Page 60 of The Medici Return

A male voice. Behind her. Speaking in the local Florentine vernacular.

Which startled her.

She turned.

Before her stood a man about her age. Tall, like herself, with a stiff military-like bearing. He was brawny of the chest, a touch sunburned on his face, a beard and mustache neatly trimmed. A mass of auburn hair covered his head and fell to his ears. Marks of what appeared to be left over from the ravages of smallpox dotted his cheeks and chin but did not detract from his handsomeness.

“And you are?” she politely asked.

“Raffaello de’ Pazzi.”

Eric listened in amazement.

“That was the beginning,” his grandmother said. “When they first met. Within a few weeks they were lovers.”

“A Medici and a Pazzi?”

“They were, and quite happy with each other.”

He was skeptical. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Anna recorded many of her thoughts and feelings.”

Really? “You have never mentioned that fact before.”

She shrugged. “It was not necessary. It should have been enough that I told you.”

Don’t argue with her.“I agree. It should have been. But I would love to read her thoughts. Do you have Anna’s writings?”

“Of course. My father gave them to me.”

“Can I see them?”

A puzzled look came to her wizened face. “Why would I do that? You have shown no interest in this. Why now?”

He had no time to explain anymore. “During my entire childhood, into the time I was out of university, all I heard was how we are Medici and that we can never forget that. How the family is owed a debt that Rome never paid. How history has it all wrong. On and on you went. Yes, I thought it all a fantasy. Unimportant. Who cares. But now I believe you. If you meant all that you said, then it is time we do something.”

“You just want the money,” she spit out.

“No, I do not. Nothing is to be gained by bankrupting the Vatican. But I do want the church to feel the pressure from that long-overdue debt, and the world to know it exists.” The first part was true, the second a lie. “Is that not what you want too?”

She pointed another crooked finger. “The pope should pay. He owes us.”

“Yes, he does. And we, you and I, can make him pay.” He shifted gears. He had to know more. “What happened between Anna Maria and Raffaello de’ Pazzi?”

“They fell in love. But that was dangerous. Even in the eighteenth century, three hundred years after the attempt on Lorenzo the Magnificent’s life and the killing of his brother, Pazzi and Medici kept their distance. Her father, Cosimo III, never would have approved of the relationship. Nor would her brother.”

He had questions. “Why would Anna, a Medici, even consider such a thing? And was she not still in mourning for her husband?Would it not have been improper for her to have had an intimate relationship with anyone?”

She tapped her chest. “She followed her heart.”

He waited for more.

“She was lonely. Her father was old and would die within three years of her meeting the Pazzi. She hated her brother and knew that once he was grand duke, her life would never be the same.”

Eric knew his history. Cosimo III died in 1723. Six days before his death he issued a proclamation commanding that Tuscany remain independent and that Anna should succeed to the throne after her brother, Gian, died. Ultimately, the monarchs of Europe failed to respect his wishes, and her brother, for years, made her life miserable. Finally, she abandoned her apartment in the royal palace and left Florence. When her brother drew his last breath in 1737, the great powers of Europe gave Tuscany to the Duke of Lorraine.

Anna Maria was totally ignored.