The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice

by Laurel Corona

  “Try wagging your head back and forth,” she said. “Now try rocking from side to side.” Pulling up a chair between two of the figlie, she put her arms around their shoulders and began pushing them back and forth to the rhythm. “La, la la la—now keep moving but try vocalizing,” she said, and the figlie sang out, butting shoulders until they dissolved into giggles. “All right,” she said. “Now, take out your instruments again.”

  At the performance, the figlie’s mouths were stretched to the limit with smiles. The cellists and bass violists bobbed their heads as they plucked strings, and the other figlie swayed back and forth to the lively rhythm. And then the music turned serious again. In the last section, the violins began a wheezy melody, like a lullaby played on a shepherd’s bagpipes. Then they all fell silent except for Maddalena’s violin and a theorbo in the background.

  “Et Jesum benedictum,” Chiaretta began, wrapping her arms around herself as she melted into the beauty of the simple tune. “O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.” The most sincere of love songs to the Virgin Mary filled the chapel, though it felt no louder than a whisper, and at the end the music simply evaporated.

  Chiaretta felt drops of perspiration making their way into the small of her back as she opened her eyes. The fading last note of a composition always sucked something out of the air in the chapel, creating a momentary vacuum before the music was entirely gone and the ordinary world restored. But this time that void in sound was not there. Rising up from the floor of the chapel was not the sound of shuffling feet, clearing throats, or murmured exchanges of approval in a place where applause was not allowed. She looked through the grille and saw the entire congregation on its feet clapping.

  Maddalena came up and put her arms around her sister. “You were perfect,” she said. “Look at them!”

  “So were you,” Chiaretta said, her voice hoarse with emotion. Together they left the balcony while the audience, having recovered its decorum, watched in silence as their silhouettes disappeared.

  Among those affected by Chiaretta’s singing of the Salve Regina was Claudio Morosini. He had come back early from the family’s villa on the Brenta Canal to handle some business in Venice in the muggy heat of summer and had decided to make the best of an unpleasant situation by going to the mass and concert at the Pietà.

  The following two weeks, he went to the parlatorio for visiting hours, but Chiaretta was not there. Eventually the priora directed her to go, saying that her reputation was now such that guests were hoping for a chance to see and talk to her. Chiaretta complied every week after that, coming downstairs with the other figlie and standing at the grille. She engaged in aimless conversation and offered meager refreshments to the guests, without noticing the young man in a mask who came and went without speaking to anyone.

  A month later, Chiaretta was summoned by the priora. “You have an admirer,” she said. “The family has begun discussions about the suitability of a marriage.”

  “Marriage?” Chiaretta sat back in her chair. “Who is it?”

  “A man from one of the old houses of Venice. His family has served on the Congregazione for generations. I believe you know his sister, Antonia.”

  “Claudio?” He gave me his napkin after I swallowed my first oyster, she thought, and pulled out my chair as if I were a lady. And then memory shifted and she was getting off the gondola while his companion fondled her thigh.

  She put her hand to her mouth. “Priora—” She didn’t know how to continue. “Is he a nice man?” she asked, almost in a whisper. “I mean, he seems to be, but...”

  The priora laughed. “I have it from his father that he is, but who is not going to say that about his son?” She gave Chiaretta a puzzled look. “It’s an odd reaction, yours. Occasionally girls will be upset, but for the most part they are so excited they forget to ask any questions. Other than how old and how wealthy he is—and whether he is handsome, of course.”

  “I already know those things.”

  “Yes, of course,” the priora said. “To answer your question, he has been well raised. It’s a good family—a remarkable one, really—but of course that is no guarantee of character. I can at least add that he is not one of those nobles who spends his family’s money without replacing it through his own efforts. It’s good, I think, when wealthy men find some productive use for their time.”

  “He has a job?”

  “Not exactly. He owns a business selling paintings of Venice. He has a workshop for the artists and a little shop near the Rialto Bridge. And he’s an investor in one of the opera houses—the Teatro Sant’Angelo, I think it is.” She motioned toward the far wall of the study. “That’s a veduta—it’s what the paintings are called. It was a gift to the Pietà from his father. Would you like to see it?”

  As they walked over to the painting, the priora continued. “It’s rather small, but Signore Morosini tells me most of the vedute are. Apparently that’s the idea.” They were now standing in front of the painting, and the priora was tracing her finger along the bottom, not quite touching the surface. “The charm is the details—so tiny but so clear, so lively.”

  Chiaretta leaned forward. “That’s the dock at the Pietà.”

  “Yes. And did you look at the gondola?” There, no bigger than painted ants, was a group of figlie being helped onboard. The priora smiled. “Are you looking to see if he included you?”

  “They’re too small to be anybody,” Chiaretta murmured, taking in the stretch of the Riva degli Schiavoni on both sides of the Pietà—the hat maker, the apothecary, the butcher, just as in real life—and the lagoon swirling with dozens of boats. Above the buildings the sky was immense and threatening, as if it were preparing to swoop down and send all the people running for cover.

  The priora stepped away, as if to continue their discussion, but Chiaretta didn’t notice. Her eyes were digging deeper into the painting, trying to force it to reveal what would happen to the tiny girl in the red-and-white uniform who was taking the hand of the gondolier while the world spun around her.

  Chiaretta had been so focused on the painting that when she looked up she thought for a moment she was going to faint. “I—” she said, reaching out to steady herself on the back of a chair.

  The priora took her arm and led her back to where they had been sitting. “I know this is quite a shock.”

  Chiaretta nodded. “May I sit and think for a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  Chiaretta shut her eyes and listened to the pop of the fire, the rustle of pages being turned in a ledger, the clink of a pen in an inkwell, the priora’s soft breathing. Her mind filled with images of chests full of beautiful dresses and servants hovering over her. She would have her own gondola and come to visit at the Pietà...

  Visit. The thought stopped her cold. She would have to leave her sister. And her singing. With her eyes still shut, and in a voice so subdued and distant it didn’t sound as if it could have come from her own throat, she asked, “Is it true that I can’t sing anymore if I marry?”

  She heard the rustle of the priora’s skirt as she got up to come sit next to her.

  “You may sing in your home for family, but public appearance is impossible. Whether family can include other guests is a matter of interpretation, and the best I can say is that sometimes enforcement has been quite strict. There’s trouble from time to time when a husband tries to exploit his wife by turning their home into a private concert hall, and no one wants that. But other times, our brides have sung or played at parties in their homes as long as there’s no hint money is being made from their efforts.”

  Chiaretta had opened her eyes and was watching the priora with a troubled expression.

  “My child, it is your decision,” the priora said. “But you are almost twenty now, are you not? And you know as well as I do what happens when you turn twenty-two.”

  Chiaretta nodded her head. At the Pietà, musicians had to survive two promotions. The first was at sixteen, when girls who did
not have promising futures were put to other work or sent to convents. She and Maddalena were among those promoted to the next level, which involved six more years of training and performances. About a year ago, Maddalena had reached twenty-two and had been required to sign an oath that she would remain in service to the coro for ten more years in exchange for the investment the Pietà was making in her. Even if she had a suitor and wanted to marry, she would now have to wait until her obligation was finished.

  “It would be a shame if you were to leave,” the priora went on, “because you have many good years ahead of you—your best years, I imagine, since your voice is just now coming into fullness. And the Pietà will lose too, but there are others to take your place. There are always others. Right now we are very rich in voices—Caterina, Barbara, Anastasia...”

  Caterina. Almost enough reason to stay, just for spite. Sometimes it took everything Chiaretta had just to sing side by side with her. Although Vivaldi had written several pieces for Chiaretta, he had written as many for Caterina’s silky, low voice, and even after the success of the Salve Regina, several times Caterina’s name had been higher than Chiaretta’s on tavolette. To make it worse, Caterina and Barbara both seemed to enjoy insinuating that Chiaretta was lucky to be pretty because her voice was thin and her repertoire narrow, and if it weren’t for Maddalena’s relationship with Vivaldi, she would still be in the chorus.

  “They’re just jealous,” Maddalena had written in her sketchbook. “And even they don’t believe it.” But it bothered Chiaretta, especially the way Caterina and Barbara never discussed Vivaldi without mentioning Maddalena, and never brought up Maddalena without including Vivaldi, smirking as if the two were a couple, with all that that might imply.

  It was true, in the past she had worried that Vivaldi was taking advantage of her sister’s naïveté and loyalty, but since his return and Maddalena’s promotion, their relationship seemed to be strictly business. The private lessons, which had been the cause of most of the smirking, were no more frequent than those with any other musician preparing for a difficult solo.

  The priora’s voice brought Chiaretta back to the subject at hand. “You are a beautiful young woman, and you have an admirer who is not likely to wait. You wouldn’t have to marry right away. In fact you might be here another year or more, because the Congregazione will probably insist you stay on to benefit the Pietà a while longer.”

  “Can they refuse?”

  “Refuse to let you marry? Of course. They would if the suitor was inappropriate.” She laughed. “Claudio Morosini is the son of one of the Nobili Uomini Deputati. I think it will only be a matter of the price his family will have to pay to persuade the Congregazione the Pietà has not taken too severe a loss in the matter. But if you’re amenable to meeting with him, you will have a chance to talk here in my study, and if you agree that negotiations can begin—”

  “Negotiations?”

  “Your dowry, and the family’s bequest to the coro to compensate for losing your services.”

  “But I don’t have a dowry. I have a few things in a cassone.”

  “Our wards are not paupers. We’re proud when they make good marriages, and we give everyone a dowry.”

  Chiaretta’s temples were pounding. “May I think about it some more?”

  “Of course, but the family would be very surprised to hear that there is any girl in Venice who would not jump at a proposal from Claudio Morosini. I would at least like to be able to say that you have agreed he may stop by.”

  “All right—yes, then.” Chiaretta nodded, in part because the idea did appeal to her, and in part because it would end a conversation that had left her exhausted. To have the power to decide was a nice feeling, but it was a far cry from being asked what her wishes were. My wish is to sing wherever and whenever I want for as long as I want, she thought. And I don’t want to leave my sister. But in a world where much of what she wanted was not possible, perhaps she had made the right decision to agree to meet him.

  And perhaps not. She shuddered. I don’t want to think about it, she said to herself. As she walked back to the ward, she thought about nothing else.

  TWELVE

  Chiaretta put down her needle and sighed. the bell would be sounding any minute for Sext, and then it would be time for the midday meal. “Why aren’t they here?”

  “Maybe they’ll come this afternoon,” Maddalena replied, looking up from her own work at her sister. They had been given permission to spend the morning in a small room near the priora’s study. Chiaretta had rubbed her face and neck with a coarse piece of cloth and pinched her cheeks until her skin glowed. She had been told to wear her black concert uniform, dressed up with a lace collar Maddalena made for her several years earlier. Maddalena had played with her hair until it shone against her face and was caught up in a neat roll at the back of her neck.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Chiaretta asked her sister.

  Maddalena laughed. “I should be the one asking you that!”

  “No. You know what I mean.”

  Just a few years ago, Chiaretta had begged the priora not to send Maddalena away, and now it looked as if Chiaretta might be leaving instead. Minutes after she had given her consent to meet Claudio, anxiety pummeled her, and she had almost gone back to the priora to call the meeting off.

  Sitting on her bed afterward, Chiaretta had drawn a sketch of herself with tears running down her cheeks. “I made a fuss about letting you stay because I needed you, and now—what kind of a sister am I to leave you?” she wrote, before going to wait in silence outside the maestre’s chambers, where Maddalena now lived. When Maddalena came out, she handed the sketchbook to her.

  Maddalena pointed toward Chiaretta’s ward, and they went to sit on her bed. “This is different. I’m satisfied here,” she wrote back. “And you’re not.”

  “But you’ll be alone!”

  “Alone at the Pietà? Sometimes I wish I could be! And I have always known you would leave.” Maddalena drew a butterfly, labeling it “Chiaretta.” “You can’t stay your whole life on one flower,” she wrote below it. “You would be wasting your true life if you stayed here.”

  “Wasting my life?” They’d looked around to see if the ward matron had heard, but they could not see her in the room. “Maddalena, you hear the applause!” she whispered. “You see all the parties I go to. The doge greets me by name! I’ve done quite well.”

  “I said ‘your true life.’ There are so many other things you love besides music. Wouldn’t it be nice to be free to move around the city? To be the woman of the house, with your own big bed and private room? To have beautiful children and watch them grow?”

  It was, Chiaretta knew, exactly what she wanted.

  And so the two of them had agreed. Chiaretta would meet Claudio with an open mind, and if she liked him, she would marry him.

  And now, all she had to do was wait.

  The bell was ringing. The two sisters crossed themselves and began their prayers. Before the last peal of the bell had sounded, a girl from the priora’s off ice came to fetch Chiaretta.

  “The priora gives you permission to miss Sext,” she said. “There are visitors waiting for you.”

  Chiaretta turned toward Maddalena, who threw out her arms to embrace her. After a moment, Maddalena pulled back and looked at her sister at arm’s length.

  “Go!” Maddalena said. Chiaretta flushed with excitement, but fear caused her eyes to dart, and she made no move to leave.

  “Go!” Maddalena said again. She touched her fingers to her lips and placed them on Chiaretta’s cheek. “Make him love you as much as I do.”

  Although she had seen him on several occasions, all Chiaretta remembered was that Claudio had brown hair and was average size. What she saw in the priora’s study was a sturdy, broad-faced man of roughly thirty, with smooth skin shaven to a ruddy glow. His eyebrows were thick but nicely shaped, and his teeth were straight and healthy. His eyes were the rich brown of walnut wood, w
ith a hint of puffiness underneath that added to their warmth. They were kind eyes, she decided, and the little lines at their edges turned up in a way that suggested he found much to smile about.

  He has a gentle voice, she thought, after he spoke. It would not be bad to hear that voice every day. But even if he were not as attractive, this encounter was not just with a man but with the world he represented—a life outside the Pietà. What she most liked about singing was calling out from the balcony to the people in the world beyond, and Claudio had heard.

  Behind her in the priora’s study, she felt the presence of the painting of the figlie on the dock. This time she was not the hesitant girl in the painting getting onto the gondola. She was the one the artist hadn’t painted, the one who had slipped away from the chaperone’s gaze and was already heading off down the quay to see what life had to offer. And so, when the priora sent for her the next day to ask if she had an answer for Claudio Morosini, with only a slight hesitation Chiaretta agreed to marry him. Let life start, she thought. Let my own painting begin.

  For several weeks Chiaretta had no further contact with Claudio. The priora told her only that discussions were under way, ones that did not involve her, and that until they were complete, no engagement could be announced. With each day, Chiaretta grew more worried, and she answered a summons to the priora’s office with such great trepidation that by the time she arrived she was in tears.

  There, in the middle of the floor, was a large wooden cassone. On the side and top, in gilded relief, was the coat of arms of the Morosini family.

  “It’s a gift for you,” said the priora. “An engagement present.”

  Chiaretta covered her mouth with her hands. “Does this mean—”