country?’

‘Some people do paint or sculpt, but all figurative representation is condemned. It is considered as a challenge to the Creator.’

‘It does our art too much honour to think that it can emulate the Creation.’

He made an astonished and somewhat condescending frown. I felt I had to reply:

‘Isn’t it true that after having made the statue of Moses Michelangelo ordered it to walk or speak?’

Raphael smiled maliciously.

‘So they say.’

‘That is what the people of my country seek to avoid. That a man should have the ambition to substitute himself for the Creator.’

‘And the prince who decides on life and death, does he not substitute himself for the Creator in a far more blasphemous fashion than the painter? And the master who possesses slaves, who buys and sells them?’

The painter’s voice rose. I tried to calm him:

‘One day I should like to visit your studio.’

‘If I were to decide to paint your portrait, would that be blasphemy?’

‘Not at all. It would be as if the most eloquent of our poets were to write a eulogy about me.’

I had not found a better comparison. He was content with it.

‘Very well. Come to my house when you wish.’

I had resolved to do so, but death had overtaken me. Of Raphael I remembered only a few words, a frown, a promise. It was my duty to think of him on that day of commemoration. But very quickly, already before the end of the ceremony, it was towards Maddalena that my thoughts turned.

I tried to imagine her, her hair, her voice, her figure; I asked myself in which language I should speak to her, with which words I should begin. I also tried to guess what Leo X and his cousin could have said to each other before summoning me. The Pope had probably discovered that the cardinal had just added a young and beautiful girl to his numerous retinue, and fearing some new scene, had ordered him to get rid of her, swiftly and in a dignified manner. In that way no one could claim that Cardinal Julius had shameful designs upon the girl; his sole concern was to find a wife for his cousin Leo the African!

A priest whom I knew, whom I saw leaving the chapel, gave me some additional information which served to confirm my suppositions: Maddalena had lived in a convent for a long time. In the course of a visit, the cardinal had noticed her, and when he was to leave at the end of the day he had quite simply taken her away in his baggage train. His behaviour had caused a scandal, and a complaint had reached the ears of Leo X, who had reacted immediately both as head of the Church and head of the Medici.

I believed that I was now in possession of the core of the facts, but I only held a little of the peel.

‘Is it true that you are from Granada, like me, and that you are also a convert, like me?’

I had overestimated my strength and my serenity. When she walked slowly into the little carpeted room where the cardinal had bade me sit I immediately lost all desire to question her, for fear that a word from her lips would compel me to distance myself. For me, henceforth the truth about Maddalena was Maddalena. I had one single desire, to contemplate her gestures and her colouring for ever. She was ahead of all the women of Rome in her languor. Languidness in her gait, in her speech, in her gaze as well, at once conquering and resigned to suffering. Her hair had that deep blackness which only Andalus can distil, by some alchemy of the refreshing shadow and the burnt earth. Before she became my wife, she was already my sister, her breathing was familiar to me.

Even before she sat down, she began to tell her story, the whole of her story. The questions which I had decided not to ask she had decided to answer. Her grandfather belonged to an impoverished and forgotten branch of a great Jewish family, the Abrabanels. A humble blacksmith in the suburb of Najd, in the south of the city of my birth, he had been completely unaware of the danger which was threatening his family, until the very moment when the edict of expulsion had been promulgated. Emigrating to Tetouan with his six children, he had lived on the edge of destitution, with no other joy in life but to see his sons gain some knowledge and his daughters become more beautiful. One of them was to be the mother of the conversa.

‘My parents had decided to go and set themselves up in Ferrara,’ she explained to me, ‘where some cousins had prospered. But the plague broke out on the vessel on which we had embarked, decimating crew and passengers. Landing at Pisa, I found myself alone. My mother, my father and my young brother had perished. I was eight years old. An old nun took me in. She took me with her to a convent of which she was abbess, and hastened to have me baptized, giving me the name of Maddalena; my parents had called me Judith. In spite of the sadness of having lost those most dear to me I was careful not to curse fate, since I ate my fill, learned to read and was never whipped without due cause. Until the day that my benefactress died. Her replacement was the natural daughter of a grandee of Spain, shut up there to expiate the sins of her family, who considered that this fine convent was nothing but purgatory for herself and the others. However, she reigned supreme, distributing favours and punishments. For me she reserved the worst of her heart. For seven years I had been an increasingly fervent Christian. To her, however, I was just a convert, a conversa of impure blood, whose very presence would bring down the worst curses upon the convent. And, under the hail of humiliations which rained down unjustly upon me, I felt myself returning to the faith into which I was born. The pork which I ate began to give me nausea, and my nights were tormented by it. I began to think up plans for escape. But my only attempt failed miserably. I never ran very fast, particularly in a nun’s habit. The gardener caught me and brought me back to the convent twisting my arm as if I were a chicken thief. And then I was thrown into a dungeon and whipped until the blood came.’

Some traces of this remained, but they did not detract at all from her beauty or the sweet perfection of her body.

‘When I was let out, at the end of two weeks, I had decided to change my attitude. I made a show of profound remorse, and showed myself devoted, obedient and oblivious to humiliation. I was waiting for my time to come. It came with the visit of Cardinal Julius. The mother superior was obliged to receive him with ceremony, although she would have sent him to the stake if she had had it in her power. She sometimes made us pray for the repentance of the princes of the Church, and was unsparing of her criticisms of the “dissolute life of the Medici”, not in public, but in front of certain nuns in her entourage who were not slow to mention it. It was probably the vices of which he was accused that made me have faith in this cardinal.’

I agreed:

‘Virtue becomes unhealthy if it is not softened by some misdemeanours, and faith quickly becomes cruel if it is not subdued by certain doubts.’

Maddalena touched my shoulder lightly as a sign of trust before continuing her story:

‘When the prelate arrived, we all lined up to kiss his hand. I waited my turn impatiently. My plan was ready. The fingers of the cardinal, adorned with two rings, were held out in a princely fashion. I took them, shook them a little harder than necessary, and held them two seconds too long. That was enough to attract his attention. I held up my head, so that he could look at my face. “I need to confess myself to you,” I said to him in a loud voice, so that the request would be official, heard by all the cardinal’s suite as well as by the mother superior. She adopted a sugary tone: “Move away my child, you are bothering His Eminence and your sisters are waiting.” There was a moment of hesitation. Would I find myself in the dungeon of revenge for ever? Was I going to be able to hold on to the hands of a saviour? I was holding my breath and my eyes were imploring. Then the sentence came: “Wait for me here! I am going to confess you.” My tears flowed, betraying my happiness. But, when I knelt in the confessional, my voice was strong once more to pronounce without a mistake the words which I had repeated a hundred times. The cardinal listened silently to my long cry of despair, just nodding his head to encourage me to continue. “My daughter,” he said to me when I had finished, “I do not believe that convent life is made for you.” I was free.’

Thinking about it, her tears ran anew. I put my hand upon hers, pressed it affectionately and withdrew it when she resumed the thread of her story.

‘The cardinal brought me to Rome with him. That was a month ago. The abbess did not want to let me leave, but my protector would not pay any heed to her objections. To take her revenge, she got up a whole cabal against him, interceded with the Spanish cardinals, who, in their turn, went to the Pope. The most dreadful accusations were made, against His Eminence and myself…’

She stopped speaking, because I leaped up with one bound. I did not want to hear any word of these calumnies, even from the exquisite mouth of Maddalena. Was it truth or untruth that I was fleeing in this way? I do not know. The only thing that mattered now was the love that had just been born in my heart and in that of the conversa. When she rose to say farewell to me there was an uneasiness in her eyes. My hurried departure had somewhat alarmed her. She had to overcome Jier timidity to say to me:

‘Shall we see each other again sometimes?’

‘Until the end of my life.’

My lips brushed against hers. Her eyes were alarmed once more, but with happiness and the giddiness of hope.

The Year of Adrian

928 A.H.

1 December 1521 — 19 November 1522

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.

‘When a man has become rich in one country, he can easily become so once more elsewhere. Today our business is one of the most flourishing in Naples. Al-hamdu l’illah! We have an agent in every port and about ten branches which I visit regularly.’

‘Would you happen to make a detour to Tunis?’

‘I am going there in the summer. I shall go and visit your family. Should I tell them that you are happy here?’

I had to acknowledge that without having made a fortune I had not had to undergo the rigours of captivity. And that Rome had made me taste of two real kinds of happiness: that of an ancient city that was being reborn, drunk with beauty, and that of a son who was sleeping on the knees of the woman I loved.

My friend seemed satisfied. But he added:

‘If, one day, this town ceases to bring you pleasure, you must know that my house is open for you, you and your family, and that my vessels will carry you as far as you wish.’

I denied that I wanted to leave Rome, promising ‘Abbad to welcome him on his return from Tunis and to give him a sumptuous feast.

I did not want to complain in front of my friend, but things had begun to take a turn for the worse for me; Adrian had decided to mount a campaign against the wearing of beards. ‘They are suitable only for soldiers,’ he had decreed, ordering all clerics to shave. I was not directly affected, but because of my assiduous visits to the Vatican palace, my persistence in keeping this decoration seemed like an insolent reminder of my Moorish origins, like a challenge to the Pope, probably even a sign of impiety. Among the Italians whom I met, beards were not common, and were more a sign of eccentricity reserved for artists, an eccentricity that was elegant for some and a sign of exuberance for others. Some were attached to them, while others were ready to get rid of them rather than to be forbidden the court. For me the matter could not but take on a different significance. In my country the beard is standard. Not to have one is tolerated, especially for a foreigner. To shave it off after one has had a beard for many long years is a sign of abasement and humiliation. I had no intention of undergoing such an affront.

Would anyone believe me if I were to say that I was ready to die for my beard that year? And not only for my beard, because all the battles were confused in my mind, as in the Pope’s: the beard of the clergy, the naked breasts on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the statue of Moses, with thunderous gaze and quivering lips.

Without having sought it, I became a pivot and symbol of obstinate resistance to Adrian. Seeing me pass by, proudly fingering the bushy hair on my neck, the most clean-shaven of Romans would murmur their admiration. All the pamphlets written against the Pope would first come into my hands before being slid under the doors of the notables of the city. Some texts were no more than a web of insults: ‘Barbarian, miser, pig’ and worse. Others spoke of the pride of the Romans. ‘Never more shall a non-Italian come to sit upon the throne of Peter!’ I stopped all my teaching, all my studies, devoting my time to the struggle. It is true that I was handsomely rewarded. Cardinal Julius sent me substantial sums of money as well as encouraging letters. He promised to show me the full extent of his gratitude when the situation changed for the better.

I awaited that moment with impatience, for my situation at Rome was becoming precarious. A friend of mine who was a priest, author of an inflammatory pamphlet, had been shut up in Castel San Angelo two hours after having visited me. Another had been attacked by some Spanish monks. I felt myself constantly spied upon. I no longer left my house, except to make a few swift purchases in the quarter. Every night I had the impression that I would sleep at Maddalena’s side for the last time. And I held her even more closely.

The Year of Sulaiman

929 A.H.

20 November 1522 — 9 November 1523

That year, the Grand Turk found favour in my eyes once more. Of course, he never knew anything about it, but what does that matter? The dispute had raged inside me, and it was within me that it had to be resolved.

I had been obliged to flee the most powerful empire of Islam to protect a child from the vindictiveness of a bloodthirsty monarch, and I had found in Christian Rome the caliph under whose shadow I would so much have liked to live in Baghdad or Cordova. My mind delighted in this paradox, but my conscience was not appeased. Had the time passed when I could be genuinely proud of my own without needing to brag about them?

Then there was Adrian. Then there was Sulaiman. And above everything else this visit from ‘Abbad. On his return from Tunis he had come to see me, faithful to his promise, and even before his lips had opened his eyes were already pitying me. As he hesitated to shock me with what he had learned, I felt I should put him at ease.

‘One cannot reproach the messenger for something which is an act of Providence.’

Adding, with an affected smile:

‘If a man has left his family for many years, he cannot expect to hear any good news. Even if you were to tell me that Nur had just had a child, that would be misfortune.’

Probably thinking that his task would become even harder if he let me go on joking further, my friend made up his mind to speak:

‘Your wife did not wait for you. She only stayed a few months in your house in Tunis.’

My hands were sweaty.

‘She went away. And left you this.’

He handed me a letter which I unsealed. The handwriting had been executed with care, probably that of a public letter-writer. But the words were Nur’s:

If it was only my own happiness that was at stake, I would have waited for you for many long years, if need be until I had seen my hair turn silver in the loneliness of the nights. But I live only for my son, for his destiny, which will come to fruition one day, if it pleases God. Then we shall summon you to our side so that you may share the honours as you shared the dangers. In the meantime I shall go to Persia where, although he has no friends, Bayazid will at least have on his side the enemies of those who are hunting him down.

I leave Hayat for you. I have borne your daughter as you have carried my secret, and it is time that each one of us takes back that which is his own. Some will say that I am an unworthy mother, but you know that it is for her own good that I leave her behind, to protect her from the dangers which attend my own steps and those of her brother. I leave her as a gift for you, when you return; as she becomes older, she will look like me, and at every moment she will remind you of a blonde princess whom you loved and who loved you. And will always love you from the depth of her new exile.

Whether I encounter death or glory, do not let my image tarnish in your heart!

When he saw the first tear fall, ‘Abbad leaned his elbows on the window, pretending to be absorbed by some scene taking place in the garden. Ignoring the empty chairs which surrounded me I let myself fall to the ground, my eyes clouded over. As if Nur was in front of me, I murmured furiously to her:

‘What good is it to dream of a palace when one can find happiness in a hut at the foot of the pyramids!’

After several minutes ‘Abbad came and sat down at my side.

‘Your mother and your daughters are well. Harun sends them money and provisions each month.’

Two sighs later, I handed him the letter. He made a gesture of pushing it away, but I insisted. Without thinking too deeply, I was anxious that he should read it. Perhaps I wanted him to refrain from condemning Nur. Perhaps, out of self-esteem, I wanted him not to pity me as if I was an ordinary husband deserted by a wife who was tired of waiting. Perhaps I also wanted to share with a friend a secret which from now on I would bear alone.

Thus I heard myself telling, in detail, the story of my Circassian, beginning with the chance meeting at a merchant’s in Khan al-Khalili.

‘Now I understand your terror when the Turkish officer took Bayazid in his arms in Alexandria harbour.’

I laughed. ‘Abbad continued, happy to have been able to distract me:

‘I could never explain to myself why a Granadan could be so afraid of the Ottomans, the only ones who promise to give him back his city one day.’

‘Maddalena can’t understand it either. She wants all the Andalusians, Jews and Muslims, to rejoice with her every time she hears the news of an Ottoman victory. And she’s astonished that I remain so cold.’

‘Are you going to light her lantern now?’

‘Abbad had spoken in a low voice. I replied in the same tone:

‘I will tell her everything in small doses. I could not tell her about Nur’s existence before.’

I turned towards my friend. My voice became feeble and thoughtful again:

‘Have you noticed how much we have changed since we came to this country? At Fez I would never have spoken of my wives in this way, even to my closest friend. If I had done so, he would have blushed to the peak of his turban.’

Laughingly, ‘Abbad agreed with me.

‘I myself made a thousand and one excuses before asking my neighbour after the health of his wife, and before answering me, he made sure nobody listened, fearing for his honour.’

After a long burst of laughter and some moments of silence, my companion began a sentence and then interrupted himself, hesitant and embarrassed.

‘What were you going to say?’

‘It’s probably not yet the right moment.’

‘I’ve told you too many secrets for you to hide from me half of what you’re thinking!’

He resigned himself.

‘I was going to say that henceforth you are free to love the Ottomans because Bayazid is no longer your son and because your wife is no longer a Circassian, because in Rome your protector has been replaced by an inquisitor, because in Constantinople Salim the Grim has been dead for two years and Sulaiman has replaced him.’

In a sense, what ‘Abbad said was true. I was henceforth free in my feelings, in my enthusiasm, free to join with Maddalena in her spontaneous outburst. What happiness, what serenity there would be to be able to draw, amid the succession of events in the world, a dividing line between joy and grief! However, I knew that this happiness was denied me, by my very own nature.

‘But I know you,’ ‘Abbad continued without looking at me. ‘You cannot enjoy anything to its full.’

He thought for a moment.

‘I think that, quite simply, you do not love princes, and sultans even less. When one of them wins a victory, you immediately find yourself in the camp of his enemies, and when some fool venerates them, that in itself is sufficient reason for you to abhor them!’

This time, what ‘Abbad said was probably true. Seeing that I was not attempting to defend myself, he harried me:

‘Why should you be hostile to Sulaiman?’

He spoke to me with such a moving naïveté that I could not prevent myself from smiling. At that very moment Maddalena came into the room. She heard the sentence my friend had uttered, which he hastened to translate into Italian for her, knowing that she would immediately bring him reinforcements. Which she did with vigour:

‘Why on earth are you hostile to Sulaiman?’

She walked slowly towards us, still slumped against the wall like schoolboys reciting the long Sura of Women to each other. ‘Abbad sat up, a confused word on the tip of his tongue. I stayed where I was, thoughtful and perplexed. As if to accompany my thoughts, Maddalena launched into a passionate eulogy of the Grand Turk:

‘Since he came to power Sulaiman has put an end to the bloody practices of his father. He has strangled neither brothers, sons nor cousins. The notables who were deported from Egypt have been brought back to their homes. The prisons have emptied. Constantinople sings the praises of the young sovereign, comparing his actions to a refreshing dew, and Cairo no longer lives in fear and mourning.’

‘An Ottoman sultan who does not kill!’

My tone was full of doubt. ‘Abbad corrected me:

‘Every prince must kill. The main thing is that he should not take pleasure in it, as was the case with the old sultan. Sulaiman is certainly from the Ottoman race, and in conquest he yields nothing to his father. For two months he has been besieging the knights of the island of Rhodes, with the largest fleet that Islam has ever seen. Among the officers who accompany him is your brother-in-law Harun, and with him his eldest son, who will, one day, marry Sarwat, your daughter, his cousin. Whether you like it or not, your family are involved in that battle. Even if you have no desire to join them, should you not at least wish for their victory?’

I turned back towards Maddalena, who was delighted at my friend’s words. I asked her solemnly:

‘If I were to decide that the time had come for us to take the road to Tunis with our child, what would you think about it?’

‘You have only to say the word and I should leave with pleasure, to get away from this inquisitor-Pope who is only waiting for the opportunity to seize hold of you!’

‘Abbad was the most excited of the three of us:

‘Nothing detains you here. Leave with me at once!’

I calmed him down:

‘It’s only December. If we must go by sea, we cannot do so for three months.’

‘Come to my house in Naples, and from there you will embark for Tunis in the first days of spring.’

‘That seems possible,’ I said thoughtfully.

But I hastened to add:

‘I shall think about it!’

‘Abbad did not hear the last part of the sentence. To celebrate my timid acceptance and to prevent me changing my mind he called from the window to two of his servants. He ordered one to go and buy two bottles of the best Greek wine, while the other had to prepare a pipe of tobacco.

‘Have you already tasted this sweet poison from the New World?’

‘Once, two years ago, at the house of a Florentine cardinal.’

‘Is it on sale in Rome?’

‘Only in certain taverns. But the tabacchini which run them have the worst reputations in the city.’

‘Soon the whole world will be full of tabacchini, and their reputation will be no worse than the reputation of grocers or perfume sellers. I myself import whole cargoes from Seville which I sell in Bursa or Constantinople.’

I took a puff. Maddalena inhaled the perfume but refused to try it.

‘I would be too afraid to choke myself with smoke!’

The Soussi advised her to heat the water to drink an infusion of the tobacco, with a bit of sugar.

When ‘Abbad left us that day, Maddalena immediately threw her arms around my neck.

‘I shall be happy to leave. Let’s not linger here!’

‘Be prepared! When my friend returns, we shall take the road together.’

‘Abbad had been to Ancona on business, promising to be back within ten days. He kept his promise, only to be welcomed by a weeping Maddalena.

I had been arrested the previous day, 21 December, a Sunday, while I was very unwisely carrying a pamphlet which a French monk had slid into my pocket at the entrance of the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.

Whether by coincidence or as a deliberate humiliation, when I was taken to the Castel San Angelo I was shut up in the same cell which I had occupied for almost two years. But, at that time I risked nothing more than captivity, while this time I could be judged and condemned to purge my crime in a far-off prison, or even in a galley.

I would probably not have been so concerned if I had not planned to leave. However, for the first part of the time my captivity was less rigorous than I had feared. In February I was even able to receive a present from ‘Abbad which seemed sumptuous in the circumstances: a woollen cloak and a date cake, accompanied by a letter in which he told me in barely veiled words of the conquest of Rhodes by Sulaiman: The sea has brought our people to the summit of the rock, the earth has shaken with our cries of triumph.

Seen from my cell, this seemed to me to be a personal revenge against Adrian and his dreams of crusade. And when, in the course of the following months, my detention became more and more harsh, when I had nothing more to read, nothing to write with, neither pen nor ink nor even the merest lamp to dispel the darkness which pervaded from the afternoon, when I had no contact any more with the outside, when my warder pretended to understand no language beyond some vague German dialect, I began to regard ‘Abbad’s letter as a precious relic, and to repeat the words about the capture of Rhodes like an incantation.

One night I had a dream. I saw Sulaiman with a child’s face under his turban, the face of Bayazid. He tore down a mountainside to come and rescue me, but, before he could reach me I woke up, still in my cell, unable to go back to sleep to catch hold of the end of the dream.

Darkness, cold, insomnia, despair, silence… In order not to succumb to madness I resumed the habit of praying, five times a day, to the God of my childhood.

I awaited from Constantinople the hand that was going to set me free. But my deliverer was much nearer at hand, may the Most High lend him His aid in the torment which is his fate today!

The Year of Clemency

930 A.H.

10 November 1523 — 28 October 1524

A rushing of feet, a tumult of voices, then the hundred dry cold noises of a key turning in the door which shook slowly on its rusty hinges. Standing near my bed I rubbed my eyes, intently watching the silhouettes which were about to be outlined against the light from outside.

A man came in. When I recognized Guicciardini I took a step towards him, preparing to throw myself round his neck, but I stopped short — I even stepped back, as if driven away by an invisible force. Perhaps it was his marble countenance, or else his silence a few seconds too long or the rigidity of his bearing. In the half light, I thought I saw a sort of smile on his lips, but when he spoke he did so in a voice which was distant, and, it seemed to me, exaggeratedly contrite.

‘His Holiness wishes to see you.’

Ought I to lament or rejoice? Why did Adrian want to see me? Why had he sent Guicciardini in person? The Florentine’s inscrutable face forbade me to question him. I looked towards the sky. It must have been six or seven in the morning. But of what day? And of what month? I asked a guard while we were passing through the corridor in the direction of the Vatican. It was Guicciardini who replied, as curtly as possible:

‘It is Friday 20 November 1523.’

He had just reached a little door. He knocked and went in, making a sign that I should follow him. The entire furniture consisted of three empty red armchairs. He sat down, without inviting me to do likewise.

I could not explain his attitude. He who had been such a close friend, a confidant, he who, as I knew, so much enjoyed my company, with whom I had exchanged spirited words and friendly blows.

He got up abruptly.

‘Holy Father, here is the prisoner!’

The Pope had come in noiselessly through the little door behind me. I turned round to look at him.

‘Heavens above! Heavens above! Heavens above!’

I could not pronounce any other words. I fell to my knees and instead of kissing the hand of the sovereign pontiff I held it against me, pressed it to my forehead, to my face which was bathed in tears, to my trembling lips.

He freed himself gently.

‘I must go and say mass. I will come back here in a hour.’

Leaving me on the ground, he went out. Guicciardini burst out laughing. I got up and went over to him with a threatening look.

‘Should I embrace you or rain down blows upon you?’

His laughter redoubled. I collapsed into an armchair without being invited to do so.

‘Tell me, Francesco, was I dreaming? Was that really Cardinal Julius who has just been in this room, dressed all in white? Was it really his hand that I have just kissed?’

‘Cardinal Julius de Medici is no more. Yesterday he was elected to the throne of Peter, and he has chosen to call himself Clement, the seventh of that name.’

‘Heavens above! Heavens above!’

My tears fell without restraint. However, I was able to stammer, through my sobs:

‘And Adrian?’

‘I would not have thought that his disappearance would have affected you to such an extent!’

I dealt him a blow on the shoulder with my fist which he did not even seek to dodge, so much did he know that he deserved it.

‘It has already been two months since Pope Adrian has left us. It is said that he was poisoned. When the news of his death became known, anonymous individuals hung garlands over his doctor’s door to thank him for having saved Rome.’

He murmured some conventional formula of disapproval before continuing:

‘A battle then took place in the conclave between Cardinal Farnese and Cardinal Julius. The first one seemed to have the most votes, but after the trials which they had just experienced the princes of the Church wanted to encounter the generosity of a Medici again at the head of this city. After numerous ballots our friend was elected. Immediately there were celebrations in the streets. One of the first thoughts of the sovereign pontiff was for you, I can bear witness. He wanted to set you free at once, but I asked him permission to put on this charade. Will you forgive me?’

‘With difficulty!’

I held him against me for a warm embrace.

‘Maddalena and Giuseppe have wanted for nothing. I would have told you to go and see them, but we must wait for the Pope.’

By the time that the Florentine had informed me of everything which had taken place since my internment, Clement VII had returned. He asked not to be disturbed and came and sat down in the most simple way in the armchair which we had left for him.

‘I thought that the best pranks in Rome were those of the late lamented Cardinal Bibbiena. But Master Guicciardini’s inventions deserve to be remembered.’

He sat up slightly in his chair and his face became suddenly serious. He gazed at me intently.

‘Last night we talked for a long time, Francesco and I. He cannot give me much advice in matters of religion, but Providence has burdened me with the additional task of running a state and of preserving the throne of Peter from the encroachments of temporal powers. In that area Francesco’s counsels are precious to me, as are yours, Leo.’

With a look, he handed over to the diplomat.

‘You have often asked, Leo, the real reason why you were carried off to Rome, why we decided one day to have an educated Moor kidnapped by Pietro Bovadiglia on the Barbary coasts. There was a scheme of things behind it which the late Pope Leo never had the opportunity to reveal to you. The moment has come today.’

Guicciardini was silent and Clement continued, as though they were both reciting the same text:

‘Let us look at the world in which we live. In the East, there is a formidable empire, inspired by a faith which is not our own, built upon order and blind obedience, able to cast cannons and arm fleets. Its troops are advancing towards the centre of Europe. Buda and Pest are threatened, and Vienna will also be threatened before long. In the West there is another empire, Christian but no less formidable, since it already extends from the New World to Naples and dreams of universal domination. Above all, it dreams of submitting Rome to its will. The Inquisition flourishes on its Spanish lands, while the heresy of Luther flourishes on its German territories.’

The diplomat became more specific, encouraged by the approving nods of the Pope:

‘On the one hand there is Sulaiman, Sultan and Caliph of Islam, young, ambitious, with limitless power, but anxious to make the crimes of his father forgotten and to appear as a man of good will. On the other hand there is Charles, King of Spain, even younger and no less ambitious, who has managed, by spending a small fortune, to get himself elected to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Facing these two men, the most powerful in the world, is the Papal State, with a gigantic cross and a dwarf sword.’

He made a short pause.

‘Certainly, the Holy See is not alone in fearing this conjunction. There is King François, who is struggling to prevent his kingdom being dismembered. There is also Henry of England, entirely devoted to His Holiness, but too far off to be the slightest help.’

I still did not see how my humble self could be of use in this galaxy of crowned heads. But I did not want to interrupt the Florentine.

‘This delicate situation, to which the Holy Father Leo alluded in your presence, was the subject of frequent discussion with Cardinal Julius and myself. Today, as before, we feel that we must be active in several directions to reduce the dangers. We must, before everything else, reconcile ourselves with François, which will not be a simple matter. For thirty years the kings of France have sought to conquer Italy. They were held justly responsible for the evils which afflicted the peninsula, and their troops were accused of leaving epidemics and devastation in their wake. We must also persuade Venice, Milan and Florence to forget their quarrels and make a common front against the empire.’

He adopted a quieter tone and leaned forward, as he always did when imparting a confidence:

‘We have also thought that we should enter into negotiations with the Ottomans. But how? We have no idea, nor do we know what we might be able to obtain from them. A slowing down of the advance of the janissaries across the Christian lands of Central Europe? Probably not. The re-establishment of peace in the Mediterranean? An end to the depredations of the pirates?’

He replied to each of his own questions with a doubtful frown. Clement took over again:

‘What is certain is that it is time to build a bridge between Rome and Constantinople. But I am not a sultan. If I dared to go too quickly, a thousand criticisms from Spain and Germany would rain down upon me, from my own colleagues.’

He smiled at his slip of the tongue.

‘I mean from the cardinals. We have to proceed very carefully, to wait for opportunities, to see what the French, the Venetians and the other Christian powers are doing. You two will make a team. Leo now knows Turkish, as well as Arabic. Above all he knows the Ottomans well, and their ways of thought and action. He has even been on an embassy in Constantinople; Francesco is completely familiar with Our policies and can negotiate in Our name.’

He added, as if talking to himself:

‘I would only have preferred one of the emissaries to have been a priest…’

And then, louder, in a slightly mocking tone:

‘Master Guicciardini has already refused to have himself ordained. As for you, Leo, I am amazed that Our dear cousin and glorious predecessor never suggested that you should devote your life to religion.’

I was puzzled; why was the man who had introduced me to Maddalena asking me such a question? I glanced at Guicciardini; he seemed worried. I gathered that the Pope wanted to examine my religious convictions before sending me on a mission to the Muslims. Seeing that I hesitated to reply, he tried again:

‘Would not religion have been the best of all ways of life for a man of learning and education like yourself?’

I was evasive:

‘To speak of religion in the Holy Father’s presence is like speaking of one’s fiancée in her father’s presence.’

Clement smiled. Without letting go of me.

‘And what would you say about the fiancée if the father was not there?’

I decided to prevaricate no longer:

‘If the head of the Church was not listening to me, I would say that religion teaches men humility, but that it has none itself. I would say that all religions have produced both saints and murderers, with an equally good conscience. That in the life of this city, there are the Clement years and the Adrian years, between which religion does not allow you to choose.’

‘Does Islam allow a better choice?’

I almost said ‘we’ but caught myself in time:

‘Muslims learn that “the best of men is the most useful to mankind” but in spite of such words, they sometimes honour false zealots more than real benefactors.’

‘And where is the truth, in all that?’

‘That is a question which I no longer ask myself. I have already made my choice between truth and life.’

‘There must be one true faith!’

‘That which unites the believers is not so much a common faith as the ritual actions they perform in common.’

‘Is that so?’

The Pope’s tone was unfathomable. Was he thinking of putting into question the mission with which he had just entrusted me? Guicciardini feared that he might, and hastened to intervene, with the broadest of smiles:

‘Leo is saying that truth belongs only to God, and that men can only disfigure it, or debase it, or subjugate it.’

As if in approval, I murmured sufficiently loudly to be heard:

‘May those who are in possession of the truth release it!’

Clement laughed awkwardly. Then he continued:

‘Let us sum up. Brother Leo will not take religious orders. He will only be a diplomat, like Brother Francesco.’

Reassured, the latter clasped his hands together, made a pious frown and said teasingly:

‘If Brother Leo has a horror of truth, he need have no fear; he will not encounter it often in our brotherhood.’

‘Amen,’ I said in the same tone.

A great number of friends had gathered at my house to celebrate my release, news of which had spread since dawn. Neighbours, pupils and friends all agreed that I had hardly changed after a year in prison. All, that is, except Giuseppe, who resolutely refused to recognize me and went into a sulk for a good three days before saying ‘father’ to me for the first time in his life.

‘Abbad soon came from Naples, to greet my return, but also to exhort me to leave Rome without delay. For me, there was no longer any question of doing so.

‘Are you sure you won’t be shut up again in Castel San Angelo the next time you want to leave?’

‘God will choose whether to leave me here or make me go.’

‘Abbad’s voice became suddenly severe.

‘God has already chosen. Does He not say that one must not stay of one’s free will in the land of the unbelievers?’

The look I gave him was heavy with reproach. He hastened to apologize.

‘I know that I have no right to tell you what to do, I who live in Naples, I who offer gifts twice a year to the Church of San Gennaio, and have Biscayans and Castilians for partners. But I fear for you, by the Book! I feel that you are mixed up in disputes which have nothing to do with us. You go to war with a Pope, and you are only saved by his death.’

‘This city is now my city, and having experienced imprisonment here has only made me feel more attached to its fate and to that of those who rule it. They consider me as a friend, and I cannot treat them as if they were simply Rumis.’

‘But your own family is elsewhere, and you ignore them as if thirty years of your life and theirs had never existed.’

He paused before striking me with the news:

‘Your mother died this summer.’

Obviously in the know, Maddalena came to warm my hand with a consoling kiss. ‘Abbad continued:

‘I was in Tunis during her last illness. She asked for you to come.’

‘Did you tell her I was in prison?’

‘Yes! I thought it better that she should save for you her last anguish rather than her last reproach.’

In an effort to be forgiven for having been the bearer of evil tidings once again, ‘Abbad had brought a casket for me from Tunis, containing my voluminous notes from my travels, with which I was able to set about writing the work which had been so often requested since my arrival in Rome: a description of Africa and the remarkable things that may be found there.

But I had not yet written the first line when another project came to monopolize my writing time, a senseless but fascinating project which was suggested to me by my former pupil Hans, a month after I left prison. Having decided to go back to Saxony, he came to bid me farewell, reiterating his gratitude for the instruction which I had given him, and introducing me at the same time to one of his friends, a printer, a Saxon like himself, but who had been living in Rome for fifteen years.

Unlike Hans, this man was not a Lutheran. He was a disciple of a Dutch thinker whom Guicciardini had already mentioned to me: Erasmus. It was the latter who had suggested the mad scheme which he had adopted as his own.

This was to prepare an enormous lexicon in which each word should appear in a multitude of languages, including Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Saxon, German, Italian, French, Castilian, Turkish and many others. For my part I undertook to provide the Arabic and Hebrew sections on the basis of a long list of Latin words.

The printer spoke with moving fervour:

‘This project will probably never see the light of day, at least not in my lifetime or in the form for which I strive. Nevertheless I am ready to devote my life and my money to it. To strive so that all men may one day be able to understand each other, is that not the noblest of ideals?’

To this grandiose dream, this marvellous folly, the Saxon printer had given the name Anti-Babel.

The Year of the King of France

931 A.H.

29 October 1524 — 17 October 1525

Cold messenger of death and defeat, the snow fell upon my way that year for a third time. As in Granada during a certain winter of my childhood, as in the Atlas in the autumn of my fortune, it came back in a storm, this devastating blast, ill-fated whisper of destiny.

I was returning from Pavia, in the company of Guicciardini, having carried out a most extraordinary mission, a most secret one as well, since of all the princes of Christianity the Pope alone knew its import, and only the King of France had been properly forewarned.

Ostensibly, the Florentine had been appointed by Clement VII to perform a mission of mediation. The last months had been bloody. The emperor’s troops had tried to take Marseilles, showering hundreds of cannon-balls over the city. Without success. King François had retaliated by seizing Milan and then by besieging Pavia. The two armies threatened to confront one another in Lombardy, and it was the Pope’s duty to avert a murderous battle. It was his duty, Guicciardini explained to me, but it was not in his interests, since it was only the rivalry which existed between the two Christian powers that gave the Holy See some freedom of manoeuvre. ‘To make sure that peace is not made, we must be the mediators.’

More important was the other mission, in which I was involved. The Pope had learned that an ambassador of the Grand Turk was on his way towards the camp of the King of France. Was this not the occasion so long awaited to make contact with the Ottomans? Hence Guicciardini and I had to be beneath the walls of Pavia at the same time as this emissary, and give him a verbal message from Clement VII.

In spite of the cold, we reached the French lines in less than a week. We were welcomed first by a high-ranking old gentleman, Maréchal de Chabannes, seigneur of La Palice, who knew Guicciardini very well. He seemed surprised at our visit, since another of the Pope’s envoys, the bursar Matteo Giberti, had arrived a week earlier. Not in the least disconcerted, Guicciardini replied in a tone which was half ingratiating, half joking, that it was normal ‘to send John the Baptist ahead of Christ’.

This bragging apparently had some effect, since the Florentine was received that very day by the king. I was not myself admitted to the interview, but I was able to kiss the monarch’s hand. To do this I barely needed to bow my head, since he was at least a hand’s breadth taller than me. His eyes slid over me like the shadow of a reed before dispersing in a thousand unattainable shimmers while mine were fixed in fascination on a particular point in his face, where his immense nose came to protect a moustache that was too fine, plunging valiantly over his lips. It was probably because of his complexion that François’ smile appeared ironical even when he wanted to appear benevolent.

Guicciardini came out well pleased from the round tent where the meeting had taken place. The king had confirmed that the Ottoman would arrive the next day, and seemed delighted at the idea of contact between Rome and Constantinople.

‘What better could he hope for than a blessing from the Holy Father when he seals an alliance with the unbelievers?’ the Florentine remarked.

Before adding, apparently delighted to have caught me unawares:

‘I mentioned your presence here and your knowledge of Turkish. His Majesty asked me if you could act as interpreter.’

However, when the Ottoman envoy came in and began to speak, I was struck dumb, incapable of opening my lips, incapable even of clearing my throat. The king gave me a murderous look, and Guicciardini was red with anger and confusion. Very fortunately the visitor had his own translator, who, moreover, knew François’ language.

Of all those present, one man alone understood my agitation and shared it, although his office forbade him to reveal anything, at least until he had accomplished the formal ritual attached to his functions of representative. Only after having read out the letter from the sultan, and after exchanging a few smiling words with the king, did the ambassador come over to me, embrace me warmly, and say out loud:

‘I knew that I should meet allies and friends in this camp, but I did not expect that I should find a brother here whom I had lost for many long years.’

When the interpreter of the Ottoman delegation had translated these words, the company had eyes only for me, and Guicciardini breathed again. I myself had only one dazed and incredulous word on my lips:

‘Harun!’

I had indeed been told the previous evening that the Grand Turk’s ambassador was called Harun Pasha. But I had not made the slightest connection between him and my best friend, my closest relative, my almost brother.

We had to wait until the evening to be alone in the sumptuous tent which his escort had put up for him. His Excellency the Ferret wore a high and heavy turban of white silk, embellished with a huge ruby and a peacock’s feather. But he hastened to take it off, with a gesture of relief, revealing a balding greying head beneath.

Straight away he began to satisfy my evident curiosity:

‘After our voyage together to Constantinople I often entered the Sublime Porte, as the emissary of ‘Aruj Barbarossa, may God have mercy upon him! and then of his brother Khair al-Din. I learned Turkish and the language of the courtiers, I made friends at the diwan and I negotiated the incorporation of Algiers into the Ottoman sultanate. I shall be proud of that until the Day of Judgement.’

His hand made a sweeping gesture through the air.

‘At present from the borders of Persia to the coast of the Maghrib, from Belgrade to the Yemen, there is one single Muslim Empire, whose master honours me with his confidence and his good will.’

He continued, with a tone of reproach he did not try to hide:

‘And what have you been doing all these years? Is it true that you are now a high dignitary at the papal court?’

I deliberately repeated his own formula:

‘His Holiness honours me with his confidence and his good will.’ I thought it as well to add, emphasizing every word:

‘And he has sent me here to meet you. He hopes to establish a link between Rome and Constantinople.’

If I was expecting some excitement, some show of joy, some surprise at this most official pronouncement I was deeply frustrated. Harun suddenly seemed preoccupied by a speck of dirt on the rivers of his billowing sleeve. Having rubbed and blown upon it to wipe it away entirely, he deigned to reply, in tones of pious frivolity:

‘Between Rome and Constantinople, do you say? And to what end?’

‘For peace. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christians and Muslims all around the Mediterranean could live and trade together without war or piracy, if I could go from Alexandria to Tunis with my family without being kidnapped by some Sicilian?’

Once more that stubborn mark on his sleeve. He rubbed it even harder and dusted it off energetically before directing towards me a look without kindness.

‘Listen to me, Hasan! If you want to recall our friendship, our years at school, our family, the impending marriage of my son and your daughter, let’s talk about such things in peace around a full table and, by God, I should enjoy that moment more than any other. But if you are the envoy of the Pope and I am the envoy of the sultan, then we must discuss things differently.’

I tried to defend myself:

‘Why should you reproach me? I only spoke about peace. Is it not right that the religions of the Book should cease to massacre one another?’

He interrupted me:

‘You must know that between Constantinople and Rome, between Constantinople and Paris, it is faith which divides, and interest, noble or base, which brings together. Don’t talk to me about peace or the Book, because they are not in question, and it is not about them our masters think.’

Since we were children I had never been able to keep up an argument against the Ferret. My reply had the ring of capitulation:

‘All the same I see a common interest between your master and my own; neither the one nor the other wants Charles V’s empire to spread throughout Europe, or Barbary!’

Harun smiled.

‘Now that we are talking the same language I can tell you what I have come to do here. I am bringing the king gifts, promises, even a hundred or so brave horsemen who will fight at his side. Our struggle is the same; do you know that the French troops have just captured Ugo de Moneada, the man whom I myself defeated before Algiers after the death of ‘Aruj? Do you know that our fleet has been ordered to intervene if the imperial troops try to take Marseilles again? My master has decided to seal an alliance with King François, and to this end he will continue to multiply his gestures of friendship.’

‘Will you be able to promise the king that the Ottoman offensive in Europe will not continue?’

Harun seemed exasperated by my naïveté.

‘If we attacked the Magyars, whose sovereign is none other than the brother-in-law of the Emperor Charles, the King of France would not think of reproaching us for it. It would be the same if we were to besiege Vienna, which is governed by the emperor’s own brother.’

‘Won’t the King of France be criticized by his peers if he lets Christian territories be conquered in this way?’

‘Probably, but my master is ready to give him in exchange the right to protect the destiny of the churches of Jerusalem and the Christians of the Levant.’

We were silent for a moment, each immersed in our own thoughts. Harun leaned back on a carved chest and smiled.

‘When I told the King of France that I had brought a hundred soldiers for him, he seemed embarrassed. I thought for a moment that he would refuse to let them fight at his side, but eventually he thanked me most warmly. And he made it known in the camp that these horsemen were Christian vassals of the sultan.’

He continued abruptly:

‘When will you return to your family?’

‘One day, certainly,’ I said hesitantly, ‘when Rome has lost its attractions for me.’

‘ ‘Abbad the Soussi told me when I saw him in Tunis that the Pope had imprisoned you for a year in a citadel.’

‘I had criticized him sharply.’

Harun was overcome by a fit of merriment.

‘You Hasan, son of Muhammad the Granadan, allowed yourself to criticize the Pope right in the middle of Rome! ‘Abbad even told me that you criticized this Pope for being a foreigner.’

‘It was not exactly that. But my preference was certainly for an Italian, if possible a Medici from Florence.’

My friend was dumbfounded that I should answer him in all seriousness.

‘A Medici, you say? Well, as soon as I return to Constantinople I shall suggest that the title of caliph should be taken away from the Ottomans and restored to a descendant of ‘Abbas’

He cautiously stroked his neck and collar, repeating as if it were a refrain:

‘You prefer a Medici, you say?’

While I was conversing with Harun, Guicciardini was concocting the most elaborate plans, convinced that my relationship with the emissary of the Grand Turk presented a unique opportunity for papal diplomacy. I had to moderate his enthusiasm, to make him aware, in particular, of the complete indifference which my brother-in-law had displayed. But the Florentine dismissed my objections with a wave of his hand:

‘In his capacity as ambassador, Harun Pasha will undoubtedly report our overtures to the Grand Turk. A step has been taken, and we shall receive an Ottoman emissary at Rome before long. Perhaps you and I will also take the road to Constantinople.’

But before going further, it was time to give the Pope an account of our mission.

We were hastening towards Rome when the snowstorm which I mentioned took us by surprise a few miles south of Bologna. With the first blasts, the drama of the Atlas broke in upon my memory. I felt myself brought back to those terrifying moments when I had felt myself surrounded by death as if by a pack of hungry wolves, only linked with life by the hand of my Hiba, which I held savagely. I repeated over and over again to myself the name of my beautiful Numidian slave, as if no other woman had ever taken her place in my heart.

The wind redoubled its force, and the soldiers of our escort had to dismount to try to shelter. I did the same, and so did Guicciardini, but I quickly lost sight of him. I thought I heard shouts, calls, yells. From time to time I saw some fleeting figure which I tried to follow, but which vanished each time into fog. Soon my horse ran away. Running blindly, I collided with a tree, which I clung to, crouching and shivering. When, after the storm had died down, someone finally found me, I was stretched out unconscious, deep in the snow, my right leg fractured by some maddened horse. Apparently I had not remained covered up for long, which saved my leg from amputation, but I could not walk and my chest was on fire.

So we returned towards Bologna, where Guicciardini put me in a little hostelry near the Spanish College. He himself left the next day, predicting that I would be on my feet within ten days and would be able to join him at the papal court. But that was only to make me feel better, because when he arrived in Rome he immediately advised Maddalena to come and join me as soon as possible with Giuseppe, and to bring my papers and my notes so that I could overcome my boredom by writing. In fact I could not get used to being unable to move, and at first I was in a perpetual temper, all day long cursing the snow, destiny and the unfortunate hotel-keeper, who nevertheless served me patiently.

I was not to leave my bedroom until the end of that year. First I was nearly carried off by pneumonia and I had hardly recovered when my leg began to bother me again; it was so numb and swollen that I feared amputation once more. Out of rage and despair I worked and worked, day and night, and in this way I was able to finish the Arabic and Hebrew translations which I had promised the Saxon printer. I also managed to write the first volumes of my Description of Africa that year. After a few months I eventually began to get used to the advantages attached to my condition of sedentary scribe and penitent traveller, and to experience the everyday joys of my little family. But not without keeping an anxious eye on what was happening around me.

I was still between two fevers at the beginning of March when Maddalena told me the news that was already shaking Italy: the imperial troops had crushed the army of the King of France before Pavia. At first it was rumoured that François had been killed; I soon learned that he had only been captured. But the situation was only a little less disastrous; whatever the fate of the monarch, it was clear that the French would not be able to stand in the way of the emperor’s ambitions for some time.

I thought of Clement VII. He had shown too much favour to François not to suffer his part of the defeat. How would he extricate himself from his false step? Was he going to make peace with Charles V to avert his wrath? Or would he make use of his authority to gather the princes of Christendom together against an emperor who had become too powerful, too dangerous for them all? I would have given a great deal to be able to talk to the Pope. And even more so to Guicciardini, particularly after a letter from him reached me at the beginning of summer, containing this enigmatic sentence, fearful in its irony: ‘Only a miracle can save Rome now, and the Pope desires that I should accomplish it!’

The Year of the Black Bands

932 A.H.

18 October 1525 — 7 October 1526

He was standing in front of me, a statue of flesh and iron, with a powerful laugh and enormous outbursts of rage.

‘I am the armed might of the Church.’

Men though called him the ‘great devil’, and loved him for it, indomitable, intrepid, hot-headed, taking women and fortresses by storm. They were afraid of him, and prayed to God to protect him and to keep him far away.

‘My incorrigible cousin Giovanni,’ Clement VII would say, with tenderness and resignation.

Condottiere and Medici, he was the epitome of all Italy. The troops he commanded were like him, venal and generous, tyrannical and lovers of justice, indifferent to death. That year, they had entered the Pope’s service. They were called the Black Bands, and their leader was soon no longer known as Giovanni di Medici but Giovanni of the Black Bands.

I met him at Bologna. For my first outing I had decided to go to the palace of Master Jacopo Salviati, a venerable gentleman of the city, who had showered me with kindness all through my illness, constantly sending me money, books, clothes and presents. Guicciardini had asked him to take me under his protection, and he acquitted himself of that office with fatherly diligence, never letting a week pass without sending one of his pages to inquire after my health. This Salviati was the most prominent person in Bologna, and he lived in a luxurious manner worthy of the Medicis. It is true that his wife was none other than Pope Leo’s sister, and that his daughter Maria had married Giovanni of the Black Bands. Unfortunately for her, it must be said, since she saw him very rarely, between two campaigns, two idylls, two affairs.

That day however he had come, less for his wife’s sake than for their son, aged six. I was walking towards the Palazzo Salviati, leaning on Maddalena’s shoulder, when the procession came within earshot. The condottiere was accompanied by a good forty of his faithful followers on horseback. Some passers-by murmured his name, some cheered him, others hurried past. I preferred to draw back to let him pass, as my gait was still slow and uncertain. He cried from far off:

‘Cosimo.’

A child appeared in the embrasure of a window on the first floor. Giovanni set off at a trot, and then, when he was underneath the boy, drew his sword, pointed it at the boy and shouted:

‘Jump!’

Maddalena almost fainted. She covered her eyes. I myself stood rooted to the spot. However, Master Jacopo, who had come out to welcome his son-in-law, said nothing. He certainly seemed extremely annoyed, but as if at some everyday misfortune rather than at a drama. Little Cosimo seemed no more surprised nor impressed. Putting his foot on the frieze, he jumped into the air. At the last moment, his father, throwing his sword away, caught him under his arms, held him at arms’ length and raised him above his head.

‘How is my prince?’

The child and the father laughed, as well as the soldiers in the escort. Jacopo Salviati forced himself to smile. Seeing me arrive, he took advantage of this to relieve the tension by introducing me formally to his son-in-law.

‘Master John-Leo, geographer, poet, diplomat at the papal court.’

The condottiere leaped to the ground. One of his men brought him back his sword, which he put back in its sheath while presenting himself to me with excessive joviality.

‘I am the armed might of the Church.’

He had short hair, a thick brown moustache cut at the sides and a look which transfixed me more surely than a lance. At the time, the man seemed to me most unpleasant. But I soon changed my mind, seduced, like so many others, by his astonishing capacity to leave his gladiatorial soul behind to become a Florentine, a Medici of astonishing sensitivity and insight as soon as he entered a salon.

‘You were at Pavia, someone told me.’

‘I stayed there only a few days, in the company of Master Francesco Guicciardini.’

‘I was far away myself. I was inspecting my troops on the road to Milan. When I returned the Ottoman envoy had left. And you too, I think.’

He had a knowing smile. To avoid betraying the secret of my mission I decided to keep silent and to turn my eyes away from his. He continued:

‘I have heard that a message left Paris recently for Constantinople asking the Turks to attack Hungary to force Charles V to divert his attention from Italy.’

‘Isn’t the King of France a prisoner in Spain?’

‘That doesn’t stop him from negotiating with the Pope and the sultan or from sending instructions to his mother, who is regent of the kingdom.’

‘Wasn’t it said that he is on the point of death?’

‘He is no longer. Death has changed its mind.’

As I persisted in not expressing any opinion of my own, confining myself to asking questions, Giovanni asked me directly:

‘Don’t you think that it seems like a very curious coalition: the Pope allied to François, who is allied to the Grand Turk?’

Was he trying to sound out my feelings for the Grand Turk? Or to find out what could have taken place with Harun Pasha?

‘I think that the Grand Turk, however powerful he may be, is not in a position to decide the outcome of a war in Italy. A hundred men taking part on the battlefield are more important than a hundred thousand men at the other side of the continent.’

‘Who is the strongest in Italy, in your opinion?’

‘There was a battle at Pavia, and we should drawn our conclusions from it.’

My reply evidently pleased him. His tone became friendly, even admiring.

‘I am happy to hear these words, because, in Rome the Pope is hesitant and your friend Guicciardini is pushing him to attack Charles and ally himself with François, at the very moment when the King of France is the emperor’s prisoner. In my position I cannot express my reservations without giving the impression of fearing a confrontation with the empire, but you will soon realize that this mad Giovanni is not entirely devoid of wisdom and this great sage Guicciardini is on the point of committing a folly and of making the Pope commit one as well.’

Thinking that he had spoken too seriously, he began to tell a succession of anecdotes about his latest wild boar hunt. Before returning abruptly to the charge:

‘You should say what you think to the Pope. Why don’t you come back to Rome with me?’

I had in fact intended to put an end to my seemingly endless enforced stay in Bologna. I hastened to accept his offer, telling myself that a journey at Giovanni’s side would be extremely pleasant, and without danger, since no brigand would dare to approach such a procession. And so, the very next day, I found myself on the road again with Maddalena and Giuseppe, surrounded by the fearsome warriors of the Black Bands, who became, on this occasion, the most attentive of companions.

After three days’ march, we arrived at Giovanni’s residence, a magnificent castle called Il Trebbio, where we spent a night. Early the next morning we reached Florence.

‘You must be the only Medici who does not know this city!’ exclaimed the condottiere.

‘On the way to Pavia with Guicciardini we almost stopped here, but we had no time.’

‘He must be a real barbarian, that “time” which prevents you seeing Florence!’

And he added immediately:

‘Time presses on this occasion too, but I would not forgive myself if I did not show you around.’

I had never before visited a city with an army as a guide. All along the Via Larga to the Palazzo Medici, where we burst into the colonnaded courtyard, it was a regular morning parade. A servant came to invite us in, but Giovanni refused curtly.

‘Is Master Alessandro there?’

‘I think he is asleep.’

‘And Master Ippolito?’

‘He is asleep too. Should I wake them up?’

Giovanni shrugged his shoulders disdainfully and turned back. Leaving the courtyard he went several paces to the right to show me a building under construction:

‘The church of San Lorenzo. This is where Michelangelo Buonarotti works now, but I don’t dare to take you there because he could easily show us the door. He has little love for the Medici and besides he has an unpleasant character. Indeed, that was why he came back to Florence. Most of our great artists live in Rome. But Leo X, who gathered so many talented people around him, preferred to send Michelangelo away and give him a commission here.’

He resumed the tour in the direction of the Duomo. On both sides of the road the houses seemed to be well laid out and tastefully embellished, but there were very few as luxurious as those in Rome.

The Eternal City is full of works of art,’ my guide acknowledged, ‘but Florence is itself a work of art, and it is to the Florentines that we owe the best in all disciplines.’

I thought I was listening to a Fassi talking!

When we reached the Piazza della Signoria, and when a notable of a certain age, dressed in a long robe, came up to Giovanni to exchange a few words with him, a group of people began to chant ‘Palle! Palle!’, the rallying cry of the Medici, to which my companion replied with a salute, saying to me:

‘Don’t think that all the members of my family would be acclaimed in this fashion. I am the only one who still enjoys some favour with the Florentines. If, for instance, my cousin Julius, I should say Pope Clement, were to decide to come here today, he would be booed and jostled. Moreover, he knows it very well.’

‘But isn’t it your native city?’

‘Ah, my friend, Florence is a strange mistress for the Medici! When we are far off, she calls us with loud cries; when we come back, she curses us.’

‘What does she want today?’

He had a worried air. He stopped his horse in the middle of the street, at the very entrance to the Ponte Vecchio, on which the crowd had parted to let him pass through, and from which some cheers were coming.

‘Florence wants to be governed by a prince, on condition that it should be governed as a republic. Every time that our ancestors forgot this, they had cause to regret it bitterly. Today the Medici are represented in the city of their birth by that presumptuous young Alessandro. He is barely fifteen, and he thinks that because he is a Medici and the son of the Pope, Florence belongs to him, women and goods.’

‘Son of the Pope?’

My surprise was genuine. Giovanni burst out laughing.

‘Don’t tell me that you have lived seven years in Rome without knowing that Alessandro was Clement’s bastard?’

I confessed my ignorance. He was delighted to enlighten me:

‘At a time when he was still neither Pope nor cardinal, my cousin knew a Moorish slavegirl in Naples, who bore him this son.’

We were going back up towards the Palazzo Pitti. Soon, we crossed the Porta Romana, where Giovanni was cheered once more. But, sunk in his thoughts, he did not reply to the crowd. I hastened to do so in his place, which amused my son Giuseppe so much that all along the road he constantly begged me to make the same gestures, bursting out with laughter each time.

The very day of our arrival in Rome, Giovanni of the Black Bands insisted that we should go to the Pope together. We found him in conclave with Guicciardini, who did not seem at all pleased at our arrival. He had probably just convinced the Holy Father to take some painful decision and feared that Giovanni might make him change his mind. To conceal his anxiety, and to sound out our intentions, he adopted, as was his wont, a jocular tone:

‘So there can be no more meetings between Florentines unless a Moor is among us!’

The Pope gave an embarrassed smile. Giovanni did not even smile. For my part I replied in the same tone, with a gesture of marked irritation:

‘There can be no meeting between Medici unless the people join with us!’

This time Giovanni’s laugh cracked like a whip, and his hand came down on my back in a formidable friendly hug. Laughing in his turn, Guicciardini quickly passed on to the events of the moment:

‘We have just received a message of the utmost importance. King François will leave Spain before Ash Wednesday.’

A discussion ensued in which Giovanni and I put forward, with due diffidence, arguments in favour of coming to terms with Charles V. But in vain. The Pope was entirely under the influence of Guicciardini, who had persuaded him to stand up to ‘Caesar’ and to be the soul of the anti-imperial coalition.

On 22 May 1526 a ‘Holy League’ came into existence in the French town of Cognac. As well as François and the Pope, it included the Duke of Milan and the Venetians. It was war, one of the most terrible that Rome would ever know. Because, though he had temporized after Pavia, this time the emperor was determined to push matters to their conclusion against François, whom he had released in exchange for a written agreement which was quickly declared null and void as soon as the latter had crossed the Pyrenees, and against the Pope, ally of ‘the perjurer’. The imperial armies began to regroup in Italy, beside Milan, Trent and Naples. Against them, Clement could count only on the bravura of the Black Bands and their commanders. Judging that the principal danger would come from the north, the latter left for Mantua, determined to prevent the enemy from crossing the Po.

Alas! Charles V also had his allies, even within the papal state, a clan which was called ‘Ia imperialista’, headed by the powerful Cardinal Pompeo Colonna. In September, taking advantage of the fact that the Black Bands were far away, the cardinal burst into the quarters of Borgo and Trastevere at the head of a band of pillagers who set fire to several houses and proclaimed in public that they were going to ‘deliver Rome from the tyranny of the Pope’. Clement VII hurriedly took refuge in Castel San Angelo, where he barricaded himself in while Colonna’s men were sacking the palace of St Peter. I thought of taking Maddalena and Giuseppe to the castle, but I gave up the idea, considering that it would be most unwise to cross the Ponte San Angelo in the circumstances. I went to earth in my own house, letting matters take their own course in those difficult times.

In fact the Pope was obliged to accept all Colonna’s demands. He signed an agreement promising to withdraw from the Holy League against the emperor, and refrain from taking any sanctions against the guilty cardinal. Of course, as soon as the attackers had gone he made it known to all that there was no question of him respecting a treaty imposed under conditions of duress, terror and sacrilege.

The day after this violent incident, while Clement was still fulminating against the emperor and his allies, news arrived in Rome of the victory of Sultan Sulaiman at Mohàcs, and of the death of the King of Hungary, the emperor’s brother-in-law. The Pope summoned me to ask me whether, in my opinion, the Turks were going to launch an assault on Vienna, whether they would soon push on into Germany, or move towards Venice. I had to say that I did not have the slightest idea. The Holy Father seemed extremely concerned. Guicciardini judged that the responsibility for this defeat lay entirely with the emperor, who was waging war in Italy and attacking the King of France instead of defending the lands of Christendom against the Turks, instead of fighting the heresy which was devastating Germany. He added:

‘Why should one expect the Germans to go to the aid of Hungary if Luther tells them morning and night: “The Turks are the chastisement which God has sent us. To oppose them is to oppose the wish of the Creator!” ’

Clement VII nodded in approval. Guicciardini waited until we were outside to let me share in his extreme satisfaction:

‘The victory of the Ottoman will change the course of history. Perhaps this is the miracle which we were waiting for.’

That year I put the final touches to my Description of Africa. Then, without taking a single day’s rest, I decided to set to work on the chronicle of my own life and the events in which I had been involved. Maddalena thought that the sight of me working with such frenzy was a bad omen.

‘It’s as if our time was running out,’ she would say.

I would have liked to reassure her, but my mind was beset by the same obsessive apprehensions: Rome was fading away, my Italian existence was coming to an end, and I did not know when I would have the time to write again.

The Year of the Lansquenets

933 A.H.

8 October 1526 — 26 September 1527

Thus came my fortieth year, that of my last hope, of my final desertion.

Giovanni of the Black Bands was sending the most reassuring news from the front, confirming the Pope, the Curia and the whole of Rome in the false impression that the war was very far away and would remain there. The Imperial forces are north of the Po and will never cross it, the condottiere promised. And from Trastevere to the Trevi quarter people delighted to boast of the gallantry of the Medici and his men. Romans longstanding or of passage vied with each other in their contempt for ‘those barbarian Germans’, who, as everyone knows, have always looked at the Eternal City with envy, greed and a relentless lack of understanding.

I could not join in this mad euphoria, so deeply were tales of the last days of Granada engraved upon my memory, when my father, my mother, Sarah and the whole crowd of those soon to be exiled were persuaded that deliverance was certain, when they affected unanimous contempt for a triumphant Castile, when they cast deep suspicion upon anyone who dared to question the imminent arrival of assistance. Having learned from the misfortune of my own family, I had come to be distrustful of appearances. When everyone persists in the same opinion, I turn away from it; the truth is surely elsewhere.

Guicciardini reacted in the same way. Appointed lieutenant-general of the papal troops, he was in the north of Italy, together with Giovanni, whom he observed with a mixture of admiration and fury: He is a man of great courage, but he risks his life in the merest skirmish. But if anything should happen to him, it would be impossible to contain the flood of the imperial troops. Written in a letter to the Pope, these complaints only came to light in Rome when they already had become meaningless; struck down by a falconer’s ball, the chief of the Black Bands had his leg shattered. An amputation was necessary. It was dark, and Giovanni insisted on holding the torch himself while the doctor cut off the limb with a saw. Pointless suffering, because the wounded man expired shortly after the operation.

Of all the men I have known, Tumanbay the Circassian and Giovanni of the Black Bands were certainly the most courageous. The first had been killed by the Sultan of the East, the second by the Emperor of the West. The first had been unable to save Cairo; the second could not spare Rome from the suffering which awaited her.

In the city, there was immediate panic once the news of his death became known. The enemy had only advanced a few miles, but it was as if they were already at the gates of the city, as if the disappearance of Giovanni had torn down the fortresses, dried up the rivers and flattened the mountains.

In fact, nothing seemed able to halt the advancing tide. Before his death, the chief of the Black Bands was desperately attempting to prevent two powerful imperial armies joining forces in northern Italy; the one, composed principally of Castilians, was in the vicinity of Milan, while the other, by far the more dangerous, consisted of German lansquenets, almost all of whom were Lutherans from Bavaria, Saxony and Franconia. They had crossed the Alps and invaded the Trentino with the conviction that they had been entrusted with some divine mission, to chastise the Pope, who was guilty of having corrupted Christianity. Ten thousand uncontrollable heretics, marching against the Pope under the banner of a Catholic emperor; such was the calamity which engulfed Italy that year.

The death of Giovanni, followed by the hurried retreat of the Black Bands, had enabled all the imperial troops to join forces and to cross the Po, determined to go as far as the palace of St Peter. There must have been about thirty thousand soldiers, badly dressed, badly fed and badly paid, who reckoned on living off the country and exploiting it. They came first to Bologna, which put up a considerable ransom in order to be spared; then it was the turn of Florence, where the plague had just broken out, and which also paid a heavy tribute to prevent itself being pillaged. Guicciardini, who had played a part in these negotiations, strongly advised the Pope to make a similar agreement.

Once more, there was a sense of euphoria; peace was within reach, people said. On 25 March 1527 the Viceroy of Naples, Charles de Lannoy, the special envoy of the emperor, arrived at Rome to conclude an agreement. I was in the middle of the crowd in St Peter’s Square, to be present at this moment of deliverance. The weather was fine, a marvellous spring day, when the notable arrived, surrounded by his bodyguard. But at the very moment when he entered the gate of the Vatican, there was a flash of lightning, followed by a torrential outburst of rain which poured down on us with a noise which seemed to herald the end of the world. When the first shock had passed I ran to take shelter in a doorway, which was soon surrounded by a sea of mud.

At my side, a woman was soon wailing loudly, lamenting this evil portent. Hearing her, I remembered the flood at Granada, which I had experienced through the eyes of my mother, may God surround her with His mercy! Was this, once again, a sign from Heaven, a harbinger of disaster? However, that day there was no overflowing of the Tiber, nor ruinous floods, nor great slaughter. In fact the peace agreement was signed at the end of the afternoon. To ensure that the city should be spared, it stipulated that the Pope should hand over a substantial sum of money.

The money was indeed handed over, sixty thousand ducats, someone told me, and as a sign of his good faith, Clement VII decided to dismiss the mercenaries whom he had recruited. But this was not enough to stop the imperial army from moving forward. Officers who dared to mention retreat were threatened with death at the hands of their own troops; at the height of the quarrel, the chief of the lansquenets was brought down by a fit of apoplexy, and the command passed to the Constable of Bourbon, cousin and sworn enemy of the King of France. He was a man without much authority, who was following the imperial army rather than commanding it. No one else could control this mob any longer, not even the emperor, who was, besides, in Spain. Uncontrollable, unyielding, destroying everything before it, it was advancing towards Rome, where hopes for peace had given way to a panic becoming increasingly insane every day. The cardinals in particular could think only of hiding themselves or of running away with their riches.

The Pope persisted in believing that his agreement with the viceroy would eventually be respected, even if this were to be at the very last moment. It was only at the end of April, when the imperial troops reached the Tiber, a few miles upstream from the city, that the Holy Father resolved to organize its defence. As the papal coffers were empty, he elevated six rich merchants to the rank of cardinal, who handed over two hundred thousand ducats for the privilege. With this money, an army of eight thousand could be raised, two thousand Swiss guards, two thousand soldiers from the Black Bands, and four thousand volunteers from among the inhabitants of Rome.

At the age of forty, I did not feel capable of bearing arms. However, I volunteered to run the arms and munitions store at the Castel San Angelo. In order to fulfil satisfactorily a task which required my vigilant presence day and night, I decided to take up residence in the fortress, arranging to move Maddalena and Giuseppe in there as well. It was in fact the best-defended part of the whole city, and it soon became flooded with refugees. I had occupied my former room, which made me seem most affluent, since the newcomers were obliged to cram themselves by whole families into the corridors.

In the first days of May a strange atmosphere came over this makeshift encampment, fertile ground for the most bizarre excitements. I shall always remember the moment when a fife player in the papal orchestra arrived quite out of breath, shouting at the top of his voice:

‘I’ve killed the Bourbon! I’ve killed the Bourbon!’

It was a certain Benvenuto Cellini from Florence. One of his brothers had fought in the ranks of the Black Bands, but he himself, a medal-maker by trade, had never belonged to any army. He had gone off to fight, he said, with two of his friends near the Porta Trittone.

‘There was a thick fog,’ he declared, ‘but I could make out the silhouette of the constable on horseback. I fired my arquebus. A few minutes later the mist cleared, and I saw the Bourbon lying on the ground, evidently dead.’

Hearing this, I simply shrugged my shoulders. Others snapped at him harshly; the battle was raging on the city walls, especially near the Borgo, and the shooting had never been so heavy; a tumult of war, suffering and fear rose from the city; this was not the time for vain boasting.

However, I must say that to my greatest surprise before the end of the day the news was confirmed. The Bourbon had indeed been killed in the vicinity of the Porta Trittone. When a cardinal announced it to us, a broad smile lighting up his haggard face, there were several shouts of victory. At my side there was a man who did not express the slightest joy. He was a veteran of the Black Bands, and he was boiling with rage.

‘Is this the way wars are fought these days? With these accursed arquebuses, the most valiant of cavalrymen can be picked off from afar by a fife player! This is the end of chivalry! The end of wars of honour!’

However, the Florentine fife player became a hero in the eyes of the multitude. He was given drinks, he was begged to tell the story of his exploit again, he was carried about in triumph. The celebration was uncalled for, because the death of the Bourbon did not delay the assault of the imperial armies for a second. Quite the contrary: it could be said that the disappearance of the commander of the army had served only to arouse his troops even further. Taking advantage of the fog, which meant that the artillery installed at Castel San Angelo could not function, the lansquenets scaled the walls in several places and poured into the streets. Some survivors were still able to get to the castle, their eyes full of the tales of the first horrors. Other accounts were to follow.

By the God who caused me to traverse the wide world, by the God who has made me live through the torments of Cairo and those of Granada, I have never encountered such bestiality, such hatred, such bloody destruction, such pleasure in massacre, destruction and sacrilege!

Would anyone believe me if I were to say that nuns were raped on the altars of the churches before being strangled by laughing lansquenets? Would anyone believe me if I were to say that the monasteries were sacked, that the monks were relieved of their habits and forced under the threat of the whip to trample on the crucifix and proclaim that they worshipped the cursed Satan, that the old manuscripts from the libraries fed huge bonfires, around which drunken soldiers danced, that no sanctuary, no palace, no house, escaped being looted, that eight thousand citizens perished, mostly from among the poor, while the rich were held hostage until their ransom was paid?

Contemplating the thick columns of smoke rising up over the city in ever growing number from the wall of the castle, I could not erase the vision of Pope Leo from my memory, who had predicted this disaster at our first meeting: Rome has just been reborn, but death already stalks her! Death was there, in front of me, spreading through the body of the Eternal City.

Sometimes, a few militiamen, a few survivors from the Black Bands, tried to block access to a crossroads, but they were quickly submerged under the flood of attackers. In the Borgo quarter, and especially in the immediate neighbourhood of the Vatican palace, the Swiss guards resisted with commendable valour, sacrificing themselves in tens, in hundreds, for each street, each building, and delaying the advance of the imperial armies for several hours. But eventually they yielded through sheer force of numbers, and the lansquenets invaded St Peter’s Square, shouting:

‘Luther Pope! Luther Pope!’

Clement VII was still in his oratory, unaware of the danger. A bishop came to pull him unceremoniously by the sleeve:

‘Holiness! Holiness! They are here! They will kill you!’

The Pope was on his knees. He got up and ran towards the corridor leading to the Castel San Angelo, with the bishop holding up the bottom of his gown to prevent him tripping over. On his way, he passed in front of an open window, and an imperial soldier fired a salvo in his direction, without hitting him.

‘Your white robe is too conspicuous, Holiness!’ said his companion, hastening to cover him with his own cloak, which was mauve, and less visible.

The Holy Father arrived at the castle safe and sound, but worn out, covered with dust, haggard, his face drawn. He ordered the portcullises to be lowered to prevent access to the fortress, and then shut himself up in his apartments to pray, perhaps also to weep.

In the city, given over to the lansquenets, the sack continued for several long days more. But Castel San Angelo was little affected. The imperial troops surrounded it on all sides, but never risked an attack. Its defensive wall was solid; it had numerous different artillery pieces, sakers, falconets and culverines; its defenders were determined to die to the last man rather than succumb to the fate of the wretched citizenry.

During the first days, reinforcements were still expected. It was known that the Italian members of the Holy League commanded by Francesco della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, were not far from Rome. A French bishop came to whisper in my ear that the Grand Turk had crossed the Alps with sixty thousand men and that he was going to attack the imperial troops from the rear. The news was not confirmed, and the army of the league did not dare to intervene, although it could have retaken Rome without any difficulty and decimated the lansquenets, who were totally absorbed in their pillaging, orgies and drunkenness. Demoralized by the indecision and cowardice of his allies, the Pope resigned himself to negotiations. As early as 21 May he received an envoy from the imperial camp.

Another emissary followed him two days later, for a brief visit. While he was coming up the ramp of the castle, I heard his name mentioned, embellished with various offensive epithets. It is true that he was one of the heads of the Colonna family, a cousin of Cardinal Pompeo. A Florentine priest began to hurl abuse at him, but all those present bade him be silent. Many knew, in fact, like me, that this man, a person of great uprightness, could not rejoice at the disaster which had afflicted his city, that he most certainly regretted the perfidy for which his family was responsible, and that he would do everything to rectify this wrong, by trying to save what could still be saved of the soul of Rome and of the dignity of the papacy.

Hence the arrival of this Colonna did not surprise me. On the other hand, I did not have the slightest idea that the emissary was going to speak about me in the course of his meeting with the Pope. I had never met him before, and when a militiaman came to summon me immediately to the papal apartments, I had not the slightest idea of what might be demanded of me.

The two men were sitting in the library, in two armchairs close to one another. Pope Clement had not shaved for two weeks, a sign of mourning and of protest at the fate which had been inflicted upon him. He asked me to sit down and introduced me to his visitor as ‘a very dear son, a precious and devoted friend’. Colonna had a message for me, which he delivered with some condescension:

‘The chaplain of the Saxon lansquenets has asked me to assure you of his friendship and his grateful remembrance.’

Only one Saxon could know Leo the African. His name was on my lips like a cry of victory, perhaps somewhat indelicate in the circumstances:

‘Hans!’

‘One of your former pupils, I believe. He wants to thank you for all that you have taught him with so much patience, and to show you his gratitude by helping you leave the city with your wife and child.’

Before I could react, the Pope intervened:

‘Of course, I will not oppose the decision which you will take in any way, whatever it may be. But I should warn you that your departure will not be without grave risks for you and yours.’

Colonna explained to me:

‘Among the troops surrounding the castle are a great number of madmen who want to pursue their humiliation of the Apostolic See to the bitter end. Particularly the Germans whom Luther has made fanatical, may God pursue him with his anger until the end of time! Others, in contrast, would like to put an end to the siege and find a solution which would put a stop to the humiliation of Christendom. If His Holiness were to attempt to leave today, I know whole regiments which would not hesitate to seize his person and submit him to the vilest of tortures.’

Clement blenched, while his visitor continued:

‘Neither I nor even the Emperor Charles could prevent that. We must still negotiate much longer, have recourse to persuasion and guile, using all possible means. Today we have the unhoped-for chance to enable one of the besieged to leave, at the express request of a Lutheran preacher. He is waiting for you, with a detachment of Saxons, all heretics like himself, and he says he is ready to escort you himself far away from here. If all goes well, if the whole army hears tomorrow that the chaplain of the Saxon lansquenets has freed one of those besieged in San Angelo, it will be easier for us to suggest, in a few days or a few weeks, the liberation of other people, perhaps even His Holiness himself, in conditions of dignity and security.’

Clement VII intervened again:

‘I repeat, you must not be unaware of the risks. His Eminence tells me that certain fanatical soldiers could cut you into pieces, you, your family and your escort, without even sparing this chaplain. The decision which you are asked to take is not easy. In addition, you do not have the time to think it over. The cardinal is already getting ready to leave and you must go with him.’

By temperament I preferred to run a risk that was immediate but of short duration than stay for ever in this besieged prison, which could be overrun at any moment and put to fire and the sword. My sole hesitation was for Maddalena and Giuseppe. It was not easy for me to lead them, of my own free will, through hordes of murderers and looters. That said, if I were to leave them in San Angelo with or without me there, I could in no way ensure their security.

Colonna pressed me:

‘What have you chosen?’

‘I put myself in God’s hands. I shall tell my wife to pack the few things we have here.’

‘You will take nothing with you. The smallest bundle, the tiniest bag might arouse the lansquenets like the smell of blood excites wild beasts. You will leave just as you are, lightly dressed with arms swinging.’

I did not bother to argue. It was written that I should pass from one country to another as one passes from life to death, without gold, without ornament, with no other fortune than my resignation to the will of the Most High.

When I explained to her what was happening in a few brief words, Maddalena got up. Slowly, as she always did, but without the slightest hesitation, as if she had always known that I would one day come to call her into exile. She took Giuseppe’s hand and walked behind me to go to the Pope, who blessed us, praised our courage and commended us to the protection of God. I kissed his hand and handed him all my writings, with the exception of this chronicle, still unfinished, which I had rolled up and slid under my belt.

Hans awaited us with open arms at the entrance to the Regola quarter, where we had often wandered in the past, and which was now no more than a heap of burnt-out ruins. He wore a short gown and discoloured sandals, and had a helmet on his head, which he promptly removed to give me an embrace. The war had made him prematurely grey, and his face was more angular than ever. Around him stood a dozen lansquenets, in baggy clothes and ragged plumes, to whom he introduced me as his brothers.

We had barely taken a few steps when a Castilian officer came to station his men across our way. Signalling that I should not move, Hans spoke to the soldier in a tone that was firm but which would brook no provocation. Then he took a letter out of his pocket, the sight of which cleared the way immediately. How many times were we stopped in this way before reaching our destination? Probably twenty times, perhaps even thirty. But at no point was Hans caught unprepared. He had organized the expedition admirably, obtaining a whole wad of safe-conducts signed by the Viceroy of Naples, Cardinal Colonna and various military leaders. In addition, he was surrounded by his ‘brothers’, solidly-built Saxons, who were quick to point their arms at the numerous drunken soldiers who were roaming the streets on the lookout for spoils.

When he felt reassured of the efficacy of his arrangements, Hans began to talk to me about the war. Strangely, the thoughts he put forward in no way corresponded to the image I had kept of him. He bemoaned the turn which events had taken, recalling the years he had spent in Rome with emotion, and condemned the sack of the city. At first he spoke in veiled terms. But on the third day, when we were nearing Naples, he rode along at my side, so close that our feet touched.

‘For the second time we have unleashed forces which we have been unable to contain. First the revolt of the peasants of Saxony, inspired by Luther’s teaching, which had to be condemned and repressed. And now the destruction of Rome.’

He had spoken the first words in Arabic, and then continued in Hebrew, the language he knew better. One thing was certain: he did not want the soldiers accompanying him to be aware of his doubts and his remorse. To me he seemed so ill at ease in his role as Lutheran preacher that when we reached Naples I felt obliged to suggest to him that he should come with me to Tunis. He smiled bitterly.

‘This war is my war. I have longed for it, I dragged my brothers, my cousins, the young men of my diocese into it. I can no longer run away from it, even if it should lead me to eternal damnation. You have only been mixed up in it by a quirk of fate.’

At Naples, an urchin led us to ‘Abbad’s house, and it was only when the latter came to open his gate that Hans left us. I wanted to express my desire to see him again one day, somewhere in the wide world, but I did not want to cheapen the deep gratitude I felt for this man by meaningless formulae. So I simply embraced him warmly and then watched him go, not without a feeling of paternal affection.

Then it was ‘Abbad the Soussi’s turn to give me a warm embrace. For months he had hoped for our arrival each day. He had cancelled all his journeys that year, swearing that he would not leave without us. Now nothing held him back. After a bath, a feast and a nap, we were all at the harbour, perfumed and dressed in new clothes. The finest of ‘Abbad’s galleys awaited us, ready to make for Tunis.

A last word written on the last page, and we are already at the coast of Africa.

White minarets of Gammarth, noble remains of Carthage, it is in their shade that oblivion awaits me, and it is towards them that my life is drifting after so many shipwrecks. The sack of Rome after the chastisement of Cairo, the fire of Timbuktu after the fall of Granada. Is it misfortune which calls out to me, or do I call out to misfortune?

Once more, my son, I am borne along by that sea, the witness of all my wanderings, and which is now taking you towards your first exile. In Rome, you were ‘the son of the Rumi’. Wherever you are, some will want to ask questions about your skin or your prayers. Beware of gratifying their instincts, my son, beware of bending before the multitude! Muslim, Jew or Christian, they must take you as you are, or lose you. When men’s minds seem narrow to you, tell yourself that the land of God is broad; broad His hands and broad His heart. Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.

For my part, I have reached the end of my wanderings. Forty years of adventures have made my gait heavy and my breathing burdensome. I have no longer any desire other than to live long peaceful days in the bosom of my family. And to be, of all those that I love, the first to depart. Towards the final Place where no man is a stranger before the face of the Creator.