'My defloration was talked about in all the courts of Europe. The Prince boasted of his prowess, even as preparations were being made for his wedding, as boldly as if he had ridden across that causeway with bloodstained sheet tied to his lance.'
1584, Italy: Twenty-year-old Giulia expects she will live and die incarcerated as a silk weaver within the walls of her Florentine orphanage, where she has never so much as glimpsed her own face. This all changes with the visit of the Medici family's most trusted advisor, promising her a generous dowry and a husband if she agrees to a small sacrifice that will bring honour and glory to her native city.
Vincenzo Gonzaga, libertine heir to the dukedom of Mantua, wants to marry the Grand-Duke of Tuscany's eldest daughter, but the rumours around his unconsummated first marriage must be silenced first. Eager for a dynastic alliance that will be a bulwark against the threat of Protestant heresy beyond the Alps, the Pope and his cardinals turn a blind eye to a mortal sin.A powerful #MeToo story of the Renaissance, based on true events.
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The heroine’s husband was effectively blackmailed and bribed into marrying her, after she was deflowered as a proof of virility by the heir to the city-state of Mantua and had a child by him. Here she tells him about her upbringing in the Innocenti and then in the grim Dominican-run orphanage of the Pietà in Florence, where the girls were not allowed to speak to each other or own anything that was wholly theirs, and were made to weave for the silk guild of Florence to earn their keep. Hundreds of children a year were abandoned to Renaissance Florence’s orphanages. A wealthy man might decide to keep an illegitimate son, but was much less likely to want his daughter.
I could see she wanted to tell me more about her life behind those walls, the privations, the silences, the cruelty. She had never been able to tell anyone.
‘If a piece of cloth was spoiled,’ she said, ‘the girl that did it would not eat that day. She would stand instead in the corner of the refectory with the damaged material draped about her neck. Any girl who felt sorry for her and tried to take food to her would be punished too.’
‘Were you?’
‘Punished? No, though just being there was a punishment. I was too careful, too fearful. The worst for me was not having anything of my own, not ever. Our clothes were all the same: plain white garments, unmarked, so I’d have to wear whatever shapeless old sack came back from laundering, with a rope like a friar’s tied around the waist.’
She hesitated. ‘There was a young priest all of us girls loved, though he never spoke to us, and to my delight I saw him wearing one of those…’
‘Chasubles?’
‘Yes. One I had made, I with three companions.’
To my surprise I felt the smallest twinge of jealousy at the mention of this first man my wife had loved.
‘I don’t suppose he ever spared a thought for the unknown girls whose fingers were pricked and calloused from those stiff filaments – our eyes ached with the strain. We went to Mass every morning and were confessed three times a week, but it was always the palsied old chaplain who heard us – Don Alessandro. He would pinch us just here…’ she said, passing her hand fleetingly over her breast, ‘…whenever he thought the Prioress was not looking – we hated him.’
‘Confession three times a week? What on earth did you find to say, shut up in there?’
‘I spoke of my longing to be outside, to walk the streets freely – even the begging I had done with Tommasa felt like freedom by then – to have something that was my own. I don’t even mean fine things, but a room all to myself, with a door, without having to hear other girls snoring, weeping, farting in their sleep. I think making us sleep in that dormitory was one of the ways they encouraged vocations – not a spiritual longing, but the longing for a cell to sleep in undisturbed.’
I understood this, thinking of where I had lodged before our marriage. How could such small things be considered sins?
‘Of course the pious women who ran that place thought Don Alessandro a man of great Christian charity. When a girl called Anna complained of him, it was she who was punished.’ Giulia shivered. ‘She was brought into the refectory where we were all standing waiting to say grace, and was made to kneel before the Prioress’s table, and we were told to turn and face her. The old sister in charge of the habits pulled the veil and wimple and linen cap from her head, and her black hair fell down in great matted hanks. We were only able to wash our heads, and our bodies, once every two months, though we were in trouble if our clothes were not clean, white though they were. It was unavoidable then, but I can no longer bear the reek of unwashed flesh.’
I smiled. ‘I know! I heard Deodata exclaiming to the baker that you expected her to bathe from top to toe every Saturday evening, and that she was afraid she would catch her death of it.’
‘She will become accustomed to it.’
‘And your companion?’
‘Anna? The prioress said that she was to be punished for “speaking of matters that pertain only to the married state, and for having spoken ill of a good and holy man.” The sewing sister brought her shears and hacked the hair from Anna’s head in great uneven lumps. Anna knelt there crying with those black locks strewn around her. We owned nothing in that place, not so much as a pin, but a girl’s hair was her own, the one gift – other than chastity – that each one might hope to bring to a man as his bride. We always ate in silence, but our silence was different that evening – a hundred and fifty girls stiff with horror and shame at what we had witnessed, whilst Anna sobbed and snuffled unceasingly – the very smallest ones cried with her. I longed to go and wipe her poor face, clean the mess that coursed from her nose. I could eat little and was cuffed for it. She was not to eat at all. She was taken from the refectory before we were dismissed, and we found her in her cot in the dormitory when we went up, still crying in the darkness. During the night I crept to her and stroked her face, and I was not the only one, but if we had been seen by the Prioress’s assistants, we too would have been punished, for we were not allowed to touch each other. Even in the Innocenti there had been hugs: Tommasa was always embracing me.
‘When he was at last in his coffin we were made to kiss the old goat who had cost Anna her hair. We were told to shed tears over the corpse’s hands and feet. I screwed up my eyes but could not force tears to come, though spit gathered in my mouth. I leaned over the dead body without touching it, holding my breath. I whispered: “You are not worth even my curse.”’
Listening to her, I saw where my duty lay, yet it was not onerous. This woman deserved to be loved; she had been starved too long of kindness.
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Katherine Mezzacappa is an Irish writer of mainly historical fiction, currently living in Italy. She has published several novels under pen names with publishers Bonnier Zaffre and eXtasy.
She works as a manuscript assessor for The Literary Consultancy. Katherine reviews for Historical Novel Society’s quarterly journal and is one of the organisers of the Society’s 2022 UK conference. In her spare time she volunteers with a used book charity of which she is a founder member.
Social Media Links
https://twitter.com/katmezzacappa
https://www.facebook.com/katherinemezzacappafiction/
https://katherinemezzacappa.ie/
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