The Botticelli Secret
Page 43
At length we found ourselves on the edge of a glittering bay, with the spars of clustering masts sticking up from the shoreline like a quiverful of arrows. I scanned the faint blue line of the horizon, hanging between sky and sea in the far distance, for the dark low thundercloud of a thousand ships rolling in toward unknowing France. But there was nothing to be seen, the skyline flat and uninterrupted; the whole idea seemed incredible on such a peerless blue day. Genoa showed us an innocent face; a hectic, bustling port going about its daily business. Looming over all stood a tall stone finger of a tower—one level perched above another with battlemented terraces at the middle and top. Seagulls wheeled mewing around the merlons, perched and dived off to follow the catch. We headed in that direction, guided by the tower as so many must have been before us, till we were in the huddle of houses and shops, fishermen selling their catches in strange accents that I recognized from Signor Cristoforo’s tones, their wives and children knotting the nets with fingers so swift they were a blur. The fisherfolk melted away from the path of our horse; adults and children alike stood gaping, fishes themselves, at the sight of the two of us atop our black mountain. We were attracting too much attention.
“What is your friend’s name?” I thought I detected a guarded tone in Brother Guido’s voice, sensed that he did not like the notion of my having found an ally, not a young male one at least.
“Cristoforo.”
“His family name,” he snapped back.
I pondered. “I don’t know. I never learned it.” I had a flash of memory. “His brother is Bartolomeo,” I said in a rush.
“Wonderful.” He sighed and dismounted, leading me for a little way like a manservant until he spied a fellow sitting on a barrel baiting a hook. Brother Guido nodded to him. “Giorno,” he greeted the man in the worst Milanese accent I had ever heard. “Cristoforo and Bartolomeo?”
The fisherman spat a silver oyster of phlegm at Brother Guido’s feet and my friend moved back a pace. But the fellow showed no enmity—as his spittle rose and crawled away I realized he was keeping baitworm warm in his mouth and must expel the creature before he spoke. I was so busy trying not to gag I did not catch his answer, but his nod was expressive, and we headed in the direction he indicated till we came upon a tiny hut with a low roof made ingeniously of barrel sides, making the whole dwelling resemble a boat. Through the open half-door came the smells I had come to love and were dam’s milk to Brother Guido—parchment and ink. Even without the map scroll above the door we knew we were in the right place.
A scribe sat within, his back to us, scratching carefully at a parchment pinned upon a slanted desk. He did not look up as we entered, giving me time to dig Brother Guido in the ribs and point to a sight that lined the far wall, rows and rows of wooden map rolls, carved and marked like our own.
The fellow kept his eyes on his work still. “Can I help you?”
I had hoped against hope that Signor Cristoforo would, by some miracle, be here; but the voice was not his—this must be the brother.
“Might you read a map for us, sir?”
“We don’t read maps,” came the curt reply. “We make them.”
I took over. “But signore, we have traveled a long way, and we have money.” If only the man would look at me! My voice is not my best asset—but I thought my chest might help our case. But there was no need to use my wiles, for a voice hailed me from the back of the shop. “Luciana!”
Now we had never been close companions, but the service Signor Cristoforo had rendered me in Venice had made me his friend for life. I shot into his arms, and he kissed me on each cheek, clearly as delighted as I was.
“I never thought to find you here!” I gasped. “I thought you had gone to sail the seas and map the world!”
He rubbed his bulbous nose. “Believe me, I am trying. I came back home to petition our own doge, after Venice’s doge, or rather the dogaressa . . . removed me from your city.” He smiled ruefully.
“She did not harm you?”
“Not a hair on my head.” He ruffled the matted red mass at his crown.
Once again I marveled at my mother’s weathercock nature. She gelded the boatman that was to sail me away, but the man that planned the whole thing was sent home in safety because he was my friend.
Brother Guido was still as a sculpture beyond me, and the look with which he greeted Signor Cristoforo was as frosty as a mountain blast. He was soon disarmed as the sailor clasped his shoulder. “And this is your friend, whom you went to seek? Well-a-day! I am right glad you managed to escape at last. And Nivola?”
I thought of the poor sailor, rotting without eyes or balls in my father’s prison.
“He lives,” I whispered, bowed down with guilt. I did not lie, could not share the truth lest Signor Cristoforo refuse to help us.
“I am glad of that too.” He smiled; Brother Guido smiled. Signor Cristoforo introduced Signor Bartolomeo, a fellow as ill-favored but pleasant-natured as he, and we all smiled at each other. Then Signor Cristoforo made it even easier by repeating his brother’s question. “What do you here? Can we help you?”
“We need you to read a map.” I looked at Brother Guido and he gave me a tiny nod, license to share our confidence. “We think the star denotes the site of an attack which will come tomorrow.”
I unraveled the silk from my bodice. He bent in to look at the landmass depicted, and I saw his smile die.
“Where did you get this?”
“In Venice. I found this.” I showed him the wooden roll. “And we, well, printed it in Milan.” I did not trouble him with the facts that we had used a Bible page for parchment and communion wine for ink—the story was incredible enough, and the map spoke for itself.
He took the thing from my hands, weighed it in his. “A rotogravure. A roll with the design of a map etched into it—we make them here as you can see.” His gesture took in the similar rolls upon the walls. “Maps are often transported this way on long and perilous voyages; they are not damaged by wind or rain as parchment may be, nor can they be torn. And if the ship is wrecked, they bob to the surface and float with the jetsam, to inform those that come after.” He turned the roll in his hands. “Let us just be sure—I’d like to make another print, for you did not use the best materials”—he grinned his lopsided grin—“and the design is as clear as a February fog. Con permesso?” He asked our permission, and the monk and I nodded as one.
Signor Cristoforo took us to a flat wooden block and pinned a clean square of parchment in place. He spun the rotogravure in a tray of sticky black ink and rolled it once, cleanly, across the virgin sheet. Printed expertly as this, we could now see the detail as never before, and the star that we had seen at the left upper side of the unknown country now revealed itself to be a cross, with four short arms. Signor Cristoforo seemed thunder-struck and I followed his glassy gaze to the inky roll in his hands, which stained his fingertips with ink that he seemed not to notice.
I thought I guessed the reason for his dazzlement. “Is this one of yours?”
“No.” He peered closely at the top end. “Very like. But there is a snake etched into the wood. We have a cross, the cross . . .” he said, “of Genoa.” He plucked one of his own rolls from the wall shelf and showed me.
“It’s the cross from the map!” I said slowly.
“Four arms of even length like the Maltese design,” put in Brother Guido.
“Precisely. Or the Genoese design, for it rides upon our flag. And so I must ask you again. Where did you get this rotogravure?”
Briefly, not believing it myself, I told him: of the storm, the basilica, and the Zephyrus horse. He merely nodded once or twice, not questioning at all. I could see Brother Guido trying to read his look, and the twin expression upon Signor Bartolomeo’s face.
“What is it? What is amiss?”
The two brothers looked at each other. “It’s just that,” began Signor Bartolomeo, “this landmass here is the peninsula known as Italia.”
&nbs
p; That word again.
“We thought so,” admitted Brother Guido. “And the cross denotes Monaco? For it is at the extreme northwest of the land-mass. It is so, surely? The point of attack is Monaco, the gateway to France?”
Signor Cristoforo shook his head. “No, friend. It is certain. The city is denoted not just by the latitude and positioning but also by the emblem of the city itself. The site of attack, if there is to be one, is Genoa.”
45
We sat, four not two this time, all seated on faldstools around the Primavera, rolled out on the printing table. For it was time to share the most incredible aspect of the puzzle with them—that the strategy of the Seven was hidden in a painting. The brothers leaned in as we had been used to do for these many months, and scanned the cartone with their mapmaker’s eyes, plucking fresh details from the design like cormorants plucking fish from the brine.
“So all these are cities, these figures and deities.” Signor Cristoforo’s voice was full of wonder.
“Yes,” confirmed Brother Guido, pointing to each in turn. “Pisa, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, Bolzano, and Milan. We have been to every city, either by accident or design, in the last twelvemonth. And every duke, king, archduke, and the prince of the church himself we know to be determinedly guilty.”
“And this is clearly Genoa,” put in Signor Bartolomeo, “for it is our own Simonetta, God rest her soul.”
“Yes.”
“Are we saying, then, that the Seven are planning to attack the eighth figure, Genoa? That Genoa is not in the Seven, but their victim and target? That your doge is not in league with the rest?”
“I can more readily believe that than believe that the doge would join Pisa and Venice in anything. Begging your pardon, lord and lady, he would rather have his wife couple with a cur than join in any enterprise with his sworn rivals and enemies,” asserted Signor Cristoforo.
I remembered then what Brother Guido had told me as we entered the gates, why he addressed the guards in a Milanese accent, anxious that we should not reveal his Pisan tones, nor my Venetian origins, to anyone.
“But, why?” I asked. “Why Genoa?”
“The answer lies in what my brother just said,” answered Signor Bartolomeo. “Genoa must have refused any part in Loren-zo’s plan for unification, for what could it avail them? If the Hapsburgs have a trading treaty with Venice, Genoa—on the eastern seaboard—would dwindle from being la Superba (‘the Proud’ as we call her) to a mere outpost; descend from being a maritime state with full independence, to a fishing village.”
“And if Genoa would not ally with the Seven,” his brother said, taking up the argument, “then the union would not be safe. For Genoa is the back door to France, Portugal, Spain, and England too. These great nations would frown upon the peninsula joining together, for such a state would be an immensely strong force set right in the middle of Europe. We would have a stranglehold upon all trading routes through the Mare Mediterraneo, and the Mare Atlantico too.”
I was getting a little lost. Brother Guido joined in to clarify the discussion but, as usual, muddied it with words as long as baitworms. “You see, internecine wars and civil strife keep ‘Italia’ at peace with the rest of the world.” He collected my look. “We are too busy fighting each other to fight anyone else.”
“Ohhhh.” I nodded.
“The Italian wars, and centuries of struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, kept the rest of Europe safe from greedy eyes,” added Signor Cristoforo.
“While at the same time our many states were open to treaties with other powers, in order to strengthen their relative positions on the peninsula—Genoa with France, Milan with the Bourbons, Venice with the Hapsburgs, the Papal States with England,” continued his brother, his ugly face lively with intelligence. “But a unified Italy could be an unstoppable force. Wealthy, with soldiers who had cut their teeth on years of warfare, and with four great navies—Venice, Naples, Pisa, and, greatest of all, Genoa.”
“I very much wonder, if we have battled each other for so long, that there is anything left to unite,” said I.
“More, much more than the sum of its parts,” Brother Guido assured me. “For our states have not just developed their military capabilities, they have made huge cultural leaps too. Men like Poliziano, who wrote of the Primavera, and Botticelli, who painted it, are the sons born of such competition. Each state needs a glorious court to outdo her neighbors. And to military and cultural brilliance, add the power of God himself,” continued Brother Guido grimly, “for His Holiness the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church.” He spoke of the office with contempt. “They could rule the world.”
“As they did once before,” I breathed, recalling Don Ferrente’s hymn to the glory of the Roman empire.
Brother Guido nodded. “The pope is a crucial figure in the conspiracy. He legitimizes the scheme in the eyes of the world, and, for his connivance, I think Lorenzo has promised that Rome will be the capital of the new nation. For see how Venus stands at the center of the scene, the highest figure save Cupid.”
“And,” I added, “she is dressed as a queen and holding her hand high in greeting.”
“And Lorenzo de’ Medici is at the root of all. The needle in the compass!” reflected Signor Cristoforo in a voice of wonder.
I thought on his metaphor, of Lorenzo as a needle showing the others the way. My eyes strayed to Mercury’s sword: sharp, pointed, metallic. Showing the others the way. “Now we understand why Mercury’s sword is pointing toward Simonetta,” I burst out. “The enemy is Genoa.”
“We should consider, too, the nature of that sword,” added Brother Guido, pulling his own weapon from its sheath. The blade sang faintly and we all looked upon the deadly curve of the steel blade. “It is a harpe scimitar in the Eastern style, a Turkish design borrowed from our vanquished enemy of the Battle of Otranto. The Turks were expelled by the Genoese.”
“And Simonetta wears a cross of pearls at her throat; the emblem of her city,” I finished.
“And how did you know the others for conspirators,” broke in Signor Bartolomeo, “these exalted men when you met them all?”
“Some of them damned themselves with their own words,” answered Brother Guido. “Some gave others away. But all of them wear a gold band, with the nine Medici palle, on their thumbs.”
“Their left thumbs, yes?” It was Signor Cristoforo that spoke, suddenly and urgently, and Brother Guido turned amazed blue eyes upon him.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Look closely. All the seven conspirator figures have their left thumbs hidden.”
I looked at each of the figures in the scene in turn, unable to believe my eyes.
Madonna.
How had we missed it?
Flame-haired Pisa hid her left thumb as she clasped Simonetta-Genoa’s hand. Fiammetta-Naples hid her left thumb behind the fingers of her sister Pisa. Semiramide-Roma hid her left thumb in the scarlet swags of her wedding cloak. I, Flora, had my left thumb hidden below my skirt of roses. ChlorisVenice’s left thumb was hid behind the hand she reached forth to clasp her daughter’s arm. Zephyrus-Bolzano, the blue-winged sprite, had his left thumb hid in the gown of the nymph that he ravished. Mercury-Botticelli-Milan hid his left thumb behind his hip. Only Genoa—only Simonetta—exposed her left thumb to view, holding it high and proud, inviting the eye, linked with the right thumb of Naples, one of the highest points in the scene. Even tiny Cupid, our guide through the painting, had his little left thumb hid behind his bow.
“By the rood, you’re right! You are absolutely right!” Brother Guido breathed.
Now I had seen it, it was obvious. “It even looks wrong.”
“Precisely,” agreed Brother Guido. “And we know that in this painting, nothing is an accident. Botticelli is the finest artist of his generation. His understanding and execution of the human form is second to none. And yet here, some of the hands look positively awkward. The right hand of Zephyrus, in particular, looks
incorrect—surely if you were to grab at someone in anger or passion one would use the thumb to grasp her gown.” His cheeks heated a little and he moved on swiftly. “Even Semiramide’s left hand does not grasp the scarlet cloak as it should. But Botticelli would never paint someone with an unnatural attitude or posture. He is too accomplished for that. It must be by design, and the inference is, they are all hiding something, namely, their place in the alliance.”
“It was by design!” I burst in. “For it was Botticelli himself who arranged my hands for me when I sat for him. I remember now how he hid my thumb under a fold of the fabric which held the roses. It was no accident. But why thumbs, of all things?”
Brother Guido shrugged. “In these lands it is common to bite your thumb at someone that you challenge to a fight. I think the origin of the gesture derives from the chivalric act of removing a gauntlet with the teeth, starting with the left thumb, so that the right hand can take the left glove and use it to strike the offender’s face.”
The brothers could not follow above a half of this cant about thumbs and were growing understandably impatient in light of the threat to their city. “So now what?” urged Signor Cristoforo.
“We must alert the Doge of Genoa,” decided Brother Guido. “We gain audience somehow, and if he doesn’t wear a ring on his left thumb, I think we may be sure he knows nothing of this conspiracy.”
Signor Cristoforo leaped to his feet. “Bartolomeo, alert the harbormaster and the militia. Get them to ready the cannon ships in the port. Tell them there is an attack coming. Say we have intelligence from Venice. Take this”—he ripped up the new printed map from the table—“show him the cross of Genoa. Hurry.”
His brother took the map and turned at the door. “Where are you going?”