Portrait of a Conspiracy

by Donna Russo Morin

  “Good day, signore, I am Leonardo da Vinci,” he announced quickly, for he knew his name was widely known, for many a reason. But Lapaccia’s maggiore domo gave no sign of welcome and would not, it appeared, open the door further.

  “I am here to discuss a commission with your mistress. Is she receiving?” He spoke with natural confidence, having said the same words at other doors on more than one occasion, and with no indication of contrary knowledge.

  “No, signore, she is not in residence at present,” the man replied with little courtesy, though not devoid of respect altogether.

  Leonardo heard what he left unsaid.

  “Not in residence?” He stepped closer to the door and the man hidden in its shadows. “Does this mean she has vac—”

  The door shut in his face, the words left on his tongue. The lack of any answer was his answer.

  Leonardo retreated the way he had come, heading south on the Via Calzaiuoli, past the stillness of the Duomo and the blood-stained steps before it. He thought to make for the Palazzo della Signoria—to know the condition of the body that was the city of Florence, he need only look at its heart. One step upon its cobbles told him all.

  On any other Sunday afternoon, when the breeze caressed with the smooth warmth of spring, the piazza would be filled with Florentines of all varieties. It was a day of rest and socializing, of seeing friends and families without the bustle of a workday imposing its will upon them. Jugglers would entertain, perhaps even a marionette performance or two. Musicians would gather in the corners, serenading the spirited, hobnobbing horde.

  But not today.

  Today there was emptiness. Empty, save for the pigeons in full dominion of the piazza, roosting in every corner and on every ledge. There were no gatherings, no entertainers. One or two living souls crossed the piazza, eyes cast downward, footsteps swift with arms tight to their bodies, clearly in hurry to be gone. There was but one item in great abundance—bodies.

  Lorenzo had seen the shore once, had seen a deserted stretch of smooth beige sand dotted with shells and stones. Such was a vista he gazed upon now. But here the scattered remains dotted the stones stained red with blood, the pieces of what had once been people, evil though they may have been, were the lumps that broke the plane of flat cobbles. A few men worked at their removal, rough looking men with ill-fitting, ragged clothes, some with rags tied about their mouths and noses. In silence, they picked up the bodies—the pieces—and tossed them unceremoniously in the back of a wagon, a pile mounting as they went, a pile destined for the river.

  The artist swallowed hard, throat bobbing. He had dissected the human form in its deceased state, but he had done so with respect for the soul that once occupied it. This was depravity. He could look upon it no longer.

  Leonardo had no wish, or fortitude, to cross the piazza. Instead he turned his boots to the west, onto San Romolo. It was the long way to the Corso dei Tintori and the Inn of the Three Turtles, but the detour was worth the courtesy to his sensibilities.

  Breathing soundlessly through his nose, Leonardo allowed his mind to clear of the pictures he had no care to paint, of the images he longed to erase from his mind. There were so many now, rendered indelibly, one upon the other in his mind, ever since that Sunday he lost Giuliano. The quiet in his mind seemed to permeate the very air around him, and for the first time he found a modicum of gratitude for the hush that lay upon his city.

  But it was not to last.

  Fretful snippets found him, traveling up the wide lane of the Via dei Benci, a well-traveled thoroughfare turning him southward. As he neared the Piazza Santa Croce, heavy male voices raised in anger and outrage reached out to him, rumbles of a brewing storm drawing closer.

  “O Dio,” he muttered harshly, “what now?”

  The crowd milled before the shallow stone steps of the Santa Croce Basilica. It was an angry throng, a reviled horde consisting mostly of farmers, many with a brandished pitchfork, others with shovels. Among them stood a smattering of merchants and noblemen, their silks and brocades a discordance of bright blooms in a field of brown grass. Their voices raised in protest.

  “He has no business here.”

  “It is a sacrilege.”

  Leonardo shuffled slowly along the back of the mob, behind the fountain and the playing field, to the corner of the Palazzo Cocchi, where he could watch and listen in relative safety. He had neither need nor desire to be recognized, most especially by a group of angry men.

  “His own words cursed him,” one of the farmers yelled, tall and broad, his booming voice carrying far and above the sonorous rabble. “His last words commended his soul to the devil.”

  They speak of Jacopo. His thought was no question, but a surety.

  Everyone had heard the rumors of Jacopo de’ Pazzi’s confession, knew the fiend’s reputation for blasphemy, and took his final utterance—one aligning himself with the force of greatest evil—as truth. Many had spoken against his burial in consecrated ground, in the Pazzi Chapel of Santa Croce. Not a soul believed he had received extreme unction—the blessing freeing a soul from sin, allowing for a holy interment—though some claimed he had.

  “Did no one see this coming?” Leonardo muttered at the lack of thought. The revenge the Medici sought had infested the entire city. Were the men who ruled too shortsighted not to foresee the repugnance this body in this sacred place would cause?

  “Our crops are dying. God punishes us all for the blasphemy.” This from another farmer, his words inciting the very air to reek of vexation. The resulting cries concurred—his was not the only crop suffering, though not a one mentioned the days of rain that had just passed, an overabundance of precipitation easily blame-worthy for yellow, withering plants.

  “He must be given to his devil,” the first man yelled, stomping forward, his bulk parting the crowd, his looming mien driving the friars of Santa Croce and Ser Roncalli, one of the presiding Lord Priors, back upon the landing in front of the church entrance. Five heavily armed men of the Eight stood their ground before the cenobites and the politician, yet they were vastly outnumbered.

  The man came to a stop at the bottom of the seven steps. “He must be put where he can no longer offend the Lord.”

  Another stepped up beside him, not nearly as imposing but as fiercely determined. “Give him to us or we will get him ourselves.”

  The friars flinched at the threat, huddling together, whispering with Ser Roncalli, who finally spoke for the group.

  “The good friars will bring him out. They have no wish for their church to be desecrated. Surely we can agree upon this.”

  Leonardo thought the elderly man remarkably courageous; no more than wisps of gray remained upon his head, errant strands fluttering in the wind like feathers, his jowls shaking as he spoke, yet his voice held the authority that was his to wield.

  “If we cannot agree, I will be forced to call in more of the Eight as well as the militia.”

  It was a daring gamble, for this maddened crowd could surely impose their will long before reinforcements could arrive.

  The farmers huddled together as the friars had. A few appeared unsatisfied, most did not. The body, once retrieved, would be theirs to do with as they wished. Peaceful men at heart, it was all they desired.

  The man at the head of the group addressed the protectors of Santa Croce.

  “It is agreed. But only if it happens here and now.”

  The friars needed not another word. En masse, they turned and rushed quickly down the stairs and to the right of the church, entering the more modest secular structure attached to it. In this building resided the Pazzi chapel and its generations of the venerable family interred there.

  In minutes, a band of six friars reappeared, three on each side of the casket.

  Six men, including the large farmer who spoke for the throng, stepped to the coffin and wrenched it from the friars’ hold, pushing the devout men, and began to carry it away from the sacred ground where it had no right to be.
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  It was a malevolent victory procession turning north onto the Via di Bonfanti.

  Leonardo debated with himself. Did he follow? Did he indulge in the debased human need for revenge? Or did he keep himself devoid of such emotion, above such corruption of the soul?

  He pulled his beretto lower upon his forehead, lowered his already heavy-lidded eyes, and began to follow.

  In this nearly anonymous attendance, Leonardo turned as the parade did, west onto the Borgo alla Croce, becoming a piece of the tail of the beast winding its way through the city. For the first time in days, doors burst open, faces came to the windows, and other daring souls cried out, “Who do you carry?”

  “Jacopo de’ Pazzi!” came roaring answers. “We rid our city of his pestilence.”

  It was a rallying cry. Others quickly crossed their thresholds and joined the throng. The dyers—home from work on a Sunday—and their families, those who populated the area, streamed from their modest homes, congesting the road, swelling the ranks of the grisly parade to a flood. They threatened none and yet, even as they approached the Porta alla Croce, the militia guarding it, and the gallows beside it, they did so as an uncontestable force.

  None came.

  The men carrying the casket and the majority of the followers passed through the gate, toward the empty gallows with its rope swinging gently in the breeze, its creaking a banshee’s call for a neck to embrace. Leonardo felt he could not have stopped himself did he wish to. He had no such wish.

  But the sight was worth the effort.

  As he made his way around the back of the gathering throng, as he found a crack in the crowd through which he could see to its front lines, he saw that the leaders of the crowd had dug a shallow grave in the field just beyond the gibbet. The tall man rose higher on stretched toes as the casket cover of the once great knight ripped from its hinges, and his stiff, but not yet decaying body, tumbled from the coffer.

  What had been a righteous mission became a celebration of grisly success. As they covered the body with dirt and rocks, men spit at it, some dropped their breeches to defecate upon it. The crowd cheered and jeered raucously, rapturously.

  Above it the cry rose, dark and righteous.

  “Any who had a part in the great Giuliano’s death,” the man’s voice boomed, God’s wrath through the air, “you will suffer as this devil has!”

  In the man’s mania, Leonardo heard his own, and the sound was cacophonous to his ears. With a small modicum of guilt, he knew his need for revenge had been somewhat mollified, he knew too the biting bitter taste was not for him. He spat it away, set his shoulders in an act of finality, and turned from the ghastly and gruesome sight. His aim was now firmly set toward the women and their light.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Cheers match jeers,

  As do tears and fears.”

  If Leonardo had been a young child instead of a young man, he would have clapped his hands with delight at the sight of the apothecary shop on the Ponte Vecchio. Its flap was up and secured on poles, its door a wide open and inviting maw. Just nearing it, one could smell the tang of herbs, the perfume of berried potions, and the sharpness of linseed oil. It was all there, especially artists’ supplies.

  Leonardo doffed his brimmed beretto, squinting into the dark and crowded interior. He sighed at the onslaught of aromas—so familiar, so beloved.

  “Leonardo! You are here. How wonderful!”

  “And happy I am to be here!” Leonardo returned the joyful greeting, spotting Dario Barbieri behind the counter. The chubby man’s face split by a wide grin, yellow teeth exposed all the way to the back of his mouth, arms thrown wide.

  The two men embraced as if they had not seen each other in an age. They held each other but an arm’s length apart and, for the moment, simply rejoiced in the survival of the other.

  “All is well with you?” Dario asked, just a hint of concern tainting the polite question.

  “I am quite well, Dario, have no fear.”

  “But you are still living in the palazzo, sì? How is it with Il Magnifico?” This last the man asked with not a bit of subterfuge, his sadness for Lorenzo de’ Medici laid bare.

  Leonardo shook his head. He still inhabited the small rooms Lorenzo had made available at the time of his troubles, but he had seen the man only twice since the death of Giuliano, once to convey his tear-filled condolences, the other at the funeral services. They had said no more than a few words to each other.

  “I do not believe he has begun to heal,” Leonardo said the truth quietly. “Hate possesses him utterly.”

  Dario pursed his lips, scratching the back of his nearly bald pate. “As well it should.”

  Leonardo merely tilted his head.

  “You do not agree?” Dario recoiled.

  “I think hate can be the ruin of us as much as our enemies.”

  “You are too wise for your age, Leonardo. You need to have more frivolity in your life.”

  Leonardo whipped out a short parchment filled with a long list from within the pouch of his tunic. “My work, my studies, these are my joys. Now prepare yourself, Dario, I have need of much.”

  For the next hour, the two men scoured every nook and cranny of the well-stocked apothecary. By the time their gathering was over, Leonardo could barely see Dario behind the pile heaped upon the counter.

  The proprietor stood on tiptoes to stare at his friend. “So much, Leonardo, are you sure?”

  The learned man, more than a painter or sculptor or philosopher or scientist, nodded with great spirit. “I am sure, my friend, quite sure.”

  Dario boxed up the goods, calling a young boy to bring a handcart to the front of the shop. “You have enough here to paint the whole of the city. What is it you work on?”

  Leonardo offered the small grin so particularly his, shy yet full of knowing. But he gave no answer. In lieu of words, he placed in the merchant’s hand two gold florins, each with the face of Il Magnifico engraved upon them.

  The sight of Dario’s bulging eyes did much to hearten Leonardo, and did everything to stifle any more questions from the curious seller.

  “I wish you the best of days,” Leonardo called over his wide, bony shoulders as he dipped out of the shop.

  “And you, dear Leonardo. Many thanks!” Dario called back.

  Even as Leonardo began his walk off the bridge pulling the small cart, he could hear the call of “mille grazie” reaching him from within the apothecary’s shop and he treasured the small grin it gave him as a gift.

  Gifts.

  That is what these women were to him, those anxiously awaiting his presence.

  • • •

  It took them so very long to settle down, to stop crowing with pleasure, to stop touching everything with coos of delight. It did not evade Viviana’s notice, in the color rising on Leonardo’s cheeks or his sparkling eyes, Leonardo’s pure gratification in the giving she glimpsed each time she glanced at him. She shared his gratitude, not only for his gifts, but for the gift of his very presence.

  Once they had calmed, once the women had distributed the goods proportionally and genially, they set to work.

  Leonardo brought them before the large, prepared canvas, and they studied its surface.

  “Do we agree it is dried thoroughly enough?” he asked and all concurred as they touched and smelled the overlay.

  “Ah, sì, good.” He stepped away, returning swiftly with a ball of string. “What I am going to show you now, though in truth I cannot believe I do so,” this last he muttered like an old woman protesting the vagaries of life to no one but life itself. “Well, I do not recommend you ever use it again. I care not if Botticelli considers it a great tool. I deem it a fine cheat.”

  At this the women eyed each other, more than a little intrigued by the gossipy nature of the allusion. They watched with curiosity as Leonardo used the string to form squares on the back of the canvas, creating, at the end, a perfect twelve square grid. Each segment was perhaps a litt
le more than a foot in size, four across and three down. But when Leonardo turned the canvas back around, the grid disappeared.

  “But how—” Mattea began, stilled as Leonardo held up a long hand.

  From another table, he captured two lit candles, one in each hand, and stepped behind the canvas.

  “Would you look at that?” Isabetta exclaimed.

  By gridding the canvas with string and by placing the candle behind it, the shadows of the strings perfectly portioned the painting surface. One could now apposite which items belonged in which grids, giving a greater guide to positioning as well as proportion.

  Leonardo stepped out from behind the canvas, saw the success of his work, and saw the surprise and elation on the faces of his women. He pointed a harsh finger at them all.

  “I apply the method only as you are reproducing, not creating. You will promise me you will never use it in your own work or I will help you no more.”

  “We promise,” a few said aloud with wonder, while others simply nodded, speechless.

  “Very well,” Leonardo accepted with a decisive if dubious nod. “Then it is time to make all those sketches,” he pointed to the women’s gather of parchment—the haphazard conglomerate of ill-matched drawings—set upon the table, “into one. Mattea, will you begin?”

  Viviana felt the young woman beside her hesitate. Yes, she was the best at sketching among them, but she had yet to accept it, to believe and own it. Viviana placed a gentle hand on the small of her friend’s back and pushed her forward.

  Mattea picked up her favored piece of sharpened charcoal, setting herself before the primed canvas. With a last look at the women, her other family, she set the tip to the artist linen. It had begun.

  • • •

  Each took a turn, imitating Mattea’s style at the guidance of Leonardo, but implanting and infusing what they thought were the most vital elements of the painting. But not a one ever worked alone; with the women beside them, at their back, whoever wielded the charcoal was tutored in technique, placement, and items.