The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence

by Alyssa Palombo

  He chuckled. “I shouldn’t think so, no.”

  “Anyway, that is quite as far as I have gotten with Signor Plato at the moment, I am afraid. I am trying to read slowly so that I may give each point my full consideration.” I smiled. “I cannot tear through it quite as quickly as I do my favorite poetry.”

  “Ah, but is not poetry as worthy of our consideration as philosophy?” Botticelli asked, as we turned to walk along the Arno.

  “I confess I have never thought about it as deeply as I am thinking about Plato’s words,” I said. “It is beautiful, of course, but I read it mostly as a diversion.”

  “And would you not say that Dante was trying to teach us something with his Divina Commedia?”

  I smiled ruefully. “I know that he was, yet in truth it is his love for Beatrice that most captivates me.”

  The painter laughed. “You are a true romantic, Madonna Simonetta.”

  “So I have discovered. I must strive to become more pragmatic, it seems.”

  “No,” he said, his voice suddenly taking on a sharper tone. “Never seek to eliminate that romanticism, Simonetta. There are not enough such dreamers in this world.” He stopped, and I noticed, to my surprise, a blush colored his cheeks. “Forgive me. I should not address you by your Christian name alone.”

  “Not in company, no,” I said, “for that would cause gossip. But when it is just us, you may call me Simonetta.”

  “I could not presume so far.”

  “I insist,” I said firmly.

  Even as I spoke, I wondered at what I was doing. Were anyone to overhear the painter addressing me so familiarly, it would cause a scandal. God forbid Marco should ever hear such. Yet I could not remember the last time I had been so comfortable in anyone else’s company, and I did not want any formality standing between me and this man or our conversation. Or rather, I wanted there to be as little as was possible. And so I could not bring myself to care.

  He smiled, and it was like the sun rising after a night of storms. “Very well. Then you must call me Sandro.”

  I returned the smile, though my own must have paled in comparison.

  We paused along the riverbank, having just passed the Ponte Vecchio and its collection of shops and storefronts, selling mostly costly gold items. Beyond it, on the other side of the river, green hills rose up above the city, above the buildings of Oltrarno, keeping watch over their domain.

  It occurred to me at that moment that if I was a painter, if I had even the slightest notion of how to mix these colors, this would be the scene I would paint: the muddy brown of the Arno and the reddish tile of the roofs and the emerald of the hills and the fathomless blue of the sky, blue as the Virgin’s robe.

  After a few moments, Maestro Botticelli turned away from the river. “I suppose it is time to return to the workshop,” he said. “I must paint some more before the light changes too much.”

  “Very well,” I said. “Lead on, Sandro.” And as his name trespassed my lips, I felt that more than merely the light was about to change.

  17

  The next few weeks fell into a comfortable pattern. I came to Sandro’s workshop as often as he needed me, and took up my place in the chair by the window so that he could continue work on my portrait. No matter how I pleaded, he would not let me have a peek at it before it was done. “You must wait until it is finished, Simonetta,” he said to me one evening as we finished our session. “I would not be able to bear you judging the work when it is yet unfinished.”

  “I am not used to a man refusing me anything,” I said, only half joking.

  He made an odd motion then, as if to reach out and cup my face in his palms, but he checked himself. “It shall be a good experience for you, then,” he teased, his tone light, matching mine.

  Marco, for his part, made no further comments about my visits to Sandro’s workshop, except to inquire how the portrait was coming along.

  “Maestro Botticelli seems happy enough with its progress,” I said. “I have not seen it.”

  “You have not?” he asked incredulously.

  “No,” I said. “But I have every confidence that it will be beautiful.”

  Marco’s face softened slightly then. “And how could a painting of you be anything but?” he asked tenderly.

  I smiled, though the gesture felt somewhat forced. It was at moments like this that I felt most guilty for how much I had come to look forward to the time I spent with Sandro, for how I enjoyed the feel of his eyes on me, for the free and easy conversations that we shared when we would rise and take a break from the work. I would return home to my husband and feel ashamed each time that I had not thought of him once while posing for the portrait that day.

  Oh, what nonsense I worry myself over, I told myself sternly. When I spend a day with Clarice, I do not pine for and think constantly of my husband, do I? And yet I feel no guilt for that. But this felt somehow different, in a way that I could not quite articulate.

  Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I leaned forward and rewarded Marco with a kiss for his sweet words, hoping all the time that he could not taste the guilt on my lips.

  * * *

  Once, as the portrait neared completion, Sandro painted on into the evening, lighting a plethora of candles about us so that he might keep working. I did not mind; I remained perfectly still and watched the deepening twilight cast shadows across the part of his face that was visible around the canvas.

  He had barely spoken to me that day; simply positioned me upon his arrival and gotten to work, with only the briefest of pleasantries. Though usually I did not mind the silence in the least, I missed our usual conversation between sittings. So, though I had never done so while he was working before, I spoke. “You have been very quiet today, Sandro,” I said, my voice low, though his apprentices had left for the evening. His eyes flicked to me. “I take it the muse is speaking to you most eloquently?”

  His eyes never left my face. “You are the muse, Simonetta,” he said, his voice raspy. “There is no other.”

  * * *

  Summer had long since faded into fall as Sandro worked on my portrait, and one day in early October I arrived at his workshop to find him in a flurry of excitement such as I had never seen before. “It is done,” he said when I entered, in lieu of a greeting.

  “It is?” I asked, somewhat surprised. “Why, you do not need me today at all, then.”

  He took my hand and kissed it. “I always need you here, Simonetta,” he said, his voice low. But then he released my hand and led me to a room in the back of the workshop. “I finished it yesterday; I could not stop working. And so it is good that you are here now, for you must be the first to see it.”

  He gestured toward the easel where it was situated, and I gasped.

  It was like looking into a mirror. He had captured me, absolutely: the fabric and design of the pale gown I wore when I sat for him; the line of my long neck; the pale shade of my skin; the exact shape of my nose, my lips, my chin; the exact texture of my wavy hair, though in the portrait he had painted it into an elaborate, Grecian style. The look in my eyes was a serious one, almost studious, and I realized that this was how I had looked all along, staring back at him, studying him even as he studied me.

  I was partially in profile, as he had positioned me in the chair each day, and the background was plain and dark, causing the colors of the painting to shine in sharp relief.

  I must have stared at it for so long that he grew nervous. I heard him clear his throat behind me, then shuffle his feet a bit, before he finally spoke. “And so?” he asked. “What do you think?”

  I turned to him, and the look on my face must have answered his question, for a relieved smile spread across his face. “It is beautiful,” I said. “It is me—exactly. I do not think a better likeness could have been captured!” I turned to look at it—at myself—again. “I was here the entire time you painted it,” I said softly. “I watched you do it, and yet I cannot fathom how such a thing is possible.�
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  He moved closer to me, so that I could feel the whisper of his shirt against my back. “I am so glad you like it,” he said. “I do not know how I would have borne it if you did not.”

  I turned to look at him, and the expression on his face was earnest. “It is beautiful, perfect,” I said, glancing at his mouth. My breath caught, and I shifted, looking away. “Perhaps I sound immodest, praising a painting of myself so, but it is only your skill I mean to compliment.”

  “But you and your beauty have everything to do with it,” he said. “I have never painted better, I do not think, for I have never had such a model.”

  I began to protest, but he cut me off with a shake of his head. “I mean it, Simonetta.” He moved ever so slightly closer to me and placed his hands lightly on my shoulders. “You have inspired me as no one else has. Ever.”

  I felt myself swaying slightly where I stood. The urge to let myself fall against him, to feel him take me in his arms, was, suddenly, almost overwhelming.

  And he would, I knew. He would crush me to him so that there was no space left between us, no room to breathe, to speak nor protest nor question. Yet I sensed that he would not come toward me any further. If someone was to take the step that would push us over the edge, it would have to be me.

  And I could not do it. I was afraid, afraid of the things I was feeling. I am a married woman, and I love my husband. What wickedness now overtakes me? I wondered.

  I stepped back quickly. It took a moment for me to collect myself, and a part of me cursed him for remaining silent, for not saying something that would take us back from this strange, frightening brink and back into the world in which we both belonged. “I thank you for showing it to me,” I managed at last. “I … it is everything I dreamed it would be, and more.”

  He nodded, his eyes dropping from mine. “Of course,” he replied. “As I said, it is only right that you should be the first to lay eyes on it.” He cleared his throat. “Will Marco—Signor Vespucci, that is—like it as well, do you suppose?”

  I took another step back, as though Marco’s name in the space between us was a reprimand of some sort. “I am certain he will,” I said.

  “I am glad,” Sandro said. “I was thinking of perhaps unveiling it at the Medici palazzo—I know Lorenzo is most eager to see it, and I am sure I can convince him to give a dinner in honor of my new work, and of its subject.”

  “That would be lovely,” I said. “It is a nice thought.”

  He nodded. “Very good. I shall arrange it with Lorenzo and Clarice.”

  “And I shall await my invitation.”

  We both stood there in silence for a moment.

  “I suppose I had best return home, then,” I said finally. “It would seem that our work here is complete.”

  My own words brought the truth home to me: the painting was complete, and I would not be returning to Sandro’s workshop again. There would be no more delighting in the feel of his eyes upon me, of surreptitiously studying him behind his canvas, no more intellectual debate or invigorating walks by the Arno. I would still see him at the Medici palazzo, of course, and no doubt quite often; yet it would always be in the company of others, not in this world of ours that we had carved out for just the two of us. It would be back to Madonna Simonetta, and Maestro Botticelli.

  The days seemed to stretch out before me in an unending, meaningless march, and I did not know how I could bear it.

  For shame, I reprimanded myself. You shall use your extra time to better devote yourself to your husband, of course.

  Yet as though Sandro had heard my thoughts and sought to reassure me, he took my hand and kissed it, his eyes never leaving mine. “For now,” he said. “Our work is complete for now.”

  * * *

  I was both excited and saddened when I returned home that day. “The painting is done,” I informed Marco when he arrived home and came into the sitting room, where I was reading.

  His expression lit up. “Is it? And? How does it look?”

  I smiled slowly, remembering, wishing I had it here to show him. “It is wonderful. A very flattering likeness. San—Maestro Botticelli has skill beyond anything I had dreamed.”

  Marco’s lips twitched slightly at my slip, but thankfully he did not comment upon it. “That sounds wonderful, indeed,” he said. “And when might I expect it to be delivered to us?”

  I told him about Sandro’s plans for the painting to be revealed at the Medici palazzo. “If I know Lorenzo, it may become a very grand affair indeed,” I said.

  “And why should it not be, to celebrate a painting of so beautiful a model as yourself?” Marco said. “And to celebrate the painter as well, for being so fortunate as to have you sit for him.”

  I had to bite back a retort at that. It is nothing to do with me, I wanted to say. If only you could see Sandro’s skill, his talent, his gift. He could make any model look beautiful simply for being alive.

  “You flatter me, husband,” I said instead, lightly. “Now, shall we dine? I have had the cook prepare your favorite beef.”

  “Indeed?” he asked as he followed me into the dining room. “Is it a special occasion, that we should have beef for supper?”

  “It is always a special occasion when I dine with my beloved husband,” I said, smiling. “So I bade Chiara find the choicest cut she could at the market. Here, sit,” I said, “and I shall serve you.”

  Marco did as I bade, and I cut him a fine piece of beef and poured his wine myself. I banished the pernicious thought that the looks of happiness and approval my husband gave me were not enough.

  * * *

  That night, when Marco took me in his arms in our bed, I went to him willingly, enjoying the feel of him moving within me. Yet true pleasure eluded me, and Marco—attentive lover though he was—did not seem to notice.

  18

  Within the week, a messenger came to our house with an invitation for a dinner at the Medici palazzo, to “celebrate the newest work by Maestro Sandro Botticelli, and his beautiful subject, Signora Simonetta Vespucci,” so the wording went. It would take place in a week’s time.

  “Your painter wastes no time,” Marco commented to me, handing me the letter to read over dinner.

  “He is hardly my painter,” I said quickly. “He is just eager to show off such an exceptional work, as he should be. I am proud of it as well, for my own small contribution.”

  After that our talk turned to other matters, though Marco sent a reply the very next morning stating that we would, of course, attend.

  Time, which had flown by at an exceptional pace when I was sitting for the painting, slowed to the pace of the oldest, most broken-down horse in the week before the unveiling festa. I finished reading The Republic, though since my first urge was to discuss it with Sandro, it hardly served as a distraction. For that, too, I would have to wait until the party. I tried to implore Marco to read it yet again, and again he told me that he was too busy. “Perhaps in a few months, if business should slow down,” he told me.

  So I went back to my copy of Dante, and the book of Petrarch that Lorenzo had given me, and tried to read the poetry with the same critical mind with which I had read Plato. Truly the purpose of the language, especially in Dante’s Divina Commedia, I found, was threefold: to tell a story; to create a beautiful, pleasing phrase; and to enfold within it another, more subtle meaning. Of course this, too, I wished to discuss with Sandro, and so my plans for distraction were once again foiled.

  Fortunately, one day that week Clarice invited me to take a midday meal with herself and her mother-in-law, so I passed a happy afternoon with the Medici women, discussing plans for the upcoming party, as well as matters of fashion.

  “I do not know if you noticed, Simonetta,” Clarice said, her eyes bright with mischief, “but half the women at Mass last week were wearing gowns just like the one you wore to dinner here last.”

  My eyes opened wide, shocked. “I did not notice,” I said. “Surely you are mistaken. Why would
anyone have copied my gown?”

  Clarice and Lucrezia exchanged knowing looks, united, for once, in their teasing of me. “Why, can it be that you do not know, my dear?” Lucrezia asked. “You are the reigning beauty of Florence. You are the one who decides the trends, the fashions.”

  “Surely not,” I protested. “Why, what silliness! I have not even met many people in Florence, save your friends and acquaintances, and Marco’s—”

  “Simonetta, those are all the people that matter,” Lucrezia interjected. “And just because you have not met the rest of Florentine society does not mean they do not know who you are.”

  “Why, surely you notice how everyone—men and women—stares at you in the street,” Clarice said.

  I blushed. “I had not noticed. Not to sound vain, but … it has ever been so. I am stared at wherever I go, and always have been. So I do not even take note anymore.”

  Lucrezia sighed. “Ah, to be young, and so beautiful.”

  “I shall never know what that is like,” Clarice said, laughing.

  “Nor I,” said Lucrezia. “But come, we are embarrassing poor Simonetta. See how red her face grows?”

  Thankfully, Clarice changed the subject, asking her mother-in-law what she had thought of the sermon from Sunday. I chimed in as needed, though I confess that most of my mind was devoted to considering this new information I had learned.

  Before leaving, I asked Clarice if I might borrow a new book from the library. “Not more of my husband’s pagan philosophers, I hope?” she asked, lips pursed. “He had best hope Holy Mother Church does not take an interest in the contents of that library any time soon.”

  I smiled tightly but did not respond, nor did I show her the title I eventually selected: a book of stories of the old Greek gods. Pagan, indeed.

  I passed the rest of the week happily enough between my poetry and the new book, which contained some stories with which I was familiar, and others with which I was not. At the rate at which I was reading, I would need to begin paying much more regular visits to the Medici library.