DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) History’s most worldly and venal Pope, Rodrigo

Borgia bought the papacy in 1493, promising deeds and conquests worthy of Alexander the

Great. As Pope Alexander, he ambitiously expanded the Church’s temporal power under the aegis of his son Cesare (see Valentino), the most gifted of his seven acknowledged illegitimate children.

Agapito da Amelia Valentino’s confidential secretary and official spokesman.

Antonio Benivieni The prominent Florentine physician who documented his many post- mortem examinations in a collection, De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morburum et sanationum causis (The Hidden Causes of Disease), regarded as the foundational work of scientific pathology.

Juan Borgia, Duke of Gandia (deceased) The murder of Pope Alexander’s favorite son on June 14, 1497 was the most notorious crime of the Renaissance--and remained conspicuously unsolved as of autumn 1502.

Camilla Maid and attendant to the courtesan Damiata.

Damiata A cultured, highly desirable Roman courtesan of the class known as cortigiana onesta, or “honest courtesan,” often interpreted more colloquially as “honest whore.” Her relationship with the Duke of Gandia and her suspected role in his murder are matters of historical record. “Damiata,” however, was almost certainly an alias.

Oliverotto da Fermo An orphan trained for the soldier’s profession by Vitellozzo

Vitelli (see below), he became Lord of the city of Fermo after brutally usurping his uncle.

Oliverotto first served Valentino as a (mercenary general), then became instrumental in the conspiracy against him.

Giacomo (Gian Giacomo Caprotti) ’s servant/apprentice/companion.

Adopted by Leonardo when he was ten years old, Giacomo was in his early twenties in 1502. His nickname, “Salai ,” meant “little devil.”

Francesco Guicciardini The close friend and frequent correspondent to whom

Machiavelli addresses his narrative. At the time of Machiavelli’s writing (1527), he was

Lieutenant-general of the armies of Pope Clement VII. Guicciardini would later become a pioneer of modern historical method, as author of the classic History of Italy.

Ramiro da Lorca A Borgia family retainer of long standing, Ramiro earned both respect and notoriety as the harsh military governor of the Romagna, before being assigned to less politically sensitive duties in the autumn of 1502.

Niccolo Machiavelli Machiavelli’s official titles in 1502 were Second Chancellor of the Republic of (a second-tier civil service position) and Secretary of the Ten of War.

Although he was the ranking Florentine diplomat at the court of Duke Valentino, Machiavelli had no authority to conduct direct negotiations and was regarded as nothing more than a mouthpiece for his government. He was thirty-three years old at the time, and would not write

The Prince for another eleven years (1513).

Michelotto ( Michele de Coreglia) Valentino’s most trusted intimate.

Paolo Orsini Scion of one of Italy’s most powerful and ruthless families, Orsini became a leader of the condottieri who first worked for and then conspired against Valentino in 1502.

Tommaso (Tommaso di Giovanni Masini) A student of alchemy and other occult arts who frequently went by the alias Zoroastre, Tommaso joined Leonardo’s entourage during the latter’s long tenure (1482-99) at the court of Lodovico Sforza in Milan.

Giacomo Salai Leonardo da Vinci’s servant/apprentice/ companion. Adopted by

Leonardo when he was ten years old, Giacomo was in his early twenties in 1502. His nickname,

Salai, meant “little devil.”

Valentino () Duke of the Romagna and Captain-General of the armies of the Holy Roman Church. Designated Duke of Valentois by the French king in 1498 (in a deal that bought Louis XII a divorce), Pope Alexander’s gifted bastard son was commonly known as

Duke Valentino or, in a shorthand that spoke to his celebrity throughout Europe, simply

Valentino.

Leonardo da Vinci Officially designated Duke Valentino’s “Engineer-General and

Architect,” Leonardo was fifty years old in 1502. His Map of Imola, drawn that year, is regarded as one of his most revolutionary works; presently in the collection of the Royal Library at

Windsor Castle, it was the first map to have been made with precise measurements and the use of a magnetic compass, anticipating by centuries the advent of modern cartography.

Vitellozzo Vitelli One of Italy’s most experienced condottieri and maestro of a new technology, artillery, Vitellozzo essentially invented the modern infantry rifleman. He was

Valentino’s most effective subordinate prior to leading the conspiracy against him.

GLOSSARY

all’antica Literally, “in the style of the ancients,” i.e. the Greeks and Romans. The rebirth of classical civilization gave the Renaissance its name, so anything from architecture to typefaces done in the all’antica style was considered, paradoxically, the height of modernity.

alla turca In the Turkish style. Despite the geopolitical tension between Christian

Europe and the Ottoman empire, Turkish-style costumes, masqued balls and decorative motifs had a fashionable cachet among Renaissance Italians.

allucciolati Loops of gold or silver thread woven into velvet to produce a rich sparkling effect.

alta band A music ensemble consisting of one trombone (a trumpet with a slide much like the modern instrument) and two piffari (a large woodwind known in English as a shawm, a precursor of the oboe).

amica (m. amico) Girlfriend, friend.

Avemaria The “Hail Mary,” the traditional Roman Catholic prayer for the intercession of the Virgin, particularly “at the hour of our death.”

ballo A dance; more specifically a term encompassing various dances performed by large groups at varying tempos, but all somewhat quicker than the traditional bassadanza.

bellezza Beauty.

berretta A generic term for a wide variety of round caps, but most commonly a brimless style worn by men.

bollettino A card or scrap of paper worn around the neck, on which is written a prayer or spell to protect against illness, accidents, and bad luck.

bottega An artist’s or artisan’s workshop, studio and place of business, typically opening onto a busy street.

braccio (pl. braccia) A unit of measurement based on an arm’s length, roughly 22 to 24 inches.

bravo (pl. bravi ) Knife-wielding young thugs employed as bodyguards or street enforcers, often by more respectable citizens.

cacca Shit; excrement.

cacapensieri Literally, “shit-thinker”; shit-for-brains.

cacasangue Bloody shit, an extremely popular and puissant expletive in Renaissance

Italy.

calcio The precursor of soccer, though it featured heavy contact similar to rugby. In calcio-mad Florence the games were major civic events.

camera obscura Literally a “dark room.” Basically a large pinhole camera, the dark room was completely closed off except for a tiny hole in one wall, through which an inverted image of whatever was outside could be projected on the opposite wall, or even on a sheet of paper. Leonardo did a number of diagrams, accompanied by notes, showing how the camera obscura worked, and it is highly likely that he experimented with the technology.

camora Originally a simple, tight-fitting dress worn directly over a chemise by women of all classes, by the late fifteenth century the camora had become a sumptuous, daringly formal gown that revealed ample expanses of the shoulders and breasts.

candle-seller; candle-shop girl Streetwalkers often sold candles on the side or worked out of candle shops, thus the name became generic for lower class prostitutes.

cantafavola Literally a “sung story,” such as those recited by street-corner minstrels. The connotation, however, was similar to “tall tale” or “song-and-dance”--a story of dubious reliability.

carlino A silver coin minted in Rome, worth about one tenth of a ducat.

cassone A woman’s large wardrobe chest, in which a bride usually brought her trousseau to her husband’s house. These were elaborately painted and intended to be displayed in the bedroom.

Catullus The 1st century B.C. Roman poet noted for his extravagantly romantic, highly erotic, and often shockingly vulgar verses in praise of the pseudonymous “Lesbia,” a married

Roman noblewoman. Catullus’s oeuvre might have been entirely lost if not for the discovery of a single manuscript in Verona early in the fourteenth century; subsequently, Renaissance publishers made him one of the era’s most popular poets.

cazzo Penis; prick.

cioppa A rich overgown or coat with long, full sleeves, often lined with fur. Various forms of the cioppa were worn by both sexes.

coazzone Chignon. The hair was typically drawn back and tied in a large knot behind the head, with the excess falling down over the back of the neck; usually worn with a decorative, often elaborately bejeweled hairnet.

compare Technically a fellow member of the same civic confraternity, or a godfather to one’s child, but sometimes used rhetorically to denote a strong feeling of friendship.

condottiero (pl. condottieri) A mercenary general (translated as Captain-General).

While this profession sometimes provided an avenue for gifted, low-born men to enter the nobility, by the end of the fifteenth century it was much more likely to provide a relatively secure living for incompetent hereditary nobles who made Italy decidedly less safe.

confetti Spun sugar figurines similar to modern cake decorations.

contado The countryside around a town.

corne The sign of the horns, made with only the first and fourth fingers extended; intended to ward off spells and the evil eye.

coro A primero hand consisting of four cards of the same face value (four of a kind).

cortigiana onesta Literally “honest courtesan,” though more colloquially interpreted as

“honest whore.” The term began to be used in Rome at the end of the fifteenth century, to describe the cultured, elegant prostitutes who addressed the needs of the Vatican curia. Rome was renowned for its thriving community of high-class hookers, as was Venice.

cremisi An extravagantly expensive imported red dye made from the dried bodies of small Asiatic scale insects.

culo Ass; derriere.

disegno Design, pattern.

Dottore Doctor.

ducat A gold coin used widely throughout Italy; though each city-state minted its own, the value was roughly the same from place to place. The Florentine equivalent of the ducat was the florin. The minimum going rate for a low-grade courtesan was a ducat or two a night; the better class got thirty ducats. A new Cardinal would pay 120,000 ducats to the Pope for the privilege of assuming his office. Machiavelli’s appropriation for his three-month embassy to

Duke Valentino was 40 ducats.

duomo The generic term for a city or town’s major cathedral. Many cities, like Florence, simply referred to their cathedral as the Duomo, thus giving it the effect of a proper name.

esperienza A term used by Renaissance-era scientists to refer to experimentation and empirical observation.

fanciulla Little girl; baby girl.

fantasia Fantasy. In art and design, an intricate, complicated pattern.

favola (pl. favole) Story; tall tale; fable.

forchetta A large two-tined baker’s fork, used to remove flat loaves from an oven.

Fortune Based on the ancient Roman deity Fortuna, Fortune was personified by even the most educated Italians as a capricious, frequently malicious goddess who often mismanaged human affairs with little supervision from a higher power. Her cult was remarkably pervasive and her perceived tyranny a theme featured prominently in many of the great works of

Renaissance art and literature.

fottimi Fuck me.

French pox Syphilis, so-named because the venereal disease became epidemic when

French armies descended on Italy in the 1490's. Though the New World is now often blamed, the actual origin is uncertain.

garzone Serving boy; manservant.

Gelosia Jealousy; a popular Italian ballo (see) based on the theme of jealousy.

gioce di Diana “Games of Diana” or witch games. Renaissance-era witchcraft was to a considerable extent a persistence of the ancient cult of Diana. According to period accounts, the games were performed in the nude and involved anointing the body with narcotic ointments and “night flight” in drug-induced states. These rituals may also have been confused with--or have merged with--wild, drunken orgies where young peasants behaved much like their social superiors.

guardaroba Wardrobe; small closet.

impicatto (pl. impicatti) Literally, “hanged man”; scoundrel.

intarsia A mosaic created with different types of wood veneers, often used to decorate furniture.

interludo (pl. interludi) A song-and-dance performance given between the acts of a play. Often more elaborately staged than the play, interludi were fully integrated with drama in the early 1600's, creating the first operas.

invenzione (pl. invenzioni) Literally, invention or fabrication, referring to both scientific and cultural innovations.

libertas Latin term for liberty, with particular emphasis on the legal protections of the great mass of people from the powerful few. Because Renaissance concepts of democracy were based on the ancient Roman republic, the Latin term was often cited when speaking of the people’s rights.

licorno Unicorn

Lioncello A popular Italian ballo (see).

lira da braccio A large string instrument with a guitar-like body, played with a bow like a violin, often in accompaniment to secular songs and entertainments.

Madonna The title for a married woman. Often abbreviated to Monna or Donna.

Damiata’s appropriation of the title seems to have been the artifice of both a courtesan and a single mother.

maestro (pl. maestri) “Master,” the title accorded accomplished craftsmen and artists.

mago (pl. magi) Wizard. The male counterpart of the strega (see), or witch.

Messer Title for a man of the professional class (e.g. lawyer, merchant, notary, diplomat) but not of the nobility.

minestra Soup

moresca (pl. moresche) A very fast-paced, whirling, Moorish-style dance, popularized in Spain and Naples.

mundus novus Latin for “new world.” The term was popularized by the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the Americas are named. Vespucci’s nephew Agostino was a close friend and colleague of Machiavelli, and Machiavelli almost certainly saw

Vespucci’s famous letter describing the mundus novus as soon as it reached Florence in the spring of 1502. Unlike previous mariners who had made landfall after sailing west across the

Atlantic, Vespucci did not believe he had reached Asia. Instead he was insistent that the lands he had visited were a newly discovered world--the ultimate Renaissance invenzione.

nonno Grandfather.

numero The lowest scoring hand in primero, requiring two or three cards of the same suit. The score is tabulated by adding ten to the face value of the two through four cards and tripling the five, six, or seven (primero is played without the eights, nines, and tens); an ace is worth sixteen, while the jack, queen and king are worth only ten points each. The lowest possible numero is 20, the highest 54.

oltramontani People from “over the mountains,” i.e. the other side of the Alps. Strongly pejorative; despite their military superiority, the Germans and French were considered impoverished, uncultured, and ill-mannered.

Orlando innamorato “Roland in love,” an unfinished epic poem by Matteo Boiardo of

Ferrara, published in parts in the 1480's and 1490's, based on the wanderings of the heroic knight

Roland.

ospedale Hospital. Renaissance Italy was distinguished by a network of relatively advanced charity hospitals.

palazzo A large house or mansion.

palio A traditional, festive horse race staged by Italian cities. The Siena event was the major palio in Renaissance times; Cesare Borgia (Duke Valentino) was accused of flagrantly cheating in the 1492 race.

papa The Pope.

Paternostro (pl. Paternostri) The Lord’s prayer, which begins “Our Father . . . ”

(Paternostro)

pazzarone Crazy person.

Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) The 14th century Italian scholar and poet often credited as the seminal figure of the Renaissance. Although Petrarch was a celebrated author of learned treatises in Latin, his poems in vernacular Italian, including hundreds exquisitely celebrating and lamenting his love for “Laura”--a woman he never met--achieved a ubiquity that has no modern equivalent. A century after his death, pocket editions of Petrarch were common, and any Italian with a claim to literacy could quote him from memory.

piano nobile Literally the “noble floor.” The most desirable floor in a palazzo was the second floor, not the ground floor; thus the second floor was the piano nobile and usually the location of the large ceremonial rooms.

pianura Plain. Used both generically and also specifically to refer to the long, fertile plain between the Appenine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea.

piffaro (pl. piffari) 1. A large oboe-like woodwind (see alta band), flute, or generic wind instrument. 2. A musician who plays the piffaro.

popolo The people; common people.

potta Pussy; cunt.

prima donna First lady; diva.

primero A very popular and fashionable card game similar to modern poker. The principal differences are that in primero the eights, nines, and tens are discarded to make a forty card deck, and the “face” cards have the lowest value.

puttana whore, slut.

quattrino A Tuscan coin of proverbially small value; equivalent to saying “a penny.”

Rinascimento Renaissance; rebirth.

rocca A stone fortress, usually found on the periphery of a city or town. Like duomo, the term could be generic, or used locally as a proper name, Rocca.

sala grande The “great room” in a palazzo, used for banquets and balls.

scienza Science.

scoppietto The earliest Italian shoulder-fired gun, a primitive matchlock similar to the harquebus. The gunmen were known as scoppiettiere.

sensus communis Literally “common sense.” Leonardo da Vinci believed that all sensory impressions were brought together in a sensus communis found in the second ventricle of the brain (an ancient, Aristotelian concept), where the soul was also believed to reside.

Signor The title of a nobleman.

Signoria In Republican Florence the government was presided over by a Signoria of eight men, representing the different quarters of the city, drawn by lot from a pool of wealthy taxpayers every two months.

simmetria During the Renaissance this did not mean strict bilateral symmetry in the modern sense, but was something more akin to proportion, balance and clarity, the quality of all the parts of a building or painting relating harmoniously to one another, presenting a clearly distinguishable pattern or disegno. When Leonardo da Vinci wrote of simmetria, he often meant the mathematical proportions and geometrical structures he found throughout nature.

speziale An apothecary and dry goods store, purveying such diverse items as food, drugs, housewares, weapons, and construction materials.

spia Spy; watcher.

Stinche Florence’s notoriously damp, verminous, windowless prison. In 1513, shortly after the fall of the Florentine republic Machiavelli had so ardently served, he was accused of conspiring against Florence’s newly restored Medici overlords and was imprisoned and tortured there.

strega (pl. streghe) Witch; sorceress.

stregoneria The practice and religion of witchcraft.

studiolo The study of a learned, wealthy man, usually furnished with his books, art, and musical and scientific instruments.

stufa Public bath. Stufe were notorious hangouts for prostitutes.

Te Deum A traditional Latin hymn in praise of God.

Ten of War The elected body that administered military affairs for the Republic of

Florence.

time-keeping conventions The most common was a twenty-four hour clock that began at sundown. Thus 16 ore--the sixteenth hour--would be nine o’clock in the morning, while the

“second hour” would begin around 6:00 p.m during the winter. Modern historians not infrequently err by counting from midnight.

triche-tach A popular board game very similar to backgammon.

trombone (pl. tromboni) A trumpet with a slide, like the modern instrument. (See alta band.)

ultramare A rare, intense blue pigment that could only be obtained from lapis lazuli quarries in Afghanistan; hence its Latin name, “beyond the sea.”

vecchia Old woman

velluto Velvet

Vernaccia Tuscan white wine considered a luxury in Renaissance Italy, and still regarded so today.

zeja The Romagnolo term for zia.

zia Conventionally “aunt”; also refers to a practitioner of folk healing and the occult arts.