Popes and Phantoms

1

Ancient philosophy placing an emphasis on life lived in accordance with the awesome order perceived in Nature, on restraint and self-containment, and virtue as a duty and its own reward. In the Roman context, and indeed to the present day, it is associated with a certain stern-mindedness and what might be termed the ‘republican virtues’. Its appeal seems to rest upon the opportunity for a rational ordering of life, and an escape from the pointless storms of human nature. ‘… whenever the virtues begin to lose their central place, Stoic patterns of thought and action at once reappear. Stoicism remains one of the permanent moral possibilities within the cultures of the West.’ (Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981)

On the other hand, the great classicist Professor E. Griffiths brutally dismisses it as ‘the shield of the despairing; mere gift-wrapping round the death-wish.’

2

George Gemistus Pletho (or Plethon) (c. 1335–1450?). A Byzantine philosopher and scholar. Best known for the introduction of Strabo’s Geography to the West (thus indirectly permitting Columbus’s discovery of America), for founding a philosophical academy at Mistra in Greece, for social engineering in the doomed Byzantine Empire and aiming to replace orthodox Christianity with a revised form of Neo-Platonism. Visiting Italy, he reawoke the European interest in Plato, after the Aristotle-obsessed Middle Ages, and inspired Cosimo de’Medici to found the famous Platonic Academy in Florence. His school of thought was revised and popularized by the infamous Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini, and was in mild vogue in Admiral Slovo’s time thanks to Malatesta’s recovery of Pletho’s bones from Greece (whilst in mercenary service for Venice, fighting the Turks), and his subsequent display and veneration of them in the Church of San Francisco in Rimini. For this and worse sins, Sigismondo was uniquely ‘canonized to Hell’ by the Pope in 1462.

3

The great Roman House of Orsini, as well as many Italian cities, made the understandable (but not forgivable) error of supporting Charles VIII’s seemingly invincible but ultimately unsuccessful invasion of Italy in 1494.

4

Fra Bartolommeo della Porta’s portrayal of Admiral Slovo, in his Last Judgement of 1499, may still be seen, albeit in sad ruined form, in the Museo di San Marco in Florence. Look for the savagely afflicted hawk-faced man.

5

Actually, a tribute to the preservative qualities of alcohol and the resilience of the human frame, Prince Alamshah lasted out until 1503, the despair of his doting family.

6

Curiously, history does relate that, whilst copying before the masterful frescoes of Masaccio at the Church of the Carmine, Michelangelo Buonarroti’s nose was broken by a fellow pupil whose efforts he had been deriding. The pupil was indeed expelled and exiled for this temporary lapse. The nose did not heal correctly and the consequent disfigurement forever after distressed and depressed its owner.

7

Cruel Man before the Castle of Pandemonium, the strangest of Torrigiano’s surviving works, has long puzzled the select few who have viewed it at Windsor. ‘What can have inspired this one vision of sick distortion in a lifetime of otherwise conventional artistic toil?’ (from Notes towards a catalogue of the pictures in the Royal keeping at Windsor Castle, 1964, by Sir Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures (to 1979)).

8

Prince Arthur died three years later, 2/4/1502, aged 16, of something called ‘the sweating sickness’. Henry survived a further seven years before he was laid to rest in the glorious and imposing memorial constructed under his painstaking specifications by Pietro Torrigiani in Westminster Abbey.

9

Admiral Slovo was being suspiciously percipient. His words serve as a cruel summary of Machiavelli’s public life. The casual dispersing of his pride and joy, the Florentine citizen militia, by invading Spanish troops, was only six years away.

10

If Michelangelo is to be believed, then they arrived prematurely, since Cortes did not set sail until 1519, 13 years in the future. Perhaps Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli, given their supernatural talents, knew when the game was over and gave themselves up.

11

Michelangelo’s great work in the Sistine, completed in October 1512, after 4½ years of super-human toil and savage arguments with Pope Julius, survives – and according to Admiral Slovo permitted its creator to do the same. The Colossus, a three times life-size bronze, was less fortunate, being torn down by an unappreciative Bolognan mob after a mere four years. It passed into the possession of Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, who reforged its bronze into a giant cannon, ironically dubbed ‘La Julia’. Alfonso did however retain intact the 600-pound head – for unknown purposes.

12

Pope Julius refers to Cambrai in North-East France, near the Burgundian Netherlands. Hence the association known to history as the League of Cambrai, contracted on 10/12/1508.

13

In fact he was – cut into nine pieces in a petty skirmish in Navarre in 1507. Clearly, the good news took time to travel.

14

It was always known that Thomas Cromwell had, as a young man, served as a mercenary in Italy. However, the period’s true formative power was not, until now, suspected.

15

An earlier invention than you might think.

16

Which he duly did, seven years later, appropriately enough on All Saints Day, to the door of All Saints Church at Wittenberg.

17

Poggio Bracciolini. Famous Florentine Latinist and ‘discoverer’ of lost classical texts. 1380-1459.

18

Presumably Emperor Constantine the Great (274?–337) who proclaimed Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.

19

Constantine XI was last seen alive on 29/5/1453, advancing alone and sword in hand, towards the Turkish army storming into his City after an eight-week siege. Allegedly, his socks were the sole means by which his body was eventually recognized and recovered.

20

Flodden Field. 9/9/1513. Battle between the English and invading Scots near Branxton, Northumberland. Possibly the most crushing of all the Scottish defeats.

21

The English quarter of Rome since the first Anglo-Saxon pilgrims. The name derives from the English for Borough.

22

Traditional Scottish fighting formation. A tight clump of spear- or pikemen.

23

The Byzantine Emperor’s axe-wielding ‘foreign legion’ and bodyguard unit, largely composed of North Europeans and, after 1066, Englishmen.