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The Botticelli Secret

Page 34

by Marina Fiorato


  Before the great dome of the basilica, high, high on a gilded platform above the great door, stood four bronze horses, bathed in fire, noble, necks arched, mouths frothing and forelegs pawing the ground. They stood over the city, a threatening quartet. Many years in the future my husband would tell me that they were in fact thieved from the Hippodrome in Constantinople, the only remaining quadriga of the Roman world, and a symbol of Venice’s secular might. But I am getting ahead of myself—that was long in the future, when I was married; at this point I had not even been reacquainted with my husband (I had met him, of course, more than once by this point in my history). That day, however, I thought I knew what the horses meant without any instruction. They meant the Apocalypse was coming to Venice. And I didn’t give a shit.

  And yet at this very second of the world ending and my not caring, for some strange reason, my brain decided to make amends for my thickheadedness of yesterday. The pieces suddenly resolved themselves—as the four winds battered me from every point of the compass, as my shoes filled and the great square began to flood, as I alone held forth like a doomed ship at sea, I finally realized what I had been taught. The rain beat down on my head, and as if they arrived with the raindrops, three thoughts suddenly plopped into my head.

  Credo Uno: Flora had thirty-two roses in her skirts. There were thirty-two points of the compass rose.

  Credo Due: there were four winds of the wind rose and four horses before me.

  Credo Tre: Zephyrus, the west wind, raped Chloris. Chloris, the lover of the wind. Chloris my mother. Chloris who was Venice.

  I knew, as if the lightning bolt had finally lit the dark corners of my mind in an illuminating flash, that whatever secret this city held was in the horse that stood at the extreme left, the west horse, the ponente horse.

  The Zephyrus horse.

  Then I felt a great tug of my sleeve. Marta, my millstone, had come for me and took me into the porch of the great basilica, where the ducal party dripped and steamed. Outside, the storm raged, the rain battered the great square till an inch of water stood on the ground. Acqua alta—high water had come; the sea made a bid to claim her city. My mother noted my presence with obvious relief—once again I realized that she cared for me and that she was pleased that I was safe. But I wasn’t safe yet; none of us were. God was not afeared to strike his own house. With the herald of a great thunderclap, a boom and crack sounded from above and masonry began to fall. My father shouted above the screams:

  “The gold of the roof attracts the lightning; we must repair to the palazzo.”

  It was the longest sentence I had ever heard him say.

  He and my mother left first, followed by the crowd of ducal retainers. Marta was swept along with them, and I knew she could not yet miss me. I ducked into a niche and hid. I had no clear plan but to be as far away from my sorceress mother for as long as I possibly could. I needed space to think, space to act. As the atrium emptied I looked up, as if for inspiration, and saw before me a fantastic Roman mosaic of the four seasons. The figure of Spring, wreathed in flowers and mythical beasts coupling to reproduce—pairing off in this Noah’s ark against the flood—sheltered by verdant leaves, looked straight at me and pointed skyward with her hand. I knew then that I was right.

  I crept into the great dark space of the basilica, the floor already glazed with an inch of rain. The ark was taking on water. The incense was choking, and the voices of my father’s priests were raised in supplication. They had failed to keep the plague from Venice, even to save my father’s first wife from the pestilence. But with touching faith they tried once again to keep this most biblical of disasters at bay. I hung around the narthex, looking for a door which I knew must be there, for the goddess of Spring had told me so. I found the little portal and climbed the stair, higher and higher into the gallery. As I wound upward into the cupola, Byzantine faces regarded me with interest from their great almond eyes, unmoved as the lightning snaked into the arched windows, attracted to the golden tiles that paved their haloes.

  As I stepped out onto the balcony the rain hit me like a blow, lightning struck the dome above, once and again, and I thought I would be sizzled like a scallop. I ducked behind the nearest horse to shelter—ironic, really, that these steeds of the wind should now shield me from a tempest. Only a few moments ago I would have happily jumped from here to my death; now I clung to the beast that sheltered me, hiding under his belly as a foal would suck milk. I knew I was at the wrong extreme—the eastern horse—so I inched past eight long hind legs and eight massive copper balls. At the western-most horse I crept round to the front, clinging for life, and glanced up, dashing rain from my eyes. I looked into the huge, noble copper face of the Zephyrus horse, but his wild eyes told me nothing. He did, however, proffer his right foreleg, raised as a friendly cur would ask you to shake his foot. It felt natural to take the limb and I wrapped my frozen hand around the hoof, looking for an inscription, a clue, anything. The copper limb rang as the lightning struck the cupola again, humming faintly like a coin on a bell. The leg I held shook more, creaked, and fell into my hand. I barely caught the thing, and looked down, appalled at what I’d done—but it was hollow. Hollow, not heavy.

  Madonna.

  There was something within. I drew out a wooden roll, as long as my forearm, like a pin that pastry cooks use for flattening their pasticcio. Excited, I knew there must be something inside, a folded document, coins, a painting. I expected the roll to be hollow, a kind of cylinder, but it was solid wood. To be sure, there were markings upon it, but the grooves and curves, and crazy inscriptions, were meaningless to me. For all I knew it was merely a support that the copperwright had used to construct the beast, a skeleton to form the cast bronze, never meant to be seen by the eyes of admirers. I dropped the wood on the floor with a clatter, covered my face with my hands. When I took them away I knew that there would be someone standing before me, Marta or one of my father’s guards.

  And there was.

  “I am ready,” I said, “you can take me now.”

  But the presence before me was neither of those I expected, nor was it a creature of this world. A great lion stood there on his hind legs, with a face made of wrought gold and the body of a man. The mask resembled my mother’s, save that it was a full-face mask not a half, a burning sun, a mane around the circumference like rays of fire, eyes and mouth open like the Bocca del Leone. Now I knew I was finished—the Apocalypse had come for me. The lion of Saint Mark—the creature I had feared since I had entered the Arsenale and sealed Bonaccorso’s fate—the ruler of this city, had come to devour me.

  I am a Daniel.

  “I am ready,” I repeated, “you can take me now.” I thought I was already dead, for the creature looked on me with eyes that I’d dreamed of, spoke with a voice that I knew.

  “Luciana. It is I.”

  I ripped the mask from his face, flung my arms around him fit to squeeze the life away, cried and laughed, would have kissed him a thousand times, but he held me away.

  “No time,” he said. He picked up the wooden roll and pressed it into my hands. “Keep the map safe. Have courage. I will meet you in Milan.”

  He looked straight at me once, as if memorizing my face, then he was gone in another flash of lightning as blue as his eyes, and Marta was upon me almost before I could hide the wooden roll in my sleeve.

  Brother Guido must have passed her on the stairs.

  By the time we left the basilica, the storm had passed and the sun shone again. The square was filled with water—the whole city stood on a mirror. I had never seen such a beautiful place. Marta, taking no chances, had an iron grip on my upper arm, a bruise tomorrow for certain. We waded in water up to our knees till we met the ducal litter coming for us, but I cared not.

  He was alive.

  36

  I knew Marta would say nothing about my disappearance, the cowardly bitch. Luckily for her we had been parted so few minutes that no one in my father’s house had noticed that we we
re not together. On our return I said we had been praying together for salvation. I saw my mother’s swift glance, for she knew me not for a devout, but Marta agreed so swiftly that the matter was dropped. The girl knew what was good for her—my mother would have had her roundly whipped for losing sight of me even for a heartbeat, probably done the job herself, vicious witch that she was.

  But I gave Marta no more trouble after that, oh, no. I was as nice as pie, as obedient as the good convent girl I once was. I attended all the Carnevale celebrations, talked politely to my father’s allies, sewed at my mother’s side, and took my lessons with obedience and diligence. It was enough for me that Brother Guido was alive, that he was not damaged by torture as Bonaccorso had been, and that he had pledged to see me again. I did not know or care how he had followed me here—that he had been here was enough. I dwelled on our brief meeting hundreds and thousand of times, every look and every word. I could not divine the meaning of any of it. I knew not how the wooden roll that I kept on my person at all times could be a map. I knew not how or when we would meet next, nor how the city he had mentioned fitted into the plan of the Seven. But I did not tax my poor brain—I accepted my fate. I had never been to Milan but I damn well would go now, no matter how long it took me to figure out how. My best chance for the present was to lie low and do exactly what the witch expected of me, until she relaxed her watch upon me.

  And it was to prove easier than I thought. As soon as Carnevale was over, my mother announced that I was to ready myself for a long voyage. Now the thaw was coming we were to make our progress to Pisa to meet my betrothed and ready the marriage contracts in time for my summer wedding. I didn’t care about any of this, but when my mother spoke of our itinerary I pricked up my ears—our route would take us first into the mountains to a place called Bolzano on some business of my father’s, thence across the Dolomite range down into Lombardy where we would break our journey in Milan before passing through Genoa to Pisa. Better and better, I learned that even though we were to carry out some political mission in the doge’s name upon the way, my father was not to be actually traveling with us. This was good news for me—although my mother was traveling as the doge’s ambassador, she would only have such protection as was due to the Mocenigo family. The guards that attended my father—watchful, efficient, violent men—were attached to the ducal office and stayed with the doge at all times.

  At last the day came—we were packed and prepared, the Carnevale was over. I took a chilly leave of my father, and my mother and I were back on the Grand Canal again, a full six months after we’d arrived.

  Water, light.

  I was a babe again, rocked in the watery sac of Vero Madre’s womb. I was a child, rocking in her arms. I was a woman, rocking in a boat. Water beneath me. Light above. Light below me, water above. I was propped against velvet cushions in a golden boat. The prow of the boat was curved and slatted like an executioner’s axe. Behind, a servant pushed us along with a pole, betraying the fact that the water was no more than waist deep; there were no countless fathoms below, just a shallow ditch. Many things in this place were not what they seemed.

  But I cared no more for any of that, for the shifting deceptions, the appearance and reality of my birth city. Our possessions followed in flat barges behind us—we were headed to Marghera and the mainland—“Tramontana” to the mountains and beyond, and then—then—to Milan and a longed-for reunion. Farewell, cold, cold silver city. Good-bye, glass sea, glass houses, glass canals.

  I cared not if I ever saw Venice again.

  7

  Bolzano

  Bolzano, February 1483

  37

  I discovered just three things in the winter kingdom of Bolzano.

  Scoperta Uno: that Zephyrus, the blue-green winged tree goblin of the Primavera, represents Bolzano.

  Scoperta Due: my mother’s name.

  Scoperta Tre: the fact that it was possible for me to be colder than I was in Venice.

  I jest of course.

  That is, I suppose that won’t do. I should tell you a little more of my stay in the mountains, but I do it reluctantly and I’ll explain why. From the time I arrived to the time I left I was eaten up with impatience—I wanted to be nowhere else but Milan, and I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. I wanted to be with no one else but Brother Guido, and desired no other company. If my mother and I had stayed in Bolzano no longer than the time it takes to puff away the stamens of a dandelion clock, ‘twould have been too long, too agonizingly long.

  All right, here goes. Only do not expect me to be quite as thorough in this section of my history, as I was in the other cities we have visited. In the Primavera, Zephyrus does not have his feet on the ground. He is high and floating, above the other characters. Let this be my excuse: I suspected, perhaps I wanted to believe, that this city, of all, did not play such a vital part in the measure as the other cities did—that it was perhaps a little to the side, a little left out, perhaps not part of the grand scheme. Necessary, yes, but not (to use one of my husband’s words) integral.

  (He was right.)

  In fact, I would have gone so far as to guess that Bolzano would not prove to be one of the Seven. For there were eight adult figures in the painting and a conspiracy of just seven—I guessed that Genoa and Milan would be the remaining members, that Bolzano would lift right out.

  (I was wrong.)

  It was certainly true that I felt my own feet did not touch the ground while I was there; I was suspended in limbo but elevated on a cloud of happiness and expectation, looking down on the world below, gulping the thin cold air, and wishing my time away, breathing away the hours like the dandelion clock.

  My mother’s business here was with Archduke Sigismund of Austria, a sprig of the Hapsburg family tree and cousin to some emperor. The name Hapsburg meant nothing to me, but it seemed to drop everyone else’s mouth open like a market-day fish, so I guessed they were a family on a par with the Medici but from Austria, or was it Hungary? Or Germany? Anyway. Someplace in the frozen north, beyond the mountains. My mother and her retinue were in a constant babble about the Hapsburgs, and the Holy Roman Emperor, and the mountain routes, and mines, and something called the “Old Swiss Confederacy.” But I closed my ears to all their cant as our covered carriages rose high into the mountains, white peaks turned amber and rose by the cold northern sun. Beautiful certainly. But chillier than Christmastide.

  I just huddled down into my furs and thought of Brother Guido.

  Presently, a sennight after we had left Venice, with Castel-franco and Trento behind us, climbing all the time, we entered a place of fable. I thought I had left the capital of deception behind us, but Bolzano had as many facets as a rose diamond. I would see a mountain transformed into a city, then a city transformed into mountain, each face and angle presenting a different view of the place. An enchanted sorcerer’s eyrie, now here, now gone. And the whole thing bathed crimson by the sunrise, like a monstrance under stained glass.

  We entered the town at a prettyish kind of square, huddled around with quaint wooden houses with boxes of winter blooms crammed at every window. There, too, stood a pattern-tiled duomo with a great spike for a spire, a sharp summit to rival those that ranged around. We drove through the square ever northward and just outside the town climbed to a great castle that seemed not built by man but hewn out of the rock. And pink. I thought at once that the impression of color was given, again, by the sun, but I was to learn as the day brightened to morning that ‘twas no trick of the light, but merely the nature of the crop of porphyry rock from which this fortress, Castello Roncolo, was built. This fact was explained to me not by my mother but by one of the many Venetian strangers who traveled with us. A man whose name I never bothered to learn but who always rubbed his knuckles against my breasts when he handed me from the carriage. My mother, I noted with relief and regret, seemed to have given up my education entirely since my attempt to escape from Venice. She treated me with kindness and courtesy but lar
gely let me be, which suited me fine. I had much daydreaming to do . . .

  We wound through the castle gates and up to the massive battlements and gate house. After a series of endless ramps we entered a courtyard where we were met by the ducal retinue, who came to hand us down from the carriages, not fast enough, unfortunately, to stop what’s-his-name jumping me down first in order to get his hands on my tette.

  We swept through to the great hall amid any number of pleasantries, but as we entered the huge chamber I could not at once locate the archduke. For one thing there was such a press of people crowding his court, and for another, much more interesting scenes adorned the walls. The entire place was painted with coats of arms, scenes of games and jousting, gorgeous nobles and ladies, and grotesque giants and dwarves. I was so absorbed in the frescoes, rendered more real than if I watched players act before my eyes, I nearly missed a most interesting piece of information. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, and Ramses and Moses eyed each other. One of my moth-er’s cronies announced in ringing Venetian:

  “The Dogaressa Taddia Michiel Mocenigo!”

  (This, if you can believe it, was the first time I had heard my mother’s given name)

  I turned my attention to the archduke, who rose to take my mother’s hand. Archduke Sigismund was yet another in a series of powerful old men that I had met on this odyssey. Perhaps a little over fifty, he was unremarkable, save that he had silver curling hair that waved to his shoulders, was rail thin, and spoke with a thick guttural accent that I had to strain to understand. My poor ears were only just getting used to the Venetian dialect, and here I was battling with yet another strange tongue, as he greeted my mother and myself. Wearily I began to realize that this entire peninsula was run by powerful old men. Don Ferrente, the pope, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and now this archduke. For a short and insane moment I felt a touch of pride in my mother—at least the crazy bitch wore the breeches in the city of Venice and ruled her man while letting him think he ruled her. I wondered how often such men were ruled by the women they’d married, or not married, but before I could speculate on this further, my questions were answered by my mother consoling the archduke on the loss of his wife, and in the same breath inquiring politely about the archduke’s upcoming nuptials—apparently he was to be married when I was, to a maid called Katherine of Saxony. Their union promised to be at least as happy as mine, for I learned later that the Princess of Saxony was but sixteen and would have to endure that old lizard creeping over her young flesh at night. Madonna. I hoped he was rich.

 

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