“It is a privilege to be working and learning here with you, Master Trevisan,” I said. “I do not wish to be anywhere else.”
I saw the corner of his mouth turn up under his beard. “It is kind of you to say, but my wife is correct. I should be more careful not take advantage of your being here. Please. I insist that you take some time for your own needs, for rest.”
I paused, wondering what I would do. I only looked down and shrugged. “I can hardly visit my family.”
He scraped a stool across the floor, then sat before me with his fingers drumming on his knees. “No,” he said. “The pestilence has seen to that, has it not?” He paused and scratched his head. “Do you have other family in the city?” he asked, setting his clear eyes on me.
I hesitated for a few moments, thinking about the many family members we have lost over my lifetime. My mother’s extended family is gone, as is my father’s. I never had any cousins other than Paolo.
“Only my father’s sister cloistered at the convent of Santa Maria delle Vergini,” I say. “It has been a long time since I have seen her.”
The painter stood and wiped his hands on a soiled rag. “Consider it done. When we go to the Vergini you must remain and visit your aunt. I will instruct my boatman to bring my journeyman and myself back here to the studio, then he will return to wait for you at Santa Maria delle Vergini in my gondola. You must feel free to spend as much time as you like.”
“Is that your warmest cloak, cara?” I look up from my small plate of quail eggs to see the painter’s wife looking skeptically from across the table at my threadbare woolen shawl. Self-consciously, I pull it across my shoulders. The painter’s wife shifts the baby to the other breast, expertly adjusting the top of her dress so that one breast is covered and the other is exposed. I watch the baby girl’s bare head settle gently against her mother’s body.
“My tabarro is in our room upstairs,” I say, starting for the back staircase to retrieve my felted woolen cloak hanging from a wooden peg in our bedchamber.
“Wait,” the painter’s wife gestures to me with her free hand. “Antonella, would you please fetch it for her?”
Antonella hesitates, then sets down her knife. “Of course, signora,” she says, heading tentatively for the stairs. Antonella is beautiful, too, I think, but in a different way than the painter’s wife. She is her opposite, in fact: strapping, sturdy, and olive-skinned, with thick, dark hair twisted into braids, black flashing eyes and strong forearms like those of the Sicilian women who come to work in the city. She looks as if she could pull an oxcart or throw a punch.
The painter’s wife cranes her neck to make sure that Antonella is out of range, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “Before you leave,” she says to me, “I want you to know that you must be wary of our boatman.”
She pauses, and I meet her eyes but struggle for a response. So far, I have only seen the boatman in passing. He appears each morning to fetch the painter’s young son and ferry the boy to his tutor while we are working in the painter’s studio. Otherwise the boatman stays inside the cavàna, the great private boat slip under the house, or whittles wood on the landing at the canal-side door. I have little reason to talk with him.
“What do you mean?” I say finally, when the painter’s wife does not immediately continue.
She considers her words before speaking, which I feel is unusual for her. “He has just come back to us after...” She shakes her head. “It is a complicated story. It was not my choice to have him come back here, but my husband insisted on renewing his agreement even though I advised against it.” She pauses again, reaching for words. “We have had some troubles with him in the past. Let us leave it at that. I implore you to keep your distance. You do not want to get yourself involved with him.”
I nod as the painter pushes the hinged door from the workshop into the kitchen. He has traded his painter’s apron for a handsome woolen cape, his cap for a brimmed, felted hat with a feather. He nods at his wife and then raises his eyebrows at me. “Ready?”
“I was just advising Maria to steer clear of your boatman,” the painter’s wife says in a loud whisper.
The painter’s face darkens. “You are not spreading rumors about him to poor Maria, are you?” It is the only time I have heard the painter speak sharply to his wife or to anyone.
His wife looks down at the infant at her breast. “I thought she needed to be forewarned,” she says.
The painter sighs and rubs his beard. “Donata. The poor girl has only just arrived. I have told you that I will deal with the boatman myself, tesoro. Do not speak with him if it makes you feel any better. In any case, I feel certain that he will find himself more loyal this time around.”
She meets her husband’s gaze, her eyes wide and her face still. “And why would he, Benvoglio?”
The painter shrugs. “It is as I have already told you. I have renewed the contract, but this time I have taken some precautions with his salary.”
I feel immersed in something private, something that has nothing to do with me, something I do not think I want to know about between the painter and his wife. I busy myself by inspecting a spider bundling something imperceptible into a fuzzy ball on the windowsill.
The painter turns toward me and extends his open palm. “You see, our boatman…” The painter lowers his voice. “He is the third one I have had in as many years,” he says. “You may know, reliable boatmen are difficult to find and difficult to keep. It can be challenging to locate servants who are both competent as well as trustworthy.”
I nod but do not say anything. I have no knowledge of such matters.
Antonella’s footsteps clap on the back staircase. The painter falls silent, but his wife quickly whispers, “It is best to ignore the boatman altogether. You have been warned.” Her husband shoots his wife a glance filled with words unspoken.
The painter’s journeyman jogs down the stairs into the kitchen, fluffing his unruly hair. “I hope I have not kept you waiting, Master Trevisan.” The journeyman is nearly a man but still a boy inside and out, I think, with his wide eyes and light stubble across his chin. He presses a worn woolen hat—the kind the old men who play bracciale in the square wear—over large ears that protrude like jug handles. He blinks hard and I stifle a smile.
Antonella appears behind him with my felted cloak folded over her arm. I feel its familiar heft and warmth as I pull it across my shoulders. It was a gift from my father, paid for with months of commissions. Feeling its familiar softness under my palm, I feel more secure than I did the moment before.
An ancient stone staircase leads from the kitchen down into the watery boat slip under the painter’s house. Light filters into the dank cavàna through a pointed arch covered by an iron grille that leads out into the canal. The space is cavernous, and our footsteps echo off the stones as I press my palm into the damp wall. My breath puffs into small clouds of vapor before my eyes as I descend the stairs.
On the platform alongside the gondola I see the boatman seated on a wobbly wooden stool. He is chewing on something—a piece of straw?—and eyeing me carefully as I make my way down the stairs.
“Signori.”
He stands. Dark locks fall over the boatman’s brow as he turns his lined face toward me. I do my best not to stare at his ragged scar, its outline deeply grooved into the flesh below his eye. The boatman places one foot on the rear deck of the gondola to steady it. The painter and the journeyman step into the craft, which bucks against the wooden bumpers that prevent its surface from scratching the stone boat ramp. The boatman extends his broad hand to help me into the boat. I take the boatman’s hand, and watch the corners of his mouth turn up, but it is not exactly a smile. I meet his beady eyes then look away, the words of the painter’s wife ringing in my ears.
The painter, his journeyman, and I settle in the dark opulence of the passenger compartment. In the dimness, I m
ake out heavy drapes and the whites of the painter’s eyes. I feel the boatman push off and make the sharp turn into the canal. As we emerge from the boathouse, the diffuse winter light casts dancing, watery patterns onto the heavy drapes of midnight blue.
The boat displays all the trappings of a private gondola di casada. The inside of the passenger compartment has been outfitted for the cold months with velvet drapes and benches upholstered in damask and brocade. Several woolen blankets are stacked in the corner for passengers to help ward off the chill. The oarlocks and the prow have been recently coated with oil and shined to a high gloss and the boat’s black surface gleams.
“The boat is lovely,” I say.
The painter’s eyes light up. “I am pleased that you approve. The Vianello family boatyard made it for me. It is in Cannaregio. Do you know of it?”
“Only by reputation,” I say. “My father and I have done some wood gilding for gondolas made in the Rosmarin boatyard.”
“The Squero Vianello is one of Our Most Serene Republic’s most esteemed makers of passenger craft,” the painter continues. “Everything has been made to my specifications. The brocade on the upholstery is made by one of their people. He is mute but a master at what he does.”
My palm slides over the soft texture of the swirls. I have little need to ride in a gondola, and have never been inside one as elegant as this. My eye is drawn to the intricately carved walnut panels on the inside of the passenger compartment. I imagine the many layers of varnish used to coat the keel to make it waterproof. I know from working with wood how difficult it is to keep it from wearing and rotting in our humid climate.
The painter has traded his usual paint-smudged smock for a fine ensemble of woolen breeches and breast coat. He runs his fingertips along the edge of the gondola’s cap rail, then raises his finger to display a layer of grey dust. Across from the painter, the journeyman makes a disgusted face. The painter pushes himself up from the cushion.
“Boatman,” he calls through the parted curtain. He displays his dusty fingertips to the boatman. “This is not what I have paid for. It is your job to keep this boat clean. It has hardly come out of the boatyard.”
Standing on the rowing deck at the aft of the boat, the stocky boatman possesses none of the elegance of the fine vessel. Through an opening in the curtains, I watch him press the oar into the oarlock and steer us out of the narrow passage and into a broader canal. He is dressed in a woolen jacket and breeches, once fine but now worn, as if cast off from the painter or a highborn man.
“The city is dirty, Master Trevisan,” the boatman shrugs. “Especially at this time of year.” He shrugs again. “Rains. Fog. Carnevale.”
“I expect a higher standard.”
“Certo, Master Trevisan,” the boatman says, and I watch his lips press tightly together as the painter retakes his seat.
The painter pushes himself back into the cushions and addresses me. “You already know Santa Maria delle Vergini?”
“I used to go with my father and my cousin to see my father’s sister in the convent visiting room, but it has been a long time since I have last seen her.”
The painter opens the leather sketchbook on his lap and thumbs through his drawings. “The sisters have an old altarpiece above the shrine of their patron saint. It is at least a hundred years old now, I suspect made by the Crivelli workshop. Your own great-grandfather may have had a hand in it,” the painter gestures toward me. “I have made a few sketches of it in preparation for our project.” The painter turns his sketchbook around to show me a delicate sketch made with silverpoint and brown ink, with highlights of white chalk. I recognize the arched form of a great central panel, a Crucifixion, with other panels and figures clustered across the bottom, sketched in a cursory yet expert manner. “The da Molin family is paying for the altarpiece,” the painter says. “It is their donation to the convent… along with their young daughter.”
“Da Molin. Deep pockets,” the journeyman says. “But the convent already receives a lot of support because they take in the abbandonati.”
“Orphans,” I say. “Yes, my aunt has spoken of them. She cooks sweets in the convent kitchen. I think she must be popular among them.”
“Of that I am certain.” The painter smiles, and his beard spreads from ear to ear. “As I explained to your father, da Molin’s donation means a major commission for us. The nuns want to make another altarpiece that matches it for the other side of the church. It will not look exactly the same as the old altarpiece, of course, but they want to make it a pendant for the other, which is why there is so much gold specified in the contract,” says the painter.
“A very large altarpiece,” says the journeyman.
“Seven panels’ worth,” the painter says.
“My father says that the gold is dying,” I say, taking up the thread of our conversation in the painter’s studio. “I have heard it all my life. Our patrons no longer want the gilded altarpieces like they did in the past. They want something new, something different. They want bright colors, saturated pigments. They only want the edges or frames gilded now, and small objects that unfortunately do not provide us as much income. My father says that I need to learn the pigments, for the gold is starting to disappear.”
The painter shrugs. “We still use gold often, but it is true that it is less used than it was in the past. We follow the fashions. It is not as it was in my father’s day. I think it is the right way to move our trade forward. But I am sorry for your father and the other gilders.”
“How is your father?” asks the painter’s journeyman, tapping his finger on his narrow chin.
Silence descends on us. “I... Only one letter has reached me,” I say, fidgeting with the trim of my sleeve.
I turn my gaze to the horizon, where the sails of a dozen merchant galleys anchored in the lagoon have come into view. The brave captains, I am told, travel across the world, bringing silks, spices, and other treasures back to Our Most Excellent Republic.
In the silence, the painter comes to my aid. “Because of the pestilence that has come to Cannaregio, Maria cannot visit them. And her father is one of the best gilders in the city. I am sure he is very busy with his commissions.”
“Of course,” the journeyman says, leaning over and pressing his hands to his face. “I am an idiot,” he says. “Forgive me. Surely it will pass. Who is helping your father while you are away?”
“My cousin Paolo.” I hesitate. “And some months ago we brought a battiloro into the studio.” I feel a flush of heat streak across my face. If it has turned as red as it feels, the two men do not seem to notice.
“Sensible,” the painter says. “Actually a brilliant idea. But I would expect nothing less from your father.” He smiles.
“Tell me about this battiloro,” says the journeyman, leaning forward with his elbows on his skinny knees. I feel my heart skip. “I have never heard of a gold-beater housed inside a gilder’s workshop,” he says. “Is that a normal practice?”
“The battiloro...” Though he is in my mind from dawn until dusk, I struggle to know where to begin. Although they form a separate guild from our alliance of painters and gilders and also govern their own workshops, goldbeaters are critical to our work. They hammer the soft ingots into sheets, thinner than leaves, that we use in our pictures. Never before have we had a battiloro inside our studio. Under the circumstances, I imagine that my father will never have one again.
“It is not the usual practice, no,” I say. “It was his own master’s dying wish that he work alongside us. And so my father brought Cristiano into the workshop even though we might not have had the means to do so otherwise.”
“I have heard of him,” the painter says. “A black man known for his goldbeating skills.”
The journeyman raises his eyebrows. “A Saracen?”
“Well,” I hesitate again. “Cristiano’s people came from ac
ross the sea but he was born here in our city.”
“He is unbaptized?” asks the journeyman.
I realize only now that I do not know the answer to this question.
“He is as much Venetian as you or I and very good at his trade. He is strong.”
“As Moors often are,” says the painter, waving his hand dismissively. “His skill is widely known in our Guild of Saint Luke.”
“It is?” I am astonished.
“Yes,” he says. “Our own gastaldo has praised your goldbeater in our guild meetings. Before the pestilence began to spread we freely got gold leaf from Master Zuan, the goldbeater where your battiloro was once apprenticed.”
“I have heard,” says the journeyman, tapping his chin again, “that Moors can survive the pestilence when no one else can.”
I feel my heart stop.
“It is true,” he continues. “They are stronger than we are. Widely known but not admitted, to be sure.” He chuckles to himself as if satisfied with this observation.
I nod, but I know of no such thing, and suddenly I feel seasick. I open the louvered wooden slats along the side of the compartment and feel the briny air of the canal brush across my cheeks.
“Are you all right, Signorina Maria?” the journeyman asks me. He sets his innocent wide eyes on me.
The painter stops mid-sentence and looks at me. “You have just turned a light shade of green,” he says.
I feel red instead. “I am sorry,” I say. “Really, I am fine. I just need some air,” I say. I take a deep breath of the cold, fishy air and fan my face with a piece of parchment from the leather binder I have brought with me.
“The poor girl,” the journeyman says, clicking his tongue. “I am sorry. It is understandable for you to be worried about your family.”
“Bene,” the painter says. “The pestilence shall pass; it always does. I trust that they will all remain unscathed.”
The Painter's Apprentice Page 4