The Italian peninsula became the battleground for the French Valois kings and the Habsburg monarchs, who for decades were engaged in bloody hostilities known as the Italian Wars (1494–1559) as they fought for control over the powerful and wealthy Italian states of Florence, Venice, Genoa, the Papal States, the Duchy of Milan and the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples. Cromwell may have found himself a war, along with many of the other mercenaries who sustained both armies, but he picked the losing side. His first experience of warfare ended in a decisive defeat for the French, sealing a Habsburg domination of southern Italy. From the humiliation of defeat upon the battlefield, Cromwell slowly made his way to the famed city of Florence. Even then the city lured in 16th-century merchants and tourists alike with its iconic buildings: the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and its magnificent dome by Filippo Brunelleschi; the medieval Ponte Vecchio spanning the Arno river; and the nearby Pitti Palace, which the Medici family had coveted for so long and would purchase in 1549, consolidating their rule over this great city of the Renaissance.
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It was from the streets of Florence, Bandello tells us, that Francesco Frescobaldi, a member of a wealthy Florentine mercantile family, rescued the young Cromwell from a life of poverty. How this might have happened is a mystery, but we do know that Cromwell was fortunate to associate with Francesco, for the Frescobaldis had been a powerful family in Florence since the 13th century. Their business interests were considerable, extending even to England and the new Tudor king, Henry VII, with whom they enjoyed an informal arrangement whereby goods imported from the East were allowed to travel via England, thence to Florence, thereby circumnavigating the highly taxed papal-controlled routes. The Frescobaldis were in the wine business and a leading exporter to England; today this 700-year-old history continues and they are still a large producer of Tuscan wines.
The Frescobaldi family were well-connected and respected among the Florentine gentry, renowned for their hospitality and entertaining, thus providing Cromwell with an unprecedented entrée into a world of wealth and privilege. Florence was a sophisticated city of art, culture and commerce, home to some of Europe’s leading personalities of the period – including Michelangelo, who received many commissions from the Frescobaldis.
Mantel’s Cromwell fondly recalls his time in the Frescobaldi sphere of influence and there are only a few casual references where she allows Cromwell to briefly reminisce:
It’s not so many years since the Frescobaldi kitchen in Florence; or perhaps it is, but his memory is clear, exact. He was clarifying calf’s-foot jelly, chatting away in his mixture of French, Tuscan and Putney, when somebody shouted, ‘Tommaso, they want you upstairs.’
In describing the scene, Mantel may have taken inspiration more from John Foxe’s recollections of a young Cromwell encountering the new Pope, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, who became Pope Leo X. Cromwell was hired by the Merchant’s Guild of our Lady in Boston, Lincolnshire, which had been a prosperous wool-trading community since the 13th century. His mission was to travel to Rome to petition the Pope to renew their authority to collect papal indulgences on behalf of the Guild; many religious communities relied on the income generated by indulgences and without the papal licence their revenues would run dry. The mission was successful because Cromwell understood how business worked, perhaps something he had learned at the home of the Frescobaldis. Whereas most petitioners had to wait for months to be heard, Cromwell researched Pope Leo’s personal tastes and discovered that the Pope delighted in new and ‘dayntie dishes’. While on a hunting trip, Leo X was intercepted by Cromwell who had been working on an offering of his own, and produced several culinary delights, including jelly, for the Pope. This was a masterful stroke which so pleased the Pope that the Guild’s petition to renew the indulgences was immediately granted. Frescobaldi’s description then of Cromwell is on the mark:
‘Quick-witted and prompt of resolution...and could dissemble his purpose better than any man in the world.’
The Frescobaldi experience would have been a revelation for Cromwell, arousing a taste for the finer things in life, such as fine art and tapestries, which he collected. This son of a Putney blacksmith must have indeed puzzled those at Henry’s court, for where could this man have acquired such intelligence, worldliness and sophistication?
The provincial world of Putney was far behind as Cromwell, now fluent in Italian, Latin and French, was entrusted with the business transactions on behalf of the family, joining Francesco whenever he travelled for business. Cromwell’s last mission for the Frescobaldis took him to Venice where he and his master parted ways, though not on bad terms. Perhaps Cromwell had decided to broaden his world, and the 16 gold ducats and fine horse that Francesco gave Cromwell as a parting gift shows their close bond. Mantel may even be alluding to Cromwell’s affinity with Florence when her Henry teases him in Bring Up the Bodies: ‘Cromwell has the skin of a lily,’ the king pronounces. ‘The only particular in which he resembles that or any other blossom.’ The lily is the historic emblem of Florence, a fitting symbol of loyalty to the Florentine family who had set him on the path to success.
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We know that Cromwell also spent a short time in Venice, where he worked as an accountant, but from here the story shifts out of focus once more. Cromwell likely followed the trade routes from Venice through the cities of Europe, eventually reaching the Netherlands where he would again assimilate the skills and machinations of local business in a new area of commerce, namely as a cloth merchant. Cromwell had honed his financial skills in Italy, but Antwerp
