The Poet Prince

by Kathleen McGowan

  But the abundance of blessed children was not limited to Florence alone. The Magi had been giddy with their predictions for a child who was due to the Buonarroti family in Southern Tuscany. The Buonarroti, the descendants of the great Matilda of Tuscany, were watched closely by the Order, as their children were often highly gifted in some way. There was a Buonarroti among the Magi, and it was in fact this same astrologer who cast the birth chart of the baby boy who entered the world on March 6, 1475, near Arezzo. The horoscope of this infant was so exalted that the Magi recommended he be given a special name to identify him as an angelic from the moment of his arrival. Thus the baby had been called by the unusual name that evoked the Archangel Michael.

  Michelangelo.

  It would be interesting to keep an eye on this boy, and Lorenzo and the Order had compensated the Buonarroti family handsomely to secure their move north to Florence, where he could be educated and observed. Lorenzo was excited about the prospects. Surely a boy named for the greatest of the archangels had extraordinary promise for the future Order.

  Le temps revient.

  For years, Lorenzo and I had been discussing the merits of creating an ultimate work of art that would encapsulate all the teachings we held so dear, one which

  we would entitle The Time Returns. It would need to be large enough to capture all the concepts that we laid out, and thus he ultimately commissioned a mural that would cover the majority of the wall of his private studiolo.

  It was the pregnancy of Colombina that inspired this painting. She was unspeakably beautiful in her fullness, the essence of the mother goddess in flower. When I sketched her, I wept with the beauty that was so evident in this state of impending motherhood. Thus I placed Colombina, as the female aspect of God, in the center of the work. Call her what you will, and it matters not. She is Venus, she is Asherah, she is our mother who guides and nurtures us by any name. She is Divine Beauty. I have cloaked her in the red of Our Lady Magdalena, which is embroidered with the diamonds of divine union, and she is wearing the sandals referenced in the Song of Songs: “How beautiful are your feet in sandals, my love,” says the sacred bridegroom to his eternal bride.

  Our Lady presides over the cycle of souls as they experience the beauty of human love here before ascending to the love of God and then returning back to earth as it all begins again. Her garden is lush and magical, filled with the symbols of the Medici family and the flowers and plants that grow around the gardens we all love so much in Careggi. She blesses us with her right hand, and yet also signals that we move our attention to the dance of the three Graces. This is the dance of life, a celebration of earthly love in its three guises: purity, beauty, and pleasure. Purity, or chastity, does not and should not remain once true love has come into the mix, and thus the figure of Cupid hovers above the scene, with his bow aimed squarely at Chastity. Soon she will become Beauty and then Pleasure as she moves through the threefold cycle of love.

  Of course I have used the sketches I made of Ginevra, Simonetta, and Colombina, on the night they all danced together like this in the Antica Torre.

  Another sketch I have used for this family portrait of sorts was the one I made of our Angelo, on the day he arrived in Careggi, depicting him as Hermes, stirring things up for all of us. I used this idea of Angelo but combined it with the face and figure of Giuliano de’ Medici, who is the more beautiful model for a god. Here, Mercury/Hermes is stirring the weather, but he is also acting as the conduit between heaven and earth. He is the embodiment of his own teachings within the Emerald Tablet: that which is above is also below, as we all come together to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.

  And what is that One Thing? It is creating heaven on earth through the utter appreciation of Beauty in all its forms, through the veil of love. This is the Way.

  To the right of the painting I continued to pay tribute to the Emerald Tablet of Hermes with the image of the wind, Zephyr. “The wind carries it in his belly” is an allegory for the miracle of life, returning the soul to earth. Here Zephyr is giving birth to Chloris, who was his true beloved. According to the Greek masters, Zephyr and Chloris were souls twinned by God to rule over the weather together, and thus I used them to illustrate this concept of one twin giving birth to the other, which is the essence of what occurs when true beloveds are reunited. They are reborn. As Chloris, she is making the transition from the heavenly realms to the earthly realms. She ultimately incarnates as Flora, showing the full cycle of incarnation as she steps in to her role as the fully realized human woman. Flora is anthropos, she is humanitas, she is all that is beautiful about flesh-and-blood mankind. The flowers in her apron are held over her womb to indicate fertility, for she is lush with life. She throws the blooms about, scattering joy through the understanding and celebration of Beauty in its most exalted form.

  Simonetta, of course, was my model for Flora, her delicate beauty inspiring me as it always does. I have taken artistic license in her figure, making her full and vibrant with health while hoping that somehow my painting will create the alchemy of healing magic and turn our Bella into the same image of radiance. But alas, she had to return to her bed after a few short hours with me. Her strength is yet to return, but our hope for her is as eternal as the spring in the painting.

  And so it was that I completed the masterwork of my life, the one into which I poured my heart and soul; it depicted the people I loved most enacting the teachings I revere. Lorenzo was overjoyed with it, more than I have ever seen him with any other piece of art. He had it installed in his studiolo immediately and told me that nothing, other than Colombina herself, has ever brought him such an understanding of the nature of Beauty.

  I remain,

  Alessandro di Filipepi, known as “Botticelli”

  FROM THE SECRET MEMOIRS OF SANDRO BOTTICELLI

  Florence

  present day

  “WHAT IS GENIUS?” The Master posed the question to all of them as they drank Chianti on the roof terrace. “Was Leonardo a genius simply because he was technically proficient over and above other artists? Does that make him a genius? Certainly, he had a mental capacity that has rarely been seen among men in any time in history. So perhaps that is enough to be called such?”

  Having been through the Botticelli-versus-Leonardo challenge in the Uffizi earlier in the week, no one in this company was going to speak up for Leonardo as a genius. Petra added to the lesson, “No man ever achieved greatness using just his mind. One must also engage the heart.”

  “True, of course. Leonardo’s output was sporadic and incomplete. He was incapable of finishing most of what he started, and yet no one ever talks about that aspect of his character. Does a genius or a great man abandon the majority of his projects long before completion? I do not think so. Leonardo could not produce to the levels of Ghirlandaio and Botticelli, not even a fraction. And yet he is given more credit for genius than the two of them put together and multiplied, as the greatest mind of the Renaissance. It is one of history’s most notable injustices.”

  “What happened between Leonardo and Lorenzo?” Maureen

  asked.

  Destino continued the tale. “Lorenzo kept his promises as he always did, in this case both to me and to Leonardo, by allowing him to stay in Florence for a number of years. This was in spite of the fact that he was never really productive for the Medici and created nothing that we would ever be able to use within the Order. Ultimately he was extremely disloyal to Lorenzo, although Lorenzo was never disloyal to him. In fact, Leonardo had great reason to love the Medici, although he never found it in his heart to do so.

  “It became clear that Leonardo was no longer benign. Even Andrea, who defended him for years, could no longer tolerate the vitriol he was emitting on a more regular basis. He lasted a long time, but in 1482 it became necessary to get him out of Florence once and for all. We sent him to Milan, as a gift to the powerful Sforza family. They were solidified as allies for the duration of Lorenzo’s life as a result of this mo
st generous gift of his greatest artist to Milan!”

  “And the story ends there?” Peter asked.

  Destino’s eyes became cloudy with the disturbing aspect of this memory. “I’m afraid it does not. We discovered, years later and far too late, that Leonardo had been a true enemy in our midst. He was spying for Rome, leaking secrets of the Order to the Vatican. What his motivation was, I will never know for sure. Whether he did it for money, for spite, or for some twisted idea of religious conviction, intending to bring about the downfall of our Order, I do not know to this day. Perhaps Leonardo’s greatest genius was that he remains a tremendous enigma.

  “Leonardo da Vinci is a great lesson for all of us. For years I did penance for the night in which I insisted that Lorenzo keep him. Had we sent him away when he was first identified as a danger to us, perhaps the terrible thing that happened next would not have happened at all. Perhaps that villain Sixtus would not have had the ammunition he needed to attack the Medici as he did. What I felt was forgiveness turned out to be lack of judgment. And this is the lesson, my children. You must always forgive, and treat others with love. But this does not mean that you need to keep a snarling wolf among the

  lambs.

  “For Leonardo, while treacherous, was not the ultimate traitor. There was one far greater and far more dangerous in our midst.”

  Florence

  December 1475

  CLARICE COULD NOT locate Madonna Lucrezia and was in a panic. She had given birth enough times to know that this baby would be coming soon and they would need the midwife. It was a festival week and members of the regular staff had the week off, so there were fewer people around to aid her with the children and the household. Lorenzo was too generous with the servants, and she was always the one who acquired extra work as a result. She rarely complained about it, knowing that it was a wife’s lot to suffer, but in her ninth month of pregnancy Clarice was entirely without patience.

  She knew that she was forbidden entry into Lorenzo’s study. It was a Florentine tradition that wives were not permitted in their husband’s private spaces, and Clarice had observed this rule without question until now. But in her panicked state of early labor, she needed assistance and was desperate to find Lorenzo. She ran to his studiolo and flung the door open without knocking.

  She stopped in her tracks and blanched at the sight before her: an enormous image of a pregnant Lucrezia Donati dominated a mural of such foul paganism that Clarice was certain they would all go immediately to hell as a result of its presence in the house.

  Lorenzo looked up from where he was auditing books from the Medici Bank in Lyon. He was surprised to see his wife here, and concerned. “Are you all right, Clarice? Is it the baby?”

  Clarice held her hands on her swollen abdomen and nodded, but she had not taken her eyes off Sandro Botticelli’s showpiece, as it covered the wall. When she finally spoke, her voice shook. “Lorenzo, I will not have that in my house.”

  “This is my house, Clarice.” Lorenzo was annoyed, as he usually was with her, but he didn’t snap as he could have. “And this is my private study. I will determine what I will or will not have in it without anyone else’s perspective or assistance. I allow you to decorate elsewhere. This is the only space I control completely. Let me.”

  “But it is not fair, Lorenzo!” She was shrieking at him, her condition increasing her growing hysteria. “You ask too much, for me to endure such a thing. It is cruel. You pride yourself on your sense of justice and humanity. Why is it that you have never been able to apply those same principles to me, to your own wife?”

  There was passion in her outburst, an emotion that Lorenzo had never seen in his years with her, as she continued.

  “There is not a day of my life that I do not endure the torment of knowing you will never love me. There are three people in this marriage, and I am the least important of them. I know that, I live with it, and I try not to wilt from the constant winter that I live in as a result. Instead, I find the sun in my children. Our children. I do not ask for much, Lorenzo. But if you do not remove that horrible, pagan piece of furniture, I am going back to Rome and taking your children with me. Including your precious Maddalena.”

  Lorenzo was not one to be moved by threats or coercion, yet Clarice’s words about justice had found their mark. He had never thought about her pain in all these years. It hadn’t even occurred to him that

  she cared much, so indifferent had she been through their marriage. She endured the need for their coupling so that they might populate the Medici dynasty in exactly the same way that she approached preparing lunch or mending a cushion: each was a task to be carried out by a wife.

  But with this outburst he saw that she was wounded, and he had wounded her. His remorse was sincere.

  “I’m sorry, Clarice,” he replied softly and with some tenderness.

  The tears came unbidden as she stood before her husband, willing him to come to her, to hold her, to provide the warmth and comfort that she had dreamed of finding in him when she came to Florence as a terrified foreigner to marry a stranger. But they were too far gone for such displays; their silent war had been waging for too long. The best Lorenzo could provide for her was concession as she stood before him, heavy with the exhaustion of pregnancy. His reply was gentle, if not warm.

  “I will have the piece removed in the morning. Good night, Clarice.”

  In the bravest moment of their married life, Clarice took a chance that cost her dearly. “Lorenzo, will you not . . . can you not give me just one word of love?”

  Lorenzo was truly puzzled. “Love, Clarice? In all our time as man and wife, I have never heard you use the word. Duty, yes. Love . . . never. Forgive me if I have no context for this request from you.”

  “Lorenzo, you are my husband . . . and I . . . I do love you.”

  Lorenzo sighed, feeling a mixture of pity and sadness for the role he played in the unhappiness that fate had dealt to her. She was not, for all her flaws, an odious woman. She was merely a product of her family and her faith. His answer, while not pointedly cruel, was all that he could summon.

  “Then, Clarice, I truly am most sorry.”

  She ran from the studiolo, sobbing now, and back into the main house, where Madonna Lucrezia found her and returned her to bed to wait for the midwife.

  The next day, Lorenzo had the masterpiece he and Sandro referred to as The Time Returns removed from the palazzo on Via Larga. Lorenzo had it reframed and made into the backing of an elaborate piece of furniture that he was determined to present as a gift for the wedding of his cousin, Lorenzo di Pierofrancesco. This other Lorenzo was also a student of the classics and would certainly appreciate the mythical elements of the work. Lorenzo asked Sandro to personalize it somehow, so that it would appear that the painting had been created for the Pierofrancesco side of the family. As their family emblem was a specific kind of sword, Sandro merely painted this weapon slung across the waist of Hermes.

  Lorenzo di Pierofrancesco and his bride were delirious with the generosity of this grandiose wedding gift from their exalted cousin.

  Lorenzo de’ Medici, on the other hand, was devastated by the loss of the greatest piece of art that Sandro Botticelli had ever created. His consolation was that Clarice gave birth to a healthy and alert baby boy on the eleventh day of December. They named him Giovanni.

  Colombina gave birth to her son in the company of her sister, Costanza, and Ginevra Gianfigliazza. Niccolò was away at sea.

  The child’s biological father was unable to attend.

  Colombina wept through the pain of the birth, but she cried harder as she cuddled the beautiful little boy against her body later that night. He had a perfect nose and fine features, looking most of all like a

  male version of herself. Blessedly for all of them, the child had not been born with the Medici overbite or the smashed Tornabuoni nose. He would not be labeled as the bastard son of Lorenzo’s whore through a misfortune of features. Colombina was grateful t
hat he would be spared that.

  And yet as she looked at him she wished, just a little, that there was more of Lorenzo to be seen in the child.

  Florence

  April 1476

  GINEVRA GIANFIGLIAZZA sat in the window seat, staring out across the Arno. It was stormy today, dark and gloomy, and she felt the dampness in her bones. She did not rise to leave her place when Colombina entered. The women were too close for formalities, and each understood the moods of the other in the way that young women who have shared many secrets are uniquely able. Colombina did not greet her friend verbally, merely kissed her on the cheek before taking a seat opposite, with a similar vantage point overlooking the river.

  Ginevra looked up finally, eyes red and swollen. She saw, without surprise, that Colombina’s were the same.

  “You see it too,” Ginevra said simply.

  Colombina nodded and then burst into tears. She put her head in her hands for the moment it took to let the worst of the emotion work through her body, before trying to speak.

  “She is so ill, Ginevra. And she knows but does not speak of it. Why does she not tell anyone that she is dying? How can they not see it?”

  Both women had visited the Vespucci household separately to look in on Simonetta, who had been bedridden for the last few days. Her coughing had increased and was producing blood. Still, her family seemed oblivious to the fact that Simonetta was clearly gravely ill. They were treating her condition as if it were just a little setback and to be expected, given that she was so weak of constitution.

  “Because she hides it so well. And Simonetta is such a thing of beauty that in her, the shadows on her face just serve to make the rest of her skin more translucent. The brightness in them does not look like fever; rather it enhances the unlikely color of her eyes.”