Signora Da Vinci

by Robin Maxwell

  He had reached the front of the church and, moving around the altar table, came and stood beside Savonarola, over whom he towered. “Now let us have a look at this ‘forgery.’”

  The cardinal steered Savonarola with him to the right. At that moment, Leonardo, hidden beneath the skirted altar table, dropped the cloth that had hidden his eight-part mirror leaning against the table. It was spread out to its full length and faced the shroud. At the same moment, Papa pulled away a second linen cloth that had backed the shroud, making it opaque.

  The sun, through the clear Venetian glass window, struck the carefully angled mirrors with its full force. With light illuminating the linen from front and back, a stunning vision suddenly appeared. Miracles of alchemy, art, and nature coalesced to present a perfect portrait of “Jesus.” That which without light had been dark, now with light flooding through it came fully into sight. The face, while long and narrow, was plumped with recent life. The eyes closed in peaceful death, were in clear focus. The beard and mustache and hair were real and human, and the bloodstains dripping from Christ’s wounds were painfully visible.

  People pressed forward for better sight of it, but everyone could see it was a true image of a crucified man, as though he were lying there before them.

  “It is He!” someone cried, and all the congregation fell to their knees, crossing themselves and whispering desperate prayers.

  Savonarola’s flabby brown lip hung open in disbelief. I could see he was quite speechless. But Ascanio Sforza was not.

  “Good people,” he called out soothingly, “faithful children of a merciful God, can you not see with your own eyes what I see? This is no forgery. This is the greatest miracle I have ever in my life witnessed. I will return to Rome and tell the Holy Father that I have lived to see the face of Jesus Christ!”

  Pilgrims were weeping and moaning in joy.

  Ascanio held his hands out in front of him in a benedictory gesture. “Ecce, imago nostae salvator. In nomine Patris, et Filius, et Spiritu Sancte.” Everyone murmured “Amen.” Ascanio turned and glared at the Prior of San Marco. “As for you, Girolamo Savonarola, you are a false prophet!”

  He tried to speak, but the cardinal silenced him with a finger pointed at his face. “Do you have no recollection from your ecclesiastical studies that the church forbids false prophets?!”

  The prior spluttered stupidly for only a moment before Ascanio went on. “You are hereby proscribed by the Church of Rome and in the name of the Holy Father Alexander to cease all your preaching in the city of Florence until no more prophecies are uttered from your pulpit!”

  “I object!” Savonarola cried.

  “You may not object!” the cardinal shouted back, leaning into the prior’s face. “You are an obedient priest of the Church of Saint Peter and subject to all its laws. Now stand down and allow these blessed pilgrims sight of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  Savonarola and his Dominican retinue stalked past the shroud and disappeared out the side door. Zoroastre, Papa, and I moved among the pilgrims, restoring the single-file line so they could view the new Lirey Shroud in all its glory.

  Blessings of every sort abounded that day. But none so great as for the members of our little coterie and in the memory of Lorenzo Il Magnifico de’ Medici.

  CHAPTER 38

  For the first time when I returned to the city of Florence it was as a woman, she with her elderly father in tow. We moved into the house Lorenzo had bought me, keeping our heads low. I had always kept to myself in that place, so no one questioned the identities of their new neighbors.

  The next part of our conspiracy was about to begin. If it failed, the rest of it would have been for naught, so Papa and I worked quietly and feverishly to see it through to the end.

  After Savonarola’s humiliation at Vercelli we kept our ears open for word of the shroud spreading through Florence. Certainly some of the crowd in the chapel that day had been Florentines. And like all people, pilgrims or not, they were gossips.

  I would go to the Mercato Vecchio every market day and chatter like a housewife to the merchants and other women filling their baskets with fish and eggs and tomatoes. Had anyone been to view the Holy Shroud at Vercelli? I asked as a faithful Christian desiring to make the pilgrimage myself. I knew that our beloved Prior of San Marco had been to see it. What was his opinion of it? Was it worth the month’s walk?

  Some recalled Savonarola preaching about some holy relic’s reappearance. Others vaguely remembered that he had traveled north to view it for himself, and some were planning a pilgrimage there. But all in all there was little talk about the Lirey Shroud.

  Papa was making the rounds of tavernas, themselves the somberest of establishments where—since drinking, gambling, gaming, and whoring had all but ceased—there was little to be enjoyed but rumor-mongering and watered-down wine. There, too, he heard nothing even whispered of Cardinal Sforza’s dressing-down of the prior before a churchful of devotees. And even more peculiarly, there was no word of the spectacular nature of the shroud itself.

  One hot summer evening as Papa and I took the air on the banks of the Arno we heard a small commotion—the drunken shouts of a man and some others trying desperately to quiet and subdue him. We moved closer to see that the old drunk was sitting on the muddy bank with his feet in the water, clutching a wine flask to his chest as two men attempted to take it from him and pull him back from the riverbank.

  “I tell you it was real, as if the Lord had been just laid to rest in his tomb!”

  “Come away, Grandfather,” the younger of the two men said.

  “I won’t come away,” the old man slurred. “I wish to be baptized in the water as Christ was by John.”

  “You’ve already been baptized,” said the other in a gentle tone, tugging the sodden man’s arms to no avail.

  “But I saw the face of Jesus, I tell you! And that godforsaken preacher with one eyebrow saw it, too!” the old man shouted. “Saw it and called it a forgery, a work of the Devil! How could anyone have doubted it?!”

  “Father, please, you’ll be arrested. You’ll get us all arrested.”

  Finally the old man allowed himself to be dragged to his feet.

  Papa and I, arm in arm, kept our heads together as we passed by, as if uninterested in the scene.

  “Well, the pope’s man had no doubt,” the drunk muttered. “The cardinal from Rome saw what I saw. Told that filthy priest to keep his mouth shut. I don’t see how that cardinal was any more corrupt than the prior from San Marco!”

  We were forced to move on and heard nothing more. But more was unnecessary. Some Florentines had been at Vercelli, had seen Ascanio Sforza berate Savonarola. Had seen the Lirey Shroud in its full illuminated state.

  But the prior was a careful man. He and his retinue must have stood at the side door of the church and questioned all who followed him out. Found the Florentines among them and threatened them with all manner of monstrous and eternal damnations if they whispered a word of “the Devil’s Work” and the “corrupt cardinal from Rome.”

  But the public’s knowledge of the shroud or Savonarola’s reprimand did not matter in the larger scheme of things. That he’d been warned by Rome to cease his false prophesying did. And continuing to do so most certainly would.

  But he would need another message, the news of which he could speak “in God’s voice” from his pulpit. A message so terrifying and unexpected that he would be forever glorified as a modern Moses. Prophet of Prophets. A very saint.

  We had just the one. It would, we were sure, prove irresistible.

  Leonardo’s forged letter—except for the hand in which it had been written—was nothing but the truth. Such a document had certainly been penned by Il Moro and delivered to the new French king. In his hubris and desire for revenge against his Neapolitan rivals, Ludovico Sforza had, unbelievably, invited Charles of France to swarm across the Alps and invade Italy.

  His people, Il Moro promised, would give no resistance to the occ
upying army as long as it left Milan in peace and moved swiftly down the length of the peninsula to crush Naples. He had assurance from the Borgia pope that his Papal States would remain neutral, and that Florence, under Piero de’ Medici’s weak rule, would likewise pose no threat to his designs.

  Charles could thereafter claim Don Ferrante’s duchy—long believed by the French to belong, by the claims of heredity, to them—and leave Italy a happy man . . . one with a most powerful Italian ally—Ludovico Il Moro Sforza himself.

  All of this intelligence had been relayed from Roderigo to me and on to my son. Leonardo, using his skills and many handwritten notes from Il Moro at his disposal—endless instructions on the equestrian statue—had no trouble duplicating Ludovico’s script.

  On a visit to Castello Sforza while decorating the ceiling of a chamber with a thicket of knotted tree limbs, the trusted court artist had slipped into the Milanese Secretary’s office and made a cast of the ducal seal.

  The forgery itself was perfection. The clever “interception” of the document by someone loyal to Savonarola, on the other hand, was something of a stumbling block. It was imperative that suspicion be avoided at all costs.

  Leonardo and Zoroastre quietly hunted for anyone in Milan with connections to and sympathy for Savonarola.

  Strange how things happen.

  Salai, at fourteen, had taken up with a pretty young choirboy at the pink cathedral across the piazza. They’d done some of their dallying in the Duomo itself and had, quite by accident, overheard two of the priests discussing the moral turpitude of Milan. The choirboy had found it hilarious that, kneeling behind a cupboard of ecclesiastical garments a dozen feet from the priests scandalized by the impure Milanese, two boys were merrily sodomizing one another. But Salai shushed his friend so he could hear more.

  One of the friars, Odotto, was a devotee of Savonarola’s and had already successfully petitioned his superiors for a transfer to the Florentine monastery of San Marco. Salai made his report to us with much glee and as many salacious details as he could manage, but for once he was celebrated for his devious behavior and rewarded with a fat purse.

  The rest was nothing more than an elaborate masque written and conducted by the court Revels Master for the benefit of Fra Odotto.

  A few ducats in the pocket of Salai’s friend had my grandson in choirboy garb, wandering into the friar’s path with Leonardo’s forged document. Salai was “confused and distressed,” he admitted to Odotto. Coming to the Duomo that morning he had found near the entrance of the Castello Sforza a letter lying on the ground—something that might have fallen from the saddle pack of a messenger. He was not sure but it looked to him like an official seal.

  Where was the document? Odotto wanted to know. Salai pretended to blanch with embarrassment. He had it with him, under his tunic, but, he admitted, he had been unable to resist and had steamed open the seal and read the thing.

  The friar had been instantly aghast, but when Salai turned to go saying he must return it and take his punishment like a man, Odotto had grabbed the boy by the collar and dragged him into the privacy of his cell.

  The letter was already opened, Odotto reasoned. Perhaps he should read it, too. Unable to resist an opportunity for reward, Salai extracted a bribe from the cleric. All Odotto had was a small jeweled cross given to him by his father when he’d entered the church, but such a luxury would be unnecessary and quite frowned upon at San Marco, where he was headed.

  With trinket in hand, Salai left and came across the piazza to Corte Vecchia to give his report. There was no doubt that “Il Moro’s letter to the King of France” would reach its intended destination, as Leonardo had included in it a small but vital reference to Savonarola himself.

  “Lorenzo’s son is no Il Magnifico, Your Majesty,” Leonardo had written as Ludovico. “Piero de’ Medici has not the strength to withstand your occupation, and I do believe you will find a friend in the Prior of San Marco.” Then Leonardo had added drawings of some hideous war machines he had designed during his first years in Milan—particularly that giant, four-bladed scythe.

  He was always one for a bit more drama, my Leonardo.

  From the time we learned that Fra Odotto had left Milan for Florence, Papa and I attended every one of Savonarola’s masses and sermons. After Vercelli, though he had continued preaching, the prior had shown a modicum of restraint with his prophesying, referring to nothing other than predictions he had made in the past.

  He did escalate his attacks on Piero de’ Medici, attacks that found many listeners. The man, so unlike his father, was weak and irresponsible. Though wishing desperately for the success of our plans, I trembled when I thought of the family’s fate. True, Giovanni was safely away in Rome living under Roderigo’s protection. Lorenzo’s daughters were married. But what of Giuliano’s son? Where would he find safety when the great calamity came?

  Finally one Sunday as Savonarola strode to his pulpit in the great cathedral, Papa and I could see his green eyes flashing. He sped through the Latin mass as a man rushing to a house afire. Then it was time for his sermon. He began it with a long silence, staring down at his congregation, fiercely eyeing every part of the crowded floor.

  “Now it is coming,” he began in a low, tremulous voice. “It is come! The sword has descended! The scourge has fallen! Repent, O Florence, while there is still time,” his rant continued. “Clothe thyself in the white garments of purification. Wait no longer, for there may be no further time for repentance!”

  The congregation, even much used to Savonarola’s dire words, sensed some new horror to be predicted.

  “I have had a vision,” he cried. “A vision placed before my eyes by God Himself! Unless you turn to the Golden Cross, disaster will befall you. But this is no mere pestilence, my children,” he raged, reaching his arms high above his head. “This is the apocalypse of war!”

  Above the frightened murmuring and shouts of fear from a people who had not in their lifetimes known war, the prior went on.

  “The Lord has placed me here as a watchman in the center of Italy that you may hear my words and know them for the truth.” He paused again, so that the petrified listeners had quieted completely. “A foreign enemy will soon be pouring down across the Alps. You had perhaps feared invasion from the East—the Turks. But no, it will be a great king from the north, bringing with him hordes of soldiers like barbers, armed with gigantic razors!”

  A woman near me fainted into her husband’s arms.

  I squeezed Papa’s hand. The prior had read the forged letter and fallen into our trap. The “king from the north” crossing over the Alps with his hordes was certainly Charles, and his “gigantic razors” could be nothing other than Leonardo’s scythe weapon. As we made for the door I nearly collided with a tall, elegantly dressed man. It was Piero da Vinci, his face looking like one of Leonardo’s carnival masks—the face of fear. Piero was old to my eyes. There was no remnant of that beauty of his youth, not that at our age anyone was beautiful, or much cared about such things. But all I could see was the toll that a lifetime of greed and stinginess with love had carved into his features. Now in addition there was the ugliness of terror. Like so many other Florentines, he had fallen victim to Savonarola’s threats of fiery damnation.

  And now war.

  CHAPTER 39

  King Charles and thirty thousand soldiers climbed over the Alps and invaded Milan. In a turn of events that took Il Moro’s subjects—if not we conspirators—by surprise, he welcomed the army with open arms and an open purse. Even though the French hordes did not come brandishing Leonardo’s “gigantic razors,” they caused much death and destruction with their fearsome “cannon”—large guns that propelled not the stone projectiles that had always been used, but iron “cannonballs.” By the banks of the river Taro more than two thousand Venetians were killed in one battle alone.

  Of course Prior Savonarola was positively exuberant. “My prophecy has proven true!” he cried from his pulpit from the momen
t word came that a “king from the north” had crossed the Alps. As glad as I was that the Dominican had fallen into our trap, it was horrible to watch the final downfall of Florence and the pathetic flailings of Piero de’ Medici.

  Lorenzo’s arrogant son decided he would face his enemy and negotiate a settlement. But once shat upon by the King of France, and after acceding to every one of Charles’s outrageous demands, he slunk back into Florence to report his defeat. The gates of the Signoria were literally slammed in his face, and the disgusted citizens threw stones at him and his family. Stones! Then the city fathers banished the Medici forever from Florence. They fled, every one, like thieves in the middle of the night.

  But there was worse to come.

  Florentine mobs broke into the deserted Palazzo Medici and looted it. I forced myself to bear witness as they desecrated that place of beauty, comfort, and learning. I was glad my love had not lived to see this day.

  Two days later, Charles and his enormous army marched into a panic-stricken Florence.

  With everything here destroyed and Lorenzo gone, I took some solace as I began my prearranged correspondence with Roderigo, dispatching the messenger with plenty of gold to hurry him on his way.

  Holy Father,

  I write to report that Savonarola—puffed with self-righteousness and vindication—bowed before the French invader, welcoming him as the Instrument of Divine Will. “And so at last, O King, thou has come!” he cried on his knees before Charles. “You are sent by God!”