Da Vinci's Tiger

by L. M. Elliott

  7

  “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.

  Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit

  of thy womb, Jesus. . . .”

  IN THE CHAPEL, THE VOICE OF LORENZO’S MOTHER ROSE AND fell, songlike. Gray head bowed, eyes closed, she appeared so peaceful. I watched her pray and wondered if it had been hard for her to achieve that level of faith and calm. Lucrezia Tornabuoni Medici was a bit of a heroine for me—her devotional verses moved many to tears. How did she choose her words, her images, to so affect her reader? Plus, her family clearly adored her. On the way to the chapel we passed a painted portrait and a sculpted bust of her. How had she achieved that level of respect and honor from the men in her family? I almost laughed to think what Uncle Bartolomeo might do to such portraits of me. Luigi would certainly decry such expenditure of florins as frivolous.

  “Ill things from us expel, all good for us procure . . .”

  Kneeling on either side of Lucrezia, Clarice and Lisabetta harmonized, syllable by syllable in sync. Lisabetta’s chest rose and fell with that slumber-like bliss of innocents at prayer that I had envied in new novices at the convent. I tucked the folds of my dress under my knees to pad them better against the hard inlaid marble floor and, lowering my face over my clasped hands, squeezed them tight to concentrate.

  “O Lord we beseech thee, that all thy saints may everywhere help us . . .”

  A candle flickered, spat, and fizzed. I looked up, distracted by the spluttering light dancing along an ornate fresco of the Magi. Across the entire chapel, in sumptuous lacquers of red, ultramarine, and emerald, marched a parade of kings, pages, and penitents on the long trek to find the newborn Christ child. First came Melchior, the oldest of the holy kings; then Balthazar, in his manly prime, his ornate gold crown festooned with feathers; and finally the youth Gaspar, with yellow curls and a tunic that gleamed with gilded gold highlights. Even the kings’ attendants were resplendent. One had a cheetah in a jeweled collar, riding beside him on his horse’s rump.

  Following the three biblical kings was a closely packed crowd of recognizable Medici faces. Lorenzo’s father, Piero, rode a white horse behind Gaspar. Next came Cosimo, sitting atop a donkey, as he always did in life, no matter the wealth he amassed. I spotted the teenage Lorenzo because of his crooked nose. To his left peeked a beautiful young face—Giuliano. Nearby was Luigi Pulci, with his saucy expression, and Marsilio Ficino, his hand held up as if preaching. The painter had captured exactly the personality of the Medici conclave and made them almost as important as the Magi themselves.

  I couldn’t help going back to Balthazar, seeing something of the Venetian ambassador echoed in the powerful and handsome king. My heart beat a little quicker remembering the feel of Bembo’s hand pressing mine, the melodious resonance of his whispered request to read my poem. He had called me La Bencina—delicate, pretty, little Benci. No man had ever talked to me like that before. My hands began to tremble and grow damp with nervous perspiration.

  Thanks be to God . . . Amen.

  We rose, they shaking out dust from their skirts, I trying to dry my hands on the fabric of mine.

  “Shall we?” Lucrezia motioned for us to move next door to the main camera, Lorenzo and Clarice’s bedroom. Typically the most lavishly decorated rooms in Florence’s palazzos, bedrooms were the place friends were received. An enormous carved bed with a canopy of silk and fringed curtains dominated the room. We sat atop cassoni chests adjacent to it, and Lucrezia, stiff with arthritis, lowered herself into a carved wooden chair, arranging pillows around herself. “Now, what shall we discuss?”

  She smiled in a warm, nurturing way I had always longed for from my own mother. Having birthed seven healthy babies and losing her husband immediately after the last child arrived, my mother always seemed so desperate to please her brothers-in-law. I knew widowhood placed her in that humiliating position, but I still resented her seeming so cowed. The only book she read was Alberti’s treatise on the family, I Libri della Famiglia, which pronounced that women were by nature destined to be timid, slow, and weak—she certainly proved his thesis.

  How I missed my father and our conversations.

  As if reading my mind, Lorenzo’s mother turned to me. “Ginevra, my dear, I am pleased you have come. I so enjoyed my chats with your father. Amerigo wrote several spiritual lauds I thought finely turned. You write yourself?”

  Once again, I was overtaken with shyness. I nodded like a village idiot.

  “I think my son frightened you by asking you to share a poem at supper. Perhaps you would share it with me now?”

  Sweet Mother Mary, how could I possibly share a poem about my spiritual inconsistency with this noted poet of faith? I swallowed hard. “I think not tonight, my lady.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lisabetta and Clarice startle at my rudeness.

  “But,” I hurried to add, “I would be grateful to return after I better chisel my verse.” Lord, how could I be so presumptuous? But I could not stop myself. I was so hungry for such conversation. “If I might be so bold, my lady, tonight I would appreciate learning how you find your voice for your verse. I am sure that knowledge would help guide my quill.”

  “Why, God speaks to me, child.” She patted my arm. “But it took me a long while to learn to listen well enough to hear.”

  “Really?”

  “Certainly. Sometimes artwork inspires me, too. Do come back in daylight. I will take you into the garden to see Donatello’s statue of Judith and Holofernes. It helped me write my devotional about the good widow Judith.”

  “Really?” I repeated myself, this time incredulous that she did something I often did for inspiration—gaze upon art, not the altar. I was about to ask more, but one of Clarice’s servants entered the room.

  “My lady, your guests are preparing to leave. Your husband asks that their wives join Signori Benci and Niccolini downstairs.”

  On the way out, we passed Lorenzo’s study. Hanging there was another painted portrait—this one of a beauteous young woman in profile. Her hair was caught up in elaborate coils of thick braids, intertwined with pearls and flowers.

  “Oh my!” I exclaimed, pausing in front of it.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Lucrezia asked, putting her arm through mine. “By Maestro Verrocchio.”

  “Is it . . . is that you?”

  “Lord love you, child. No, not I. I was never that pretty.”

  I glanced toward Clarice to ask if it was she, but I could see for myself that her haughty face had not been the subject for this painting.

  Lisabetta frowned at me in an expression full of warning. But I did not know of what.

  “It is Lucrezia Donati,” Clarice said, pinpricks in her voice. “Godmother to my son Piero.”

  Lucrezia Donati!

  Like Simonetta was to Giuliano, Lucrezia Donati was Lorenzo’s much celebrated Platonic love. Their very public idealized romance had entertained the people of Florence for years. According to Ficino’s Neoplatonic philosophy, if a man could keep his ardor for a woman to a Platonic friendship—in a look-but-do-not-touch idolization—and only contemplate her physical loveliness as being manifestation of her virtuous spirit and absolute beauty, then his soul was purified. His love would, in essence, replicate the selfless love of Christ for us and bring the man closer to God.

  With this kind of unconsummated love, it was entirely acceptable for the love object to be married to someone else. Perhaps even easier to maintain the desired chastity.

  I stared at Lucrezia Donati’s portrait. The painting felt like a shrine. What was it like for Clarice day after day to pass by a portrait of the woman to whom her husband wrote endless sonnets and to whom he saw as his way to heaven? Lucrezia Donati had actually been the Queen of the Tournament at the joust Lorenzo hosted to celebrate his engagement to Clarice! Pulci had written a long narrative poem about the event, spending stanza upon stanza on the beauty of Lucrezia Donati. Only in passing had h
e mentioned Clarice, who still resided in Rome at the time, portraying her as praying for her soon-to-be husband’s safety during the joust.

  Glorious for Lucrezia Donati to be such inspiration for the Magnifico, to be sure. But what was that like for his wife? I had never thought of that before.

  The question must have been etched all over my face.

  Clarice’s smile was cold. “Come, it is late. Your husband awaits you.” As we came to the staircase, she added pointedly, “When you return, I do hope Ambassador Bembo’s wife will join us. Such a shame she was indisposed tonight. I think she would like you, just as much as I do Lucrezia Donati.”

  I had spent enough time with my sisters and other boarders at the convent to spot a cat’s claws in Clarice’s tone of voice. Before that moment, I had been thrilled and aflutter that a man of letters seemed so interested in my writing and my thoughts. But Clarice’s remark about the ambassador’s wife made me recognize what everyone else had clearly already understood about tonight—that Ambassador Bembo’s interest in me might go beyond poetry.

  At the bottom of the steps stood Lorenzo de’ Medici, my uncle, my husband, and my new admirer, deep in conversation. As if sealing some deal, Lorenzo slapped Ambassador Bembo’s back and laughed. When they noticed us looking down on them, the men abruptly stopped their banter. They bowed low, Bernardo Bembo keeping his eyes upon me as he did, his gaze so flattering, so inviting, Lord, so . . . so brazen.

  I felt dizzy. What did it all mean? Stumbling, I put my hand on the marble rail to steady my wobbly legs.

  As steeped as I was in ancient lore and biblical tales, there was so much to the world I did not know or understand yet. I was, after all, only a few years past childhood. I hadn’t even begun bleeding—the mark of womanhood—until the previous spring.

  Suddenly, I longed for the simplicity of my convent school years—prayers and psalms, giggles and gossip, innocent imaginings of what romance promised—and the wisdom of its Mother Superior. I wanted to nestle up against her and pour out my heart as I used to during my weekly confessionals. I needed her sage advice.

  Tomorrow I would flee to that sanctuary, as fast as my shaky legs would carry me.

  8

  “GINEVRA, MY DEAR. WHAT A LOVELY SUR—OH!” ABBESS Scolastica gasped as I hurled myself into her arms.

  “Oh!” I cried out as well. I hadn’t waited for her to put aside her crewelwork before diving at her. Her long needle lodged in my dress, attaching her stitched canvas to me by a golden thread.

  “Goodness, child, hold still.” Scolastica plucked the needle out of my bodice. “How many times did I caution you to move gracefully, like the lady of good breeding you are? Were all our lessons in modest deportment and self-discipline for naught?” But she smiled fondly as she said it.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Scolastica put aside the exquisite piece she had been sewing—a colorful emblem of the Trinity surrounded by a garden of blossoms. How bent and crooked her fingers had become, how swollen the joints. “Mother, does it hurt you to sew with your fingers so . . .” Lord, she was right, I had learned nothing. I slapped my hand over my mouth, as if I could retrieve and lock in the rude question.

  She patted my face before answering. “Embroidery helps me meditate on God’s kindness in granting me the ability to paint in silk thread. I wish this piece to be part of my shroud when the Lord calls me, so that I may take some of this temporal world’s beauty with me to heaven. It is not really allowed, but the Holy Father has been lenient in many things for us.” Scolastica lowered her voice and said almost mischievously, “I have even secured permission for eating meat when a good-hearted patron provides it.”

  Indeed, the reverend mother was rather legendary for her power of persuasion with church leaders and outside patrons. She’d once been married and lived in a country villa adjacent to ours in Antella. After her husband’s death, she changed her name from Cilia to Scolastica and entered the convent, bringing two of her young daughters with her. At her pleading, my grandfather had extended Le Murate’s garden, walled in the convent perimeter, and built its main chapel and high altar. Then she convinced my father to spend even more on the convent, building its infirmary, kitchen, pharmacy, dormitory, and workroom.

  Scolastica took my hands in her gnarled ones. “I hope you still work your own fabric canvas, Ginevra. Your crewelwork was some of the finest Le Murate ever saw. I know I must promote embroidery as God’s tool for morality, keeping women’s hands from falling idle or meddling where they do not belong. But I also think it pure artistry, pure creativity, which is a drop of divine spirit in us, surely. I remember well that beautiful band of our gold thread you embroidered into the neckline of a brown frock, making a commonplace dress exquisite.”

  Blessed with such praise from her, I was doubly embarrassed to admit I had not done any needlework for weeks. “I—I have been distracted of late, Mother.”

  “Ahhhh. So that is why you have come. To tell me of a distraction? The world outside these walls is filled with those, my daughter. What is troubling you?”

  My eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Mother, I am so—”

  “Abbess Scolastica?”

  I startled at the sound of a male voice. Scolastica cocked her head, assessing my face, before turning to greet three tradesmen and an apprentice who stood in the parlor’s doorway, which led to the outside world. We sat behind a grate the Church required be between nuns and laypeople even in the convent’s one public receiving room.

  “Good sirs.” She waved, beckoning them to enter.

  They tiptoed toward her as if approaching a high altar. One was a scissors master, a whetting stone under his arm. Another was a battiloro, a gold beater, balancing paper-thin sheets of gold leaf. The third man brought yellow silk, and his apprentice carried a basket of empty wooden spools. All these things were necessary for the spinning of gold thread taking place in the workroom adjacent to the parlor.

  “Reverend Mother.” The men knelt. The apprentice, though, gaped at her. Obviously it was his first visit to the convent. He managed to spill most of the spools onto the floor as he bent his knees.

  “God’s blood!” he cried out.

  His master cursed loudly and more graphically before cuffing the boy’s ear, which sent even more spools spinning across the wooden floor.

  Then they both froze and looked to Scolastica, their eyes filled with horror, realizing they had blasphemed in front of the city’s most renowned nun.

  But she merely burst out laughing. “Come, come, gentlemen, pick up your wares.” Holding on to my arm as support, she stood, taking a long breath of pain as she did. “I will escort you in.” Entrance to the inner sanctum of the convent was strictly forbidden—a rule that was bent for only the most important patrons and silk-thread tradesmen.

  She smiled reassuringly at the apprentice. “Do refrain once inside from such language. My flock would feel the need to spend hours in prayer if they heard the Lord’s name used in vain. After all, that is the . . . the . . .” She prompted the boy to finish her sentence.

  “The third commandment,” he squeaked.

  “Indeed.” She turned to the apprentice’s master, her voice becoming stern. “No need for my chaste daughters to do penance for your weaknesses, is there, sir?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “Recite one hundred Hail Marys tonight. And no wine for a week.”

  Scolastica put her arm through mine to lead the way into the workroom. The gold beater and scissors master shoved the reprimanded silk merchant behind them, making faces at him for his stupidity. Scolastica let out a slight snort of amusement.

  In the workroom, warm light spilled through its windows onto several nuns cutting sheets of gold into narrow strips. Bathed in an adjacent pool of sunshine, two other sisters wound the gleaming strips tightly around a core of yellow silk to make golden thread. Their fingers were calloused from pulling and yanking the sharp-edged metallic strips tight to ensure that the thread wa
s thin and supple enough to be cast through looms without snagging. One of them stuck her finger in her mouth to stop the bleeding from a new cut sliced into her flesh by the gold.

  When studying at the convent school, I’d tried to write a poem likening the sisters to the Fates spinning a person’s strand of life. I noted that they bled to produce beauty for others. The verse was embarrassing in its exaggerated and overwritten metaphor. But witnessing the familiar scene once more, I was again struck by its paradox—cloistered sisters, dedicated to self-imposed poverty and stark modesty, spinning the richest of gold thread for luxurious brocade cloth. They provided the cheapest labor to the city’s merchants, allowing them huge profits and thereby stoking Florence’s overall wealth.

  Once a privileged laywoman living in the outside world, Scolastica had well understood the city’s thirst for such beautiful fabric and recognized the potential benefit to her flock. Le Murate became the first of Florence’s convents to produce gold thread and remained its best thirty years later. With the florins generated by its thread production, Scolastica purchased food and supplies but also books. She’d even managed to buy a portable organ for the chapel and hired musicians to teach her nuns how to sing the new polyphony—a rare touch of musical sophistication for a nunnery. That very moment I could hear voices trilling the psalms of David in the chapel.

  “Ginevra!”

  I turned to the other end of the room, where literate sisters were copying manuscripts.

  “Juliet?” I rushed to hug a girl who had been one of my closest friends in the boarders’ dormitory. We had spent many hours whispering through the night together. She had been the prettiest of all of us, with a mane of the softest hair falling to her waist. Any sane man would fall in love with her for her tresses alone. But she was the fourth daughter of her family, and there had been no dowry money left for her. Now, her wimple hid everything save her face, and I knew her head had been shaved underneath. All that silken hair was gone. But her lovely face was anything but sad.