Page 8 of The Stone Witch of Florence

SEVEN

THE BELOVED RELICS OF FLORENCE

May of 1348, City of Florence

S everal months earlier, at first news of plague, the Florentines did what they had always done in moments of great peril: they organized an emergency procession of the Virgin of Requisiti—the holy statue that served as protectress of the city.

Time and again, in exchange for gifts and prayers, the Requisiti statue had saved the people of Florence from famine, floods, and invaders. But this time she did nothing. Unmoved by the procession of the faithful, she allowed disease to enter her city, potent and unhindered. The Florentines began to die in heaps, the same as everywhere else. They put the Virgin back in her cupboard. They must have asked too much of her, over the years. It was only fair to give her a rest and cast their hopes toward the next holy object.

And so, with stubborn optimism, the people of Florence turned their attention instead to the left arm of San Filippo Apostolo. A gift to the city from the Queen of Jerusalem, this exceptional relic was a forearm and perfect hand with two fingers pointed skyward. It was housed inside a precious reliquary casket of silver and enamel and stored in the main altar of the octagonal church known as the Baptistry of San Giovanni.

The Florentines adored their Filippo Arm because, once, a sick goldsmith touched it and instantly became well. Normally, pilgrims flocked into town on San Filippo’s feast day, bringing a cash influx much appreciated by local businesses. But in the desolate spring of 1348, those few who came from the countryside were stopped at the city walls.

By then, the gates of Florence were closed to all foreigners: a late and feeble attempt to halt the contagion. The poor pilgrims—who had traveled so far for nothing—could only place their hands on the wall’s exterior and hope the prayers of the Florentines would be sufficiently pleasing to Filippo.

The pilgrims were uneasy about this arrangement because Florentines were not exactly known as the most pious of peoples. For all their churches and priests, really they were a city of bankers and merchants who were not hesitant to indulge in luxury. They wore velvet robes embroidered with silver pomegranates, and pinned pearls into the hairdos of their brides. The sexes bathed together in public bathhouses, naked except for fancy hats. Men who could not govern three snails were admitted to the highest offices through bribes and nepotism. Women wore two colors at the same time. Worst of all, they lent money with terms of accrued interest. This was probably why their Virgin statue was ignoring them.

Still, on Filippo’s day of May the First, those Florentines who remained alive processed toward the Baptistry—and the Filippo Arm—for a communal confession of sin. They walked in small groups, standing far apart and casting angry glances at one another when a member of a different household stepped too close.

In normal times, this important mass was led by the bishop of Florence himself, a position now held by Angiolo Acciaiuoli, uncle of Ginevra’s former lover, Ludovico. But today, the bishop was preoccupied: the king of England had declined to repay his loans to the Acciaiuoli bank. The amount the king owed was, itself, ruinous. Worse still, word had spread of these royal defaults, and the other powerful (and often violent) account holders of the Acciaiuoli bank had demanded the immediate return of their funds. The bishop’s father and brother promptly died from the stress of it. Now, the heavy burden of saving family honor and fortune rested solely on the bishop’s holy shoulders.

In this way, the pestilence had been a gift to Angiolo Acciaiuoli. As Death rode through Europe, disrupting all rhythms of daily life, the bishop finally had time to think . His full focus was now trained on refilling his coffers before the disease ran its course—and before his creditors returned their attention to their bank accounts.

With the bishop on hiatus, the Mass of Filippo was led by a newly ordained priest who until recently made his living as an olive oil salesman. (The best substitute the Church could get, what with all the qualified clergy being dead.)

The whole thing was awkward from the start. The priest spilled the wine. He dropped the Host. And when he held San Filippo’s reliquary aloft, he couldn’t get it open. A cantor came forward and helped the anxious priest pull it apart. Something fell out and both men gave a little yelp.

Instead of the gilded forearm of a saint, a small glass bottle lay upon the altar.

It was the size and shape of a spring onion, the cork sealed shut with wax and filled with a violet liquid. The astounded cantor picked it up and held it out for all to see. For a moment, the sanctuary was silent. Then distressed shouts of “Where is the arm?” and “He has abandoned us, just like the Virgin!” echoed through the sacred space. Everyone rushed out of the church, and many citizens who meant to stay in Florence left that very night. As they fled through the gates, they told the wall-touching pilgrims what had happened, and they, too, ran away, telling everyone they met the terrible story of how a sorcerer had transformed San Filippo’s arm into a small bottle.

Those Florentines who did not—or could not—flee were left in even greater terror, and cast their desperate hopes toward the upcoming Feast of San Zenobio. If no miracle was delivered after that? Well, they whispered, then we are truly cursed above all other cities, and forsaken by God.

In life, San Zenobio was the very first bishop of Florence. Now his skull was enclosed in a gilt-silver case, fashioned in the shape of his head, hat, and shoulders. And surely, surely , he would intercede for Florence in her darkest hour. A sparse crowd of Florentines, faces wrapped in vinegared cloth, gathered at his altar inside the crumbling cathedral of Santa Reparata to ask Zenobio to make the plague go away and tell the Virgin they were sorry and get San Filippo to come back.

Notable among the attendees of the ceremony were the Lord and Lady Girolami, who were rich as Croesus and claimed Zenobio as an ancestor. As was tradition, the Girolami family had processed to the cathedral from their imposing tower home in order to receive the saint’s head on a gilded tray.

Again, the Bishop Acciaiuoli excused himself, leaving the ceremony in the charge of an inexperienced replacement (this one a notary public, by training). And when the nervous young priest removed the silver head reliquary from its locked altar, the two halves cracked apart in his hands like a walnut. Instead of Zenobio’s skull, out fell a small glass vessel, closed with a cork and filled with liquid of palest sage green.

The priest stuttered with fear. The people fell on the ground and wept. The Girolami ran away and locked themselves up in their tower. Somebody went to the ringhiera , the stone platform in the central piazza, and yelled out that the saints of Florence had abandoned the sinful city to plague. Only one or two people were there to hear him, but it was enough.

The terrible news floated with the poisoned miasmas through shuttered windows and sequestered courtyards until it reached the newly appointed papal inquisitor, Fra Michele di Lapo Arnolfi.

The previous Florentine inquisitor had taken to his role of eliminating heretics with a bit too much zeal, and Bishop Acciaiuoli had lobbied the Pope personally to secure the nomination of the younger, more-easily-managed Inquisitor Michele.

A native Florentine of strong faith, but delicate health, Inquisitor Michele was afraid of disease even in normal times. Terrified of stepping out of doors, the new inquisitor plunged into research, obsessively going through records of old trials, looking for anything that mentioned the stealing of relics, of sorcerers turning them into glass bottles.

However, bad news soon overwhelmed his task: every day, it seemed, new and awful crimes were shouted from the central platform by...by somebody, nobody was really sure who, since most citizens remained locked inside their homes.

But to the inquisitor’s ears, the yelling voice was authoritative—and well-informed. It shared that the altars inside San Lorenzo, San Paolo, and San Pier Maggiore had been emptied; how at Santo Stefano al Ponte a shrine was broken open; how, in all cases, sacred bones were taken from crystal caskets and switched for tiny bottles of unholy potion.

Determined to end these foul crimes, but unwilling to risk his own health, the new inquisitor sent man after man from his personal retinue to investigate the thefts in his stead. But so potent was the plague that each of his deputies dropped dead before he could gather any helpful information. Down to his last man, Inquisitor Michele changed tactics and hired a disposable peasant to deliver dispatches to the fifty or so parishes of Florence, commanding each of them to conduct inventories of the precious relics within their charge.

The peasant messenger did his best, but really, he could hardly find any people to deliver the letters to. Nearly everyone was dead, it seemed, and those left alive refused to leave their apartments. The peasant abandoned his fruitless task without a word to the inquisitor, who waited in vain for responses that never came.

When summer arrived, hot and deadly, the city canceled all future processions. The people were afraid to be near their neighbors, afraid another relic would disappear. The Signoria—the group of wealthy men elected to lead the city—ceased to meet, and municipal services were suspended indefinitely. Most churches stopped holding mass altogether. The sickly sweet stench of decay was everywhere, the taste of it stuck in the back of peoples’ throats.

But the shouts from the ringhiera did not abate: word continued to spread that a wicked thief was plucking the relics of Florence from their golden boxes and leaving strange glass charms in their place. And to heap misery upon misery, it was now apparent that if a parish was robbed of its saintly protection, its entire population would soon after be decimated by plague. The people of Florence began to call these unfortunate places “dead parishes,” and nobody would cross into those cursed neighborhoods for love or money.