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Updated: April 30, 2025
Madonna Gemma, finding herself in this prison, did not weep or utter a sound for many days. Here Lapo Cercamorte, pouncing upon such a treasure as had never come within his reach before, met his first defeat. His fire proved unable to melt that ice. His coarse mind was benumbed by the exquisiteness of his antagonist.
They annulled the laws made by the Guelphs to the prejudice of the citizens; declared Lapo da Castiglionchio and his companions, rebels, and with them many others, who were the objects of universal detestation.
So Baldo led the sorcerer to Cercamorte, and for a long while those two talked together in private. Next day Madonna Gemma noted that Lapo had on a new, short, sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel.
The masses in the courtyard, inhuman-looking in their ponderous, barrel-shaped helmets, surged forward at the keep with a thunderous outcry: "Grangioia! Grangioia! Havoc on Cercamorte!" "Muti! Muti! Havoc on Cercamorte!" "God and the Monfalcone!" "Strike for Zaladino! Havoc on Cercamorte!" Lapo bared his teeth at them. "By the Five Wounds! half of Lombardy seems to be here.
At least, that is the inference which may be drawn from a letter by an old notary of Florence, Lapo Mazzei, wherein he takes occasion to say, in inviting a friend to supper, that it will be entirely convenient to have him come, inasmuch as he has taken the precaution, in order not to trouble the house servants, to send to the bakery to be roasted a fat pullet and a loin of mutton!
At dinner in the hall she ate nothing, but drank her wine as though burning with a fever. Sometimes, when the stillness had become portentous, Lapo rolled up his sleeves, inspected his scarred, swarthy arms, and mumbled, with the grin of a man stretched on the rack: "Ah, Father and Son! if only one had a skin as soft, white, and delicate as a girl's!" At this Madonna Gemma left the table.
He goes on to explain his dealings with the rogue Lapo. There is also trouble about a sword-hilt Michael Angelo had designed for Pietro Aldobrandini. However, Aldobrandini objected that the blade was too short.
But before the dais the wave paused, since in it were those who could not forego the joy of taunting Lapo Cercamorte before killing him. So suddenly, all his antagonists contemplated him in silence, as he crouched above them with his sword and shield half raised, his very armour seeming to emanate force, cunning, and peril. "Foul monster!" a muffled voice shouted. "Now you come to your death!"
It was in the month of April, in the year 1378, when Lapo, thinking delay inadvisable, expressed his opinion, that procrastination was in the highest degree perilous to themselves; as in the next Signory, Salvestro de' Medici would very probably be elected Gonfalonier, and they all knew he was opposed to their party.
Baldo raised his shoulders, pressed his withered eyelids together, and answered, in disgust: "God pity you, Cercamorte! You are certainly changed these days. Evidently your Arabian has given you a charm that turns men's brains into goose-eggs." Lapo stamped away angrily, yet he was soon smiling again. And now his coarse locks were not unkempt, but cut square across brow and neck.
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