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  Sistine Heresy

  Eros, art, and gorgeous blasphemy…

  Adrianna Borgia, survivor of the Borgia court, presents Michelangelo with the greatest temptations of his life while struggling herself with soul-threatening desires and heresies. Her growing passion for the painter Raphaela Bramante mirrors the sculptor’s damnable interest in a castrato in the Sistine choir and in the ideas of secular humanism. Claimed as the epitome of Christian inspiration, Michelangelo’s ceiling is revealed as a coup of Eros upon religion, a gorgeous blasphemy and a paean to forbidden love in the very heart of the Church.

  Sistine Heresy

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  By the Author

  The 100th Generation

  Vulture’s Kiss

  Sistine Heresy

  Sistine Heresy

  by

  Justine Saracen

  2009

  Sistine Heresy

  © 2009 By Justine Saracen. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 10: 1-60282-051-1E

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-051-7E

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.,

  PO Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: February 2009

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Jennifer Knight and Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks, above all, to Angelique Corthals, who made me actually visit the Sistine Chapel, gave me a dozen gorgeous books on the Italian Renaissance, and offered ingenious plot suggestions. Heartfelt thanks also to Derek Ragin, whose seraphic singing (though he is in full possession of his manhood) inspired the character of the castrato Domenico.

  For being there during the long gestation of this work, thanks first and foremost to Thomas Keith, who not only commented, but foisted me on his acquaintances. Thanks also to other early draft readers: Inge Horwood, Doris Kaufman, and Elizabeth Mandel, whose reactions guided me.

  On the publication end, I want to applaud Jennifer Knight, consummate plot surgeon, who put the pieces in all the right places. A glass of wine also for my religious “experts” Ruth Sternglantz for Judaism and “Storm” for Catholicism.

  Finally, I want to thank Shelley Thrasher and Stacia Seaman for heroic intervention and long night hours when we had a last-minute time crunch.

  As for research, though I focused on no one source for Michelangelo, I do wish to acknowledge Michael Mallett’s scholarly study The Borgias.

  Last of all, I would like to thank Sheri for her “collaboration” with Michelangelo for a fantastic cover, and Radclyffe and Jennifer, for taking the plunge into LGBT with this novel, letting me reclaim the splendid period called the Italian Renaissance on behalf of queers and dissenters of all kinds.

  Dedication

  To Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), who, for declaring that the earth orbited the sun, and rejecting Church mysteries for mysteries of his own, was burned alive at the stake.

  Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)

  Adriana Borgia (fictional)

  Wife of Juan Borgia, Mistress of Cesare Borgia

  Rodrigo Borgia (1431–1503)

  Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503)

  Last Borgia Pope, considered the epitome of corruption in the papacy

  Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1514)

  Daughter of Pope Alexander VI. After being widowed twice, married Alfonso d’Este and became Duchess of Ferrara

  Domenico Raggi (fictional)

  Castrato in the Sistine Choir.

  Cesare Borgia (1476–1507)

  Son of Pope Alexander VI, head of Papal army during his reign

  Donato Bramante (1444–1514)

  Architect and painter. Designed the original plan for St. Peter’s Basilica

  Raphaela Bramante (fictional)

  Daughter of Donato, modeled after historical painter Artemesia Gentileschi

  Gian Pietro Carafa (1476–1559)

  Pope Paul IV (1555)

  Clerical reformer and extreme ascetic who established the Roman Inquisition

  Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564)

  Sculptor, painter, architect

  King Ferdinand of Aragon,

  Queen Isabella of Castille (1451–1504)

  Initiators of the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion of the Jews and Moors

  Silvio Piccolomini (fictional)

  The Piccolomini were a prominent humanist Roman family.

  Giuliano della Rovere (1443–1513)

  Pope Julius II (1503)

  Began reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica, financed by sale of indulgences (“time off” from Purgatory)

  Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499)

  Florentine scholar and major architect of humanist ideas

  Giovanni de’ Medici (1475–1521)

  Pope Leo X

  Son of Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence

  Baldassare Salomano (fictional)

  Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were accepted in Rome by Alexander VI

  Paris de Grassis (1450–1528)

  Papal Master of Ceremonies during reign of Julius II

  Giuliano da Sangallo (1445–1516)

  Florentine architect and sculptor

  Martin Luther (1483–1546)

  Triggered the Reformation with his 95 theses condemning the sale of indulgences

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

  Florentine engineer, architect, inventor, painter

  Prologue

  August 1503

  The Vicar of God was dead. Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI had succumbed, whether to plague or poison, no one knew, but his already decomposing body lay in the Sistine Chapel. A coach rumbled toward the Vatican carrying Adriana Borgia, widow to one of his sons and mistress to another, unsure of what awaited her.

  It was the sede vacante, the precarious time of the empty throne. The power plays were underway and soon the vendettas would begin. Adriana was already planning escape.

  Ruin could come from anywhere now, though she was not sure who was the greater menace, rivals or reformers. Political rivals, like the della Roveres or the Farnese, would cheerfully cut her throat to advance themselves, but they changed with every new alliance. They could be threatened, seduced, bought off. But the reformers, Dominicans mostly, by their very zeal for piety, could not be corrupted, and therein lay their danger.

  She had thrown in her lot with corruption and, for all her regrets, she could not meet the terms of the purists. She was, in every aspect of her murderous, adulterous life, what they detested. All she could do was flee them. Even now, with the Borgia forces suddenly defeated, the wolves circled. She had only enough time to find Lucrezia and perhaps to say good-bye to sweet Domenico.

  At the Piazza San Pietro a crowd was gathered and her fear grew. But the mass of onlookers was focused on something at its center.

  Perplexed, Adriana threaded her way forward and the crowd opened up for her. One or two recognized her and she heard her name whispered.

  Then she saw the penitent. He half knelt, half hung from a chain fastened t
o the top of a wooden stake. His back was crisscrossed with gashes, and blood oozed in thin sheets down to his waist and into his breeches.

  At her shoulder she heard a grunt of approval. From a pilgrim, to judge from his broad-brimmed hat and pouch. His emaciated frame suggested he was a devout one.

  “Why do they do this today?” she asked him. “Of all days, during His Holiness’s funeral?”

  The pilgrim slouched on his staff. “You’ll have to ask the Dominicans about that.” He looked toward the two monks who stood at the front of the crowd. “They’re the ones in charge of the sodomite. And God reward them for it.” His eyes shone as another lash fell on the mangled back and the penitent twitched soundlessly. The crowd murmured approval.

  “Sodomy? Is that the charge?”

  “That’s what they said. And when they’re done flogging him, they’ll do his friend.” The pilgrim tilted his head toward a second prisoner shackled at the foot of a guard. “Serves ’em right.” He sucked air through brown teeth.

  The two Dominicans had caught sight of Adriana and approached. White-robed and tonsured, they seemed colorless against the motley of the onlookers. The taller one spoke.

  “Lady Borgia, it is best you leave. You have no place here now and we cannot vouch for your safety.” The sound of another whiplash underscored his remark.

  “It was my intention to attend His Holiness’s funeral, not an execution.”

  “Then please see to it that you do so, Lady, lest you draw attention to yourself.” He tilted his head almost imperceptibly in the mockery of a bow.

  She held her ground. “Who ordered this?” She gestured toward the sweating soldier who let fall another lash. “On the day of the Pope’s mass.”

  The Dominican looked down at her with half-closed eyes. “Cardinal Carafa, meting God’s punishment on this day as any other.”

  “But these are boys of Alexander’s court. I recognize them.”

  “Pope Alexander is dead. The sodomites no longer enjoy his protection. Now, if you please.” He extended his arm toward an alley between the onlookers, indicating the direction she should go. The sleeve of his white robe, she noted, was flecked with blood.

  She returned the mocking head-tilt. Ignoring the direction in which he pointed, she walked along the front of the crowd, toward the second prisoner.

  The other penitent, more boy than man, crouched in terror. She had seen him in the halls of the Vatican, one of the dozens of pages and servants she was apt to pass on any day. He whispered, “Madama, please.” An urge to take him by the arm, to rescue one of the first victims of the new political order, almost overcame her misgivings. But she knew it was impossible; she herself was in jeopardy. Seizing handfuls of her skirt, she fled through the crowd up the steps to the Vatican.

  *

  Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison.

  Adriana hurried into the Sistine Chapel only half hearing the choir begin the Greek prayer for mercy. Fourteen voices wove in silken polyphony until a single bright sound, plangent and compelling, rose above the others.

  Christe Eleison, Allelujah.

  The chapel was full for the requiem mass. A marble screen divided the chapel in two, separating the Cardinals who sat along the walls on the far side from the nobility of Rome standing in rows behind it. The doors at the center of the screen were ajar and Adriana looked through the opening. There it was, at the forefront. Mercifully shrouded and with its head toward the altar, the corpse of Pope Alexander VI lay on its catafalque.

  Still breathless, she looked around in the somber crowd for Lucrezia and wondered if she dared to walk farther in. No. Unwise to draw attention to herself.

  In that instant the odor of rotten meat assailed her and she held her handkerchief to her mouth. They had told her that the Pope’s body had corrupted quickly, had blackened even before he could be washed, but no one mentioned the smell. Trying not to breathe deeply, she leaned forward, peering through the crowd.

  “Lucrezia, finally!” Adriana whispered, and made her way along the rows to her sister-in-law. Slender and blond, Lucrezia stood rigid, holding a missal to her chest. Adriana touched her arm. “We’ve got to go, dear. The Dominicans are in the square flogging Alexander’s servants, and Cesare is waiting for us at Sant’ Angelo.”

  Lucrezia was sullen. “Why doesn’t he come? Alexander was his father too.”

  “Shhh. You know why. There are too many here with a score to settle.”

  “I’ll miss him, you know,” Pope Alexander’s daughter murmured. She regarded Adriana through red-rimmed eyes, as though trying to discern whether her sister-in-law also mourned. Adriana knew she was beyond reproach, at least in dress. There had been no time to make mourning clothes, but in the short period as everything seemed to come apart at the papal court, her maid had simply taken her darkest blue gown and sewn a strip of black ribbon on it, from bodice to hem. With her black hair drawn back into a knot, Adriana looked bereaved, even if she was not.

  “Do you suppose they murdered him?” Lucrezia’s glance took in the lords of Rome on the near side of the screen before shifting to the somber clerics on the far side. “I think they did. Half the people in this chapel are murderers.”

  Adriana’s face warmed at the word “murdered,” and the putrid air of the chapel stirred an awful memory. She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing it away.

  “Yes, there are murderers everywhere.”

  Lucrezia held her missal to her chin, like a child in prayer. “Is there one pure soul left in this awful city?”

  “Agnus Dei qui tollit peccatum mundi,” a single high voice sang, crystalline, over their heads.

  “Yes, of course there is. Up there.” Adriana looked toward the choir loft at the castrato who gave forth a thrilling sound in a voice that was neither male nor female.

  “Domenico? Is that it, then?” Lucrezia chuckled bitterly. “Is castration the way to make men pious?”

  “Shhh,” Adriana cautioned, touching Lucrezia’s arm.

  Across the aisle, two people turned around and stared at them. The man, wide-shouldered and magisterial, looked away again; the tall young woman at his side did not.

  Adriana held the stranger’s glance, defiant and then curious. “Who are they?” she asked under her voice.

  “Those two?” Lucrezia’s tone was indifferent. “The architect Donato Bramante. And that’s his daughter Raphaela. A painter.”

  The young woman still stared. The full lips were slightly open as if she were about to speak. Then, unexpectedly, her mouth curled up faintly on one side as if in greeting.

  Adriana stared back, puzzled, irritated at having to pry Lucrezia away from her mourning when they should have already been out of the city, when every minute they stayed endangered them.

  Movement drew her eyes away from the woman. A more ominous figure—by his white robe, another Dominican—came through the doorway of the screen. A jolt of fear shook her. Gian Pietro Carafa.

  The Cardinal’s bony asceticism seemed a reproach to the entire Vatican, but his cold inquisitor’s glare, Adriana knew, was directed at the two of them.

  “It’s time to go, Lucrezia. Now.” She took hold of her sister-in-law’s arm and drew her along the row to the aisle and toward the wide double doors that led out of the chapel.

  Two Swiss Guardsmen stepped in front of them with crossed pikes. Adriana glanced back at Carafa. He came toward them with the leisurely pace of a man certain of his captives. The choir continued to sing the mass while the rest of the congregation looked elsewhere, indifferent now to the fallen Borgia women. Only Raphaela Bramante still watched. As Adriana met her gaze again, the young woman’s eyes darted toward the eastern wall to a space beneath the choir loft.

  The small door under the loft was nearly invisible, covered with the same painted drapery as the wall. “The service entrance,” Adriana whispered, urging Lucrezia toward the narrow door.

  They passed unhindered into a corridor and hurried toward a second door at the far end of th
e passageway. A voice called out behind them.

  “Signora Borgia! Stop!”

  Adriana threw herself against the heavy wood, and as the door opened onto freedom, they broke into a run.

  I

  1506—God’s Warrior

  Pope Julius II felt the hint of sexual excitement as the dust settled and he could look down onto the field of slaughter at Perugia. He shifted in the saddle as a gust of wind ruffled his papal robe and cooled his armor beneath it. He lifted off his battle helmet and handed it down to his squire, letting the troops around him see the face of God’s general, the victorious Vicar of Christ.

  Someone handed up a chalice of watered wine, and he took a long drink, savoring both the liquid and the moment. He had defeated the upstart despots of Perugia and Bologna and reunited the Romagna under papal authority.

  As battles went, it had been brief and not very costly. All things considered, the triumph had been easier than achieving the papal throne. That had cost him a fortune, not to mention ten long years of bitter exile while the Borgias controlled Rome. When Alexander, the pig, had finally died, Julius had called on every ally and resource. To his fury, one of the other Cardinals was chosen. Yet, within the month, the hand of God conveniently intervened, ending that reign too, and Julius finally ascended.

  He took the throne with the forcefulness of a man whose hour was overdue. He did not even bother to choose a saint’s name, merely changing his own “Giuliano” to its Latin form. If the pious among the Curia did not care for that, they dared not show it.