by Joanne Lewis
“Was Dolce mentioned?”
“No. Nothing about her.”
Marcello joined them.
“I’m not surprised,” Filippa said. “I think Dolce’s drawings were destroyed and never actually entered in the competition.”
“Who destroyed them?”
“Brunelleschi.”
“How do you know that?” Carla asked.
“Gut feeling, maybe.” Filippa wasn’t about to share her experience with the apparition of Brunelleschi yesterday at the dome.
Marcello said, “It would make sense that Brunelleschi destroyed Dolce’s designs if he felt threatened by her. There was a lot of competition back then. Leonardo da Vinci distrusted Michelangelo and Botticelli. And we already know that Brunelleschi and Ghiberti were at odds. Brunelleschi rarely wrote anything down for fear his ideas would be stolen.”
“So that’s it?” Carla asked. “That’s the end of our search?”
“No. Maybe this will help.” Marcello said as Giuseppe walked over to them.
Giuseppe took the book off the wood presentation rack and placed two worn, yellowed pages side by side in its place. The paper was also thick and water stained. The dark script angled down. A wide grin splashed across Marcello’s face.
“Don’t just smile,” Filippa said, frustrated. “Tell us what it is.”
“I am the cat with the canary in my mouth,” Marcello puffed out his cheeks.
Carla leaned in to read the pages. “No way.”
Filippa’s eyes widened. “What is it? What language is it written in?”
“Dante’s Italian,” Carla said.
“Are they pages from The Divine Comedy?”
“No,” Marcello said. “I asked Giuseppe if he had heard of Dolce Gaddi. His eyes lit up. He had this in the Opera Archives along with Vasari’s original writings on Brunelleschi. This isn’t complete. Maybe that’s why it didn’t make it into Lives.”
Filippa looked at the heading. Slowly, she was able to decipher the small writing.
Dolce Gaddi 1419–1490.
Filippa opened her mouth to speak but no words came out, only tears that flowed down her cheeks and filled her grin. Vasari had written a chapter on Dolce.
Carla translated.
Dolce Gaddi 1419–1490
By Giorgio Vasari
It was said to me by a most reliable and trustworthy man of great talent and pride that there was a girl named Dolce of the Gaddi family. I was told and I believe all I was told that this girl lived on a small farm outside the gates of Firenze in the Mugello section. Her brother was Iacopo Gaddi, the famed humanist and creator of Po’s Humanist Academy. I do not need to recite this girl’s lineage as the Gaddi family is well-known. It is from a man who was then a boy who had attended Po’s Humanist Academy that I learned of Dolce and decided to write of her life.
She called herself an architect and admired more than anyone Filippo Brunelleschi and set throughout her life to be his equal. It is from this information that I have written that even a girl from the Gaddi family entered the competition to build the lantern. And how I know this is true is from that man I wrote of just moments ago. But I write of her now to document her greatest achievement.
She desired to create her own city, La Citta di Dolce, and being of a brilliant mind and much fortitude, she designed a city like no other even to this day that raised into the clouds and scraped the sky only to find her creation destroyed many times.
At this same time, a tower of marble sat dormant on the Gaddi farm, purchased by her father Bandino Gaddi before he had discovered he had no talent and little patience to tame the marble. This marble arrived on the farm, called Il Poderino, the same day Dolce was left at the farm by her nurse maid in 1423. The giant stood unchanged until Dolce’s death sixty-seven years later. Upon her death …
Filippa looked up. “Is that it?”
“That’s all that exists,” Marcello said. “Do you know who Vasari’s source might have been?”
Filippa recalled her research the night before when she had flipped through the pages of Lives, trying to determine who could have known Dolce and Vasari in the same lifetime. She had gone through the book over and over again. She had reviewed her notes and crosschecked. Then, she narrowed her search even more based on who would have been in Florence during the later years of Dolce’s life.
“I know exactly who it is,” Filippa said.
PART SIX
Chapter Seventy-five
The round faced boy with high cheekbones had every reason to believe himself superior. Of course, Dolce could not tell him so. She had to treat him like the other students enrolled in Po’s Humanist Academy although he was clearly quicker of wit and steadier of hand. With the barn turned into a classroom and the tall, thin home that once housed the Gaddi family converted into a cafeteria and dormitory, Dolce had to resist the urge to take the boy aside and shower him with praise. He didn’t need it anyway. Lorenzo de’ Medici, Il Magnifico, had adopted him as his own son, giving him an allowance and lavishing luxuries upon him.
Not bad for a boy born into a family of moneychangers from Caprese. Not bad for a boy who had to suckle on the breast of a wet nurse when he was born since his mother had been too sick to care for him. Not bad for a boy who had lost his mother when he was six years old and whose father and uncle ridiculed and beat him for wanting to live the life of an artist. Not bad for a boy whose nose was recently broken and misshapen by a fellow student who had been annoyed by his boasting of prowess at the easel and skill with a chisel.
Entry into Po’s Humanist Academy was to complete his education. Then, he would be unleashed on all of Italy.
Dolce, seventy-one years old—with a strong back and a sharp mind that were starting to weaken, whose wrinkled and worn skin was marred with liver spots, and whose eyes watered and blurred from cataracts—called to the boy. He jumped up from his desk and trotted to her.
“What do they call you again?” she asked.
He bowed. “Michelangelo Buonarroti.”
“No more fighting with the others,” she said.
As headmistress, a responsibility she had assumed after Po died, it was her duty to make sure the boys received proper educations and to maintain order.
“Yes, Signora.”
“You may return to your studies.”
“May I indulge in a question?”
“What is it, son?”
“That marble. Over there.” He pointed.
Dolce felt the beats of her heart increase. “What of it?”
“I have been attending the Academy for over three months and I have never seen anyone working on it.”
“And you will not throughout your two year tenure here.”
“But … why?”
Dolce looked at Il Gigante, seeing into the past. So much had occurred during her lifetime. Il Gigante, a witness to it all.
“It is a beast that cannot be tamed,” she said.
“There is no marble that does not contain an angel within.”
She smiled. She yearned to run the calloused tips of her fingers over his pale skin as if to confirm he was living, breathing and not another piece of marble that could not be conquered.
“Meet me there after your studies and chores are through for the day.”
“Should I bring my claw chisel?” he asked.
“No. Just your imagination.”
Chapter Seventy-six
Dolce had inherited Il Poderino forty years ago when Bandino had died. She was Bandino’s only choice as heir as Piero had predeceased him by twenty years, Bandino thought Po’s obsession with humanism was ridiculous, and Nic and his family had been banned from the farm after Nic refused to do any more of Bandino’s dirty deeds.
As a woman, she had not been permitted to formally register ownership with the city-state of Firenze in the catasto but she still knew everything possible about the farm. The pulse that beat in its vineyards. The blood that pumped through its crops. Its essence from th
e hot days of August to the bitter cold nights of February.
Bartolommeo had died shortly after Bandino. Nic had moved his family to Rome after being left out of Bandino’s will. As far as Dolce knew, Nic was still living. Novella passed only one year ago, having lived to be ninety-five years old. She had spent the last years of her life as an honored guest on Il Poderino, explaining her advanced age by swearing all the children she had suckled, including Dolce’s own daughter Mattina who was now grown with a child of her own, wouldn’t let her die.
Po had started a Humanist Academy in the back of Abramo’s shop many years earlier. Eventually, Dolce had allowed Po to convert the farm into the school and move the academy to Il Poderino. When Po died ten years ago, she stepped into his role as leader of the school.
While Dolce was well familiar with Il Poderino—its skin, its cells—she did not know her own inner workings and that deep in her bones a storm was slowly brewing. Not one that makes a person shudder with fear and hide until it passes, for this tempest would not pass, but one that silently attacked and spread. It would start in the core of her bones and grow outward, then onward, until it reached her breasts and liver and pancreas. She would grow tired more quickly. She would have bouts of pain that would slay her and keep her in bed. Her memory would grow shorter. Her fatigue longer. She would not be able to identify exactly what was happening, except to know she was dying. She didn’t tell anyone. Not even Mattina.
“Are you alright, Mother?” Mattina asked.
Dolce was leaning on Il Gigante. “I think the wine with lunch was sour. Let me know if any of the boys fall ill.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Dolce touched her daughter’s cheek. Oh, Mattina. Her joy. Her life. And to think she almost didn’t get to enjoy the one thing that gave her constant, unconditional delight. Novella had taken her away upon her birth when Bartolommeo had the idea of claiming the miscarried calf as her stillborn child. Novella raised Mattina for several years, until Mattina was returned to the farm, to Dolce. Yes, her baby girl.
Samuele, Mattina’s father, was gone. Murdered on November 25, 1487 after Friar Bernadino of the Order of St. Francis—who had been elected preacher at Santa Maria del Fiore for the period of Lent—preached that all Jews should be exiled from Firenze. A mob converged on the bank. Samuele’s blood was splattered across the window, covering the words Abramo Da San Miniato, Moneylender, left there to honor the memory of his father.
Dolce had gone to see him on his deathbed and held him as his breathing slowed. When his eyes opened slightly and his lips moved, she put her ear close to his mouth.
“We will see each other again, Dolce Gaddi, in another life. And in that life, we will spend it together.”
His final breath was hot in her ear as if blown by a warm breeze off the Arno. She spent a few moments holding Samuele after he was gone and enjoying the last scent of him, the last feel of his skin.
When Dolce gathered the strength to look through Samuele’s store after his death, she found all of the Gaddi artwork taken from Il Poderino by Abramo to be sold at auction all those years ago. Still there, stored in the back. She moved it to the farm and into the barn until she could decide what to do with the pieces.
Chapter Seventy-seven
“Where is Il Buggiano? I’ve been aching to catch sight of him since I’ve been here. He is your husband, no?” Michelangelo sat on the ground and leaned his back against Il Gigante.
In the horizon, the sun and the moon were swapping places in the sky; a black backdrop replacing a blue one. Both balls were bold and bright. Dolce slowly sat next to Michelangelo.
She looked toward Brunelleschi’s dome and Giotto’s bell tower. “He is not here.”
“I am anxious to meet him. At Lorenzo’s Art Academy, I am taught by the master Bertoto, a student of Donatello. I know Andrea and Donatello were friends. As I will never meet Donatello since he died before I was born, Andrea is the closest I will get to him. And I have secretly studied The Day Before Massacre and am familiar with how Andrea led peaceful demonstrations until the Medici agreed to create a guild for the working class. He is a great man of the people. And a talented sculptor.” Michelangelo looked up at the tower of marble and shielded his eyes from the sun. “Andrea could not tackle this giant?”
“I wouldn’t let him try.”
“What of the superb Donatello? He surely could have broken this beast.”
“Donatello left Firenze many years before his death since …”
If Dolce had finished her sentence, she would have said Donatello had left Firenze since he had killed Evanko so I would not be tried for Giuliano’s murder. Fortunately, Michelangelo did not ask her to explain, perhaps understanding she would not be forthcoming.
Michelangelo eyed the path of a shooting star. “I have heard all the great sculptors and artists have broken bread on this farm over the years. Members of the Gaddi family. Brunelleschi. Donatello. Ghiberti. da Vinci. Botticelli. Writers like Machiavelli. And men of science and exploration too. Galileo. Vespucci. Popes have been entertained. Lawmakers and law breakers. Surely someone could have turned this shapeless mound into a work of art worthy of gracing a piazza.”
“Look,” Dolce pointed at the marble.
Michelangelo turned. “I don’t see anything.”
“Wait until the moon gets higher in the sky.”
They didn’t speak. From the house, candles flickered. Boys laughed and played games with die and marbles. A lovely end of March breeze scattered wild scents of rosemary and basil, which threaded through Dolce’s white hair. By the flattened olive groves, Mattina, assistant head mistress, walked hand in hand with her husband, Lapo. Mattina wore a red and orange handmade billowing gown. Mattina and Lapo’s daughter, Novellina, a teacher at Po’s Humanist Academy, strolled nearby. Novellina’s son was a student at the school.
Dolce looked toward the dome again. Moon beams reflected off the lantern, casting golden rays. “Look at the marble now. The light is perfect.”
Michelangelo bent down, peered close to the stone. “What is that carving? Is it a … map?”
“It is La Citta di Dolce. I carved this city when I was seventeen years old, only a couple of years older than you are now.”
He ran his fingers over the marble. “It is magnificent.”
“It is the reason why—even if someone could domesticate this monster—I would not allow anyone to touch Il Gigante. My city cannot be ruined.”
“I am certain, Signora, that I can create a muse from this marble without disturbing your city.”
“This marble is not to be tamed.”
“Every block of stone has a statue inside. It is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
Dolce felt a sharp pain. She doubled over and grabbed her side.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she panted. “I must go to bed.”
“Please,” Michelangelo held her elbow as he led her toward the main house, “let me find the angel within the marble. I promise not to ruin your city.”
“You are only a child. And still an apprentice in Lorenzo’s sculpture garden.”
“I have the talent of a master. I know my boasting is the reason for my misshapen nose but I cannot help but say what is true. I can carve Il Gigante into the greatest work of art the world has ever known. People will flock to visit my creation as if it lived and breathed. I will find the angel within. Please let me try.”
“No,” Dolce limped toward the house. “Never.”
Chapter Seventy-eight
The following morning, Michelangelo sat on a stool to the side of Dolce’s bed. His face was speckled white with marble dust making him look like a baker.
“You should be studying or practicing technique,” Dolce spoke weakly.
He waved his hand. “I have carved all morning and tore myself from the marble to check your spirit. I prefer to carve day and night however I am far superior to the other boys. If I study too much, it will only be more glar
ing and they will despise me even more.”
“They may hate you now but they will come to admire you. The whole world will, of that I am sure. Do you want to hear more about the lantern competition?”
“Another time, with pleasure. First, I would like to know if you received from storage the painting you promised to show me?”
“Mattina brought it to me this morning. It’s over there,” she pointed.
Michelangelo grabbed the painting and sat again on the stool. The painting wasn’t very large, maybe fifteen by fifteen inches. Lifelike with bright colors, Michelangelo ran his thumb over the raised paint.
“Mattina, your daughter, painted this picture of Andrea?”
Dolce nodded, a small smile passed through her lips.
“It is clear she is a Gaddi,” Michelangelo’s eyes were fixed on the painting. “She is very talented. Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.” He traced Andrea’s thick eyebrows. “He is very handsome. And regal, like a king.”
“Let me see. I never tire of looking at it.”
Michelangelo sat on the bed next to Dolce. He held the painting so they could view it together.
Mattina had painted it a couple of years earlier. Andrea had posed while Mattina sketched and put oil to canvas. Dolce would bring them food and drink, joke with them, but Mattina would never let Dolce, Andrea nor anyone else on the farm see her creation. Until it was finished.
Dolce and Andrea—and all who knew how patiently an elderly Andrea stood poised with a slingshot over his shoulder and a rock in his hand for ten hours a day, eighteen days straight—were shocked with the final result. Mattina had painted Andrea as a young man.
“Did he really look like that when he was young?” Michelangelo asked.
“Oh yes. He was beautiful. He wore his hair a little longer and not behind his ears as Mattina painted but he was all muscle. And you see that,” Dolce pointed to his Adam’s Apple, “it really did stick out that far. And his eyes were very intense. Like he could see through you. He didn’t develop that until after The Day Before Massacre. Once he came to live on Il Poderino, he had plenty of time to think and the more he did, the harder his demeanor became.”