The Medici Secret

Chapter 30

Macedonia, present day As the heli-jet came in low over Skopje airport, Jeff could see the city below, a low-rise mass of white buildings skirted by green mottled mountains. An hour later, they were through customs and being driven across the city in a black Toyota Landcruiser Sahara. Their driver and guide took them out on to the freeway heading west. The road climbed slowly as the landscape grew more mountainous. It was late afternoon by the time they reached the foothills of Golem Korab, the tallest mountain in Macedonia and the site of an ancient, now-ruined monastery. This stood beside a wide stretch of water, Lake Angja. Using a software package called Google Earth that enabled them to zoom in to within a few metres of any spot on the surface of the planet, they had checked over the site and were able to pinpoint a large stone cube, a featureless building on a small island close to the centre of the lake. There was no information available about the building but, from the slightly blurred images on Google Earth, it looked like some sort of marble mausoleum. Crucially, it was the same shape as the outline of the building etched into the key.

The main road soon petered out and the four-wheel drive Toyota turned off on to a steep dirt track. After about thirty minutes, they reached a hikers' base, called Refuge Karadjek. From here, the guide had told them, a leisurely climb would bring them to the ruins.

Jeff and Edie pressed on up the mountain alone. They each had a rucksack, torches, food, and walkie-talkies because there was no signal here for their phones. They had also packed a lighter, emergency flares and a change of clothing. Jeff was also carrying an inflatable kayak made from ultra-light carbon fibre.

It was freezing cold, but stunningly beautiful, a hard and brittle beauty, like a cubist-era Picasso or a woman past her prime but radiant still with cheekbones chiselled from ice. It reminded Edie of childhood holidays in Scotland, walking through the Grampians. She hadn't then appreciated the spectacular skyscrapers of rock and the long spindly lakes squeezed almost into oblivion by the pincer movement of ancient stone; but now she could see the wonder of it all.

The monastery reared up like the remains of a fossilised wood, great columns of stone soaring into the sky, jagged and irregular. Looking at it now, Jeff could visualise how once, long ago, it had been a magnificent sight, a monument both to the ingenuity of man and to his piety, for this had been a place of worship as much as a sanctuary where hardy souls had vowed to dedicate their lives to their God. And there, immediately behind it, perhaps a hundred feet down the other side of the hill, Lake Angja. It lay in the shadow of the mountains. Shafts of evening sun broke through the clouds and cast pools of brilliance on the hills close to the water. But the lake had the appearance of black glass, utterly still and forbidding, almost alien.

'Can I see the printout?' Jeff asked. The wind had come up and they had both pulled on their fur-lined hoods. Jeff compared the Google Earth image with the copy they had made of the schematic etched into the key. 'The island must be just around that promontory,' he said, pointing vaguely north-east.

Passing close to the remains of the towers, they found a rough path between the rocks that took them down to the edge of the lake. A small island was visible about a hundred metres across the still black water. Trees obscured much of the shoreline but they could just make out the sides of a squat building, its walls straight and unadorned.

They dumped their rucksacks and Jeff slipped the protective cover from the kayak and let it unfurl on the shingle. He pushed a small lever on the side and a canister of gas opened, inflating the kayak. Together they pushed the boat into the water and clambered in.

There was no current, so the crossing was easy. As they stepped on to a rocky outcrop of the island, they were struck by the stillness, and the almost complete silence all around them. The building dominated the island, a giant marble slab, featureless and foreboding. The walls were smooth, immaculately crafted to the point of complete blandness, leaving only the grain of the stone to offer texture or to break its uniformity. It reminded them of something Albert Speer would have dreamed up for Adolf Hitler's fantasy of the Third Reich.

They circumvented the building twice before finding the door. It was a narrow marble rectangle made from the same piece of stone as the wall. The grain flowed from the door across the seam to the wall. The door would have been almost invisible when closed, but now it was slightly ajar. The lock had been tampered with recently, and there was still the residue of some lubricating oil. Jeff felt a tingle of excitement shoot down his spine.

'You don't have to go any further, Edie,' he said, pulling a torch from his bag. 'Don't be bloody ridiculous.'

'Perhaps one of us should stay here anyway, just incase.'

'Oh sod off, Jeff. In case of what? Don't you think it's a bit late for that sort of thinking?'

'OK,' he said, ducking under the lintel and flicking on his torch.

Their feet echoed on the marble floor of a narrow corridor. Their torch beams cut spectral tubes of illumination through the darkness and they could just make out the far wall, another featureless stone barrier. But as their eyes adjusted to the void they could see a faint patch of light and the blankness of empty space gave way to an outline, a rectangular opening and a corridor beyond.

The distant light was just enough to see by and they flicked off their torches. The stone walls were as smooth and plain as the rest of the mausoleum: cold, soulless marble that glistened very faintly. Instinctively, they moved to the edge of the corridor, clinging to the wall and slowing their pace. As they approached the end of the passageway they could see another rectangular opening cut into the stone. A vast metal door opened into another corridor, and through the opening on to a high-ceilinged chamber. The walls were splashed with orange light that danced and shimmered over the stone. Edie slid around the stone and leaned into the room as far as she dared.

It was vast, a circular chamber with a domed roof, almost a hemisphere, but pinched at the centre like the domes of St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. The walls and the floor were constructed from the purest white stone. In the centre stood a massive block of black marble.

At first, Edie couldn't understand how the room was lit. There were no torches on the walls. But a channel, perhaps two feet wide cut into the floor, ran around the perimeter of the room and flames licked the air with their roots in a viscous black liquid. Someone had obviously been here very recently.

This does not bode well, thought Jeff. But it was too late to turn back now.

They left their rucksacks by the entrance, and walked over to the black object, which lay directly beneath the apex of the ceiling. Along one edge were three deep steps. They took them slowly. Reaching the top, Edie gasped and almost lost her footing. 'My God!' she exclaimed. Beneath a glass canopy, two large caskets lay side by side. One casket contained the body of a woman who was wearing what looked like a wedding dress, except it was cream and laced in pale blue. A gossamer veil covered her face. The man in the other casket wore a long gown of royal blue velvet with gold brocade. Their faces had crumbled, the skin frayed along the chin and across the cheeks. Their hands lay on cream silk, the flesh all gone, which made their identical rings of white gold and amethyst look many sizes too big. Beside the nearest casket stood two marble columns. Upon the left pedestal sat a plain rectangular wooden box, about a foot long. On the column to the right was a gold plaque with words in Latin etched into it. All they could understand immediately were the words: COSIMO ET CONTESSINA DE' MEDICI. 'Quite spectacular, is it not?' The voice came from the entrance. They spun round.

'You're wondering where we've been? Believe me, this place is a rabbit warren.'

A tall, lean man in a black suit, his dyed black hair swept back over his ears, emerged into the light. Beside him walked Aldo Candotti carrying a gun nonchalantly at his side. And behind them, Jack Cartwright came forward. He had a young woman with him: Rose. Cartwright kept her right arm yanked up behind her back, and her mouth was gagged with a length of black cloth.

Jeff dashed down the steps, an inhuman growl coming from deep inside his chest. Candotti grabbed Rose from Cartwright and shoved the gun hard to her forehead.

'Now, let's all try to remain calm, shall we?' The tall man in black declared with a faint smile.

'Who the hell are you?' Jeff snapped. 'And what are you doing with my daughter?' He took a step towards Candotti who pushed the barrel harder into Rose's head, making her groan.

'My name is Luc Fournier.' He signalled to Candotti to ease off.

'And you,' Edie spat. 'What the hell are you doing here?' Cartwright did not reply.

'Signor Cartwright has been in my employ for some time,' Fournier said. 'You look surprised, Signorina.'

Edie rounded on Cartwright, eyes blazing. 'It was you! You killed your own stepfather.'

Cartwright's expression of denial looked like it was painted on.

'Poor Jack,' Fournier interjected. 'Poor Jack was always playing second fiddle, always overshadowed by the great Carlin Mackenzie. It was easy for me to find an ally. He jumped at the chance to tell me everything that was going on. It was I who obtained the Medici journal in 1966. It seemed quite possible there would be other treasures buried in the crypt. I didn't want anyone else stumbling upon them, now did I?' 'So you knew about the artefact immediately after it was discovered and you killed my uncle to steal it?' 'That was regrettable.'

Edie glared at Cartwright. 'You piece of shit,' she snarled.

'We are not here to settle family disagreements.' Fournier was clearly enjoying the role of master of ceremonies. 'There are far more pressing matters. This chamber was designed by Contessina de' Medici and built a few years before her death, a mausoleum in which she and her beloved husband could lie together for all eternity. All very touching. But my only interest lies with the contents of that rather unassuming little box over there.' He pointed to the pedestal standing beside the tombs.

'As you have doubtless learned already, Cosimo de' Medici and his future wife Contessina travelled to this place almost exactly six hundred years ago. On that voyage they were accompanied by two men, Niccolo Niccoli, and Ambrogio Tommasini. They had left Florence under the auspices of a travelling mystic and philosopher named Francesco Valiani who guided them to a library in the monastery where it was believed important ancient documents were hidden. But they, or rather Ambrogio, found much more. He discovered a strange substance that could protect people from disease, but which could also kill, a biochemical agent.'

'What does any of this have to do with us?' Jeff snapped. 'For God's sake, let my daughter go.' Candotti ignored him.

'The contents of that box have a great deal to do with you, Signor Martin,' Fournier said, 'and Rose is my little insurance policy. You and Signorina Granger are a remarkable couple. I knew you would find a way to get here, after all you've been through. In fact I was relying upon it. Because you have a vital piece of information I need.' 'We do?'

'I need four numbers,' Fournier said. 'Four Roman numerals to be precise. And I have only two, those etched into the key retrieved from the Medici Chapel, the numbers D and M. That presents me with a problem.' Jeff shrugged his shoulders.

'But it also presents you with one, Signor Martin.' Fournier smiled his sinister smile. 'On your travels you came across two more Roman numerals, which were overlooked by my people. We could have all been saved a great deal of trouble this afternoon if someone had used their initiative. Now you will please give me those two numbers.' 'Why should I?'

'Because, Signor Martin, if you do not, the lovely Rose here will very quickly end up as dead as Cosimo and Contessina.' 'IV and V,' Jeff said.

'Thank you so much. You see how easy it is.' Fournier walked up the marble steps to the pedestal and the locked box. A barrel of four individual metal cylinders comprised the lock. He stared at them for a moment then rolled them into position. 'Other than the monks of Golem Korab,' he said. 'Ambrogio Tommasini was one of the few people ever to see what was contained in this box. He tampered with things he did not, could not, understand and paid the penalty. After his death, the Medici secreted away this box. But our good friend, Niccolo Niccoli, wrote a journal about their adventure in which he left a series of cryptic clues. Apparently, the secret could be revealed using four numbers and the words: to be a god. Placed in the correct sequence, the numbers IV, V, M and D spell DIWM or DIVUM… God.' The latch clicked open, and Fournier raised the lid. Reaching down, he carefully lifted the vial level with his eyes. 'Amazing!' he murmured.

'Will you please let Rose go now?' Jeff said. 'You've got what you came for.'

Fournier nodded to Candotti, who reluctantly loosened the gag and shoved Rose away. She stumbled, but Jeff moved forward quickly to catch her.

There was a discreet cough from the doorway. Candotti swivelled round and aimed his gun.

'There's really no need for that, Deputy Prefect,' Roberto said, taking several paces into the room. He was limping slightly, his left arm was in plaster from shoulder to hand and it lay in a sling. His face was still badly discoloured.

'Visconte Armatovani.' Fournier gave the briefest of bows. 'To what do we owe the pleasure?'

'How could I resist, Monsieur Fournier? I was worried about my friends here. I also had Some enforced leisure time in the hospital to do some thinking. And, even if I say so myself, I do have a rather fine library. By great good fortune, copies of some parts of Niccoli's journal had fallen into the hands of my ancestors. I have learned some remarkable things about that…' and he nodded towards the glowing tube in Fournier's hand. Fournier raised an eyebrow, 'Oh, really?'

'This is the great secret which the Medici realised had to be hidden from the sight of men. To them it was a miraculous substance. To be sure, it had sent one of their friends to a most hideous death, but the contents of that vial could protect people from the plague. But Cosimo and Contessina had seen at first hand how such a thing could corrupt. Men would be willing to sacrifice their very souls for something like this. I'm sure you would love to tell us all about it, Monsieur Fournier.'

Fournier's eyes gleamed with triumph. 'The vial contains a very rare biochemical agent called Ropractin. You've all heard of Ricin and Sarin, both very nasty chemicals that in tiny quantities can kill thousands. Ropractin comes from a mould called Tyrinilym Posterinicum, found in damp climates. Refined and purified, it produces a liquid that has a fluorescent green hue. In trace amounts Ropractin kills bacteria like a super penicillin. But, above a certain concentration, it causes the rapid onset of some very unpleasant diseases for which there are no known cures.

'The Medici discovered this the hard way. They had no idea where this vial came from originally, and probably none of us will ever know. Perhaps some anonymous alchemist discovered it. Who knows?'

'But the point is,' Roberto interrupted. 'You have not come all this way to help combat disease, or for medical science…'

'Do we have to listen to all this, Luc?' Candotti blurted out. 'You can't trust this man…'

Fournier turned slowly towards the Venetian Police Chief. 'You amuse me, Aldo.' Candotti looked puzzled.

'A man such as yourself talking about trust. You have sold your career and the trust placed in you by the good people of Italy. And for what? The few pieces of silver I have passed your way.' He shook his head, tutting. 'And you, Signor Cartwright,' Fournier went on. 'Do you have any pearls of wisdom to add? Any words of warning about who we may or may not trust?' Cartwright remained silent.

From his jacket pocket Fournier removed a snub-nosed pistol. He raised his gun and shot Cartwright and Candotti between the eyes.

Jeff crouched down shielding Rose with his body. Fournier had turned his gun on Edie, but he didn't fire. Roberto had a Beretta M9 in his good hand aimed directly at Fournier's head. 'Edie, Jeff, Rose, get out of the way.' They took cover behind the tomb. 'You and I have no quarrel,' Fournier said quietly. He began to back away towards the door. 'And you dare not shoot. If I were to drop this vial…'

Roberto held the Beretta steady for a second, then lowered it. Fournier dived to one side. Crouching low to the ground, he fired once, wide of his target, sped towards the exit and disappeared. Edie, Jeff and Rose emerged from behind the Medici sarcophagi, averting their eyes from the carnage just a few feet away. 'We can't just let that maniac go,' Edie said.

'What do you suggest?' Roberto responded. 'We're not the police. Anyway,' his eyes flickered towards Candotti's body, 'they weren't a great help.'

'Roberto's right, Edie,' Jeff said. 'Remember why we got into this in the first place? To find out who killed your uncle. We know the answer now.'

'Oh great,' she growled. Marching up the marble steps, she stared down at the empty box, hands on her hips. Then suddenly, she yelled and kicked the base of the pedestal.

There was a loud cracking sound from the floor beneath her feet, followed by a high pitched whine and the sound of stone grinding on stone. The pedestal toppled to one side, sending the empty box clattering down the steps. From a point above the entrance to the chamber, a massive stone block slid down from the lintel. It slammed into the floor, making the whole room shudder.

No one moved. All they could hear was the steely sound of small stones and debris falling from the ceiling on to the marble floor.

Tears welled up in Rose's eyes. 'We're trapped aren't we?'

'There's always a way, sweetheart,' Jeff said and put his arm around her shoulders.

In place of the column was a perfectly square hole. Inside lay rows of wooden tubes. Jeff reached in, lifted one out and put it on the floor carefully before picking up another, almost identical tube.

'Scrolls, like the one Sporani found in the Medici Chapel,' Roberto said.

Jeff removed a few more, then spotted something lying underneath. 'There's another box.' 'Can you lift it out?'

'No, it's fixed in place. There's a lock, identical to the other one.' Jeff rolled the cylinders to form the right combination. There was a satisfying click and he lifted the lid.

An identical vial lay nestled in the velvet padding. On the inside of the lid, inscribed in gold was a line of Latin. Roberto translated it: ALL MEN ARE TREACHEROUS. Jeff lifted out the vial and held it up. It weighed almost nothing and shimmered luminous green in the light from the oil burners.

'I know this sounds crazy. But it seems almost alive.' 'For fuck's sake Jeff, be careful,' Edie muttered.

'It looks pretty robust,' Jeff replied. 'Thick glass or crystal. If Tommasini killed himself he must have opened it. Look, this has been expertly resealed.' He pointed to the end of the tube where a stout brass cap joined the glass, a waxy substance had been moulded into the join. 'OK, but even so…'

'So,' Jeff said, passing the vial to Roberto. 'Two vials. One real, one fake?'

Edie laughed suddenly, an edge of hysteria to it. 'Bloody marvellous. We have the vial, but we're shut in with no way out.'

'Damn it!' Jeff walked over to the door. A thin line around the edge was the only indication that there had ever been an opening at all. 'This is ridiculous. How can this happen? How could fifteenth-century engineers construct such a thing?'

'They weren't the first,' Roberto replied. 'Four and half thousand years ago the Great Pyramid was sealed up immediately after the pharaoh was buried. It was all done automatically using an ingenious system of ropes and pulleys. Don't forget who we're dealing with. The Medici were not your average citizens. They had amazing resources at their disposal, and Cosimo and his pals were steeped in ancient knowledge.'

'And the Humanist ideal,' Edie sneered. 'Not much good to us now.' 'What did you say?' Roberto snapped. 'The Humanist ideal…' 'Of course!'

Roberto raised the vial to eye level. 'The Humanist ideal.

'What are you going on about, Roberto?' Edie glared at him.

'Cosimo and his friends were driven by the power of knowledge, but they were also very high-minded. They believed personal integrity was paramount. Note the inscription.' He pointed to the lid of the box. 'They realised the power of the vial. They knew it could destroy their world. That's why they hid it here.'

'So what are you trying to tell us?' Rose asked shakily.

Crouching down, Roberto placed the vial back in its box and shut the lid.

For several moments nothing happened. Roberto stepped back, keeping his eyes glued to the opening in the floor.

'It's not…' Jeff began and stopped. A low rumbling came from the floor and the box sank down into the stone stairs. They watched it descend three feet, four, five. It stopped and a stone block slid across the space sealing the box deep inside the tomb. Then came a new sound, from across the room, the grating of stone on stone. It grew louder. They ran down the steps, reaching the floor as the block of stone in the doorway began to lift. They dashed towards it and ducked under the rock, almost falling over each other into the dark corridor on the other side.

They were picking themselves up in the darkness when, without warning, the block stopped moving. There was a moment of silence. Then came a noise like the growling of some monstrous beast. It grew louder and louder. A tremendous crash came from inside the chamber and they could see through the opening great boulders tumbling through the air and smashing to the floor.

'Quick! The ceiling is coming down,' yelled Roberto. Jeff grabbed Rose and they made their way as fast as they could towards the exit, Roberto limping a few feet behind the others. The walls were shaking and the floor began to crack and splinter. Towards the end of the corridor, they felt a massive jolt like a seismic tremor. Rose screamed. In the grey light they saw a chasm a metre wide shudder across the floor and up the wall. Edie helped Roberto cross the fissure. He slipped, landed heavily and convulsed in pain. 'Come on… the exit is just ahead,' Edie screamed above the noise.

Catching up with Jeff and Rose, they all kept running as fast as they could, not looking back. Lathered with sweat, they emerged into the air. The cold hit them like a sledgehammer, but it was a relief. Night had fallen, and it was not easy finding their way back on to the shingle. But then, the darkness was ripped away as an intense beam of light broke over the mausoleum and a helicopter roared into view, before it banked away to the north.

They could hear voices coming from the direction of the monastery. And out of the night another bright beam cut a swath through the darkness. A small motor launch roared up on to the beach. A Macedonian police officer jumped out and splashed his way to the shore. Roberto led the way and Jeff held Rose close as they crossed the rough ground to follow the policeman.

The chopper was back and was swooping low over the water as they covered the short distance to the edge of the lake. As they made dry land, another officer saw them, broke into a run and called into his radio for assistance.

Outside the old monastery it looked like the aftermath of a military operation. Close to the towers they could see figures in bulky white biohazard suits erecting a large inflatable decontamination tent. The chopper returned to hover over the towers and another was perched on a narrow plateau of rock a dozen metres from the entrance to the ruins. A policeman instructed them to follow him. Inside the helicopter, three men in biohazard suits sat with rifles across their laps. On the floor behind the pilot, his hands cuffed behind him, was Luc Fournier. His face was badly bruised and his suit ripped. 'Is this the man?' the policeman asked Jeff. Fournier did not even look up. The policeman gave the pilot the thumbs up.

As they ducked away from the whirling blades, Roberto said, 'OK, so I arranged a little back-up.'

Jeff could not resist laughing, and with a grin, Roberto leaned forward to ruffle Rose's hair. 'You two go and get warmed up,' he said. 'I think we're all going to be put through decontamination.'

Two paramedics ran up and escorted Jeff and Rose to the ambulance chopper.

'You certainly know how to put on a show, don't you Roberto?' Edie said, her eyes gleaming. 'You complaining?' 'No!' She laughed and looked away.

'I want to show you something before we get checked out'

She slipped her hand through his good arm. 'You are the most extraordinary man I have ever met. How on earth did you find your way here?'

'I called the Medici Chapel, hoping to reach you, but instead talked to Sonia. She told me about the key and Candotti. Google and my library did the rest'

'Ah yes, your library. I can just picture Vincent heaving all those books to the hospital.' 'Made a change from grapes.'

They passed the remains of the western tower and skirted the outer wall of the monastery. A path led directly to a circular stone platform, which then afforded them a vista of breathtaking beauty. Lake Angja lay stretched out before them, glistening in the moonlight like a black and white photograph taken with a starburst filter. They could see the mausoleum, a flattened cube of dark stone on the island off to the west. It appeared fathomless, and now they knew that it did indeed harbour many secrets inside its walls.

Roberto put his arm around Edie as they stared out at the water. 'It's not hard to imagine Cosimo and Contessina standing on this very spot six centuries ago, is it?' he said. 'Puts things into perspective.' 'They must have been very much in love.' She turned to look at him, surprised.

'Contessina didn't just create this whole thing to hide the vial,' Roberto said, his eyes fixed on the incredible view. 'This place obviously meant a great deal to them. It was their special place and she wanted them to be here together for eternity.'

'I didn't realise that the Visconte was such a terrible romantic'

'Maybe,' he replied with a sly smile. 'But I was also thinking what a sacrifice they made.' 'How do you mean?'

'In the fifteenth century people believed that the body was sacrosanct. Just think of their obsession with Holy relics. Yet they allowed their beautiful tomb to be destroyed just to stop anyone unworthy taking the vial.' 'Did they though?'

'Of course they did. I think the Medici Secret is safe, at least for a while. I don't intend telling anyone about it. And I get the feeling our friend Luc Fournier is going to be locked away for a very long time. Naturally, there will always be people like Fournier. But there will also be people like Cosimo and Contessina…' 'It was understanding what made them tick that got us out of there.' 'A lucky break.'

Edie gave him a doubting look and they were silent for a moment, savouring the peerless atmosphere of the place.

'And at the very least they certainly looked peaceful before the roof came down, did they not?' Roberto said finally.

'They weren't really there though were they, Roberto?'

'Perhaps not, but we were, so their legacy lives on. Perhaps in another six hundred years someone else will learn of the Medici Secret. And, who knows? They may even live in more enlightened times. It would be nice to think that one day there might be no place for people like Fournier and nothing to be gained from trying to sell death to the highest bidder.' 'What? You mean the Humanist ideal?'

'Something like that,' he whispered, pulling her close and lowering his lips to hers. 'Something like that'

The Facts Behind the Fiction The Medici Secret is of course a work of fiction but, as with my first novel Equinox, many elements of this story are also based in fact. What follows is a summary of those elements and the truth behind them.

Ancient Manuscripts

The Greeks and Romans were great chroniclers. Unfortunately for human civilisation much of what was written in ancient times has been lost. The magnificent store of knowledge destroyed when the library at Alexandria was razed was one of the worst losses. But many texts disappeared in other, less dramatic ways.

Some of the vast literature of Greek and Roman civilisation was preserved in the monasteries and royal libraries of Europe and Asia Minor, and many documents survived the Dark Ages. It was largely thanks to the Florentines that this knowledge was retrieved by Europeans and used as the basis for the tremendous blossoming of civilisation we call the Renaissance.

The great fourteenth-century Italian philosopher, Petrarch, gathered about him a collection of like-minded adepts who shared a fascination with the Classical tradition. They believed there were perhaps thousands of manuscripts and documents in the original Latin and Greek secreted away in private collections and in isolated monasteries. Many of these men made it their life's work to seek out such treasures.

A generation after Petrarch, some of the most significant finds in the area of ancient 'scientific' studies were made. One of the most important figures in this quest was Niccolo Niccoli. During the second decade of the fifteenth century, Niccoli discovered Astronomica by the Roman writer Manilius, along with Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and several books about mining and agriculture including Silvae by Statius and De Re Rustica by Columella. A few years later, Bracciolini found Cassio Frontinus' On Aqueducts, which had provided the cornerstone of Roman architectural technique, and Cicero's Brutus, a book that soon became politically controversial because of its portrayal of the virtues of a monarchical form of government.

What was significant about these finds was that they were written in the original Latin and were mostly unadulterated. This meant that for the first time the Florentine elite of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries could read the words of the great thinkers of the Classical era exactly as they had been written.

This was a tremendous advance. But perhaps even more important is the fact that, when these works were translated and interpreted, it was soon realised just how much the scientific thinking of Roman scholars was actually based upon an older source: the ideas of the Greeks, and in particular, such figures as Archimedes, Aristotle, Pythagoras and Plato from the golden era of Greek learning between 500 and 250 BC.

The inevitable result of this was a new and intensified search for the original Greek sources of scientific knowledge. Inspired by what had already been found, many of the richest people in Florence began to send emissaries abroad to locate and to purchase on their behalf anything they could find in the original Greek.

Until this time, the only original Greek manuscripts in Western European hands consisted of a few fragments of Aristotle and scraps of Plato along with some tracts of Euclid, all jealously guarded by monks or in the hands of a few devotees. Petrarch himself was reputed to have owned an original manuscript of Homer, but could not read a word of it. On the authority of the Roman writers to whom he referred, he accepted that Homer was a great poet and would kiss the book every night before retiring.

During the first three decades of the fifteenth century, several hundred original manuscripts found their way to Florence, largely from the East; where once Crusaders fought for Christendom, Western emissaries now bartered and purchased intellectual capital from the Turk. A single Florentine agent, Giovanni Aurispa returned after one particularly fruitful voyage in 1423 with 238 complete manuscripts.

In this way, the intellectual community of Florence acquired complete versions of Aristotle's Politics, the histories of Herodotus, the dialogues of Plato, the Iliad, the Odyssey and the plays of Sophocles, along with the medical writings of Hippocrates and Galen.

With accurate translations of a growing collection of Greek texts came the startling realisation that everything the Florentines had achieved culturally so far had been surpassed almost two millennia earlier by the Greeks. But this discovery did not act as a destructive force. It inspired them not only to emulate but to dare consider improving upon what the ancients had achieved.

In 1428, a committee was organised to instigate a series of changes to the education system of Florence. One of the trustees of the Studium, which lay at the cultural heart of the city, was Cosimo de' Medici, then a young banker living in Rome. He persuaded the clerical institutions of Florence to provide an annual 1,500 florins to add two new chairs to the rostrum of subjects. The existing curricula consisted of medicine, astrology, logic, grammar and law, and to these were added moral philosophy and a professorship of rhetoric and poetry. This provided a new syllabus for every student in Florence, and formed the foundation of the system adopted throughout Europe that remained in place within the universities of England, France and Italy until the eighteenth century.

Biochemical Weapons

The biochemical at the centre of the novel – the Medici Secret itself – is Ropractin. This is a fictional chemical but its structure and properties are very close to a real biochemical agent called Sarin. This biochemical is also known by its NATO designation of 'GB'. Sarin is an extremely toxic substance and its sole application is as a nerve agent. It has been classified a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations, and its production and stockpiling was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.

Sarin became famous in 1994 when it was used by the Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo whose fanatical members released an impure form of the biochemical during several connected incidents, which together resulted in the deaths of more than a score of people and injured hundreds of others.

Biochemical and biological weapons have been known for centuries. The earliest example of a biological weapon comes from a time predating the story of Cosimo and his associates in The Medici Secret. In 1346, the bodies of Tartar soldiers who had died of the plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged city of Kaffa (now Fedossia in the Crimea) to infect those within. Four centuries later, during the French and Indian War in North America in the 1760s, the English gave blankets contaminated with smallpox virus to the natives.

Chemical weapons were used on several occasions during the First World War, and, in more recent times, the late leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is known to have gassed thousands of Kurds and used biochemical weapons during the decade-long war with Iran that began in 1980.

Today, the use of biochemical and biological agents by terrorist groups is a very real fear for Western governments. Huge resources are deployed in an ongoing effort to stop such substances falling into the wrong hands, but many believe that it is only a matter of time before some nihilistic individual or organisation somewhere obtains sufficient quantities of a deadly agent to cause mass murder in a Western city. It is sobering to realise that there may well be a Luc Fournier out there now formulating such a nefarious plan. Further Reading: Biochemical Weapons: Limiting the Threat, Joshua Lederberg, MIT Press, Boston, 1999.

Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno was a mystic and a philosopher who rejected both the priesthood and orthodox religion to become a man abhorred by the Inquisition. Born in Nola near Naples in 1548, he joined the Dominican order. But, after discovering a wider philosophical outlook through the work of Copernicus and other unorthodox thinkers, he turned his back on religious dogma. He wrote many books of radical philosophy, the most famous of which was The Ash Wednesday Supper.

Bruno lived in London for a short time and is believed to have worked as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I. He associated with many of the mystics of the day, including John Dee, and he may have met William Shakespeare who is known to have become interested in many of Bruno's ideas.

Early in 1592 Bruno moved back to Italy at the invitation of a nobleman named Giovanni Mocenigo. Ostensibly, this was so he would become a tutor to this wealthy patron. While in Venice, he taught in Padua and made the acquaintance of Galileo and other thinkers of the time. However, the invitation from Mocenigo was a trap, and in May 1592 Bruno was arrested in Venice and put on trial before the Venetian Inquisition. He was then transferred to Rome. There he remained in a filthy cell for seven years. He endured terrible torture at the hands of the Pope's right-hand man, Robert Bellarmine and was burned at the stake in Campo de' Fiori in Rome on 17 February 1600.

Although Giordano was murdered by the Inquisition, today he is considered to be the first martyr of science and philosophy, a man who refused to back down from his opinions about the nature of the universe. Galileo was well aware of Bruno's treatment at the hands of the Roman Curia and did not want to share the same fate. Bruno's legacy has grown as the Catholic Church has diminished, but he remains anathema to orthodoxy and even now, over four centuries after his death, he has not been pardoned for his so-called heretical views. Further Reading: The Pope and the Heretic, Michael White, Abacus, London, 2002.

Cosimo and the Medici

My drawing of the character and early biography of Cosimo de' Medici in The Medici Secret are as accurate as I could make them. He was born in Florence in 1389. His family did live in a house on Piazza del Duomo, his father was named Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici who did found what was by 1410 already a great bank.

In reality, Cosimo had two younger siblings, Lorenzo and Pierfrancesco. Lorenzo was sixteen in 1410 and Cosimo's half-brother Pierfrancesco was not born until 1431, twenty-one years after the events described in the novel. However, the essential fact that differentiates the fictional and the actual Cosimo is that, in reality, he never did make a voyage of discovery to Macedonia, or anywhere else. However, intriguingly, he did come very close to it. His intimate friend Niccolo Niccoli tried to persuade him to join him on a journey to the East, but Cosimo's father refused to allow it, and Cosimo acceded to his father's wishes.

Cosimo was a Humanist. He was extremely interested in culture and learning and he did a great deal to spark the Renaissance. Although he did not actually travel far himself, he paid others to retrieve anything they could from far-flung places, including Macedonia.

Cosimo was, like his father, a great businessman and he did much to further expand the horizons of the family bank. Most importantly, he handled papal finances. This was crucial in the evolution of the Medici dynasty and it made him the wealthiest man of his time.

But of course, the Medici had enemies – not the Tommasini family – and there were constant rivalries between them and other great Italian families. One, the Albizzi tried to have him assassinated, and when this failed they succeeded in having him imprisoned in 1433. But within a year, Cosimo was back in Florence and had acquired greater power and influence. For the next thirty years he was, in all but name, leader of Florence.

Cosimo was married to Contessina de' Bardi in 1416 and they had two children, Piero and Giovanni. Upon his death in 1464, Cosimo was indeed named Pater Patriae, Father of his Country. His eldest son, Piero then became the Florentine leader. Known as Piero the Gouty, he was plagued with bad health and died in 1469, just five years after his illustrious father. His son Lorenzo became, after Cosimo, the most highly regarded and successful Medici of them all. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, he was, like his grandfather and father, the first citizen of Florence, and for twenty-three years he was effectively the political leader of the city state, guiding Florence through a period of unprecedented stability and growth.

The character of Contessina as portrayed in the novel bears almost no relationship to the real-life wife of Cosimo de' Medici. According to official histories, she had no special physical powers and was not educated by a magus such as Valiani, but she was certainly a very intelligent and loyal woman, who was devoted to Cosimo and supportive of his endeavours. Further Reading: The Rise and Fall of the House of the Medici, Christopher Hibbert, Allen Lane, London, 1974. Da Ponte Antonio da Ponte was the designer of the Rialto Bridge in Venice which was completed in 1591. The story about the Devil and da Ponte's wife and child has been adapted from an old Venetian fable in which the site supervisor at the bridge, Sebastiano Bortoloni, was the person visited by Lucifer.

Florence Flood

On the night of 3 November 1966 Florence suffered the worst natural disaster in its long history. At about 4 a.m. a huge volume of water from the Valdarno Dam caused the Arno to burst its banks. The water swept away cars and trees, crashed into churches and ancient palaces and burst into steel-lined vaults. Gas, electricity and water supplies were cut off and the city's electric clocks stopped at 7.26 a.m. At its highest, the water reached over six and a half metres in areas around Santa Croce.

At least thirty people died, and 50,000 families were made homeless by the flood. In addition, 15,000 wrecked cars were strewn about the streets and 6,000 shops were put out of business. According to the best estimates, in the space of a few hours, some 14,000 works of art were damaged along with three to four million books and manuscripts.

Golem Korab

This is not an Indian pudding but the tallest mountain in Macedonia, rising to almost 10,000 feet above sea level. The area is dotted with lakes but there is no Lake Angja and no monastery on the mountain. If there was ever a castle close by, it has completely vanished.

Humanism

As Europe was dragged from the bleakness of the Dark Ages, an awareness of what could be achieved and a conviction that humanity could do better than it had done already was a tremendous spur to adventurism, both in word and in deed. It led to the age of discovery, and to the beginnings of modern scientific thinking as well as providing a fertile ground for the artistic endeavours we see as emblematic of the Renaissance.

The importance of this shift in perception cannot be overestimated. With a few notable exceptions, such as Roger Bacon, people since the fall of Rome had been paralysed by a deep-rooted sense of unworthiness. Central to their thinking and encouraged by Christian dogma, was the notion that humans were mere creatures of God, pawns in a world where the forces of nature and the will of the Lord were everything, a world in which the individual was totally without significance. Such thinking could only lead to a stagnant society, and although the belief that God controlled the universe and was directly involved in all aspects of human existence dominated mainstream thinking until the Darwinian revolution, some Renaissance figures thought differently.

Some of the greatest intellects of the Renaissance believed whole-heartedly in the idea that human intellect should be treasured and nourished. In this paradigm shift, we may see the impact of Platonic philosophy evolving into what has been called human virtue, a central tenet of Active Humanism. At the heart of Platonic philosophy is the concept that humanity can find God through unravelling the secrets of Nature. For Plato this was the foundation of 'inspiration', and it became a crucial element in the thinking of many of the best minds of the Renaissance. A number of great and influential figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Giordano Bruno, Machiavelli and Cosimo de' Medici understood this Platonic ideal.

Many Humanists subscribed to the view that virtue stood apart from conventional religion and saw it as an entirely human quality that could bring the individual closer to the essence of Nature. Indeed, the early Humanist scholar Leon Battista Alberti once wrote that those who possessed virtue were 'capable of scaling and possessing every sublime and excellent peak'.

This thinking represented a revolutionary way of perceiving the world, prompted by the great rediscovery of human worth and a positive realigning of the role of humanity in God's universe. It was a truly essential element of the Renaissance.

I Seguicamme (The Followers)

This is an imaginary secret society, but Venetian history is littered with strange sects and secret communities. Giordano Bruno was involved in various splinter groups of the pan-European Rosicrucians in the Republic, and for centuries Venice was a nexus for magi and itinerant mystics and occultists.

The Venetian authorities were famously lenient towards those the Catholic Church considered heretics and it was a haven for those with radical views. Many alternative philosophies were allowed to flourish in Venice and Venetian publishers pushed the boundaries of what was allowed in a Europe dominated by Catholic dogma.

Mauro's Mappamundi

Father Mauro was a cartographer who lived and worked in a monastery on San Michele in Isola which is the cemetery of Venice. In The Medici Secret the details of his story have been elaborated, but the basis of this part of the novel is true. Between 1457 and 1459, Father Mauro did, with the help of his assistant Andrea Bianco, a sailor-cartographer, create as a commission from King Alfonso V of Portugal a very beautiful map of the world (or mappamundi). The map was completed in April 1459, just months before Mauro's death. It was sent to Portugal, but has not survived to the present day. A copy of the map is on display in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice.

Niccold Niccoli

The description of Niccolo Niccoli in The Medici Secret is quite close to what we know of the real man. He was forty-four in 1410 when the story is set, and he was a Florentine nobleman, who had, in his younger days, been an admired condotierre. He was tough, good in a fight and he understood military matters. He also had a thing about wearing an ancient red toga. But there was much more to Niccoli. He became famous in Italy as a man of high culture who did much to further the course of learning and discovery. He was a great traveller and owned the largest and best library in Florence. His greatest contribution came from his services to Classical literature, both as a copyist and collator of ancient manuscripts. These included works by such luminaries as Lucretius and Plautus. He is also famous as the inventor of italic script. I did, however, change a few details. Niccolo died in 1437, so in reality, he could not have corresponded with Contessina in the 1460s.

Palaeopathology

Palaeopathology is the study of ancient diseases, and the branch of this discipline known as Human Palaeopathology is becoming increasingly well recognised as an important tool in criminal investigation.

The most obvious evidence from a body is some sort of traumatic injury such as a smashed skull or severed limbs, but more subtle deformities may point to such afflictions as oesteoarthritis and gout. Using relatively simple chemical analysis certain diseases (including tuberculosis and syphilis) may also be discovered from surviving bones.

In order to learn more about how a subject lived and died, the palaeopathologist uses genetics. DNA can be obtained from dramatically decayed bodies and modern analytical techniques mean that amazing results can be achieved using very small samples. Also, as genetic science progresses, the palaeopathologist gains more sophisticated tools to study the bodies of those who died hundreds, even thousands of years ago.

There really is a Medici Project involving a team of palaeopathologists who are currently studying the bodies of the family buried in the Medici chapel in the centre of Florence. Indeed, the original inspiration for The Medici Secret came from an article on the BBC News website describing the work of this research team.

Venetian buildings

Many of the places mentioned in The Medici Secret, such as Harry's Bar, the Gritti Badoer and the Ospedale Civile are of course real and in the locations described. The historical details about them are also as accurate as I could make them. However, sometimes I've taken the liberty of changing the internal topography of some buildings, and in the case of La Pieta, the art contained therein. As far as I know, there was no real life Gabriel Fabacci, but there is a fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

The original La Pieta was built during the fifteenth century. And the present church was designed in 1755 by Giorgio Massari, but the facade was only completed in the last century. Vivaldi did in reality perform many of his most famous pieces of music in La Pieta and he was choirmaster there for many years. Further reading: The most wonderful book about Venice ever written (and indeed one of the best and most enjoyable books I have ever read) is John Julius Norwich's A History of Venice, Penguin, London, 1982.

Venice and the Plague

Like most ancient cities in Europe, Venice was ravaged by plague on many occasions. Indeed, the city may be considered as a nexus for many diseases because it lies at a crossroads between east and west and from its earliest days it acted as a trading hub.

The worst plague occurred in 1347-8. This horror became known as The Black Death, an epidemic that is believed to have wiped out more than one third of the population of Europe. This plague is referred to in passing by Doge Steno when he first meets Cosimo and his fellow travellers in Venice.

Plague doctors did exist, most of them were forced under threats of execution to stay in the city during times of plague and their costume was as I described it. The characteristic beak mask worn by the doctors in the belief that it protected them from infection has become a popular theme for modern-day masks.

People of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries did also attempt to ward off the plague with what we would consider irrational means, including firing cannons, ringing church bells, dousing themselves with perfumes and herbal solutions, and burning braziers filled with scented plants.

Vivaldi

Born in Venice in 1678, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi is today one of the most popular composers of the baroque era. He is also the most prolific of any classical composer, credited with over 450 works. The most famous of these is, of course, The Four Seasons. Written in Venice, it's a piece which describes in musical form the changing moods of the city through the year.

Although there is no evidence that he or any one close to him planted clues in the Gritti Badoer, Vivaldi was born close by. His family were of modest means and he did train for the priesthood, becoming known as The Red Priest because of his bright red hair. He did teach orphans at the Ospedale della Pieta, and many of his compositions were written for performances by the young amateur musicians he taught. The composer was sacked by the governors of the orphanage for some unknown impropriety, and he was reinstated within a year.

Vivaldi lived most of his life in Venice, but in his later years he travelled across Europe; and as described, he died soon after arriving in Vienna where he was due to take up a court appointment. But he did not stay with the Niccoli family and he did not write an elaborate God-fearing will such as that discovered by Jeff and Edie.