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which the scribe deems a good thing; and much more appropriate than tourist hands, like Gradara. But His Excellency bides the scribe go slow and start at the beginning (instead of eyeing the drinks, the stupid twat!)
His Excellency winced when the scribe forced him to forego stops in Romagna proper, passing Imola, Faenza, Forlì, Cesena and Rimini in one fell swoop, her reasoning being that his fortresses had become Della Rovere's and were in disrepair no matter what, there were no other sights, the few Manfredi and Sforza things in Faenza and Forlì superceded by layers of a history that'd mean nothing to him, with no place to leave luggage at the tiny stations, so he made her take photos of the train stations, at least.
He's also telling her to stop gnawing her piercing and poke her tongue out when in thought; it's unseemly and brutta.
Anyway. Finally having made it Pesaro with terrific delays which the scribe fruitfully spent drinking wine and eating KinderPingoui, His Excellency shook his head at the sad state Rocca Costanza is in, but then that was to be expected. No chance to have a look at Lucrezia's lavishly decorated bathrooms in Palazzo Ducale either, since it currently houses the City Magistrate.
His scribe was about to go slackjawed and drooling on him, rifling through some 100 photos (of the Anatomical Theatre and Ferrarese mosquito pits and whatnot), ready to fall asleep on her feet when he ordered her up and about again to take a "bus" to Gradara, the place of choice for villeggiatura during Giovanni & Lucrezia's short-lived matrimony. It was a little over-decorated, over-restored, and he wonders why it is that people think of castles as romantic dwellings. When even Gradara didn't have a proper loo. How come they always forget about rancid woolfat, stale sweat, woodsmoke, and piss? In matters comfort and luxury, neither Pesaro nor Gradara were what Lucrezia was used to, so His Excellency is still miffed she would have delayed her return to Rome after he, and then even their father His Holiness called her back. Must have been a much better fuck than expected, that Giovanni. Or it was pure obstinacy on Lucrezia's part. The wayward chit.
Now the scribe barges in, wanting to add that, much like Christopher Moltisanti's heroin-thwarted efforts at seeing the Vesuvio, the scribe's attempts at passeggiata and aperitivo tend to be thwarted by swollen feet and one wine too many, so that by the time she could go out, she really can't. (His Excellency has no idea what on God's earth she's on about. Must be the dry Emilian Lambrusco.)
So it is 11:15 at Urbino, and the xerox machines are besieged, like in every good uni town, by the great throng of not-so-early-risers, smokers, and wearers of stylish glasses.
Cue back some 506 years...
So here we have His Excellency, at twenty-six, standing alone in the vast, rich halls of Urbino's Ducal Palace, paintings and statues looming, leering at him, telling him his reign will be short-lived; the Montefeltro is nothing like Romagna, no wide plains allowing easy troop movements, but a rugged country of hills and valleys, ideal for ambushs and guerrilla warfare, and that just might eat his troups alive. And while he limps around the place (the ulcer in his groin giving him a hell of a time, goddamn mal francese), he already makes plans and second plans, scenarios of ifs. For one, he'll pretty much start shipping Federigo & son's treasures to Cesena and Forlì, best starting tomorrow. Trains of 180 mules each, daily going back and forth. Da Vinci has already looked at the library and pointed out what he wants, slavering all the while. Isabella d'Este has written; she wants the small cupid she's seen during her last visit, and while his Excellency deems it crass of the cunt - for all her talk of bella figura - to rob her own relative, he readily and swiftly obliges, adding that the cupid is one of Michelangelo's.
Anyway. What does he see, His Excellency, when he closes his eyes at night, in old man Federigo's panelled bed, what does he think? That Urbino is rightfully his? He tells Machiavelli so. The Florentines come the next day, and he upbraids them and doesn't mince words and, well, rips them a new arsehole, verbally, biting his lip now and then because damn his ulcer hurts, and Montefeltro's ancients are gazing down from the gallery, and Guidabaldo has fled up north, in nothing but a shirt to his name.
It's only a matter of time before His Excellency will lose Urbino again. (Don't tell him he'll cry onto Guidobaldo's feet and promise restitution; that might produce a major sulkfest... And I'm off to roam the crooked lanes of Urbino. Shame the guards in the Palazzo are so freakishly anti-photo, there's absolutely no chance to take pics. At all. Grr.)
(ETA by the scribe): Oh man do they ever hate him still. The official guidebook says, "We know from antique sources that Federico's palace was a treasure chest of paintings and sculptures, antiques, bronzes, silverware, paintings on panels and canvases, tapestries, painted leather hangings and inlaid furniture. Unfortunately in 1502 it was plundered by Duke Valentino (Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alessandro VI), and in 1631 following the extinction of this branch of the della Rovere family and the devolution of the duchy to the Papal State, many of the remaining movables went to Vittoria de' Medici."
Dude. As if the family ties with the Della Rovere hadn't fucked Urbino no matter what, sooner or later. Maybe falling into sleepy oblivion and becoming a backwater at the Pope's arse end was Urbino's saving grace. Having said that, I'm currently tucking into "The Pope's Rhinoceros" again, with freshly added zest. The story of the conclave that sent Giovanni de' Medici's fiery boil suppurating all over the Sistine Chapel... the glimpses of Tordesillas (revisited), Spanish/Portuguese bitchfights, and Pope Leo's feverish (spell: nightmarish) recollections of the Borgia are just priceless. *___* And as always, the Graces mean well with me: the Ducal Palace currently hosts an exhibit with the most amazing illuminated manuscripts and books from Federigo & son's library (again, lots of stabs at evil Cesare who stole it all) - the choicest pieces on loan from the Vatican. Nom.
His Excellency winced when the scribe forced him to forego stops in Romagna proper, passing Imola, Faenza, Forlì, Cesena and Rimini in one fell swoop, her reasoning being that his fortresses had become Della Rovere's and were in disrepair no matter what, there were no other sights, the few Manfredi and Sforza things in Faenza and Forlì superceded by layers of a history that'd mean nothing to him, with no place to leave luggage at the tiny stations, so he made her take photos of the train stations, at least.
He's also telling her to stop gnawing her piercing and poke her tongue out when in thought; it's unseemly and brutta.
Anyway. Finally having made it Pesaro with terrific delays which the scribe fruitfully spent drinking wine and eating KinderPingoui, His Excellency shook his head at the sad state Rocca Costanza is in, but then that was to be expected. No chance to have a look at Lucrezia's lavishly decorated bathrooms in Palazzo Ducale either, since it currently houses the City Magistrate.
His scribe was about to go slackjawed and drooling on him, rifling through some 100 photos (of the Anatomical Theatre and Ferrarese mosquito pits and whatnot), ready to fall asleep on her feet when he ordered her up and about again to take a "bus" to Gradara, the place of choice for villeggiatura during Giovanni & Lucrezia's short-lived matrimony. It was a little over-decorated, over-restored, and he wonders why it is that people think of castles as romantic dwellings. When even Gradara didn't have a proper loo. How come they always forget about rancid woolfat, stale sweat, woodsmoke, and piss? In matters comfort and luxury, neither Pesaro nor Gradara were what Lucrezia was used to, so His Excellency is still miffed she would have delayed her return to Rome after he, and then even their father His Holiness called her back. Must have been a much better fuck than expected, that Giovanni. Or it was pure obstinacy on Lucrezia's part. The wayward chit.
Now the scribe barges in, wanting to add that, much like Christopher Moltisanti's heroin-thwarted efforts at seeing the Vesuvio, the scribe's attempts at passeggiata and aperitivo tend to be thwarted by swollen feet and one wine too many, so that by the time she could go out, she really can't. (His Excellency has no idea what on God's earth she's on about. Must be the dry Emilian Lambrusco.)
So it is 11:15 at Urbino, and the xerox machines are besieged, like in every good uni town, by the great throng of not-so-early-risers, smokers, and wearers of stylish glasses.
Cue back some 506 years...
So here we have His Excellency, at twenty-six, standing alone in the vast, rich halls of Urbino's Ducal Palace, paintings and statues looming, leering at him, telling him his reign will be short-lived; the Montefeltro is nothing like Romagna, no wide plains allowing easy troop movements, but a rugged country of hills and valleys, ideal for ambushs and guerrilla warfare, and that just might eat his troups alive. And while he limps around the place (the ulcer in his groin giving him a hell of a time, goddamn mal francese), he already makes plans and second plans, scenarios of ifs. For one, he'll pretty much start shipping Federigo & son's treasures to Cesena and Forlì, best starting tomorrow. Trains of 180 mules each, daily going back and forth. Da Vinci has already looked at the library and pointed out what he wants, slavering all the while. Isabella d'Este has written; she wants the small cupid she's seen during her last visit, and while his Excellency deems it crass of the cunt - for all her talk of bella figura - to rob her own relative, he readily and swiftly obliges, adding that the cupid is one of Michelangelo's.
Anyway. What does he see, His Excellency, when he closes his eyes at night, in old man Federigo's panelled bed, what does he think? That Urbino is rightfully his? He tells Machiavelli so. The Florentines come the next day, and he upbraids them and doesn't mince words and, well, rips them a new arsehole, verbally, biting his lip now and then because damn his ulcer hurts, and Montefeltro's ancients are gazing down from the gallery, and Guidabaldo has fled up north, in nothing but a shirt to his name.
It's only a matter of time before His Excellency will lose Urbino again. (Don't tell him he'll cry onto Guidobaldo's feet and promise restitution; that might produce a major sulkfest... And I'm off to roam the crooked lanes of Urbino. Shame the guards in the Palazzo are so freakishly anti-photo, there's absolutely no chance to take pics. At all. Grr.)
(ETA by the scribe): Oh man do they ever hate him still. The official guidebook says, "We know from antique sources that Federico's palace was a treasure chest of paintings and sculptures, antiques, bronzes, silverware, paintings on panels and canvases, tapestries, painted leather hangings and inlaid furniture. Unfortunately in 1502 it was plundered by Duke Valentino (Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alessandro VI), and in 1631 following the extinction of this branch of the della Rovere family and the devolution of the duchy to the Papal State, many of the remaining movables went to Vittoria de' Medici."
Dude. As if the family ties with the Della Rovere hadn't fucked Urbino no matter what, sooner or later. Maybe falling into sleepy oblivion and becoming a backwater at the Pope's arse end was Urbino's saving grace. Having said that, I'm currently tucking into "The Pope's Rhinoceros" again, with freshly added zest. The story of the conclave that sent Giovanni de' Medici's fiery boil suppurating all over the Sistine Chapel... the glimpses of Tordesillas (revisited), Spanish/Portuguese bitchfights, and Pope Leo's feverish (spell: nightmarish) recollections of the Borgia are just priceless. *___* And as always, the Graces mean well with me: the Ducal Palace currently hosts an exhibit with the most amazing illuminated manuscripts and books from Federigo & son's library (again, lots of stabs at evil Cesare who stole it all) - the choicest pieces on loan from the Vatican. Nom.
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Enjoy!! *hugs*
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