Da Vinci's Tiger

by L. M. Elliott

  Then Bernardo approached Luigi as well. I felt my smile evaporate. Why would he do that?

  “Do not worry, my dear.” Simonetta took my arm. “I know what that conversation is about. The ambassador is so taken with you and so impressed by Verrocchio’s studio, he wishes to commission a portrait of you. To celebrate you as being his chosen Platonic muse.”

  I gasped. “Really?”

  She giggled. “Yes, my dear, really.”

  “Just like you?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Indeed! And if we are lucky, perhaps we shall meet regularly at the studio when we sit for the maestros. That would be such fun. Also”—she drew herself up tall, placing her hand above her heart, looking down modestly—“you can help me know how to appear like the Virgin Mother. You are so spiritually serene.”

  I turned to her with surprise. Was that how I appeared? If only she knew how those very different horses within my soul combated each other.

  Beside me Giovanni shouted and waved, beckoning someone to look at him. It was Leonardo, still standing and observing. Giovanni cupped his hand to his mouth to shout over the celebrating crowd so Leonardo could hear. “What were you picking off the course?”

  Leonardo approached, holding out his hand. In his palm were spikes called caltrops, shaped like crow’s feet so that a point always stood straight up. The Romans threw the devices in front of enemy cavalry to puncture the soft insides of horses’ hooves. It brought the chargers to the ground in horrible pain. Italians still used the wicked things during battle.

  “How cruel!” Simonetta said.

  “Who would do such a thing?” I asked.

  “I can certainly imagine who.” Simonetta spoke with uncharacteristic anger. “They are such sniveling, dishonorable rivals. They never have the courage to challenge the Medici directly. They spread lies behind Giuliano and Lorenzo’s backs. They connive and lay traps. This is precisely the kind of underhanded trickery they might resort to.”

  “Who?” Giovanni and I asked together, although I could tell Simonetta suspected the family that had tried to thwart Giuliano’s triumph at the joust.

  “Who? The Pazzi, of course!” She almost spat the name. “Mark my words, someday they will manage to do something terrible.”

  Leonardo shrugged. “I did not see the man. I just noticed the caltrops drop onto the race’s course.”

  Giovanni cursed loudly before reaching out to embrace Leonardo. “Thank you, signor. I am totally indebted to you. Those spikes could have crippled Zephyrus.”

  “Let the parade begin!” Lorenzo approached, holding up his hand to signal the procession.

  As we began to move, Bernardo caught up with me to speak into my ear. “Tomorrow, La Bencina, I will come for you and escort you to Maestro Verrocchio. Your husband allows me the honor of commissioning a portrait.” He smiled and stood back and let the crowd swallow him from my sight.

  A portrait of me. I still couldn’t believe it. Me! From the legendary studio of Andrea del Verrocchio.

  Of course, I already knew which artist in that studio I hoped would paint it.

  14

  THE NEXT DAY I AWOKE WITH EXCITEMENT. I DRESSED MYSELF in one of my best, most colorful day dresses long before the sun arose. When our house echoed with the sound of someone pounding its heavy ring knocker, I ran down the steps, skirts hoisted to my knees, to answer it myself. But when I pulled open the heavy wooden door, a different messenger than I expected stood there—Abbess Scolastica’s son, a Franciscan monk.

  “She is sick and requests you.” Beneath the shaved crown of his head and its fringe of hair, Friar Don Ugolino’s round face lacked the composure expected of a monk. His expression told me that his mother’s illness was grave.

  Despite the heat, I donned the cloak required of women when they stepped out of their homes into the city. I followed him through the streets, still littered with bits of festive flags and haunted by stray dogs sniffing out scraps of holiday sweets.

  When we arrived at Le Murate and entered its familiar gate, I heard soft chants and weeping. I took in a sharp breath. Under Scolastica’s leadership, Le Murate’s numbers had grown from twenty women to more than one hundred fifty. Many of them were educated young women like my friend Juliet, enticed into becoming cloistered nuns by Scolastica’s promise of being able to study and grow as scholars as well as brides of Christ, unmolested by earthly concerns. But the mourning I was hearing went beyond the respect such a leader and mentor was due. Scolastica was loved like a real mother, not just a spiritual one. When I heard the depth of sorrow emanating from those walls, my heart sank. She must be dying.

  I was led to her cell by one of the older nuns, Sister Margaret, who had always berated me for my impatience and pride. She kept silent until we reached the door, where she grasped my sleeve. “Do not tax our Mother Superior too long. There are many who long to say their good-byes, who have cared for her daily and have remained faithful to our Lord Savior.”

  My face aflame with the rebuke, I entered Scolastica’s room.

  “Ahh, my dear.” She motioned weakly for me to come to her bedside. I knelt and took her hand. At first her eyes had the distant, watery look of the very ill, but then that intrepid spirit, that keen mind I so loved in her flickered. She looked at me carefully and reached out to touch the ribbon threaded through my sleeves, a dark-blue striping through peach-colored challis wool. Despite her Spartan surroundings, her years devoted to spiritual simplicity, the woman who had once been named Cilia and dazzled onlookers with her beautiful face and lavish dresses awoke. “What a vision you are, Ginevra, so full of life and color. That garment makes you look like our hoopoe bird in spring plumage. Such a compliment to the high color in your cheeks. You are glowing.” She smiled. “Perhaps my prayers for you have been answered? Tell me, my dear, are you with child?”

  “Oh no, Mother, I am not.” I felt my cheeks flush red again.

  She shifted on her stiff pillow to see me better. “Such a grand dress. Did you don that for me?”

  “I—I—no, Mother.” I shook my head. “I was already dressed when your friar son arrived to summon me here.”

  She nodded, pressing her lips together in thought, and fixed her gaze on mine. “Is there anyone outside the door, Ginevra?”

  Over my shoulder I could see an edge of Sister Margaret’s white habit beyond the doorframe. She hovered, waiting to swoop in and hurry me out. “Yes.”

  “Go close the door, child.”

  I looked at her in horror. I knew the wrath that would await me with Sister Margaret if I did so.

  “Go on, child, I know you are braver than that.” She smiled. “Do not forget that the Benci crest of lions decorates our gates. You have some sway here.” I swallowed hard to suppress sudden tears, wondering how I would get by without her guidance.

  I rose and shut the door in Sister Margaret’s face. God forgive me, I did feel satisfaction doing it.

  I settled back down beside my abbess.

  “Ginevra,” she said, “I wish to speak to you now as your spiritual adviser, of course. But also woman to woman, a mother to a much-beloved daughter. I see it in your face, child. The man you told me of, the allure of his admiration is much upon it. Am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “As you go forward, then, remember this: Most men are hunters and collectors. You must come to know the difference between those who do so out of true appreciation and affection, those who do it for sport, those who do it for prestige and to possess what others admire and desire, and those who do it desperate to use a woman as a shield. The fourth man is hiding something, Ginevra. The third man can be like a dog that teases others in its kennel with a bone it will never share. That kind of man might tear his object of affection to shreds, without meaning to, just as a dog would a bone. The second man can amuse you with the game of the hunt, if you do not take him too seriously. And the first? Well, if you can find the first kind of man, you have found heaven.”

  She shifted
herself and grimaced a bit. “But no matter what, do not lose the core of who you are. That inner poetry we talked of.” She flinched and sighed. Her voice dimmed to a whisper. “I wanted to ask a gift from you, child. And only you will be able to do it for me, without worrying about breaking a sacred rule of the convent.”

  I leaned closer to hear.

  “Go to my cabinet when you leave and find that embroidery you saw when last you visited. I have finished it. Find a way to put it in my casket with me. I wish to present it to the Lord on my day of reckoning. My thanks for his giving us this beautiful world. My own bit of poetry. Do you promise?”

  Now the tears came. I could not hold them back.

  “There, there, child. It is all right. I have lived a full life, with many different roles that have brought me fulfillment. Now go and do what I ask.” She smiled. “I promise the only danger you will face in completing this task is getting it past Sister Margaret!”

  I laughed. She laughed—a final little peal of earthly mirth. “Le Murate is always a home for you, Ginevra,” she whispered. “And remember the wisdom I just passed to you. I had to learn it for myself long ago, and it may save you some pain.”

  As I stepped out of Le Murate’s protective walls, Abbess Scolastica’s embroidery tucked carefully into my dress, I was surprised to feel the bright Tuscan sun. Florence should be dark and gloomy, in mourning with me.

  “Wife.”

  I startled at Luigi’s voice. “Husband! Why are you here?”

  “To walk you home,” he said matter-of-factly. “I heard the news of the abbess’s illness. I knew you would be sad.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking his arm. We walked several streets and were nearing Santa Croce when I thought to congratulate him on the festivities of St. John.

  He nodded his thanks. “I wish to discuss something else with you.”

  “Yes?” I guessed at the topic but had no idea what Luigi’s reactions to Bernardo’s proposal would be. I braced myself.

  “Ambassador Bembo and the Magnifico talked with me yesterday about His Excellency commissioning a portrait of you. Are you aware of this?”

  “Yes, husband,” I said carefully.

  “And what do you think of that?”

  I glanced at his face. Beyond recognizing the studied look of concentration he often had when bartering a labor deal with his workers, I could not read it. I chose the safest answer. “I should like to know your opinion, signor.”

  “I think it an excellent opportunity.”

  “Opportunity?”

  “For my shop and for the Niccolini family. To have one of us noticed by the Venetian ambassador and to become part of the Medici patronage of the arts, well, that certainly elevates us above other wool merchants. Times are difficult. Weavers in the Netherlands and England are beginning to compete with our work. Worse, silk is becoming the preferred fabric of the upper class. My brothers and I are not set up to make that shift. So to stand out as a wool merchant, it is not enough to be a priore anymore or influential in the guild. To be seen as part of the Medici inner circle will be critical to our survival. Do you understand, my dear?”

  “Yes, completely.”

  “Also, the ambassador has promised to introduce my fabrics to the doge and his wife, just as you suggested he might. That could open a lucrative client for me.”

  “So I have your permission to sit for the portrait?”

  “By all means!” Luigi stopped and stood still for a moment, to pat my hand and look into my face for the first time since we began walking from Le Murate. “I know you will do the Niccolini—and the Benci, of course—great honor, my dear. As Lorenzo the Magnificent and your uncle Bartolomeo explained the Platonic love ideal to me, you are the perfect subject. Someone who inspires others to virtue.” Then he started walking again, mumbling to himself, considering which dress to put me in, which jewels to pick from my dowry trousseau.

  I thought of Scolastica’s words and felt fairly certain which of her four categories of men she would put Luigi into. The question for me to determine, of course, was which type Bernardo was and how that might affect my virtue.

  15

  “LOOK OUT, SIGNORA!”

  Leonardo called out too late. Just as he released a pair of doves from their cage, Sancha and I stepped through the gate into the inner garden of Verrocchio’s studio.

  “Oh!” I cried, shielding my face. The birds flew straight for me on their way out to open sky. But when I felt the fan of air from their wings and heard the rhythmic swoosh of each flap, I dropped my hands to look up into their snowy plumage as they fluttered past me.

  “For God’s sake, man! How many times have I told you not to do that in here!” Verrocchio whacked Leonardo with his cap as he hurried toward me. “Are you all right, signora?”

  “Yes,” I replied as Sancha fussed with brushing off my skirts, muttering curses and looking for bird droppings. I laughed, a little breathless. “In truth, that was rather extraordinary. I have never looked up straight into a bird in flight that close up. It is a wonderment, isn’t it, that they are able to lift themselves off from the earth like that.”

  Leonardo strode toward me, his handsome face alight with questions. “What did you see?”

  “It was as if they swam in the air, pushing and sweeping it as a man can the water.”

  He pulled out a small notebook and scribbled.

  Verrocchio sighed with exasperated affection. “Leonardo thinks he can build some contraption that will allow man to fly. I have suggested he visit the Duomo’s stone relief of Icarus plummeting to earth, the sun having melted the wax on the wings he built for himself. Man’s vanity!” He swatted Leonardo once more. “God did not give us wings.”

  “But he did give us minds, Andrea, and the ability to imagine,” Leonardo said.

  “Bah.” Verrocchio waved him off and spoke to me. “Always, this one has other ideas in his head that pull him from the work at hand. He’s interrupted sketches of the Madonna and child that Giuliano de’ Medici awaits with fantastical drawings of . . . I struggle to know what to call the thing. An enormous turtle shells with wheels . . .”

  “That is an armored wagon to protect soldiers as they attack a castle!” Leonardo protested.

  “And who has commissioned you to do that?” Verrocchio laid his hand on Leonardo’s shoulder. “Yes, God gave us minds and imaginations and hopes and dreams. But he also gave us stomachs, Leonardo! I know you like to understand the causation of things. Well, think on this: to purchase food requires coin and coin comes from work and work comes from commissions. By all means, go with your flights of fancy, but do so after you have finished your paid work. It is not as if we work the dye vats. Our paid work is tremendously fulfilling. We create art, Leonardo, art!”

  Verrocchio turned to me. “And that brings me to you, my lady. We have been asked to paint you.” He put his hands to his hips and gazed at me intently. Leonardo did the same.

  Under their scrutiny I felt horribly shy. I looked toward the studio, hoping to see Simonetta inside so that she could be my guide to survive being gazed at so pointedly. She must have been so used to it by then. “Is Simonetta here? She told me that she would be sitting for you today.”

  “She was,” Verrocchio said. “The poor lady was coughing so badly, she had to go home.”

  “And why was that, maestro?” Now Leonardo had the upper hand. “Is that not because of the mess of dust and stone chips you make with your chiseling that cloud the entire studio? The poor woman could not breathe.”

  “Come, Leonardo, I do not think that such a racking cough could be caused by my sculpting.”

  Leonardo swatted Verrocchio this time, prompting dust to plume up in a cloud and Verrocchio to sneeze. “No? Why, look at you, maestro,” he teased. “You look more like a baker, you are so plastered with marble dust! By contrast”—he held out his arms and turned himself around so we could inspect him—“a painter sits before his work well dressed, as he applies delicat
e colors. No dust clogging his home. Plus, no crashing hammers!”

  Verrocchio laughed. “But sculpture better captures the contour of a thing, its motion, its proportion. Painting cannot reveal the flex of muscle, the expression of a human face, or the direction of his gaze as well as sculpture does.”

  “Certainly it can! With a little more study of the layers of muscle underneath our skin, I will be able to. Besides, sculpture cannot include nature’s variety of colors,” Leonardo countered. “A painter can suggest distance. He can paint mists on snow-capped mountains, and fishes playing among underwater plants and even pebbles on the sand of a river bottom.”

  “So which is the better art?” I asked, joining the banter.

  They both answered and contradicted in the same breath. “Painting!” “Sculpture!”

  “Perhaps we should put it to the test,” a deep voice spoke from the gate. It was Bernardo. Honestly, the man moved with the stealth required of stalking rabbits in a thicket. Almost all our encounters seemed to begin with his having listened and watched me without my knowing. I didn’t like it. But my heart still did a little flip at the sight of him.

  Bernardo joined the artists. “Let us use the lovely Ginevra de’ Benci as a way of seeing which type of maestro—sculptor or painter—can best capture her beauty.”

  Verrocchio was delighted. “A marvelous idea!”

  I knew Verrocchio was also tallying the florins that would come from two commissions over one. For me, the idea was flattering beyond compare. With all the attention lavished on Simonetta, never had she been sculpted as well as painted. I felt like preening. Still, I demurred. “But good my lord, that will be terribly expensive. I do not want you expending so much on me.”

  “Ah, La Bencina, your modesty becomes you.”

  “But I mean it, Your Excellency. Truly, I do not warrant such grandiose expense.” As delighted as my pride was with the suggestion of two portraits, it also me made me uncomfortable, beholden to Bernardo in a way I was uncertain that I wanted to be.