by Karen Essex
Isabella kisses both marble cheeks of her sister’s death mask, lips lingering for a moment on the cold, smooth roundness. Ludovico’s face she cannot look at, for it is too lifelike, and he is still with the living, though he might as well be dead. Here she is, gloating just a little over her sister’s crypt, still hoping, all these years later, that she has won the final victory in their race for primacy. But that is the way with human beings. Beatrice has transcended such pettiness, she is sure, and is at this moment forgiving Isabella’s pitiful human frailty.
She tries to pull away from the majestic sarcophagus, but it is difficult to leave, as if in parting from Beatrice, she is leaving behind some essential element of herself that is too cumbersome to carry with her into the future. She would like to remain longer, but realizes that time too long spent with the dead is turning her still-warm flesh cold.
She takes her time leaving the Santa Maria delle Grazie, allowing her entourage to fall in behind her and leading them to the prior’s office, where she asks permission to enter the refectory to cast one more glance at the Magistro’s portrait of Our Lord and His Apostles. She ignores the subtle groans and sideways glances of her attendants, who cannot wait to return to the Castello to dress for Louis’s ball. She asks them to remain in the courtyard while she alone enters the refectory. The air outside is chilly for a spring day. The sun is almost setting, and the temperature is sure to drop. That will teach them. It might even rain.
One cannot take in Leonardo’s mural in a glance, for it is not merely a painting of an event but a fully animated production. Yet it is the resignation in the face of Jesus that captures Isabella’s attention in this, her second viewing. She is struck by Jesus’ quiet acquiescence to His fate, in contrast with the outrage, shock, and denial registered on the faces of the Apostles. It is as if He is saying—regretfully, but with complete acceptance—that this is the very nature of man, to betray. And is it not? One thousand five hundred years after God sent His Son to earth to demonstrate the Godliness of all, we are still the same—betrayers. Rejecting the hand that would reach for us from above and pull us up into Grace, into Glory, into Heaven. “The betrayal of Judas began on a Wednesday.” That is what they said in Milan when all faces turned away from Ludovico and toward the French king.
Isabella thinks that she has seen that expression of resignation on Leonardo’s face. The Magistro painted the face of Jesus nonchalant at the moment in which He reveals His awareness that He will be betrayed by one whom He has loved. That same artist quickly forgot the favors enjoyed under Ludovico and now serves the King of France. Who can blame him? He, too, was betrayed, when Ludovico foiled each of Leonardo’s ambitious plans—by keeping him busy with ephemera, by withholding his pay, by sending the coveted bronze for the horse for cannon fodder.
The Horse now sits in ruins in the grand piazza at the entrance to the Castello, shot to pieces by zealous French archers out to have some fun. Why it has not yet been removed is a puzzle to Isabella. It lies in bits and pieces, its noble body parts, so lovingly studied by the Magistro, fallen to the ground. The head, legs, and torso lie inert and in shambles—dissected, just the way that it was said that Leonardo cut up human bodies to see what was inside. What must he think when he sees his masterpiece destroyed, crumbling to greater decay with every rain? In years to come, who will care that the French occupied Italy for a brief period of time, for Isabella is certain it will be brief, considering the scope of her country’s history. She is not even bothering to learn good French. But Leonardo’s beautiful horse, which might have lasted as long as the statues of the ancient masters, will be dust, just like those who brought about its demise.
She is weary of these thoughts, these problems of loyalty and mortality. She turns away from the face of Jesus, only to confront the image of her sister on the wall opposite, painted into Montorfano’s mural. Beatrice is in prayer, hands folded ever so delicately, face luminous and composed as she looks upon Our Lord’s suffering. The Magistro captured a sadness in Beatrice that Isabella had not observed while her sister was alive. Perhaps it settled upon her at the end, along with her troubles. Beatrice would be pleased to know that, from across the room, Jesus might be gazing upon her for all eternity; two martyrs, her sister and the Christ. Two innocents betrayed.
Enough of the dead. Isabella walks out of the room, leaving the refectory, the church, and the corpse of Beatrice behind and reentering the world of the living where the setting sun has turned the white blossoms of the trees in the courtyard to a deep violet.
“Take us to the Corte Vecchia,” she commands the driver of her carriage.
The attendants try once more to stifle their dismay. They did not know that the marchesa was going to take them on an entire tour of the city of Milan, wearing them out and denying them the hours they require to assemble their costumes and toilette for the evening’s festivities. All the better, she thinks. The gaggle of beautiful ladies who accompany her everywhere and for which she is known sometimes arrive a bit overdressed. The less time they have to apply rouge to their cheeks and jewels to their hair, the better. For they know that it is their job to support the beauty and appearance of Isabella without exceeding it. Women being what they are, however, a few always try to get away with outshining their mistress.
“Come, ladies, quit your groaning,” she sighs. “One must be flexible if one does not want to end one’s life upon one cross or another.”
She will leave Milan in the morning, she has decided, even if it does not please the French king. She can no longer linger in this city of ghosts. She will invent some excuse that will spirit her away, and it will have to suffice. But there is one mission left to accomplish before she departs—one, in addition to the further bewitching of Louis this evening. And this one will be the more challenging.
The Magistro is once again making his home in the Corte Vecchia, the old ducal palace where Ludovico arranged for him to live so that he could use the courtyard for working on the horse. She does not anticipate seeing him; he is Master of Decoration for Louis’s ball, and would be rushing about the Castello rehearsing whatever he plans for the evening’s dramatic presentations. All the better, she thinks, for she does not wish to speak with him, only to get a glimpse at the portrait.
No one is at the studio but a servile young boy. He is not even an apprentice, Isabella can tell, but a servant, who is amazed to see such a grand personage appear unannounced and demanding to see the Magistro’s portrait of the lady, which he has brought with him from Florence. Thanks to Isabella’s spies, she can describe it accurately, so that there is no mistaking it for another, and no way that this poor factotum can deny her request.
The painting sits on a stained easel, covered by a soiled muslin cloth. The boy lifts the cloth, holding it above the face as if he thinks that Isabella is only going to take a quick glance. She waves at the cloth so that he removes it entirely, and then waves again so that he will leave her to her own thoughts as she views the portrait.
The woman is not beautiful at all, but simple, almost peasant-like. Her hair is darker than Isabella’s and her features indistinct from thousands of other Italian women who flood the streets and markets of their cities. She is not looking into the future, but glancing a bit to her right, with her hands folded in front of her. She smiles slightly at nothing in particular. The landscape behind her reminds Isabella of the Magistro’s strange rocks in which he had placed the Virgin, the angel, the infant Christ, and the baby John the Baptist in the painting at San Francesco Grande. The jagged green mountains behind the sitter almost disappear into an ominous gray-blue sky. A body of water floats behind the subject’s head, and a winding path cuts through what appears to be a riverbed. Is the Magistro trying to give the woman a way out, as Galeazz once suggested of the door in the portrait of Cecilia?
The woman wears no jewelry. Her eyebrows are almost nonexistent. The hair is netted, the garment, a simple dress of brown velour, with decorative stitching at the bodice and neck
line. She is adorned by nothing, only luminescent skin and that odd fracture of a smile, which, combined with the background, gives the portrait a mystical air.
At any rate, it is emphatically not Isabella d’Este. Now she must start over with the Magistro, demanding again that he deliver the promised oil. Six years and a thousand letters to him have passed and still—nothing! Oh, if he thinks he can continue to outwit her he is wrong. She will hound him to the grave to get that picture. His latest letters of apology use the excuse that he has been called into the service of the King of France, a very demanding—and not to be supplanted—master. Does this poor painter have any idea of the sway she has over Louis? The king has suggested that she come to Paris for the birth of his next child so that she can be its godmother. Why does the artist spend so much energy evading his commitment when it would take so much less time to simply appease her by painting the portrait? She has patiently manipulated every artist she has encountered. Eventually they succumb, either to her charms or her threats or her money. The Magistro is not getting any younger; he must be near his fiftieth year. Mantegna—dear, sour-spleened, irreplaceable Mantegna, who lies ill and dying in Mantua—was just beginning his finest works at that age. But Leonardo is different. It would be just like him to die before she could get what she wanted from him.
She folds her arms across her chest, stepping back and taking a final look at the Magistro’s obsession. True, it can never be construed to be her. And yet she sees elements of the sketch of herself in the portrait. She can’t help but notice that the hands are folded in the very same way, crossing the body as if to hold in something that must not be revealed. Even the middle and index fingers are slightly parted, in the exact same manner and distance from each other. The shape of the neckline is the same, replete with the absence of jewels. The smile is a subtle one, lips together, just as in her portrait. If this subject has been reworked to be no one in particular, but is reminiscent of Leonardo’s drawing of Isabella, then she has in fact been one of the muses of the Magistro. The drawing of her anticipated this painting—anyone who bothers to look carefully may confirm it. The hands, the arms, the soft lines, the roundness of the bosom, the subtle smile. The drawing of Isabella is present, here in this painting, with which the Magistro is reportedly obsessed. But what a strange man he is to take a portrait and rework it until it is not the subject at all. What is the purpose? She thought that the Magistro’s portraits were meant to evoke the soul of the sitter. Whose soul might he evoke if the sitter is no particular person? Then it dawns on her while looking into the brown eyes of the woman, which are shifting slightly to the right, as if something has distracted her out of her meditations. With a genius like Leonardo, even a portrait of another is more a reflection of him than it is of his subject. The soul he means to evoke is his own.
GALEAZZ di Sanseverino’s suffering has only made him more attractive. The gentle scrim of melancholia that has fallen over his beautiful features gives him an air of mystery, a new layer beyond the qualities of the masculine ideal that previously made him so desirable. Isabella has tried to dance many dances with him because he is the only person in the room whose face displays what she is feeling on this evening and in this room: that the familiarity of the grand parlor is overbearing. The ladies and gentlemen of the court smile, swirling to the music as if this is their first visit to the Castello, and not a place where they have danced and dined under a former patron. Each time the dance partners meet in rendezvous, Isabella clutches Galeazz’s arm tightly, holding on to him while smiling at the king, whose eyes she tries to keep locked on hers. All the while she accepts the compliments praising her as la plus belle dame du bal and la femme extraordinaire and la femme qui danse à merveille that whirl around her from the French noblemen dancing in her circle.
At midnight, the king announces that he has a surprise for his guests. The genius, Leonardo the Florentine, has entered his service and has created a magical beast for the pleasure of the court. It will be unveiled on this night in honor of Louis’s supremacy over Italy. A black velvet curtain glittering with planetary symbols and celestial designs rises, while giant chandeliers, each with a hundred lit candles, fall gently on chains from the ceiling, lighting the small stage. As the drape rises, a lion—made of metal and larger than life—is revealed. The animal’s big green eyes, which seem to be of painted glass, stare at the crowd. The musicians begin to play a tune that Isabella does not recognize, but from the reaction of the French officers must surely be an anthem or military song of sorts. As the trumpeters blare the strident melody, the animal’s mouth magically opens, spewing dozens of lilies at the feet of the King of France. Isabella thinks that she sees a thin wire controlling the action, but she is not sure. What causes the flowers to thrust forward, she cannot imagine. The crowd gasps at the miracle of it all—of the flower-spewing lion; of the king who has taken Italy entirely out of the hands of Italians—and then rounds of polite applause accompany the last rush of lilies falling to the ground. Louis walks through the litter and takes a bow. He graciously holds out his arm, introducing the Magistro, who appears wearing a cape that matches the velvet curtain. The artist looks very old, much older than his years. The lines in his face have deepened and his lovely mass of curls is almost entirely gray. His beard is trimmed, but very long. He looks as if he is trying to turn himself into some sort of wizard. The expression on his face reminds her of that of his Jesus—all-knowing and resigned.
Yes, she wants to say to him, this is how we survive. Isabella smiles at Leonardo, feeling her plans to coerce him into making her portrait dissipate. Louis will follow the precise path with the Magistro as Ludovico—fritter away the artist’s time and genius in the service of his own glorification and vanities. Here is Leonardo, the visionary, serving the new master just like the rest of them, whores all. If Leonardo must serve Louis with his magical lion and dozens of other designs not of his own choosing, then perhaps with the portrait of the woman, who is no one in particular, he is serving himself alone. And she will let him. Maybe, at some time in the future, she will ask him to make her a nice picture of the Christ when he was young and working with His father as a carpenter, before His face bore the look of resignation after Judas sealed His destiny. She does not have the heart to pursue the artist anymore.
Isabella sees that the king is staring at her, so she dips her chin to the side in a manner that she knows is fetching and flirtatious and stares back. Then she turns away from him as she would from any man, for every woman knows that all men, even kings, are intrigued by a woman who captures their attention and then turns away. She takes hold of Galeazz’s sturdy arm.
“Time has not made you less daring, Your Excellency,” Galeazz says, eyes falling in admiration on Isabella’s deep décolletage. She had been inspired to have the seamstress lower the neckline so that the moons of her nipples were revealed. She had been viewing erotic Greek vases from Crete for purchase in the week prior, which gave her the idea. The women looked so enticing with their bosoms pushed high and their nipples exposed. Timeless! She instructed the seamstress to make the facsimile, revealing the tiny hint of pink, just enough to ignite the imagination.
“My husband has insulted the French king so many times that I must invent new tricks to keep him from seizing Mantua,” Isabella replies.
“Indeed, madame, he will wish to seize something else instead,” Galeazz replies, the old dance from love of verbal parry returning to his eyes.
Monsieur d’Amboise, the ambassador Isabella has feverishly courted because of his intimacy with the king, swoops into their dance circle, eyes grazing Isabella’s cleavage. “When I write my report to the ladies in Paris, all of them will instantly emulate your design,” he says.
Isabella feels the dancers pulling back from her and Galeazz, and she looks up to see what has caused them to ripple away, as if a stone has been tossed into water. The king approaches, his hand stretched out to take Isabella’s arm from Galeazz. The knight immediately offers th
e lady to his king, who takes Isabella’s hand and kisses it, eyes lingering on her exposed breasts. The king is tall enough so that when he stands, he has a lovely aerial view of Isabella’s cleavage, which, she notices, he takes in amply.
“In all of Europe, could there be another woman like you?” the king asks.
Isabella looks at Galeazz before she answers. “There was one, Your Majesty, but I am sad to say, she is no longer with us.”
No one speaks, for everyone within earshot knows to whom Isabella refers. Louis’s smile does not leave his face. If he has caught Isabella’s reference, he does not reveal it. He pulls her arm gently, bringing her closer to him and whispering in her ear, “Tomorrow, in your quarters?”
“Je vous attendrais,” she whispers in return. The king releases her hand, placing it on the arm of Galeazz. The music begins again, and Galeazz leads Isabella back into the dance. She wonders if he will mention Beatrice; if her cryptic comment to Louis has startled some part of his memory that he can no longer suppress. But he does not. She imagines that as with herself, the memories are stored, to be taken out at some indefinite point in the future—probably old age—when one can relive them without fear of reprisal.
“I must say, Your Excellency, that I have to agree with the king. In my travels, the ladies of Europe greet me with only one question,” Galeazz says. “‘What is the famous Isabella, Marchesa of Mantua, wearing these days?’ I do wish they would ask for something else, but they do not. D’Amboise is right. Even in the frigid northern kingdoms, the ladies will all be baring their bosoms within a fortnight.”