A Thing Done started life as a
footnote. Several footnotes, actually –
one in a translation of Dante's Inferno, others in history books covering the
13th century in Florence. And as I
threaded my way through all these footnotes, I often felt I was working
backwards from the end of the story, looking for its beginning.
At first what caught my eye was this: “The vendetta against Buondelmonte was the
origin of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Florence.”
Well, that division was no small
matter. It colored politics - not just
in Florence, but in all of Italy - for well over a century, and vestiges of it
remained in place several centuries later.
To this day, Italian cities can be classified as used-to-be-Guelf or
used-to-be-Ghibelline (or, not infrequently, used to be one and then the
other). You have only to look at the
crenellations on castles and public buildings:
square crenellations = Guelf, swallowtail crenellations = Ghibelline.
So how did a
vendetta against one man get all of this started? First let's set the scene.
Florence at the beginning of the 13th
century was bristling with violence – hereditary enmities, power struggles,
deep resentments. The city was a
commune, with no king or duke or other titular head. Her ruling class was formed by members of the
ancient noble families, but also by wealthy bankers and merchants – an
oligarchy made up of men of substance and influence, who also commanded a
certain amount of sheer military might.
Florence had her share of knights, men with superb military training and
ability, and they didn't share their power easily.
Clearly, Buondelmonte was on one side and
those who sought his ruin were on the other.
Further reading told me that Buondelmonte had been betrothed to a woman
of the Amidei family (the other side), and had broken off the engagement to wed
a woman of the Donati family (his own side), and that the Amidei and their
allies were so incensed at this insult that they called for a vendetta against
Buondelmonte.
The story was getting more
interesting. But I didn't quite
understand: if feelings were running
that high, what was Buondelmonte doing getting himself betrothed to a woman of
his enemies' clan? Especially if she
wasn't really the woman he wanted to marry?
More footnotes, more reading. As I suspected, it wasn't that simple. Buondelmonte had been forced into that
betrothal as a result of an altercation that took place at a banquet. He had answered what he perceived as an
insult from Oddo, one of his enemies, with violence, resulting in a knife wound
to Oddo's arm. Eventually, as was a
custom of the times, a marriage was offered to make peace between the
factions. Not a marriage he chose; not a
marriage he wanted.
This was beginning to sound like a story I
wanted to write. But what, I wondered,
started it all? What did Oddo do that
got Buondelmonte so enraged?
Past the footnotes now and deep into the
contemporary and near-contemporary chronicles, I finally found what looked to
me like the point of origin. At that feast,
which took place to celebrate a knighting, a jester snatched a plate of food
away from Buondelmonte and his dining companion. Was he acting on orders? If so, whose?
Buondelmonte's companion was outraged, and
Oddo took the opportunity to mock him and make fun of him because of it. The companion told Oddo “You lie in your
throat!” (yes, it really does translate that way - “Tu menti per la gola!”),
but it was Buondelmonte, impetuous and hotheaded, who pulled a knife and then
drew blood. And drawing blood was an
insult too serious to overlook.
So yes, it was a story. And I tried to tell it, writing of the
conflict between Buondelmonte and Oddo, and of the two women from noble
families, and of the mother of the Donati girl, who was said to have goaded
Buondelmonte into forsaking his betrothed to wed her lovely daughter
instead.
But I couldn't stop thinking about that
jester. The one whose prank had started
the whole thing, and had plunged his city into near civil war. What was this experience like for him? How did he feel? What did he do? How did the resulting chaos affect him?
And when I found myself writing about the
jester walking home late that night, I realized I had no idea where he lived,
or how, or who he lived with. I didn't
know who his friends were, who he would want to tell about what had happened,
what would worry him, how this incident would change his life. And I wanted to know.
So it became the jester's story, and the
story of his friends and neighbors.
Buondelmonte and his quarrelsome friends and foes are still there, as
are the women, but the story unfolds as the jester sees it. And it is richer for that; even the truculent
nobles and their ladies are more fully developed for being seen through the
eyes of one of their least imposing contemporaries. (Especially the ladies, who lived in a
society that allowed them very little initiative, but who were perfectly
capable of making things happen from behind the scenes. And the jester was so insignificant that he
was in a position to see it all.)
My jester is a man of the lower classes,
living by his wits, without power, clout, or rights, marginalized in a society
that didn't think much of self-employed performers. But for all that, he's a man who makes sharp
observations and has plenty to say. I
believe readers will agree that he was the right person to give voice to the
story.
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