Historical Notes

In the novel there are almost endless references by characters to events or ideas that would have been commonplaces to them but are likely to be obscure to modern readers, even if they have some background in the Italian Renaissance or the Humanist revival of Classical literature.

So, rather than contrive scenes with digressions into exposition, I have removed those references to this page. The intent is not to give a complete account of the reference, but to explain as concisely as I can the use of the reference in the context of the novel.

Ab Urbe Condita – The History of Rome, a first-century BCE history of Rome written by Titus Livy. When Niccolo was eight, his father Bernardino Machiavelli was commissioned to compile an index of Livy’s book for its first printed edition in Florence. The publisher gave Bernardino a copy of the book as payment. Niccolo later wrote Discourses on Livy, a work of history, political theory, and philosophy inspired by his own reading of Livy.

The Albigensian Crusade – In the Albigensian Crusade of 1208, French barons let armies of the Church to the Toulouse and Provence regions of France where the Christian sect of the Cathars had become popular. The crusaders killed entire populations, not discriminating between heretical Cathars and faithful Catholics. Benedetto Accolti was a law professor and historian who wrote an influential history of the Crusades; he became the Florence’s Chancellor in 1458.

The Angevin Claim – The Angevin dynasty, a branch of the French royal family since the 10th century, held a flimsy claim to the Kingdom of Naples in the 13th century, which was passed down through the dynasty until it arrived at Louis XI, the father of Charles VIII. The Aragonese begged to differ. They held Naples beginning in 1442 under Alfonso V, the father of Ferrante I and grandfather of Alfonso II and great-grandfather of Ferrante II (“Ferrandino”). 

Arnolfo’s Tower – The tower above the Palazzo della Signoria was completed in 1310. Its bells rang for the start and end of each business day, and the clock, installed in 1353, was the city’s first mechanical clock.

Bargello – A 13th century public building that was used, variously over the years, as an armory, a police headquarters, and a prison. It was the office of the podesta, whose thankless task was to keep civil order in the rowdy and combative city. Not to be confused with the Bigallo, the building that housed a hospital run by several Florentine charities and that is called in this novel the Misericordia. See below.

Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328)– 14th century condottiere who, to the distress of Florence, took over several cities and territories in Tuscany through a combination of cunning, the judicious use of force, and luck. Though Castracani was a villain in Florentine histories, Machiavelli portrays him as a model of virtù  in his work “Life of Castruccio Castracani.” A mix of history and myth-making, fact and fable, the “Life” is an expert exercise in ironic narrative and political polemic.

The Cathar Heresy – A Christian sect that rose in Western Europe in the late middle ages. Their dualist view, that Good and Evil both exist as equal rivals for control of the universe, was considered heretical by the medieval Catholic Church. 

The Company of Mercy – “Compagnia della Misericordia” was an important civil institution in Florence, run by local priests. The Compagnia included lay persons who volunteered as an ambulance corp; and in this novel, I am using ‘The Company’ to refer to these (what we might call) ‘first responders.’ The Compagnia also ran a hospital that cared not just for the poor and orphaned of Florence, but for pilgrims, refugees, and travellers as well. The Florentines called this hospital the Bigallo, but in this novel I am calling it the ‘Misericordia,’ to avoid confusion with the similar-sounding institution of the Bargello (see above). The Compagnia also saw to the burial of the indigent dead. See also, the Misericordia.

Galla Placidia (392?-450) – The daughter of one Roman emperor and the mother of another, she administered the Empire as regent for her son from a palace in Ravenna for 25 years. She promoted the building and restoration of churches throughout the Empire, and the Mausoleum in Ravenna and its mosaics are considered among the ultimate expressions of the early Byzantine style.

Sophocles’ Elektra – An actual play whose action aligns with how it is portrayed in the novel. We know that the young Alessandra Scala actually performed the role of Elektra in Florence. Poliziano actually complemented her performance in a public and creepily excessive way.

‘The Gospel of Eve’ – One of the “Gnostic gospels” declared heretical by the Roman Catholic Church. Only a few excerpts, quoted by other sources, survive. Its version of the story Creation was part of the mythology associated with the Gnostics in which the aeon Sophia creates the Demiurge who in turn does a shitty job of creating the material world.

‘The Girl From Andros’ – A comedy by the Roman playwright Terrance about marriage contracts, secret love affairs, mistaken identities, and a shipwreck: in the end, everyone is happily married. Machiavelli wrote an adaptation of this play, which he titled Andria, in or before 1520.

The Golden Ass – A second-century CE Latin satiric novel by Apuleius. It tells the story of Lucius, a young man transformed into an ass by a witch’s spell. Lucius’s picaresque adventures in southern Italy as an ass hoping to return to human form depict the sometimes comic, sometimes brutal daily life in rural Italy before the rise of Rome’s empire. Machiavelli began, but did not finish, a satiric poem in terza-rima, ‘L’asino,’ based on Apuleius’s novel.

Lunigiana – “Lunigiana has always been a liminal place, a land straddling multiple identities and histories. Its strategic importance as a gateway to Europe was understood as early as 177 BC when the Romans founded the city of Luni, then a military outpost on the river Magra. During the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance, it was the preferred route for millions of pilgrims traveling along the Via Francigena to Rome. Dante mentions it in his Divina Commedia; in Canto XX he speaks of it as a spelonca–that is, a cavern–set among the white marbles of Carrara from which one can look both at the sea and the stars. For centuries the region was disputed by the neighboring powers of Genovese, Milanese, and Tuscan lordships (hence its many castles and the fact it’s now split between Liguria and Tuscany).” [https://italysegreta.com/lunigiana/]

Misericordia – The hospital run by the Compagnia della Misericordia, which the Florentines called the Bigallo, but which I am calling the Misericordia to avoid confusion with the Bargello, which was the police headquarters and very much not a place to go for medical attention.

Money – There is no easy conversion factor between European coinage of the 1490s and today’s currencies. I have simplified references to money using this rule of thumb: a florin is kind of like $1000 (a lot of money, more than a typical person would carry around town in cash); 20 soldi make a florin, so a soldo is about $50; 10 denari make a soldo, so a denaro is about $5. Arturo the chirurgo in Percussina charges one denaro for a haircut. Nico pays Curly a soldo for her services. 

Pittura Infamante – A work of public art depicting ‘infamous’ persons, these were Florence’s equivalent of a ‘most wanted’ poster. In 1478, after the assassination of his brother Giuliano, Lorenzo de’ Medici commissioned a pittura infamante of the assassins by Sandro Botticelli in the Piazza della Signoria.

The Ravaldino – The fortress of Caterina Sforza, the Duchess of Forli.

De Rerum Natura – A first-century BCE Latin poem by Lucretius. It expounds the Epicurean philosophy of a materialistic universe in which religion is a collection of erroneous superstitions and the proper way to understand the universe and the place of humans within it is to study closely nature as it is.

‘Scivias’ – A 12th-century illustrated work by the German polymath and abbess Hildegard von Bingen. The title comes from the Latin phrase ‘Sci vias Domini’ (‘Know the Ways of the Lord’). It describes her religious visions and has 35 miniature depictions of those visions.

‘The Facetious Nights of Straparola’ – The song played by the lute player in the Paradiso (October 1494) is ‘Vincenza’s Riddle’ from this Decameron-esque collection of stories Giovanni Francesco Straparola. Trans., W.G. Waters 1901.

Studium Fiorentino – The first university in Florence, founded in 1321. There were many institutions of learning and academic inquiry in Florence in the late 1400s. I am conflating these institutions, for narrative simplicity, into ‘the studium’ to provide a setting for Nico’s humanist education, which Machiavelli certainly had, though the details are guesswork: like in which institutes he enrolled, what degrees if any he earned, and with which teachers he studied.

Torr’e Tasso – In the late 13th century two families in the Lombardy region of Italy – the noble Torre (“tower”) family of Milan and the wealthy merchants of Bergamo’s Tasso (“badger”) family – created a private courier network to connect Milan, Venice, and Rome. By the time Giangalli joined the network, it also connected to other European cities like Genoa, Innsbruck, Vienna, and Brussels. In the 16th century, the Tasso family was ennobled by Emperor Maximilian and the business, moved permanently to Brussels, was renamed to the germanized ‘Thurn und Taxis’ and thrived for another 350 years.