The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence

by Alyssa Palombo

  14

  Dinner passed in a mostly congenial manner, much like the first we had spent at the Medici palazzo. The only difference was the heightened tension due to the presence of Lucrezia Donati, though it was possible that I, seated next to Clarice, was one of the only ones who noticed it. If anyone else marked it, they most expertly pretended they had not. Even so, Clarice and I adhered to my plan and spent most of the meal in conversation with each other, ignoring the troublesome woman altogether. Still, I did not like the self-satisfied smirk that played about her lips; it seemed to be her habitual expression. I itched to slap it off of her face.

  Yet once the meal ended and everyone rose from the table, continuing to mill about the garden and the courtyard, I saw Lorenzo draw Lucrezia discreetly to one side. It was not obvious enough to draw untoward attention, yet they were far enough apart from the rest of the company that none of us could overhear their words—neither her husband nor his wife.

  Well, this would never do. I squared my shoulders and moved toward them. I would accomplish two objectives simultaneously.

  “Lorenzo,” I said sweetly. “And Signora … Ardenghelli, was it not?” I asked, pointedly using her married name. “I beg your pardon; I did not mean to interrupt your conversation.”

  The look Lucrezia tossed me told me that I had done just that, but Lorenzo’s answering smile was genuine. “Not at all, Simonetta,” he said familiarly. “I am so happy that you and your husband were able to attend.”

  “It was so kind of you to invite us,” I said. “Yet I fear I must impose on your kindness a bit further. I should like to take you up on your offer to make use of your library, if I may.”

  “Why, of course,” Lorenzo said. “You need not even ask.”

  “You are an exemplary host and friend,” I said. “Might I trouble one of your servants to show me the way?”

  “We are all servants in the face of such beauty as yours,” he said gallantly. “I shall escort you myself, if that is agreeable to you.”

  “You are too kind,” I said, taking the arm he offered.

  “Do excuse us, Signora Ardenghelli,” Lorenzo said, giving her a quick smile.

  God forgive me for my vanity, but I gave her a swift, triumphant look over my shoulder as I allowed Lorenzo to lead me from the garden. I could hardly stop Lorenzo from carrying on with his mistress, but at least I could stop him from so blatantly seeking her company in front of his wife and my friend.

  “Is there a particular book you are seeking?” Lorenzo asked as we made our way through the maze of hallways.

  “In a way,” I said. “I had the pleasure of conversing with Signor Botticelli at some length before dinner. He referred me to the writings of some of the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers.”

  “Ah,” Lorenzo said. “I am not surprised that Sandro spoke of them to you, nor that you are eager to seek out such works. Do you read Greek, Simonetta?”

  “I do not,” I said. “My education was a bit more limited. I am fluent only in my native tongue and in Latin, I’m afraid.”

  “Not to worry,” he said. “My own Greek is not what it ought to be, and so I rely upon translations—such as those done by my friend and teacher Poliziano—of the original Greek into Latin. We shall find you one such.”

  “Do you think such works might even be translated into Tuscan?” I asked.

  “It is my dream that it should be so,” Lorenzo said. “The more who have access to such wisdom, the better. We shall never cease to need the wisdom and teachings of the Church, of course, but it behooves us all to learn as much as we can in our lives, I think.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly.”

  By this time we had reached the library, and Lorenzo opened the door for me. “If you will permit me to make a recommendation, Madonna,” he said, following me and striding quickly toward one of the shelves, “I believe I know just the book for you to begin with.” He withdrew a volume from the shelf, and I flipped it open to the title page. “Plato,” I said aloud, examining the Latin title. “The Republic.”

  Lorenzo smiled. “You may read it at your leisure, Madonna Simonetta, and I look forward to discussing it with you.”

  I closed the book, my face alight with excitement. “I shall look forward to that as well.”

  * * *

  As Marco and I made our way home that evening, he himself brought up the topic I had been struggling to broach. “I saw you in conversation with that painter, Botticelli,” he said. “What did he want?”

  “He wished to speak to me about sitting for him, as we discussed at our wedding,” I said. “But it was not just that. He and I had a most interesting conversation, and he recommended some reading material to me.” I held up the book Lorenzo had lent me.

  “Hmph,” Marco said. “We did say you would sit for him, did we not?”

  “We did,” I said. “It would not do to go back on our word now.” I turned my most winning smile on to him. “And I would so enjoy it, Marco. To sit for such an artist. It would be most thrilling, caro.”

  He sighed, not unhappily. “I think I can deny you nothing when you smile at me like that, Simonetta. Very well. I shall arrange it. I trust Lorenzo knows where the man can be found.”

  I leaned back in my seat. “No doubt he does,” I agreed, my calm words belying the thrumming of my heart. I had never had my portrait painted before, and I had the irresistible suspicion that Signor Botticelli would paint me in such a way as I had never before seen myself. I would see myself as he saw me, and I could not say why such a thought excited me so.

  15

  Marco was true to his word, and arranged everything within the next few days. Lorenzo passed along his enthusiasm for the commission, and sent us directions to Signor Botticelli’s fledgling studio. We then wrote directly to the painter, inquiring as to when would be most convenient for me to come and sit for him.

  His response was almost instantaneous; he sent our messenger back with a reply that I could come to his workshop on Monday, in just five days.

  “He is extremely eager to have you sit for him,” Marco said, frowning at the hastily scrawled reply. “’Tis almost unseemly.”

  I smiled at my husband. “He just has exquisite taste in models, it seems,” I teased.

  Marco smiled. “He does at that,” he relented. “And I can hardly blame him.”

  * * *

  As it happened, Botticelli’s house—with his living space above his studio—was not far from my new home at the Vespucci palazzo; so close was it, in fact, that I told Marco he was being silly for insisting I take the carriage. He agreed reluctantly, only insisting that I take Chiara to accompany me.

  A part of me had been a bit surprised that he had not wanted to accompany me himself, even supervise the painter’s work. But despite his earlier surliness regarding Botticelli, he had not felt it necessary.

  “You are a married woman now, Simonetta,” he said. “You do not need a chaperone to move about the city. I am not some jealous husband who does not trust his wife.”

  I was glad to hear him say so and, in truth, some of the realities—and freedoms—of my new status had been slow to make themselves real to me. Yet I had been surprised all the same, knowing all too well that strangely tense undertone in his voice whenever Signor Botticelli was mentioned. It seemed that my husband could sense whatever accord it was that had grown between the painter and myself, yet since there had been no untoward nor improper actions on anyone’s part, there was little he could do or say on the matter. But it eased my mind that Marco trusted me so.

  The painter’s studio was on the ground floor of a somewhat ramshackle building, with a weaver’s shop on one side and a silversmith’s on the other. I bade Chiara run along to the market and do some shopping for the household—no point in having her waiting about for me all day—and then went in without knocking, as I knew Signor Botticelli was expecting me.

  I found the inside to be rather chaotic. Splotches of paint covered many of the surfac
es of the front room into which I stepped, and brushes and pieces of canvas were strewn about everywhere. Empty easels stood here and there about the floor, looking like skeletons awaiting a new graft of skin to give them life.

  I heard male voices coming from a room toward the back, out of sight. “Please, maestro,” one said, sounding like a young boy. “It was a mistake. I did not know.”

  “You would have known, had you paused long enough to listen to my instructions,” another voice replied sternly, one that I recognized as Botticelli’s.

  “It is a mistake only, maestro. I will try again.”

  Botticelli sighed. “No. I will do it myself. You will go out into the streets and find Luca, the lazy loafer. And when you do find him, tell him that the next time he does not appear here when he is meant to, I shall find myself another apprentice.”

  “Si, signore.” With that, the boy emerged from the back room—he was perhaps twelve or thirteen. He bolted for the door, nearly knocking into me in his haste. “Mi scusi, signora,” he said, pushing past me with barely a glance.

  Having heard the boy’s words, Signor Botticelli appeared as well. “Madonna Simonetta,” he said, stopping short at the sight of me. “I—You are early.”

  “Am I?” I asked, feeling disappointment leach into my stomach. I had to admit—if only to myself—that I had expected him to be more excited upon my arrival. “Perhaps. My apologies.”

  “No, no,” he said hurriedly, stepping farther into the room and collecting a handful of paintbrushes. “You mistake my meaning; I am delighted to see you, at any hour of the day or night.” He smiled ruefully. “It is just that I had hoped to clean up some of this mess before you arrived.”

  “I think it is lovely,” I said. I blushed as he turned his questioning gaze on me. “That is … this space. Your space. It is so full of life.”

  He smiled again, that same wide, relaxed grin that made his face so beautiful to behold. “I thank you for saying so.” His smile faded as he sighed and ran his fingers through his tousled blond hair. “As you no doubt heard, one of my apprentices has been most derelict in his duties, and I have only the other boy at the moment. I set him to mixing some of the paint I mean to use today, but he is not used to the task, and so I will have to remedy the error myself. If you do not mind waiting, that is. If you wish to return another day, I—”

  “Not at all,” I interrupted. “But I confess I thought you might begin by sketching me, and not by beginning the painting so soon? But then I am most ignorant of the artistic process.”

  He glanced at me, amused, still moving about the room, collecting stray items and returning them to their proper places—or at least somewhere out of the way. “I shall begin by sketching you, yes, but I confess that I already have an idea of how to pose you, and how to begin, and what I think the portrait shall look like. So it may be a very brief sketch, indeed.”

  “Whatever you think best,” I said.

  “It has been difficult, establishing my own studio, and then finding promising apprentices,” he went on. “Without the patronage of Lorenzo and his family, I should have a much harder time of it still.” He shook his head. “My apologies, Madonna. You no doubt do not care about such things as the difficulties of a humble artist.”

  “Why should I not?” I asked. “We are friends, or so you told me when last we met.”

  He stopped and faced me, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “I did say that,” he said. “I have hoped ever since that you did not find me too forward.”

  “Not at all,” I said, even though I knew I should say that he had been. More than that, I should feel that he had been too forward as well, but I did not, and so I could not bring myself to say it. For every part of me wanted to be friends with this strange, intense man so set on painting me.

  “Then,” he said, drawing up a plain wooden chair to the center of the room, “as one friend to another, I must thank you for agreeing to sit for me.”

  “And I must thank you for wishing me to sit for you,” I said. “I have been looking forward to it so.” I flushed slightly as I thought of the ways in which he might construe my words. “I say so not out of vanity, I assure you. Only that I might contribute to art in some small way, if you deem me worthy.”

  He chuckled. “I think you more than know my feelings on that subject.” He gestured to the chair. “Please, do sit, Madonna Simonetta. Make yourself comfortable.”

  I did as he said, perching myself on the edge of the roughly hewn chair.

  He raised an eyebrow as he drew up a chair of his own, facing me. “Is that ‘comfortable,’ Madonna?”

  I laughed, feeling my body relax. “I suppose not, no. But my mother would say, ‘A lady always sits with perfect and straight posture.’”

  “Far be it from me to contradict so noble a lady as your mother,” he said, a leather-bound notebook and a bit of charcoal in his hand as he sat. “But you shall be sitting here for some time, and so it is best to sit comfortably. Let your back rest against the chair.”

  I did as he said, albeit hesitatingly. “Will it not … be the wrong pose for a portrait?” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. “Forgive me. I should not ask you such questions, not when I know nothing of what I speak.”

  “Never apologize for asking questions, Madonna, and certainly not to me,” he said. “You may ask me whatever you wish within these walls, and I shall always answer honestly. I will begin by addressing this very question: for your portrait, I wish to capture you in a natural way, such as you might look while relaxed, or in the company of a friend.” A hint of a smile came to his lips again. “Such as you are at this moment.”

  I smiled, feeling more than my body relax now: my mind, it seemed, was letting go of some of its tension as well. “Thank you, signore. I see your aim, and I applaud it.”

  “Now,” he said, his sketchbook propped up on one knee. “Let us begin.”

  It was a strange experience at first, being sketched. Signor Botticelli—or, more rightly, Maestro Botticelli, as he was the master of his own studio—stared at me with those penetrating eyes of his, letting them roam over my face, the curve of my jaw, the line of my neck, the tumbling tendrils of my hair, which I had asked Chiara to leave mostly loose. Then his gaze would flick down to the paper before him, his hand moving rapidly before glancing back up to take me in anew. In the beginning it was all I could do not to fidget under his scrutiny, and for a moment I dropped my eyes to the floor.

  “No, Madonna.” I started slightly at his voice, gentle though it was. “No. You must keep your chin up, your eyes up. Look right back at me. Si,” he said enthusiastically as I met his gaze again. He paused, gazing at me, then continued, more gruffly, quieter. “Si. Just like that, per favore.”

  Soon, once the initial awkwardness had passed, I felt myself reveling in his gaze, enjoying it. But I could not quite say why. Surely there was no shortage of men who wished to—and did—look at me. Yet there was something very different about this. Botticelli did not wish to possess me, as men who looked upon me with desire might. His study of me went deeper than that, deeper than flesh and skin and beauty and even desire; his gaze went right to my soul, as if only in rendering me on the page—and later the canvas—in perfect accuracy could he come to understand what was within. And, perhaps, reveal it to me.

  This was, I realized, the very same way he had studied me across the Medici dinner table the night I had first met him. He had been sketching me in his mind.

  And I, boldly staring back at him, was given ample opportunity to study him in turn. He really was quite handsome, I realized, yet in a different way from Marco’s dark yet buoyant charm, or Giuliano de’ Medici’s gilded, godlike perfection. His features were strong, chiseled, as though they’d been cut from marble; his blond hair tumbled in unruly waves about his face, threatening to curl at the ends. Several times as he drew, he would lift his other hand to push his hair off of his face, only to have it fall back again. And his eyes, his eye
s that saw and sought to reproduce so much truth and beauty, were of a lovely light color. Green, perhaps? Or hazel? They seemed to change with the light, with his emotions, with his thoughts.

  So hypnotized was I by this strange give-and-take, the studying and being studied, that I jumped slightly when he spoke again. “I am going to reposition you slightly, if I may, Madonna. I have completed my sketch of you straight on, and now I would sketch you in profile, which is how I am thinking of painting you.”

  “Of course,” I said, trying not to let him see how flustered I was.

  He moved toward me and I rose, allowing him to shift the position of the chair. “Sit once more,” he said. I obeyed, and he hesitated for a moment. “If I may … touch you?” he asked. I nodded quickly, and he placed one hand softly on my chin, bringing it up and forward just slightly. “Si,” he murmured. “Just there. Hold that pose, Madonna, if you please.”

  He retreated to his chair, seized a fresh bit of paper, and resumed sketching. I could still feel the warmth of his fingers where he had touched me. It was awhile before the sensation faded.

  The light coming in through the windows of the studio shifted and changed a bit as Botticelli sketched. He seemed to be endowing this sketch with much more detail than he had the first. I wanted to ask him about it, ask him why that was, as he had encouraged me to ask him anything and everything, but did not want to break the spell that had fallen over the room.

  Finally, he stopped and leaned back in his chair. “I realize now that I quite forgot to remix those paints my assistant botched,” he said, his voice sounding oddly loud after so long a period of silence. “But no matter. I have kept you long enough for one day. When next you return, I shall paint. I may be able to start in the meantime.”

  “Indeed?” I said, struggling to pull myself back into the world—the world of conversation and practical considerations. “And when should I return?”

  He met my eyes. “The day after tomorrow, if you can,” he said. “And if you would wear that same dress, that would be most helpful.”