The Second Mrs. Giaconda
Page 9
One day as Salai was quietly working in the studio, touching up the background for a study of Mary and the infant Jesus, a merchant appeared at the door of the workroom. Leonardo was at his country home studying the flow of rivers and the flight of birds, and Salai knew that this man’s visit would not be profitable. He was a Florentine. Every now and then Salai could extract a few coins from some out-of-town merchant who would be content to tell people back home that he had visited the studio of Leonardo da Vinci, neglecting to add that Leonardo was not there at the time. But this man would not pay for half a package. Salai had no particular reason to be polite to him, but he had acquired a habit of good manners.
“Hello, there,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I—ah—would like to see the—ah—maestro—ah—Maestro Leonardo.”
“He is not in,” Salai said. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“When will he—ah—return?”
“Maybe a day. Maybe a week. He is an artist, not a merchant. He does not keep regular hours,” Salai said, his tone pleasant.
The man smiled and stepped inside the door. “Scusi,” he said. “Me, I’m a merchant.” He walked over to Salai’s desk and laid a purse on it. Salai’s expert eye calculated that it was large enough and fat enough to contain fifty ducats. “I—ah—would like Maestro Leonardo to do a—ah—painting for me.”
Salai picked up the purse and tossed it lightly into the air. Yes, fifty ducats. He looked over at the man. “The King of France is waiting for a picture and the Duchess of Mantua has been waiting for over three years for him to finish hers. Both of them allow Master Leonardo to name his own price.” He tossed the purse in the air again. “What makes you think that Master Leonardo will do a painting for you?”
The man held up a forefinger and gave it a small whirl. Then he aimed the finger at his chest. “I pay,” he said, then whirled his finger again, pointing it at Salai, and added, “the maestro paints.”
“I suppose,” Salai continued, “that you have a good idea of what you want. A wall-sized painting of the Journey of the Magi with all the animals in the manger and all the stars in the heavens—”
“No,” the merchant said, holding up his forefinger again. “Scusi, but with all—ah—respect to the maestro, I don’t —ah—want a journey.” He retrieved the purse from Salai momentarily and then slapping it back down on the table said, “This money is for a—ah—portrait of my wife.” He then turned and marched to the door, his back arched, his steps high and wide. He turned back to Salai momentarily and said “Scusi” again and stepped outside the door.
Salai was too amused to be angry. He laid his brush down. The merchant reentered, bringing with him a young woman about half his age.
The lady was embarrassed. She kept her head low as her husband led her into the room. Salai said hello, and the lady lifted her head and looked at Salai out of the corners of her eyes. Salai was unprepared for the look. It was two things: it was totally familiar, and it was totally strange. What was it? The smile? The look?
What was it?
He looked at her again. She was the same age as Beatrice would have been. That was it. She was the Beatrice he had known; that explained the familiar.
But she was a stranger, too. And then he realized: she was what Beatrice would have become.
This was a woman who knew that she was not pretty and who had learned to live with that knowledge. This was a woman whose acceptance of herself had made her beautiful in a deep and hidden way. A woman whose look told you that you were being sized by a measuring rod in her head; a measuring rod on which she alone had etched the units. A woman who knew how to give pleasure and how to give pain. A woman who knew how to endure. A woman of layers.
As soon as that thought came to him, Salai knew that he could persuade Leonardo to do it. He knew that there was something haunting about this lady’s looks, something that only Leonardo could capture in paint.
She would be the portrait of Beatrice that he had never done. Leonardo would do this portrait because he wanted to and because Salai wanted him to. What an answer to Isabella. A perfect answer. That Leonardo should choose to paint the portrait of this woman, only a few steps above a peasant. He would pose her simply, in a simple dress, her hair loose. He would do for her everything that he had almost committed to Isabella, and Isabella would know for certain that Leonardo’s sketch of her had been finished in the portrait of this other woman, this merchant’s wife.
Salai leaned his head back and looked at her. What a good job Leonardo would do. And he would do it alone; no apprentice’s hand would touch it. It would be a better job than he had done of Cecilia or Lucrezia or than he could ever do of Isabella. There would be no court rules to follow, no jewelry to obey. It would be Beatrice, but better. Because this lady would be the one unimportant element, the one importantly unserious element, the one wild thing that Beatrice had said that Leonardo always needed to make his work great. By urging Leonardo to do it, he would be fulfilling the responsibility Beatrice had urged on him.
Salai tossed the sack of coins into the air. “I might get the master to do your wife’s portrait after all,” he said. He put the purse in his drawer and turned toward the lady. She met his look once again. Still looking at her, Salai asked the merchant, “And what, sir, is your lady’s name?”
The merchant clicked his heels, smiled, bowed slightly and with a sweep of his hand answered, “I present to you my—ah—my newest wife, Madonna Lisa. Me? I’m Mr. Gioconda.”
From 2-time Newbery Medalist E. L. Konigsburg
The Outcasts of
19 Schuyler Place
0-689-86637-2
Altogether, One at a Time
0-689-71290-1
The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper
0-689-82328-2
Father’s Arcane Daughter
0-689-82680-X
Journey to an 800 Number
0-689-82679-6
From the Mixed-up Files of
Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER
0-689-71181-6
The View from Saturday
NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER
0-689-81721-5
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth,
William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth
NEWBERY HONOR BOOK
0-689-84625-8
A Proud Taste for Scarlet
and Miniver
0-689-84624-X
The Second Mrs. Gioconda
0-689-82121-2
Throwing Shadows
0-689-82120-4
Silent to the Bone
0-689-83602-3
Aladdin Paperbacks • Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing www.SimonSaysKids.com
The Newbery Medal is awarded each year to the most distinguished contribution to literature for children published in the U.S. How many of these Newbery winners, available from Aladdin Paperbacks, have you read?
Newbery Medal Winners
□ Caddie Woodlawn
by Carol Ryrie Brink
0-689-81521-2
□ Call It Courage
by Armstrong Sperry
0-02-045270-5
□ The Cat Who Went
to Heaven by
Elizabeth Coatsworth
0-698-71433-5
□ Hitty: Her First
Hundred Years
by Rachel Field
0-689-82284-7
□ From the Mixed-up
Files of Mrs. Basil E.
Frankweiler
by E. L. Konigsburg
0-689-71181-6
□ A Gathering of Days
by Joan W. Blos
0-689-71419-X
□ The Grey King
by Susan Cooper
0-689-71089-5
□ King of the Wind
by Marguerite Henry
0-689-71486-6
□ M.C. Higgins,
the Great
by Virginia Hamilton
0-02-043490-1
□ Mrs. Frisby and the
Rats of NIMH by
Robert C. O’Brien
0-689-71068-2
□ Shadow of a Bull by
Maia Wojciechowska
0-689-71567-6
□ Smoky the Cow Horse
by Eric P. Kelly
0-689-71682-6
□ The View from Saturday
by E. L. Konigsburg
0-689-81721-5
Newbery Honor Books
□ The Bears on
Hemlock Mountain
by Alice Dalgliesh
0-689-71604-4
□ Calico Bush
by Rachel Field
0-689-82285-5
□ The Courage of
Sarah Noble
by Alice Dalgliesh
0-689-71540-4
□ Volcano
by Patricia Lauber
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□ The Jazz Man
by Mary Hays Weik
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□ The Dark Is Rising
by Susan Cooper
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□ A String in the Harp
by Nancy Bond
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□ The Golden Fleece
by Padraic Colum
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□ The Planet of Junior
Brown
by Virginia Hamilton
0-689-71721-0
□ Dogsong
by Gary Paulsen
0-689-80409-1
□ Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen
0-689-80882-8
□ Justin Morgan
Had a Horse
by Marguerite Henry
0-689-71534-X
□ Misty of Chincoteague
by Marguerite Henry
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□ The Moorchild
by Eloise McGraw
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□ Sugaring Time
by Kathryn Lasky
0-689-71081-X
□ Yolonda’s Genius
by Carol Fenner
0-689-81327-9
Aladdin Paperbacks Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing www.SimonSaysKids.com
This is what E. L. Konigsburg has to say about writing The Second Mrs. Gioconda:
“About the time that Columbus was arranging to set sail for the New World, there lived in Milan, Italy, one of the greatest minds and most monumental talents the world has ever known. That man was Leonardo da Vinci, and at that time, he was an employee of II Moro, the Duke of Milan. It’s hard to think of Leonardo da Vinci as an employee, working to please an employer, but the artist, the genius who was Leonardo, was also a man. And when you think about him as a man, you wonder not only about his relationship to his work but also about his relationships with other people. During the years he worked in Milan, one of those people was Beatrice, the young wife of the man he worked for. Another was Salai, the apprentice who worked for him. Leonardo refers to Salai in his notebooks as a thief, a glutton, a mulehead. I believe there existed among Leonardo, Salai, and Beatrice a relationship that was born of chance, that was nurtured by need, and that culminated in a painting, the portrait that is known to us as The Mona Lisa.
“Learning about these remarkable people who lived in a remarkable time has enriched my life. I hope that reading about them will enrich yours.”
E. L. KONIGSBURG is the author of several books for young readers, including the Newbery Medal winners From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The View from Saturday, and the Newbery Honor Book Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Mrs. Konigsburg has a degree from Carnegie-Mellon University and has done graduate work in organic chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. Before becoming a writer, she taught science at a private girls’ school. She lives on the beach in North Florida.
Drawing of old man and youth (possibly Salai).
COURTESY BROGI-ART REFERENCE BUREAU.
Leonardo, self portrait.
COURTESY ALINARI-ART REFERENCE BUREAU.
Ludovico Sforza, detail from the Sforza Altarpiece
by the Maestro della Pala Sforzesco.
COURTESY ALINARI-ART REFERENCE BUREAU.
Cecilia Gallerani.
COURTESY MUZEUM NARODOWE W KRAKOWIE
Beatrice d’Este—bust by Gian Cristoforo Romano.
COURTESY AUNARI-ART REFERENCE BUREAU.
Sketch of Isabella d’Este.
COURTESY ALINARI-ART REFERENCE BUREAU.
The Star of Bethlehem and other plants.
ROYAL COLLECTION, WINDSOR CASTLE; COPYRIGHT RESERVED.
The Last Supper.COURTESY ALINARI-ART REFERENCE BUREAU.