Act 2 Scene 4

The monster and the hero.

SCENE 4

(Milan. PERSICCO is looking for the something. Enter PICC)

PICC.

Have you found it yet?

PERSICCO.

No.

PICC.

Without an official seal the document will not be valid.

PERSICCO.

I know! This is Bianca's doing. She's been preparing for this for years. And now she moves before the armies of Venice advance on the city.

PICC.

And the Duke? There are stories?

PERSICCO.

All true. He's gone mad, he haunts the corridors of the castle constantly crying ‘where is Sforza, why does he not come?'

PICC.

The Visconti are no more, there is only Sforza.

PERSICCO.

What do you propose?

PICC.

Anyone but Sforza.

PERSICCO.

Without a valid will there is no one but Sforza.

PICC.

Then let it be no one man.

PERSICCO.

A republic. Would the Bracceschi support such a creation?

PICC.

If it stops Sforza, we would.

PERSICCO.

There would be support in the city for a republic.

PICC.

But you must be prepared to come to terms with Venice before her army reaches the gates. Whatever price they ask, you must be prepared to pay it.

PERSICCO.

The Duke approaches.

Enter VISCONTI.

PICC.

I have no desire to pay my respects to a walking corpse.

Exit PICC.

VISCONTI.

Was that not Piccinino?

PERSICCO.

No my lord, merely a messenger.

Exit PERSICCO.

VISCONTI.

Did I dismiss him? Am I not the Duke? How little they now fear me.

Enter BIANCA - hooded.

Is this the end? Has an angel come to deliver divine judgement?

BIANCA.

(lowers hood) Time has not been kind to you father.

VISCONTI.

No, it has not. I confess I had greater expectations of these days.

BIANCA.

We must all learn to live with disappointment father.

VISCONTI.

That is true. I expected Sforza.

BIANCA.

He is not coming.

VISCONTI.

After all I have done for him? I raised him up - .

BIANCA.

And cast him down again into the pit of Mortara.

VISCONTI.

I let him out.

BIANCA.

Two years later.

VISCONTI.

He was a better man for it.

BIANCA.

He views it differently.

VISCONTI.

I helped him set up on his own account in Ancona.

BIANCA.

And then tried to put him out of business.

VISCONTI.

He made war upon me. Me! His father! Can a man have a more faithless son-in-law?

BIANCA.

A war which you started father, you censure him for being the better general? You have broken the most solemn oaths, deceived him in the most cruellest ways, and in the extreme, made an unjust war against him.

VISCONTI.

My son does not trust me?

BIANCA.

He trusts that you will act according to your nature.

VISCONTI.

It is not so simple. Not so simple. You would not understand.

BIANCA.

Because I am a woman?

VISCONTI.

You are my only child, I have always wanted the best for you.

BIANCA.

I want Francesco.

VISCONTI.

That is not the same thing. You are my daughter.

BIANCA.

I am his wife.

VISCONTI

You turn against your own father and for what?

BIANCA.

I guard the interests of my husband.

VISCONTI.

Is that all? You put the knife in with particular ferocity, there is more?

BIANCA.

Cremona is mine! You dare try to take it from me!

VISCONTI.

Spoken like a true Visconti.

BIANCA.

I am a Sforza.

VISCONTI.

In name only, you will always be more mine than his. Bianca.

BIANCA.

Father?

VISCONTI.

You never visit!

BIANCA.

We have been busy father.

VISCONTI.

Excuses, surely you could have spared a few days, it is not too much to ask for. All I get is the occasional letter drafted by some secretary.

BIANCA.

Oh father, you will have to do better than that.

VISCONTI.

Very Well. How is my grandson?

BIANCA.

You think now to ask? He is well.

VISCONTI.

This is not my fault! Not my fault!

BIANCA.

You broke the terms of the treaty.

VISCONTI.

The Visconti have always broken treaties why should this one be so different?

BIANCA.

You have mortally offended the greatest soldier of the age. Without him Venice believes you are finished. Venice does not make war upon Milan, it makes war upon you.

VISCONTI.

What can I offer Venice?

BIANCA.

Nothing father, they want your head. Nothing else will satisfy.

VISCONTI.

Your grandfather should have destroyed them all when he had the chance. Well? What does your lord and husband want?

BIANCA.

To be Captain General and a payment.

VISCONTI.

A suitably large one, no doubt, what else?

BIANCA.

Power of government throughout the Duchy.

VISCONTI.

That makes him Duke, in all but name. Agreed. We could have done this by messenger, why did you come?

BIANCA.

They said you had gone mad, I came to look you in the eye and know the truth of it.

VISCONTI.

You still care? Now that you have seen me what do you think? Am I mad?

BIANCA.

No father. You wear madness like a cloak to guard you against the world. While you are thought mad you are safe.

VISCONTI.

Safe?

BIANCA.

From the condottiere, they believe you finished. If you listen carefully you will hear their voices.

VISCONTI.

And what do they say?

BIANCA.

That you are dying and will not publicly name a successor. They have the desperation of falling men who will do anything to stop Francesco becoming Duke. And they are prepared to move the minute you stop breathing.

VISCONTI.

Sforza's spies tell you this?

BIANCA.

I have no need of my husband’s help in this.

VISCONTI

You have your own sources? How clever you are.

BIANCA.

All that I am I learnt at your knee father.

VISCONTI.

How I remember those times.

BIANCA.

Do you?

VISCONTI.

You doubt it?

BIANCA.

You have always been hard to read father.

VISCONTI.

I am both father and prince, and as a prince you are never alone.

BIANCA.

Did you ever consider for a moment, that for a child, it would be confusing to

know which was which?

VISCONTI.

I never heard you complain.

BIANCA.

One learns very quickly not to complain to the Duke of Milan.

VISCONTI.

I would have listened.

BIANCA.

As you did to your first wife before you executed her?

VISCONTI.

Her arguments lacked merit. Besides I would never harm you. I will not deny that I have made mistakes. What parent does not? All I have ever done has been for you and the children that I knew would follow. Look at me Bianca, the cares of the Dukedom have broken me. (Kneels and holds out hands.) Bianca!

BIANCA.

Oh father! (Rushes to embrace him.) I will call to Francesco.

VISCONTI.

Call? He is here?

BIANCA.

Francesco!

Enter SFORZA and ALESS who is dressed in black, he places a restraining hand on SFORZA'S shoulder.

ALESS.

He will never keep his word, you can’t trust him.

SFORZA.

No.

ALESS.

You’re doing it for Bianca.

SFORZA.

There are worse reasons.

VISCONTI.

My son!

SFORZA.

My lord

VISCONTI.

My lord Alessandro. In the miracle of life there is also death. I am truly sorry for the loss of your wife. Your son?

ALESS.

He was delivered safely thanks to the lady Fiammetta.

BIANCA.

Come Alessandro you can help me retrieve some family property.

Exit BIANCA and ALESS.

VISCONTI.

I remember that you once knelt in my presence.

SFORZA.

A distant memory.

VISCONTI.

Each memory is like a piece of a mosaic with its own particular shape and colour. You spend your life trying to fit the pieces together without ever really knowing what the picture is supposed to look like. And it's only at the end can you look back and see the significance of any particular piece.

SFORZA.

And what does your new insight tell you?

VISCONTI.

You have committed sin.

SFORZA.

Many times. Did you have in mind any particular one?

VISCONTI.

You love Milan more than any living person, even Bianca. Milan has dominated your every thought, every word and every deed. I see that clearly now. Tell me when did you first fall in love with your mistress?

SFORZA.

From the first day I saw her bathed in the grace of the Almighty.

VISCONTI.

I pity my poor daughter.

SFORZA.

Bianca is the living embodiment of Milan.

VISCONTI.

How very convenient. Tell me what does it profit a man to sell his soul?

SFORZA.

You ask this after Cremona? To you its loss was like the loss of a limb, to lose it to me simply compounded the injury. How to recover the city? The idea gnawed through your very soul until hate combined with opportunity to displace prudence and faith. Your move against the city violated the treaty with Venice and they saw the opportunity to nail you to the cross once and for all.

VISCONTI.

You overflow with compassion

SFORZA.

As a man and husband there is compassion, as a general there can be none. You are a dead man and it is just that it is so.

VISCONTI.

A little harsh after all I have an agreement with Bianca.

SFORZA.

Much good it will do you. We both know the agreement has to be with me. And I value Cosimo’s friendship above yours. A true friend in the sea of politics is such a rarity as to be a gift from the Almighty. A man should think long and hard before he is tempted to do harm to one such as that.

VISCONTI.

But you have thought of it. You just don't trust my word do you? Francesco my boy you do me an injustice. A prince’s word should not be given lightly, and if given, the prince should be precise in what promises he makes. Am I to be blamed if you misunderstood?

SFORZA.

You are a master of twisting and turning the meaning of words to whatever meaning you desire at the time. I have seen you create ambiguity and confusion out of the simplest matters. I doubt there is a single lawyer in the whole of the country that could pin you down upon a contractual point.

VISCONTI.

In politics that is a skill at a premium. Whatever my faults, which are no doubt numerous and manifest, I have maintained myself against the world for over thirty five years bending even the strongest of the age to my will. A ruler does not survive that passage of time without some degree of compromise to his conscience. For all your censure general, I am the Duke of Milan. Should you ever sit in my seat you might find matters that once seemed so clear and simple are not so.

SFORZA.

What you have done, defines you, the wrongs you have done will be as how others remember you. You have spent your life preserving the balance, supporting first one state, and then as it grows in power, switching your support to its enemies to bring it back down again. As it was with states so it was with men, never for one moment letting any one of them dominate the pack. But has there been any point to it all? You kept the state together for all those years and all that is achieved is the struggle was for what will follow your death. The evils of his your father’s day will be revisited.

VISCONTI.

And if you confound your enemies and then, if by some miracle you hold back the tide that is the French, what will you do?

SFORZA.

Bring peace.

VISCONTI

You poor deluded fool. War is a natural state of being We've been killing each other before the birth of Christ and we will still be doing it at the Second Coming.

SFORZA.

Label me as you like. There are inherent possibilities in a free and prosperous people.

VISCONTI.

You dislike labels, then let us look to the essence?

SFORZA.

You are fear. You are a prisoner of your own fears. For many years you could could not see beyond the contradiction of your position. You needed the condottiere to fight your wars, but you feared them for what they had done to Milan in the past and might do again in the future. Over time I believe I became the embodiment of that fear and need.

VISCONTI.

If I am fear, you are ambition. You are a slave to it. You want Milan, you want to be the Duke and you are driven to murder anyone who stands in your way.

SFORZA.

I have murdered no one.

VISCONTI.

The chroniclers of the age will scarce believe how many of your prisoners met with unhappy accidents. I pity you. One day you will realise there is no purpose to it all. You will become Sisyphus. It does not matter who is Duke or even if there is a Duke. The city will continue, life will continue, men will rise and fall, only to be replaced by other men.

SFORZA.

Then abdicate and live out a happy retirement in my city. No? You have spent your life fighting to be first amongst men, but now find yourself a humble player upon a stage. All that remains is for you to conceive an end that will be your defiance of the world. If you had to fight for the Visconti inheritance then so can I.

VISCONTI.

It is not so monstrous a calumny to say Visconti and Sforza are not so different.

SFORZA.

Do you compare me with yourself or with your father?

VISCONTI.

He would have loved you like a son. You are alike in so many ways.

SFORZA.

Is that why you hate me?

VISCONTI.

In part. You are the noble hero, virtue personified, the common people worship the very ground you walk on, even your enemies confess to admiration. Me? I impress no one, having neither a pleasing aspect nor skill at arms. I was born to play the villain so I became the best I could be. They respected my position and feared my power, true I was never loved. But at least I have the consolation that when people look back at these times I will be remembered. They will say I was magnificent, whereas for all your undoubted talents and suppressed piety general, you will be a mere footnote. A faithless condottiere who got lucky.

SFORZA.

As long as I am the last one standing, I don't care. But you are in error, you are loved, by one. Bianca. She loves you still, she's just not blind to your faults.

VISCONTI.

In every fairy tale there is both monster and heroine. The once and future Duke of Milan bound together by the love of a woman. She will be a formidable Duchess and then what will you do I wonder?

SFORZA.

I will love her for herself.

VISCONTI.

And out of love what will you do now?

SFORZA.

I will honour whatever terms you agreed with her. Upon one condition.

VISCONTI.

Which is?

SFORZA.

One of my men is to be in your presence at all times.

VISCONTI.

A spy? I would have thought you more subtle.

SFORZA.

My concern is that if you should die in my absence from Milan no one but them will have access to your personal seal. Do you agree?

VISCONTI.

I agree. Take your army to Cotignola then wait for my further instructions. As for everything else, the monster would say to the hero, take it if you can.

Lights Down.