The Medici Return

by Steve Berry

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry comes the latest installment in his wildly popular Cotton Malone series --- an adventure that takes Cotton to Italy and Tuscany to solve a five hundred year old mystery.
 
Cotton Malone is on the hunt for a forgotten 16th century Pledge of Christ — a sworn promise made by Pope Julius II that evidences a monetary debt owed by the Vatican, still valid after five centuries, now worth in the trillions of dollars.  But collecting that debt centers around what happened to the famed Medici of Florence — a family that history says died out, without heirs, centuries ago.  Two more things also hang in the balance.  Who will become the next prime minister of Italy, and who will be the next pope.  Finding answers to all three proves difficult until Cotton realizes that everything hinges on when, and if, the Medici return.

Release date: February 11, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

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PROLOGUE

CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARY OF THE ASSUMPTION

SIENA, ITALY

MAY 9, 1512

GIULIANO DI LORENZO DE’ MEDICI KNEW THIS WAS HIS FAMILY’S LAST chance at redemption. A single attempt. That is all fate would allow. Their legacy was one of risk and reward but, of late, only failure had come their way. He was thirty-three years old and the titular head of the ancient Medici clan, the great-grandson of Cosimo de’ Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Quite a pedigree. And quite the accomplishment for a third son. Since 1494 he and his entire family had lived in exile, banned from his beloved Florence, stripped of all rights and titles as punishment for his older brother’s grave political mistake.

“Piero was a fool,” Pope Julius II bellowed. “Feeble, arrogant, undisciplined. We knew him.”

An insult? For sure. But not a lie.

The Medicis had effectively ruled Florence since the start of the fifteenth century. Piero assumed the family leadership in 1492 when their father, Lorenzo, died. Two years later Charles VIII of France crossed the Alps with an army, intent on conquering the Kingdom of Naples. To get there, though, Charles had to pass through Tuscany, so he sought out Piero to both support his claim to Naples and allow his army to pass. Piero, ever the arrogant fool as the pope had just described, waited five days before responding that Florence would remain neutral in the conflict.

Which enraged Charles.

So the French invaded Tuscany.

Piero attempted to mount a resistance, but he received little support from the Florentine elite, who had no taste for war. Eventually Piero, on his own, met with Charles and acceded to every French demand, including surrendering control of key Florentine fortresses and towns. His attempts at a negotiated peace were met with outrage and the Medici were forced to flee, the family’s grand palazzo in Florence looted and burned. Piero, for all his mistakes, acquired an insulting moniker.

The Unfortunate.

To say the least.

“My brother has been dead nine years,” he calmly said to Julius. “Drowned after the Battle of Garigliano.”

“And you were but a boy at the exile, a gifted youth I am told, moving from court to court, searching for a home.”

“That is true. But now I am grown and do not intend to repeat my brother’s mistakes.”

The pope pointed a finger his way. “What you wish, is a reprieve.”

He let the insult pass and merely said, “We simply want to return to our home.”

The Medici started as farmers, from the Mugello region north of Florence, who tended their vines and oxen. The origin of the family name remained a mystery. Medici was the plural of medico, medical doctor, yet there were no healers in the lineage. Instead, they became bankers, insanely wealthy, connected to most of the other elite families—the Bardi, Altoviti, Ridolfi, Cavalcanti, and Tornabuoni—through marriages of convenience, business partnerships, or employment. They were the spoke of the wheel, the gran maestro, unofficial heads of the Florentine republic for over a hundred years.

Until Piero the Unfortunate’s mistake.

“Come closer, Medici,” Julius said, adding a wave of his arm.

The pope sat on a marble seat beneath the cathedral’s unique octagonal pulpit. Eight granite and marble columns supported sculpted scenes that narrated the life of Christ, the message one of salvation and the last judgment. Fitting for this confrontation.

Giuliano stepped

forward, but stopped a comfortable distance away. He’d been advised not to approach too close. His spies had also reported that the pope, nearing seventy years old, was riddled with gout and syphilis, in constant pain. The old man’s head hung bent with exhaustion, the brow still high and wide above a large and pugnacious nose. A beard fell from the chin, a sign he’d been told of Julius’ personal mourning of his recent military loss of the city of Bologna. Beards had been forbidden by canon law for centuries but, as was common with Julius, he lived by a different set of rules.

The pope had been born near Savona in the Republic of Genoa, of the House of della Rovere, a noble but impoverished family, then educated by his uncle, a Franciscan monk. He rose to be a cardinal at age twenty-eight thanks to his uncle, who became Pope Sixtus IV, and steadily climbed within the church through three more pontificates until finally claiming the throne of St. Peter in 1503.

A soldier in a cassock was how Julius had come to be described. Terribilità, awe inspiring, that’s what the Italians called him. One of the most dynamic personalities to ever reach the papal chair. Nothing of a priest existed about him except for the dress and name. Never much of a diplomat, always a warrior. Plain-spoken to the point of rudeness, he belonged to a class of men who simply did not rest. Every moment, every thought was geared to a purpose. He drank, swore, was willful, coarse, bad-tempered, and impossible to manage. Yet he was also incapable of baseness or vindictiveness and he despised informers. Everywhere he saw and sought greatness. His faults arose from his relentless candor and uncontrollable temper, both of which Giuliano had to guard against.

“Medici,” Julius said, “people are flattering us, telling us grand things, but we know better. We cannot stand on our feet for more than a few moments. Walking has become a chore. Food is revolting. The trip here today took all the energy we have, and our strength diminishes from day to day. Pain is a constant companion. We will not live much longer.”

He refused to take that bait. He knew that Julius had been near death before, the latest incident a few months back when he supposedly lay dying and the cardinals began openly plotting his succession. But the old man had rebounded thanks to that famed iron constitution. And many of those cardinals had been fired or dismissed. They learned the hard way not to assume a man of Julius’ power and strength would die easily. Better to wait until the body was cold and in the ground. But for what Giuliano had in mind for the Medici family, he needed Julius alive, strong, and feared.

“Did you travel here from Urbino or Venice?” the pope asked.

“Venice, Holiness.”

“But that is not your home.”

“It is where most of my family is centered. I wished to consult with them.”

“How is your leader, the doge?”

“He is well. He sends his regards.”

Julius chuckled. “We doubt that. Instead, he surely wishes us to be dead and gone.”

He stayed silent, because the observation was correct. The pope and the Venetians were not friends.

“We have always wondered,” Julius said, “what would happen when we arrive at the gates of Heaven, finally facing St. Peter.”

Giuliano imagined that awkward scene in his brain.

Julius motioned with a wrinkled hand. “We would say to him that we have done more for the church and Christ than any pope before us. We annexed Bologna to the Holy See. We led an army and beat the Venetians. We jockeyed the Duke of Ferrara. We drove the French out of Italy, and we would have driven out the Spaniards too, if the fates had not brought us to this state of physical decline.”

No doubt.

“We have boxed all the princes of Europe by the ears. We have torn up treaties and kept great armies in the field. We have covered Rome with palaces. We owe nothing to our birth or youth, for we were old when we began. Nothing to popularity either, for we are hated all around. Then we would say to Peter that all this is the modest truth, and that our friends in Rome call us more god than man.”

“And hope Peter is not offended,” he added.

Julius chuckled. “To be honest, we hope he is.”

The bravado was consistent with all he knew about this forceful, ruthless, violent man who, for the past nine years, had kept Italy in war and turmoil. But Julius had also brought order to Rome and had elevated the papacy to the dominant political and military force of Italy. He had a keen eye for the arts as well, developing close friendships with Michelangelo, Bramante, and Raphael, however confrontational those relationships might have been. He’d established the Swiss Guards, commissioned a magnificent ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, founded the Vatican Museums, and begun the construction of what he wanted to be the greatest basilica in the world dedicated to St. Peter.

Amazing accomplishments.

“You know we have the same first name,” Julius said. “We were born Giuliano della Rovere. But I have not been called that in a long time. It means ‘youthful.’ We still think of ourselves as youthful.”

“Death seems not to favor you,” Giuliano said.

A smirk came to the thin lips. “There was a time, Medici, when we rode our horse

right up the Lateran stairs and tethered him to our bedroom door. We were a rock. We knew no fear or irresolution. Difficulties only roused us to work harder. We think it all consistent with our family crest. An unbending oak.”

They were alone, inside Siena’s grand cathedral. A favorite of Julius’, if his spies were to be believed. His brother, a cardinal, and his cousin, a priest, were close with Julius. So he’d utilized both as intermediaries to request an audience. He’d expected an unequivocal no—after all, the Medicis had been persona non grata for a long time. No one wanted to be seen or associated with the family. Anyone caught scheming with them would be punished by death, and one man had lost his head. So he’d been surprised when the pope had accepted the offer to talk. But not in Rome. Instead, a neutral site.

Siena.

Which had made him wonder. What did this man want?

“We are aware,” the pope said, “of your admirable character, your generosity and sympathetic nature. We are told that you oppose violence and cherish honesty. You are a fair and capable man. But you are the third son. The firstborn is dead. The second a cardinal. So it fell to you to head your family. That is a rare opportunity.”

He agreed.

“We also are aware of your ambition. You want back what Piero the Unfortunate lost.”

He’d been instructed to be direct. “I also want the Spanish gone from Florentine territory.”

“Agreed. Now we will tell you what we want.”

Giuliano waited.

“Money.”

The request was not unexpected.

The church had long been corrupted by gold and silver.

“Though we have been careful with our household,” Julius said, “mindful of our resources, when we assumed the papacy there was enormous debt thanks to our predecessor.”

That he could believe, since Alexander VI had been a degenerate who cared for nothing much besides pleasure. It was well known that the Borgia pope had drained the treasury.

“We have also financed many wars,” Julius said. “All necessary in order to expel our enemies and restore the Papal States to their glory. It is such an insult to have lost them in the first place.”

That precious territory, which had long belonged to the papacy, stretched across the Italian peninsula from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, then north toward Venice. The holdings were a physical manifestation of the temporal power of the popes, but Alexander VI had allowed a large swath of the territory to be appropriated by Venice. In 1508 Julius personally led an army and subjugated Perugia and Bologna. Then, in 1509, he defeated Venice and restored the Papal States. Hence why the doge would wish nothing but pain and death on this pope.

“Those wars were costly,” Julius said. “But we have also supported the arts and erected grand buildings, along with being generous to the poor. 

Our charity has caused the treasury at Castel Sant’ Angelo to draw nearly empty. We are ashamed to say, Medici, that we have resorted to selling offices, benefices, and indulgences to raise funds. Shameful, I know, but necessary. We want, before we die, to restore the treasury.”

“Our bank no longer exists,” he pointed out. “We are not in the business of making loans.”

The Peruzzi, Scalia, Frescobaldi, and Salambini were well-known lenders, but the Banco dei Medici had been the largest and most respected in Europe. Giuliano’s great-grandfather Cosimo had been a master financier, using his wealth—spread across art, land, and gold—to acquire political control over Florence. But the Medici after him were not as astute. Overspending and bad management combined to send the bank to the brink. For all his political canniness, his father, Lorenzo, had been a terrible banker. Eventually bad loans and too many defaults led to bankruptcy. With his brother’s disastrous political moves and the family’s exile to Venice, some of the family assets had been seized and distributed to creditors. All of the bank’s branches throughout Europe were dissolved. But the Medicis’ vast personal wealth survived.

“Do not think us a fool,” Julius said. “True, there were great losses when your bank collapsed. But those were borne mainly by your customers, not by you. Your family escaped with its riches.”

“Our home was pillaged and burned,” he told Julius.

“But most of your art and gold had already been removed.”

This pope was remarkably well informed.

“We are aware that your wealth has grown immeasurably during the past eighteen years. Though you deflect all attention, you remain the wealthiest family in Europe.”

No sense being coy. “How much do you seek?”

“Ten million florins.”

His father had taught him the first rule of negotiating. Never reveal what is on your mind. So he did not react to the incredible sum. There were also a couple of other lessons. Never cut what you can untie. Advice passed down from Cosimo himself. Along with, Necessity does not make a good bargain. Not a muscle twitched on his face, and his eyes remained rock-steady as he weighed his options.

The past eighteen years had been tough on Florence. The city had been nearly destroyed by corruption, misgovernment, and heavy taxation. Everything had come to a head two months ago. The papal forces, plus Spain, had met the French in Ravenna. Both sides fought hard and the French lost their commander, but the Spanish won, driving the French northward to the Alps. That’s when Julius laid siege 

 to Florence, intent on changing its wanton ways. That army was still there. Along with the Spanish. Waiting. Outside the walls.

“Forgive me, Holiness,” he said. “But my family has not been a lender to the Mother Church for a long time. We were… dismissed, in favor of another bank.”

“We are aware of such. But that was another pope’s action, not ours. True, we have a bank to handle church affairs, and it will continue to do so. What we are asking of you is something far more personal. More secretive. An arrangement only a few will know exists.”

Secrecy brought with it a multitude of problems, especially when it came to repayment. The Medici had learned long ago that kings and emperors never wanted others to know they were borrowing money, which made it easy for them to default.

“In our closing time of life we are concerned about the church’s grandeur,” Julius said. “Some call us the savior of the papacy. We rather like that description. Popes before us were corrupt, stupid, or weak. But no more do kings and emperors laugh at Rome. Now they fear us. We require you to ensure that legacy remains intact.”

“Ten million gold florins would be the largest loan ever made,” he had to say.

Julius shrugged. “It is what we require for the treasury to be restored. For your family to once again live in Florence and Tuscany. But it does not have to be all in gold. Property that can be converted to gold later would be welcomed.”

Now the main question. “What would the collateral be for such a large risk?”

“An army outside your precious Florence is not sufficient?”

“Hardly.”

“Yet you are here.”

“And you need money.”

He was pushing things.

“Our word means nothing?” Julius asked.

“No. It does not. Especially considering that your army is outside the gates of Florence. And by your own words, you are dying.”

He was not going to be bullied. He came with nothing and he could leave with nothing. If his ancestors had been equally as cautious, perhaps the family would not have found itself in its present predicament. True, this pope was stern, passionate, impatient, keen to move from one fight to another, and never happy except at war. All bad. If Julius reacted with his characteristic rage and cast him away, then so be it. Better that than losing everything. The pope was right. The family’s wealth was at an all-time high, and he intended on keeping it that way.

The old man cast him a wiry glare. “The talk is, once we are gone, the next pope will be your brother. If such be the case, Medici, you will have direct access to the church and its treasury for any repayment.”

“Those are mere possibilities, not collateral. Also, any arrangement we might make must also include that your army, and the Spanish, immediately withdraw from Florence.”

Julius shrugged. “They are only still there since we agreed to speak with you. We

 wanted to see if you were as reasonable as people say.”

“And if I had not been?”

“Then our army would have breached the walls and taken Florence by force.”

Not an idle threat coming from this man.

“All right, Medici. You produce the ten million gold florins and we will withdraw our army and grant to you the best collateral on this earth.”

He was intrigued.

“We will give you what few in history have ever possessed.”

He waited.

“Pignus Christi.”

The Pledge of Christ.

 

PRESENT DAY

 

CHAPTER 1

DILLENBURG, GERMANY

MONDAY, JUNE 30

12:40 P.M.

COTTON MALONE HAD COMMITTED BURGLARY BEFORE.

Many times, in fact.

Just not in such an august place.

He stood inside a four-hundred-year-old residence, built of olden brick and stone, first erected during the seventeenth century at a time when the German states, Sweden, and Poland were beset by religious conflict. Catholics fought Protestants in the long and destructive Thirty Years’ War. The building around him was a picturesque relic of that violent history that had somehow escaped razing by the Protestants. It likewise survived later conflicts, including both world wars. It remained the rural home of a cardinal, owned by the Archdiocese of Cologne, whose duly authorized representatives in Rome had granted Cotton permission to surreptitiously enter the premises.

So technically this wasn’t a burglary.

Still, it definitely felt like one.

Germany possessed nine cardinals. Three were beyond the age of eighty, meaning they were ineligible to attend the next conclave and vote for a new pope. Six remained active, the youngest, Jason Cardinal Richter, serving as the current archbishop of Cologne. The house served as Richter’s private retreat, a place outside the city that he enjoyed from time to time.

Dillenburg sat about seventy miles east of Cologne, in a narrow valley cut by the River Dill. The town was one of those out-of-the-way places that had once been much more important. Its healing spring and brine works, renovated a few years ago, were back open for visitors, which helped with tourism. Once, a wooden castle had dominated the hill above the town, but all that remained were ruins, along with an impressive stone lookout tower that had become a local landmark. The cardinal’s residence sat in sight of the watchtower atop the thousand-foot hill, with a spectacular view of the valley below.

Cotton was surreptitiously working with the Swiss Guard, on special assignment through the Magellan Billet. His former boss, Stephanie Nelle, had called a few days ago asking for help. An extraordinary situation was developing at the Vatican. Six defendants were on trial for fraud, embezzlement, corruption, money laundering, and abuse of office. The charges centered on the church’s multimillion-euro purchases of investment properties located throughout Ireland and England. The deal, investigators argued, was nothing more than a way for the defendants to launder money and refinance their own debts through embezzled funds.

Two of the defendants were monsignors, employed within the Secretariat of State. Two more were former heads of the Vatican’s internal financial overseer, charged with making sure frauds never happened. The final pair were an Italian financier and an investment manager. The whole thing seemed a wide-ranging conspiracy better suited for spy novels. Certainly not something that might happen within the Holy See.

Thankfully, as with most complex criminal enterprises, mistakes had been made that led to its discovery. A special Vatican court had been empaneled to try the defendants, the judges selected by the pope from among an array of former Italian prosecutors. The trial itself had started months ago, the evidence trickling out at a snail’s pace through a parade of witnesses. It was being

 held inside a spacious hall within the Vatican Museums to accommodate the many media representatives and spectators. Two weeks ago things had taken an unusual turn when one of the defendants, a monsignor from the secretary of state’s office, offered prosecutors a deal. In return for immunity he would provide them with incriminating information on one, so-far unnamed, individual.

A prince of the church.

Jason Cardinal Richter.

A secret proffer of information had occurred to prosecutors, and the Swiss Guard had been quietly ordered to confirm its veracity. The trial itself had been recessed on the pretense of the court performing a partial review of the evidence so as to be able to rule on motions filed by the defendants. A totally plausible scenario, as similar recesses had also occurred. So sensitive was the situation that outside help had been requested through the United States attorney general, who involved the Magellan Billet, which had led to Stephanie calling Copenhagen.

“We need a sneak and peek. There are too many eyes and ears at the Vatican. No way to keep something like this secret. So they want us to quietly check it out. How tough could it be? He’s a cardinal, not a mafia boss. Just see what’s there.”

Right. How hard could it be?

The actual entry into the house had been simple. The locks were easy to pick, and the old building came with no cameras or alarms. But why would it? It was more a getaway than a residence, kept by the diocese as a perk for its resident cardinal. A place to enjoy on the weekends or in summer. No one lived there full-time, but the information they’d been given stated that Cardinal Richter used the house as a repository for, if the informant was to be believed, about four hundred thousand euros in cash. Far more money than any prelate could have ever legitimately accumulated.

He stood at the top of the stairs on the third-floor landing. The stale air carried a musty smell. The walls were heavy plaster, painted a soft cream, broken by arches, the ceilings coffered wood, the mullioned window in the alcove at the end of the hall leaden and in need of cleaning. He assumed this place harbored lots of nooks and crannies. One in particular was of interest. A unique anomaly. The fifteenth-century equivalent of a safe room.

When the Protestant armies rolled through Germany during the Thirty Years’ War, Catholic priests were a favorite target. They liked to hang them. To avoid that priests took to hiding, many inside homes where concealed compartments just big enough to squeeze into were secretly constructed. They were artfully contrived not only to hold a priest, but also as a place where vestments and sacred vessels could be hidden away. Those secret compartments had been built into fireplaces, attics, and staircases, concealed in walls, under floors, and behind wainscoting, designed to blend in with the architecture and escape detection.

They even had a name.

Priest holes.

This olden house had its own. His task was to open it, take a look, and photograph 

what he found.

A classic sneak and peek.

He stepped down the hall, his steps cushioned by a soft carpet runner, and entered one of the guest bedrooms. Fluted columns jutting from the walls filled the corners. All part of the décor to go along with more moldings that adorned the room, everything glazed with a thick coat of paint. He’d been told that what he sought would be to the right of the door.

He studied the column and caressed the slick surface, the wood painted to a high sheen. The mechanism to release the panel was at the bottom. Not olden. Instead it had supposedly been updated a while back by Cardinal Richter to be more reliable. He crouched, found the hole beneath the base, and pushed on the metal inside.

He heard a soft click.

The front part of the fluted column separated from the rest.

Okay. Step one done.

And though he was no longer a first-stringer in the intelligence business, he still knew how to come off the bench and play the game. Ben Franklin said it best. Distrust and caution are the parents of security. And if nothing else, he was cautious.

Which told him not to open the panel any further.

A dark crack about half an inch wide had formed from where the wood had separated. Interestingly, it had not swung out any farther. Was that significant? Only one way to know.

He found his phone—Magellan Billet issued, a gift from Stephanie—and activated the light. He aimed the beam into the crack and started examining the opening, slowly moving upward toward the top.

About halfway he stopped and felt a familiar surge in his pulse.

“Gotcha,” he muttered. 

CHAPTER 2

PIAZZA DI SANTA CROCE

FLORENCE, ITALY

12:55 P.M.

STEFANO GIUMENTA STIFF-ARMED THE MAN IN FRONT OF HIM, THEN lowered his shoulder and prepared to force his way through the sea of sweaty bodies converging onto him. He spotted a teammate who indicated that he should pass the ball. No way. This was his play.

His day.

He loved Calcio Storico.

Henry III had been right. Too small to be a real war, too cruel to be a game.

The first match was held in 1530, during a time when Florence was besieged by the armies of Charles V and Pope Clement VII. ...