Read Online Murder in the Garden of God by Eleanor Herman - Free Book Online

sight in a naval commander. They yielded, as they always did, to his illustrious heritage, and Paolo Giordano waddled on board cheerfully. He returned from the victorious Battle of Lepanto gloriously wounded in the leg by a Turkish arrow. But reports filtered back that initial misgivings about his performance had proved correct; he had become the object of ridicule, “revealing himself to be so inept due to his excessive fatness.” 2
    Paolo Giordano’s face was scarlet, his brown eyes bulging, and his wiry dark hair stuck out straight from his head. He had a strange stiff moustache, which he must have waxed, that curled up at both ends, and a goatee so small it looked as if he had spilled some gravy on his chin. Yet a contemporary wrote that he possessed “every supreme title of excellence; a noble soul, surpassing liberality, royal hospitality, largely charitable, gloriously magnificent, wise as a ruler, gentle and humane to his dependants, of incomparable courtesy.” 3 Though renowned as a man of noble tastes and exquisite manners, his good breeding was only a coat of shellac over a rough and brutal soul.
    This savage passion was expressed in his second disadvantage, the little matter of his first wife’s demise. In 1558, seventeen-year-old Paolo Giordano had married sixteen-year-old Isabella de Medici, the daughter of Duke Cosimo of Tuscany. A witty, talented beauty, Isabella was dark-eyed with chestnut hair. She spoke Spanish, French, and Latin fluently, played several musical instruments flawlessly, sang like an angel, and wrote lovely poetry. Of the many children of Duke Cosimo, Isabella was called “the fairest star of the de Medici.” 4
    It was, of course, a marriage arranged for political reasons; Cosimo needed Orsini support to conquer Siena, as the extended family of the Orsinis owned several counties surrounding the city. A son born to the couple, uniting the blood of the Orsinis and de Medicis, would ensure political and military support in the future.
    Unfortunately, Paolo Giordano could no more control his finances than his eating and seemed to have had what today we might call compulsive spending disorder. By the tender age of sixteen, he was deeply in debt. He didn’t only spend on himself; he gave valuable presents to servants and hangers-on in an attempt to impress them with his splendid munificence; on one occasion he gave all of his male servants solid gold riding spurs.
    He bought horses, carriages, hunting dogs, falcons, furnishings, and fine clothing. He gave banquets, feasts, and lavish entertainments, including one in Rome in December 1563 to celebrate the visit of his in-laws, the ducal family of Tuscany. One of his servants wrote to his friends at Bracciano, “There are triumphal arches, jousts, hunts and such costumes that you could not imagine the money spent on them, but as for us courtiers we cannot touch any funds for household management or to put the palace in order.” 5
    If the bride was disappointed in the groom’s appearance – he was obese even as a teenager – she must have been consoled by the $20 million dowry her father bestowed on her. Naturally, such a sum could not find its way into the hands of the spendthrift groom. Duke Cosimo kept his daughter, and her dowry, firmly in Florence. Paolo Giordano could visit her whenever he wished, but according to sixteenth-century traditions it was a humiliating situation for a young man, who was expected to take his bride to his castle. He took out his frustrations by frequenting the vilest whorehouses in Rome.
    In 1559, only a year after his vaunted wedding, Paolo Giordano landed as a witness in the trial of a prostitute known as Camilla the Skinny, who had assaulted another prostitute, Pasqua of Padua, and thrown a candlestick at her head. Camilla the Skinny testified that Paolo Giordano “wanted nothing better than for us to have it out with our fists.” 6
    Isabella was of course kept informed of her embarrassing husband’s