Leaving Firenze

Vera Giordano da Urbino was a simple-minded girl. Born from a wealthy family and being eighteen years old gave her a freedom and careless life many girls dreams about. She did not have to work- rather she was forced to go to school and learn- something most girls would also dream about, while the men would find it appalling. She had a pretty face but was wild in her manners and she sickened her mother with her crude behavior and impolite ways. Her mother would cry and tell her that her beauty was going to waste, for no one would notice the pretty face under the wild untied brown hair and skinny figure. She put her good fortune to shame, preferring to look like a pauper out of comfort than wearing high quality fabrics on her gown. For a while she cared about nothing but amusing herself with pranks she pulled on her brothers and sisters, but when one prank on her teacher went too far (dear reader, I would tell you what the prank was, but it is too horrible to describe, and the outcome even worse) she was to be sent to study in Firenze with a well known instructor, Niccolo Machiavelli. Her excitement to leave for Firenze was doubled when she realized how handsome Machiavelli was. She never cared about love or being married, but she insisted that she was in love with him and that if he ever asked she would gladly accept his proposal.

Machiavelli had no intentions of doing this, whatsoever. He knew Vera was infatuated but tried to think of other things, but teaching was difficult when all she wanted to learn about was him.

"Read over the next chapter, Vera," he insisted.

"How can I read this nonsense? You know I have poor reading skills, do not tell me to read for it only upsets me!" she said.

"Vera, you read better than any student I have ever had…"

"Oh Niccolo! You flatter me, you are too kind!" she said, voluntarily blushing.

He tried not to roll his eyes as he persuaded her that if she read the next chapter he would read a piece of the autobiography he was working on. At the end of the day, she would be escorted to the villa where she lived in Firenze with her aunt and spend the rest of her night swooning over his incredible good looks and intelligence.

Such was the unchanging routine for Vera and Machiavelli that when he received a letter from a friend asking him to come to Roma immediately, both were somber and felt as if the perfect schedule had to come to an end. Machiavelli got over it and began to prepare his voyage, but Vera mopped and brooded over her impending departure to Urbino.

The goodbyes were short and bitter for Vera. The coachman literally had to drag her into the carriage while her tears soaked her cheeks and made her look ten years younger. Machiavelli awkwardly waved goodbye as he thought to himself how pretty she could be if she were mature in her manners like the way she was mature in her physical appearance.

Vera cried uncontrollably for the first two hours, not because she was heartbroken, but because she thought her tears would connect to Machiavelli's heart and make him run to her on horseback. After tilting her head out the carriage window several times in the two hours, she decided he would not come for her after all. Silent, she curled up into a fetal position and thought about her miserable state; rich, beautiful, smart—why, she was hopeless in life. She thought about the dozens of suitors who knocked on her door and affirmed that she would sell them all to pirates if it would make Machiavelli love her.

When she got home she would be the laughing stock of her eldest sister, who was recently engaged, and more recently disengaged, who Vera repeatedly laughed at for crying over a broken heart.

"Did I not tell you that this would be your luck if you mocked me for a broken soul?" she would say in her proud voice.

Vera would punch her in the face in reply and run to her room, and later be punished for making Maria look ugly until the bruise clears up.

"Wait!" said Vera, stopping her train of thought. "I do not need to cry and be like Maria, she easily could have run back to her bastardo of a fiancé…"

She stuck her head out of the carriage window and spoke in the direction the horse was galloping in.

"Coachman!" she yelled.

The coachman jolted in his seat and replied, "Yes, signorina?"

"What city are we near?"

"Montevarchi, signorina," he answered.

"We must make a detour, coachman!"

"Where? I had specific orders to take you back to your villa in Urbino."

"Do not go east at Montevarchi, go south!"

"Signorina, do you imply that you wish me to take you to Roma?"

"Yes you imbecile! Make haste, or I shall tell Father about the courtesan you met last fall…"

His eyes widened with fear as he said, "What will I tell your family when they ask where you have gone?"

"Tell them Machiavelli wishes me to go with him to Roma now, he decided that there is no better place for knowledge and religion than that of our dear Roma!"

"They will not think Machiavelli to be so vulgar as to leave no letter, only a word of mouth."

"I shall forge a note on his behalf, any other issues?"

"I suppose not. Make the note realistic, signorina. I do not want to deal with accusations of kidnapping and forgery if they realize he did not write the letter himself."

Vera whipped out a feather pen her mother gave her for Christmas and gathered some paper. When the coachman stopped at an inn, she wrote her perfect letter and smiled at how well she knew Machiavelli that she could forge a note by her hand.

Signore and Signora Giordano,

It is with my greatest pleasure that I inform you that I am in love with your daughter, and with your respect, I hope you will find it in your hearts to allow my marriage to Vera. She is the star in the sky and I am the stupid farmer who gazes at a distance—only I am not stupid. I am rather intelligent, if I say so myself. Intelligence also does great deals to grow my love for her. I shall take her to Roma with me to continue our teachings and make several children who shall rise up to be remarkable children—I have decided that one shall be the pope one day. You may congratulate us in advance, if you seek it befitting. Vera will write a letter to you when we arrive in Roma confirming our engagement and we hope that you understand that she is now a woman—my woman—and I wish for her to be with me for all eternity, so please do not try and stop our marriage. Call it an elopement if you will, but that will only mock you.

With Love and affection, Niccolo Machiavelli

She signed the letter with his signature, a signature she had practiced over and over again while daydreaming about him, and sealed it.

In two weeks time, she would be in Roma, seek out Machiavelli and the adventure she had always wanted would begin.