The Lover’s Path

by Waldherr, Kris

  As we approached Venice, I heard bells chiming to mark midnight, their brittle melody carried on the harsh wind. Overwhelmed by the anxiety I felt for Angelo, for Tullia, and for myself, I grew quiet. Angelo was silent too as he led us down the canal, certain of his way even in the dark.

  We floated past the piazza, under a bridge. The streets were empty of life save for the occasional rat scurrying for dry shelter. A sudden flash of lightning illuminated a gold mosaic gilding the crest of a door. It guided us toward that palazzo set deep within the labyrinth of the city—that place where I had heard the sea murmur its music for so most of my life.

  As we docked in front of Tullia’s palazzo, I felt I couldn’t breathe. I murmured, “We should not have come back.”

  Angelo ignored the rain as he tucked a wet strand of my hair into my hood. His eyes met mine. “I will protect you.”

  He wrapped the red cloak close against me. Then, stepping onto the pavement from the row boat, he reached for my hands.

  I know I’ve already written of so many things I vowed never to share, but how can I write of what happened next? I shall do so without ornamentation—no song here, only truth.

  From the shadows beside the palazzo, a deep voice shouted through the rain. “Signora, let me assist you.”

  A man in a gold mask emerged onto the dock, offering a gloved hand. I hesitated at the sight of his attire; yet his mask confirmed Caterina’s claim about the illness ravaging Venice.

  “Let us be,” Angelo replied, stepping in front of him to help me from the boat. This time I did not trip in the cloak’s length, but the hood slipped over my eyes, and the world turned dark.

  “Whore!” the stranger bellowed, his voice oddly familiar.

  Before I could push the hood back, he tore me from Angelo’s grasp. Now the cloak seemed to stifle my every move, its sodden folds weighing me down as I struggled to free myself.

  “Let her go!” Angelo shouted. “You don’t know who you speak to—”

  “I know her well, signore,” the stranger hissed. “You may be the son of a cardinal, but you love a whore.”

  Suddenly I was released—I slipped to the wet cobblestones, stunned. Ignoring the pain in my arm, I freed my eyes from the hood, struggled to my feet. I screamed as Angelo lunged at the stranger, his youth and strength only matched by his rage.

  I hardly recall what happened next. I felt cold rain upon my face, the sharp shock of recognition. The image of a bloodied stag flashed before me, stumbling in the blistering heat of a villa’s forest....

  I ran to Angelo, desperate to warn him—and I felt a dull burn in my shoulder, a tearing. I staggered and gasped. Something stained my arm, my hand. I watched, unable to move, as a dark sticky warmth ran off my frozen fingertips, spilling toward the ground....

  “Run!” Angelo choked out.

  I stood still, transfixed by the sight of the blood pooling at my feet. My tongue felt heavy. My legs wouldn’t move.

  “Don’t look!” he shouted. “Go!”

  Angelo pushed me roughly aside, knocking me to the ground. And, as I looked on numbly, I saw the flash of the knife blow intended for me, glinting as it buried itself into my beloved’s chest.

  I remember very little after this. The sound of water rushing in the canal below. The clatter of retreating footsteps. The dull splash as Angelo stumbled on the slippery dock and fell twisting into the sea. I must have screamed or made some sort of sound, for others came running. Together, they lifted my beloved from sea to earth, from water to air. There we embraced, the steady hiss of wind drowning out his words to me.

  And this is where the stories began—the gossip that in time became the fiaba of the lover’s path, about which I have finally written the truth, my dearest Patroness.

  The gossip was wild in its variations. Some said the nightingale in the red cloak beguiled Angelo, luring him with her song to his destruction; that he fell like a fiery angel from the sky to drown in the sea. Others claimed it was Tullia who wore the red cloak that seduced Angelo, and I’d plotted revenge, a mortal furious with Venus for taking my own. Another rumor held it was Angelo’s cardinal father who sought to punish me, the cause of his son’s disobedience and, by doing so, undermined his only son.

  But it mattered not what was said—I knew the truth as well as my guilt. It was Matteo who’d stabbed my beloved. Upon seeing my red-cloaked form in Angelo’s gondola the night I ran away, Matteo had assumed Tullia had accepted Angelo as her secret lover.

  Tullia’s cloak had sheathed me in the name of love. It also betrayed me in the name of love.

  Just as there are moments in life one wishes would last forever, there are also moments one longs to change, as if one could turn back the tide from its path. This, of course, is impossible.

  When I next opened my eyes, I found myself inside a convent where black-habited sisters ministered to me, murmuring like doves as they bandaged my wound. Though I begged to be brought to Angelo, it took the sisters some time to reveal he was dead. I did not believe them. I insisted they show me his body, which they had washed and lain out for his father to claim.

  I will not write of the grief I felt when they described how he had struggled for life, and showed me the red cloak, stiffened with our dried blood. At my request, they destroyed the cloak. I knew when they burned it, for the scent of oranges seeped through the convent, as if summer had unexpectedly returned to Venice.

  I grew quite ill after Angelo’s death. Even though my blow was not mortal, I grew hot with fever and remorse. I suppose I was fortunate to have been spared the illness that had taken so many that year, but I was not thankful then. We will never be parted, he’d sworn. Yet we had been, and more cruelly than I could have ever imagined. I wept. He’d sacrificed his life to deliver me to an existence without him. In my dreams, he came to me, his arms stretched open.

  Weeks passed. Though my body healed, my sorrow did not cease. As I lay in bed, surrounded by frescoes of angels yellowed from time and incense, I could only think of Angelo. Every prayer the sisters chanted to their divine spouse mirrored my yearning for him. Each time a soothing hand wiped my brow, I remember his touch on my skin. Soon I would be strong enough to leave the convent. Yet I could not imagine a life without my beloved. But one day—a morning when the first snow announced winter’s start—I found myself wanting to sit up and gaze out the window.

  That was the day the sisters announced I had a visitor.

  Tullia was quiet as she approached my bed, her face pale and drawn above her somber-colored gown. Her gold hair was hidden beneath a modest dark cap, no doubt to avoid censure from the sisters. A large basket rested in her arms. As she placed it carefully on the floor, I thought I noticed a faint tremor in her hands.

  “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the chair next to my bed. She waited timidly for my answer.

  I sighed and said, “Do what you want. You will anyway.” My voice felt rough from disuse.

  A sudden flush rose in Tullia’s cheeks. We sat there for some moments, the air heavy with silence.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was so low I could barely hear her. “I lied to you. I was never ill—it was all a pretense to force your return.”

  “I thought as much,” I replied, my throat thick with bitterness.

  “There’s more. . . .” She took a deep breath. “My lute teacher was your father. He abandoned me. I could never admit this to anyone . . . that I had loved so unwisely. So foolishly.”

  I turned from the window to meet her eyes at last. “Who was he?”

  She shrugged. “It no longer matters—he died years ago without acknowledging your birth. He never made much of himself; I heard he’d ended his life insolvent in Rome. I told you otherwise about the grand signore, so you’d believe you possessed noble blood. So you’d wish for something greater for yourself than life as a virtuosa, or as the lover of a bastard son of the church.” She quickly swiped at her eyes; she was weeping, something I’d never seen her do before. “
I was wrong, Filamena, to keep you from your path. I know that now.”

  Too late, I thought bitterly. But for some reason, a strange protectiveness rose within me—I willed my lips shut. Instead, I forced myself to take her hand. My touch was tentative at first, then firm. For the first time, I noticed her skin had thinned, revealing the fragile bones beneath. She was aging.

  Everything passes, even life and love, I thought. Even sorrow.

  Unable to bear this, I turned to stare out the window at the snow anew. How peaceful it looked! I watched its soft whiteness blanket the world, like clean linens on a soiled bed.

  My mother and I sat together in this way for some time, our hands joined together, our voices silent. It was only after she left that I gave way to the emotion flooding me. I wept for Angelo, for the sister I had lost. I wept for the mother I had gained, the father I would never know. I wept for all that could never be again.

  Later that day, one of the sisters helped me open the basket Tullia had brought. Inside it was a cage bearing two white doves, a flask of red wine, a silver chalice, and a salt cellar—the same gift Angelo had sent me so long ago at Matteo’s villa. It was always this moment I remembered when my mother and I met in future years—the snow so cold and pure, her face as empty as the sky after a storm has shed its fury.

  IT IS LOVE THAT MOVES ME. I MUST FOLLOW.

  The love of Isis for her sacred husband Osiris was as boundless as the jealousy of Set toward his brother Osiris. Overcome by envy, Set killed Osiris, cutting his body into fourteen pieces. He scattered them over the earth in all four directions. However, Isis would not let death part her from Osiris. Determined to be reunited with her spouse, Isis transformed herself into a bird and flew everywhere searching for him. Years passed before she located every last piece of her beloved’s body. She placed each one next to the other and, though the power of her love, brought him back to life for one last act of devotion. As they coupled, fire rose from Osiris’s body, and red wings sprouted from his shoulders.

  Soon after my recovery, I left Venice. I suppose I hoped the passage of land beneath my feet would hasten the passing of time. More likely, I sought to repair my life in the only way I knew how: by visiting the places Angelo had written and spoken of during our time together.

  With his red book as my main companion, I journeyed to countries few females ever saw. I visited distant lands where silent women wore cymbals upon their hands, kingdoms where beasts were thought wiser than men. Sometimes I disguised myself as a youth and traveled anonymously. Other times, upon my arrival in a distant city, I sang in exchange for sustenance. As the years passed, I grew stronger than sorrow, though I never forgot Angelo and all we’d shared. I learned the truth of what he’d said so long ago: if you wait long enough, life comes full circle, like the tide.

  It was during the course of these travels that I met you, my most esteemed Patroness. You gained the promise of your family’s favor, and persuaded me to return to Venice. To be honest, by then I yearned to return just as the sea is pulled by the moon. And so I thankfully accepted your offer.

  As Angelo had once predicted, time and talent did reveal my songs to me; with your help I became a virtuosa. Though Angelo gave me the inspiration to create music—to do what I love most with all my parents had bequeathed me—it was because of you that I was able to choose my life, unlike so many women before me. Perhaps by sharing this fiaba of the lover’s path I can at last reveal my humble gratitude for your belief in my art, as well as my wishes for your nuptials. If you love your husband half as much as Angelo and I loved each other, your married life will be blessed.

  Yet, looking back over all I have confessed in these pages, I remain unsatisfied. I feel as though I am holding a lamp in a darkened room: with my words, I can only shed light upon one part of my beloved at a time, each a solitary aspect of who Angelo was, and all we experienced together. No words can make my beloved whole again, or give full weight to memory. Nor can they truly reveal what we shared so long ago, no matter how I yearn to relive it. Yet I have tried my best—and that will have to be enough.

  As I write this, I am now well past the age Tullia was when I left to join Angelo on that abandoned island—old enough to know the increase of regret with years, to take account of my actions. I understand things are not as simple as I yearned to believe when I was a girl of sixteen. I’d also like to think I’ve become wise enough to see that the world is a place of wondrous complexities, of unreasonable sorrows and unimaginable triumphs—experiences that cannot be explained or contained in a simple fiaba such as this one.

  However, though the years have passed and I have changed, some things remain: I still dream of Angelo.

  In my dreams, he and I are always young and hopeful and in love. We are immersed in the azure sea surrounding our island; he is teaching me how to swim. I hear his voice, low and encouraging as he calls to me, promising, “We will never be parted.” And so we haven’t, though it may only be during sleep that we meet. I watch him as he takes my hand to lead me into deeper water. The water rushes about us as we navigate it, pulling us toward that country of desire he called the lover’s path.

  THIS COMPLETED FILAMENA ZIANI

  FEBRUARY 8, 1543

  VENICE

  HERE ENDS THE LOVER’S PATH

  IN WHICH JOY AND SORROW

  ARE JOINED AS

  ONE.

  ABOUT THE MUSEO

  Built in 1442 in the Dorsodoro section of Venice, the Palazzo Filomela was named after the musician Filamena Ziani, who resided there until her death in 1567. Besides writing The Lover’s Path, Ziani was also responsible for commissioning the palazzo’s most noted attribute, the ‘La Via dell’Amante’ fresco series. Located in the main hall, these paintings depict the seven mythic couples whose stories were related in The Lover’s Path. The Palazzo Filomela was turned into a museum during the Victorian era, when the interest in “cabinets of curiosities” led many pilgrims to its doors.

  So that the Museo di Palazzo Filomela may inspire beyond the shores of Venice, what follows is a virtual tour of some of its offerings.

  We hope you have enjoyed this small display from the permanent collection of the Museo di Palazzo Filomela. As we uncover more about the lives of Filamena and Tullia Ziani, new artifacts and documents will be shared in updated editions of this book. For more information about the museo, visit LoversPathBook.com.

  AFTERWORD

  This is a work of fiction inspired by history. Filamena’s fiaba of joy and sorrow was woven from several true stories of the Italian Renaissance. Though the circumstances surrounding women of this era have been explained in this book’s introduction, their individual stories remain to be acknowledged.

  First and foremost, the character of Tullia Ziani was inspired by the life of Tullia d’Aragona, one of the reigning courtesans of her day. She was admired for her wit, lute playing, and glittering salons which attracted the bright and powerful. Like Filamena, d’Aragona was unable to escape the influence of sumptuary laws. To avoid penalization, d’Aragona published a book in 1547 entitled Dialogo della infinità d’amore (Dialogue on the Infinities of Love), which she dedicated to Cosimo de Medici. Dialogo della infinità d’amore allowed d’Aragona to successfully define herself as a poet in society, rather than courtesan, thus protecting her livelihood. She also raised a daughter, Penelope, as her sister; unlike the overprotective Tullia of The Lover’s Path, d’Aragona encouraged her daughter to follow her into prostitution. Upon Penelope’s unexpected death at age fourteen, the poet Francesco Franchini wrote an epitaph praising the “little girl courtesan.” I am indebted to Georgiana Masson’s Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance for bringing d’Aragona’s story to my attention.

  The literary voice of Filamena’s confession was influenced by the letters of Laura Cereta, a woman now acknowledged as a feminist of the Italian Renaissance. When read as a group, these letters offer an autobiography of a sensitive humanist born ahead of her time. Cereta’s letters r
emained unknown for the most part until they were published in the seventeenth century under the title of Epistolae familiares. Frightening violence from jealous suitors, as presented in the story of Matteo, was a too common experience for courtesans. One tale from fifteenth-century Rome relates the sad fate of Antea Sfegiata, whose sublime beauty inspired the artist Parmigianiano to paint one of his most famed portraits. Her face was slashed by a rejected lover, permanently disfiguring her. From then on, many courtesans lived in fear of the sfegia, an act whose name gamed infamy beyond the woman who originally suffered it.

  The art for The Lover’s Path was initiated by my first visit to Italy, an encounter that opened up the rich world of the Italian Renaissance for me. I fell in love with Venice, a city as mysterious and surprising as a masked lover. Accordingly, the art and design for The Lover’s Path is heavily influenced by the art, architecture, and books of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy.

  Venice, an important center for the early print arts, provided ample material to fuel my imagination. The book design for The Lover’s Path was inspired by the Hypnerotomachia poliphili, one of the most beautiful books of this period. The borders for each illustration in The Lover’s Path were painted in gouache on handmade paper; their designs were based on Venetian tiled floors, Renaissance maps, and illuminated manuscripts. The main paintings were created with oil paint glazes, which were layered over a watercolor underpainting sealed with acrylic gel medium. The woodcut illustrations opening each chapter were adapted from alchemy emblems originally published within the Hortulus hermeticus by Daniel Stolcius in 1627. The small color decorations presented throughout were painted in gouache. They were inspired by the Rosarium philosophorum, a series of alchemy woodcuts that appeared in the second volume of De Alchimia opuscula complura veterum philosophorum, published in 1550 in Frankfurt.