I continued to scan the courtyard while remaining in our dark corner, for fear of drawing the attention of someone I should have known, but didn’t.
“Who’s that?” I asked of a handsome young man, intently sketching with his left hand in a corner beyond Sandro’s past masters. He sat on a planter by himself, seemingly unaccustomed to this sort of gathering.
“That is a pupil of Verrocchio. His name is Leonardo. He is an odd little fellow, but a talented painter with brilliant ideas. He painted an angel that so surpassed his master’s in every way that Verrocchio has since vowed never to paint again!”
“Leonardo da Vinci?” I asked, astounded.
“The same. But do not mention Vinci to him. He is not proud of his upbringing.”
“No. I won’t,” I agreed.
Leonardo da Vinci.
If anyone in this era would be open-minded enough to believe my story, it would be him. Perhaps the most inventive, creative, ingenious man who ever lived could provide the answers I couldn’t find on my own. I knew I needed to get to Leonardo.
“I should like to meet him,” I muttered to Sandro, and he nodded quizzically. As I made a beeline towards the legend of invention with Sandro trailing behind, Antonella and the retinue remained as wallflowers, lined up with the retinues of the other guests. Before we reached Leonardo, we were spotted by Lorenzo, who immediately headed towards us, his innate ill-tempered face softened by his large smile.
“Buonasera Sandro,” greeted Lorenzo jovially, then he looked to me and bowed. “And the lovely Simonetta. Where is Marco this fine evening?” he asked politely, as he gestured to a servant so they might hand us each a goblet of wine.
“I have no idea,” I confessed with a laugh.
After a brief pause, Lorenzo also burst out into laughter, followed by Sandro, and Poliziano, who was just walking up to join us.
“Marco can be a bit of a pest. You are best off without him!” Poliziano interjected. “Did you see San Lorenzo on the way over?”
“Yes, it turned out nicely,” Sandro answered. “Just needs a façade.”
Unfortunately, it would never get one.
“Did you know that I was named after the Saint and the church, Simonetta?” Lorenzo asked.
“No,” I answered truthfully, “I always thought it was the other way around.”
Another round of laughter rolled through the group.
Who knew the truth could be so hilarious?
“It is not a wonder why everyone adores you my lady,” Lorenzo said with a bow. “Both men and women love you without envy.” He had an unexpected air of modesty.
“Poliziano, I hear you’re to write a poem about a joust?” I asked, trying to make polite conversation.
“A joust?” Poliziano laughed. “I am to commemorate the love between Giuliano and yourself, and the joust he will surely win in your honor!”
Love? For Giuliano?
As I tried to decipher the situation, Poliziano began to recite: “I will not show any pity to Giuliano until he carries off a new triumph for us: for I have shot an arrow into his heart from the eyes of The Fair Simonetta.”
“But, what about Marco?” I decided to ask, since a reasoned dose of honesty had been working for me so far.
I received nothing but another round of laughter in return. I wasn’t sure how else to react but to laugh along with them. Once I caught my breath, and while I was still ahead of the game, I downed the wine and excused myself to hunt down Leonardo, who I found still alone in the distant corner. Sandro joined me, and as we approached Leonardo, I noticed that his soft, young, beautiful face was just about the same age as my current one. His sculpted jaw and cheekbones were framed by ebony hair and just the shadow of facial stubble.
“Salve, Leonardo,” Sandro greeted. “May I present Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci.”
“Buonasera, Signora Vespucci.” He stood from the planter and bowed, but quickly returned to a sitting position with his sketch paper and coal.
“Pleased to meet you,” I replied. “May I ask what you’re drawing?”
“I have designated the appellation of ornitottero to the indicated conception, representing ornithos, a Greek word for avian creature, conjoined with pteron, or ‘wing.’”
“Oh…okay,” I replied as I scratched my head. I could barely understand what he was saying. “How does it work?”
“The navigator must lie in a procumbent position on the indicated pine wood plank. He would henceforth circumvolve the crank with all four of his extremities provoking the pteron to oscillate in an ascending and descending manner.”
“Yeah, I draw stuff like that all the time,” I chuckled.
I noticed there were Italian words—or parts of them—written backwards on the left side of his sketch. I was about to ask him about the odd text, but he spoke first.
“Why is your speech divergent from that of other Florentines?” Leonardo queried. I was surprised he was the first to notice.
“I’m from another place,” I replied.
And time.
“Simonetta is from Genoa, Leonardo,” Sandro answered.
“A land of a different tongue! I wish I had one hundred tongues!” Leonardo enthused.
“You wish for many tongues, Leonardo, and yet you already have more than half of what you need. Instead, you should wish for a brain. That is what you are missing!” Sandro said, with obvious sarcasm.
“Ahh, but I have amassed an exceeding amount of knowledge on how to paint a landscape in comparison to you, my friend!”
“I have little interest in landscapes,” Sandro retorted. “Such studies are in vain, since merely by throwing a sponge soaked in different colors at a wall, a spot is formed in which a beautiful landscape may be discerned.”
The two then laughed together, clearly good friends.
One of the Pollaiolo brothers, I’m not sure which, began talking with Sandro about ultramarine, tempura, and light and shadow effects. While Sandro was distracted, I decided to pick Leonardo’s ample brain. With little time for pleasantries before someone else would inevitably interrupt, I decided to delve right in.
“Leonardo, I must speak with you privately because I feel you might be the only one who would understand my particular…situation.”
“Oh?” he asked quizzically.
“I speak differently because I’m from another place, but I’m also from another time,” I anxiously blurted. “I was born in the twenty-first century in a place called America…I learned the Tuscan language from Sandro’s father, Mariano, after he’d been dead for over six-hundred years…When I also died… in my future life… I was placed in the Chisea di Ognissanti, but then I woke up today in Simonetta’s body.” Out of breath, I smiled demurely, and waited for his sage reply.
He pondered my words for a few moments before drolly saying, “You have evidently spent a superfluous duration with Sandro.”
“What? No! I’m not joking. I came to you because you’re the most open-minded man the world has ever seen!”
Before hallucinogens came along anyway.
“How do you cognize my aforementioned un-shut mind?”
“It is a well-known fact where I come from. Every person on the planet has heard your name and knows of your accomplishments.”
“Really?” His face suddenly brightened. Flattery seemed to have gotten me somewhere. “And you have not overindulged in some form of intoxicating liquid?”
“No, I only had one glass of wine. Look, I’m not drunk. I’m telling you the truth. I really need your help.”
He paused for another painfully long moment. “You would request for me to formulate a time contraption to dispatch you back where you belong?” He said with a grand smile, evidently excited at the prospect.
“No! God no!”
Yeah, please send me back to a place where I’m dead and alone with the spirit of a cantankerous old man.
I really hadn’t fully considered what Leonardo could do for me, other than believe
me. My reaction made me realize, rather than going back to my future with Mariano, I really wanted to find a way to stay in the Renaissance with his son.
Chapter 12
I loved Mariano, but I had to love him. He was all I had, and therefore, was like a father to me. And just as we can’t choose our biological fathers, I did not choose Mariano. I felt a strong resistance to returning to the future version of him, even if he was the one responsible for bringing me to my Renaissance paradise. I never thought I would feel that way, but realized his curmudgeon negativity had gotten to me. And what was there left to talk about after eleven years? Granted, those eleven years were a drop in the bucket compared to the eternity we were destined to spend together in the Ognissanti, but it wasn’t as if we could talk about current events in our lives. I realized after a while that a person has only so many stories to tell, especially when you’re not creating new ones.
There had been the occasional anecdote about visitors to the Ognissanti that we could reminisce on—like the woman who wept maniacally at the sight of Sandro’s tomb before stripping her clothes off and crawling on top of it to show her particular brand of reverence, almost knocking my urn over in the process. Mariano was often horrified at the way tourists behaved in a place of worship. Even though Mariano and I had yet to see God, he still very much believed—always searching for that ray of light that never came to claim him.
Since I’d awakened in the fifteenth century, I immediately felt at home with Renaissance inconveniences. It all seemed so natural to me. When Mariano spoke of his life, he often focused on the downside of the quattracento: the various foul odors, the crime, the hangings, but mostly the lasciviousness of the noble families—which, in his opinion, was also a crime. Not that he had much direct interaction with nobility. What interaction he did have was for the sake of his sons, and usually involved something to be gained for their benefit. Though Mariano always had a certain fondness for the noble Rucellai family, from whom he rented his house—until they took his son, that is.
Mariano couldn’t keep up with the rent. When he was more than a year behind, Paolo Rucellai demanded that one of Mariano’s sons go to Naples to work for him as a cloth merchant to pay off the rent. Mariano couldn’t give him Sandro, who would’ve been useless in such a capacity. His eldest, Giovanni, was already married and working as a pawnbroker. Antonio was a successful jeweler and goldsmith and a significant contributor to the household. That forced Mariano to send his favorite son, Simone, to Naples at the tender age of fourteen.
Simone was a very pious young man, just like Mariano. He returned home from his duty in Naples just in time for the arrival of Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican monk who condemned Lorenzo de’ Medici for his love of art and humanism. Simone became one of Savonarola’s most trusted followers, called the Piagnoni, or “snivelers.” They were called this because they were seen as continuously weeping over their sins.
What the Piagnoni didn’t know was that Savonarola’s religious fervor was borne out of rejection he suffered at the hands of a young girl to whom he had professed his undying love. His hideous face combined with his rough demeanor suggested that there might never be a willing girl in his future. He was desperate to find someone deserving of his passionate love and devotion, so he turned to God, and used His name to punish all of Florence for one girl’s rejection.
After reading the book of Revelation, Savonarola became convinced that the end of the world was near, and he preached that hellfire and damnation would soon rain down upon the Florentines if they didn’t give up their “worldly” belongings. He enlisted a gang of followers who would go door to door in search of these “vanities.” He had a secret society of informants; people who turned one against another in hopes of earning their salvation. Even children were convinced to report their parents.
Mariano’s favorite son, Simone, was responsible for convincing Sandro to throw one of his own paintings into one of Savonarola’s Bonfires of the Vanities in the Piazza della Signoria. I never knew if this was because Sandro truly believed he was sinning, or because he was in fear for his very life.
Simone had not yet returned from Naples in my current existence. I knew all of this because Mariano had shared it with me in the Ognissanti. Mariano and his conservative, religious ways, which were passed along to Simone, were to blame for the loss of Sandro’s precious painting. Just thinking about it made me cringe. I was definitely not ready to go back to my isolated world with Mariano.
Chapter 13
I wanted to scream “No!” to Leonardo, like a spoiled child, while stomping my feet in a tantrum.
Don’t make me go back to him!
I knew, realistically, I didn’t have a choice, and even as ingenious as Leonardo was, he didn’t really have a way to return me to the future.
Sandro turned from his conversation with the other painter, appearing a bit put off by the intimacy of my exchange with Leonardo as I was leaning in very closely to him so no one else would hear.
“Come, Simonetta. Let us see the halberd,” Sandro interrupted brusquely, as he approached.
Quickly, before Sandro was in earshot, I whispered to Leonardo, “It’s important we keep this between us.”
Leonardo opened his mouth to speak, but Sandro pulled me away before any words made it out. I could tell there was just a glint of belief in Leonardo’s eyes, and he probably had a million questions, but Sandro was the last person I wanted to offend. And upon considering once again that this may be the only day I would spend in this marvelous world, I wanted to enjoy it.
Sandro laced his arm inside of mine and escorted me through the palazzo as if he had full run of the place. We entered a small room containing all manner of armor, swords, shields, axes, and chains on display. Sandro lifted the halberd from its angled wall mounting. It was shiny and bejeweled, but otherwise exactly as he described it: a pole weapon with an axe on one side and a spike on the other—and a familiar sight. It looked identical to the weapon that Camilla held in Botticelli’s misnamed Pallas and the Centaur, the companion painting of his famous Primavera.
“The halberd was a gift to Lorenzo from a Swiss knight when Lorenzo won the Florentine Joust of 1469.” Sandro seemed to know everything about Lorenzo and his house.
He handed the halberd to me, taking care to wrap his hands over mine to prevent me from dropping the heavy weapon. His magical touch was about business rather than pleasure, but it caused sensations in my new body, I’d long since forgotten were possible. The warm touch of a man was not something I’d ever expected to experience again.
The halberd was quite heavy and long—much taller than either of us when it stood on end. The small muscles of my previous, waifish body couldn’t have handled the weight as he let go of the halberd, leaving it only to my hands. I dared not move. Without a word, Sandro pulled some paper from a bag he carried, and sketched as I held the monstrosity.
The best part of modeling was that I could unabashedly stare at Sandro as he worked. It was my job to stare at him, as it was his to examine me. I could look directly into his eyes, and take in every curve of his strong masculine features and curvaceous, kissable lips. I watched him breathe as he meticulously sketched; as everlasting life was created.
So enraptured, I barely noticed the tall, dark, muscle-bound man who entered the room, until he charged at me, smiling. The beautiful creature reached for me like a crazed zombie about to eat my brain.
Oh crap. Who is this dude?
My first instinct was to cross the halberd defensively in front of me, inspiring him only to chuckle as the weight of it was more than I could handle, and I had to set it down.
“La Bella, I did not expect to see you here!” he bellowed, seemingly unaffected by my defensiveness. As I rose up, I looked more closely at his face, noting the long eyelashes that framed sparkling brown eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and a slightly cleft chin. He resembled Lorenzo, only a substantially upgraded version.
“I didn’t expect to see you eit
her,” I muttered, still trying to figure out who in the hell he was.
“But I live here!” he said through his handsome smile.
“I have brought Simonetta here so she might pose with the halberd,” Sandro calmly interrupted.
“Interesting,” the enthusiastic man replied, rubbing his chin and nodding.
“I have decided to paint your banner with Simonetta representing the Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom.”
“Why would a woman need to be wise?” the man chuckled. “You should paint her as Venus, goddess of beauty!”
His attitude seemed much more boorish than any of the other well-educated guests with whom I had come into contact at the palazzo.
“But Giuliano, there is so much more to her…”
Of course. How could I be so stupid? Giuliano de’ Medici, the playboy brother of Lorenzo.
Giuliano approached me and lifted my chin with one finger. He tilted his head to one side while leering at me. “I will soon find out how much more there is.” His sinister smile gave me chills up my spine. Before I could seek a reaction from Sandro or even have one myself, Giuliano pivoted to walk away. “Are you not coming to sup with us?” he tossed over his shoulder, and didn’t wait for an answer from either of us before retreating into another part of the palazzo.
“What was that about?” I asked Sandro, disgusted by the whole thing.
“I was under the impression that you and Giuliano were of mutual affection, Signora,” Sandro replied, slightly bewildered.
“I think not,” I retorted, as I grabbed one of the swords and lunged at the air, conjuring the smug face of Giuliano in my mind as the recipient of my awkward blow. How could I have affection for such a man? Particularly when he’d treated me like a barfly he wished to bed.
“Most Florentine women would be honored to win the heart of Giuliano de’ Medici,” Sandro replied with slightly downtrodden eyes, but I couldn’t quite tell if he was for or against my hooking up with Giuliano.
What Remains of the Fair Simonetta Page 6