Murder in the Garden of God Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything else but her satisfaction, … treating also her brothers as if they were his own nephews.” 1
    Tarquinia’s hopes that Cardinal Montalto would boost the careers of her sons were quickly realized. “Ottavio was a youth of singular integrity and vivacity of spirit,” Maffei continued, “who at the age of thirty received the cardinal’s intercession with the nomination of the duke of Urbino, and was created by Gregory XIII bishop of Fossombrone… Scipione, by the offices of the same cardinal, was accepted into the service of Cardinal Sforza, one of the principal lords of the Roman court, who shortly thereafter with extraordinary favor put him in charge of all his affairs.” 2 And Mario became a monsignor and abbot.
    But if her marriage brought good fortune to her brothers, it failed to boost Vittoria’s own. She found herself living in a respectable house at the corner of Via Leutari in a bustling area of booksellers, copyists, and map makers. But the house was crammed with her in-laws and their servants. In addition to Francesco’s mother, Camilla, his sister Maria lived there with her husband, Fabio Damasceni, and her increasing brood of children. At the time of Vittoria’s marriage, Maria had a boy, Alessandro, born in 1571, and would that year give birth to a girl, Flavia. Another girl, Felice, would be born in 1575, and a son, Michele, in 1577.
    The house, which still stands, was entered through an arched tunnel which opened up into a small courtyard. The space was probably not large enough for horses and carriages to turn around in, and its main purpose was to give light to the surrounding rooms. We can assume that in the sixteenth century the courtyard was home to chickens and perhaps a pig. At the far end was a covered circular staircase that rose four stories; on each landing were two doors with thick rectangular stone lintels. Here, in these modest rooms, lived the cardinal’s family.
    The cardinal did not live in the same house. He owned several contiguous buildings on the short Via Leutari, and as a cardinal required a home with less din and greater dignity. His abode would have had a waiting-room, where ambassadors and Church dignitaries were entertained by his butler until the cardinal could see them. When he was ready, they would be led into his audience chamber where his cardinal’s throne stood proudly on a dais. While the richest cardinals – Alessandro Farnese and Ferdinando de Medici – had huge palaces with audience chambers the size of ball rooms, poor cardinals such as Montalto had rooms of modest dimensions, furnished as honorably as possible.
    When the Venetian ambassador visited Camilla in 1585, he was struck by the poverty of her house. It was almost bereft of furniture, and her family wore threadbare clothing. He was particularly appalled at the garments of Maria’s fourteen-year-old son Alessandro, “who went around in front of everybody with worn-out ragged clothes.” 3
    Though the hoity-toity might look down on her humble state, Camilla felt that her Roman household offered absolute luxury. As a child, she had begged for food, but now she had plenty to eat. Then, she had sat on a dirt floor with rain pouring in through holes in the roof. Now she had a chair to sit in, and a good roof. In the past, she had worn tattered rags. Now she had several decent dresses, hardly patched at all.
    It is likely that Camilla had lost children to illness. Country girls married young, at around sixteen, and started shooting out the babies immediately. But when Camilla arrived in Rome in 1570 at about the age of fifty-one, she brought only two children that she had borne in her thirties.
    Before her brother’s summons, Camilla had been a laundress in Montalto, earning pennies for the most grueling job imaginable. She had heated enormous cauldrons over raging fires, pushed disgusting soiled linens around with a paddle for hours, hung them in the sun to bleach and dry, and ironed them slowly