“Where do you take us, signore?” Viviana took the arm the tall artist offered her as he led the women southward, along the Lungarno Corsini and across the Ponte alla Carrara.
“Well, as I thought of such places, I realized there was one in this city that boasted not only some of the greatest works to be found here, but also a great many of them.”
“Do not tease us, Leonardo,” Isabetta laughed merrily.
Viviana frowned.
“We, our group, often make such instructional outings under the guise of visitations,” Viviana spoke quickly, before her friend behaved untoward publicly. “But I am surprised to find you do so as well, being already so masterful at your craft, Leonardo.”
“The acquisition of knowledge is always useful to the intellect,” he intoned. “The worthless can be rejected, the good retained. Nothing can be either hated or loved until one has had some knowledge of it.”
“But surely,” Isabetta interceded, “you know what you love by now.”
“Ah, but what I love is ever changing, as is the craft of painting,” Leonardo replied. “Sad is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”
He turned them left, into a vast and quiet piazza, and Viviana threw her free hand up in delighted recognition.
“Of course, the Brancacci Chapel,” she chirped.
A gleam in his pale blue eyes, Leonardo exhaled, “Sì, the Brancacci Chapel.”
The small family chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine not only displayed more than ten amazing works, they were works by the forerunners of the new style—Masaccio, Masolino, and Lippi. The works themselves were considered the incunabula of it, so great was it in use.
“Though they are frescoes,” Leonardo had dropped his voice to a respectful whisper, as all Italians would within a church, “there are two whose composition is worthy of study.”
Leonardo stopped before the altarpiece and raised both arms. To the left, Viviana beheld Masaccio’s Rendering of the Tribute Money, and to the right, The Healing of the Cripple and the Raising of Tabitha from Masolino da Panicale.
“Though frescoes, they both contain many figures in a defined space.”
Leonardo began, and Viviana recognized the voice of a tutor—their unrecognized maestro—as soon as she heard it. All thoughts, even those plaguing her since last night, fled as her mind opened to all this genius had to teach them.
“With the Masolino you can see his figures are deeply Gothic, but the technique with which he rendered them gives an astounding sense of perspective to their place within the work.” He pointed. “See, see the two central figures? They stand before a building that is far behind them. And how do we know it is far behind? By the ratio of their size to that of the building, its windows, its doors.”
Isabetta had brought out a small book, the first half of which was filled with notes and sketches. As Leonardo spoke, she added more.
Turning, da Vinci brought his hands together as if in prayer. “And here, the Masaccio, dear Masaccio. The realism with which he painted his characters, those both divine and not…the utterly, definitively expressed emotion, especially anger and confusion.” He stepped closer to the painting, pointing at particular figures.
This painting related the story as told by the Apostle Matthew and rendered it with all its dramatic implications. In the center stood Christ surrounded by his disciples. A tax collector is moving towards him, about to demand the temple tax. In depicted movement, Jesus gives the order to Peter to catch a fish, saying he will find a coin in its mouth.
“Look how well we see Peter’s hesitance and confusion, the tax collector’s anger,” Leonardo continued. “Can you see that the thoughts of Masaccio were—must have been—impacted by the truth of his own world. Thus we have perspective, we have movement, we have emotion, we have—”
His quickened lecture, his own unbridled emotions, came to a halt, and Leonardo turned from the masterpiece to the women.
“—we have truth,” Leonardo da Vinci announced.
In the silence echoing after his words, the three artists—forever students—studied each brush stroke, each choice of color, of hue and shadow.
An hour, no more, had passed when Isabetta softly closed her book. The women took their place on each of Leonardo’s arms and they made their way from the church and back through the city.
Crossing back over the bridge, it seemed to Viviana that Leonardo led them in the direction of the city center, a place she had no wish to go again, perhaps not for a long while to come.
“Where to next?” she asked.
Leonardo patted the arm entwined in his, as if he heard her reticence.
“Worry not, madonna. I lead us to the west, to a friend’s home.”
“Someone’s home?” Isabetta’s voice squeaked an octave higher.
“A palazzo, in fact,” Leonardo teased.
“Ah, someone important,” Isabetta smiled, and they continued on, a merry party on passeggiati.
From the path of other strollers, it was clear that this trio were not the only ones steering clear of the city center, fearing what may lay in the Piazza della Signoria. And yet, they should have known—horror was everywhere these days.
• • •
“Make way! Make way!” the gruffly barked command came from up ahead, just round the corner.
The triumvirate walked on, hearing but not listening, a niggling in the back of their minds to which they should have paid heed.
Turning at the Via del Giardino, the gang of boys and young men, the giovani, turned onto the Canto di Nello.
Three of them walked in a “V,” leading the parade, sluicing through folks who dared to venture out. These giovani, gangs of city boys, ran roughshod over every street of the city, the lofty and the low, young sons of wealthy families with too much coin in their pockets and not enough work required to gain it. Their insouciance allowed them indulgence in the mayhem they found so amusing. In these days, where blood flowed like rain down street gutters and body parts were discarded with the same irreverent frequency as bones for a dog, the giovani had taken the calamity as permission to flaunt their disrespect with a far heavier hand.
“Move aside, I say,” the lead boy yelled. Clad in expensive leather and silk, there was no more than jawline fuzz smudging his smooth skin, unlined by the passing of years, unspotted by sun that any work in the fields might bring. Black eyes sparkling, his hips swayed with sensual swagger as he pushed all aside—man, woman, child, or elder—a brushing hand to the left, a pushing one to the right.
“O, Dio mio,” Viviana breathed.
Isabetta planted her feet in the road, planted her hands on her hips. She was never less fearful than when threatened by those she deemed unjust.
“Ah, Mona Fioravanti, how very grand it is to see you,” the young man bowed, but the exaggerated gesture was a mockery of respect, one serving only to rile Isabetta more.
“Isabetta, come away,” Viviana hissed, knowing insolence when she saw it, for she saw it on her own spouse’s face all too frequently.
“Sì, madonna,” Leonardo joined in Viviana’s pleas, “they will not listen.”
“Is that you, Scevola Genovese?” Isabetta squinted, peering through the spotty facial hair and the dirt upon his cheeks. Dirt covered patches of his fine clothes as well, so out of character for these coxcombs. “What is the meaning of this nonsense? What game do you play?”
“It is no game, mistress.” Scevola approached, his arrogance more affected. “We are purveyors of justice, true justice, upon the devil known as Jacopo de’ Pazzi.”
Isabetta stamped her foot at the nonsensical answer, which was no answer at all. “Whatever do you mean? He was buried in unconsecrated ground, was he not?”
She stood him down, toe to toe.
“It is not enough, not by half,” he spat, pushing back his pitch-colored locks. “The wretch has brought the demons among us. Many have heard the noises, eerie sounds of haunting, sightings of satanic beings. His body ha
s brought them, turned the ground into a place of demons.”
Isabetta grabbed her head with both hands as it shook, as if it would shake clear off her shoulders. “You cannot belie—”
“Clear the streets for the arrival of a great and distinguished knight!” Ignoring her, the cocksure young man threw his arms wide. The remainder of his entourage turned the corner.
A large gaggle of giovani followed the lead three, bringing with them their honored guest, Jacopo de’ Pazzi—or rather, what was left of him.
The body of the once prestigious condottiere had been buried with his noose still about his neck. The frayed rope had become his eternal chain of office. Two boys dragged the decomposing body of the Pazzi patriarch along the road. It bounced against the cobbles with moist thwacks.
Isabetta stood frozen in her tracks, no longer out of preeminence, but from pure horrified astonishment. Scevola approached, his feigned polite manner replaced with vicious intimidation.
“Remove yourself, madonna, or we will stone you,” he spit as he spoke, so vehement his intent, so vile his demeanor. “We will stone you as we have others who dared stand in our way.”
Viviana pulled her. “Come, Isabetta, come,” she whispered, drawing her friend off to the side of the road. Isabetta hesitated until she saw Leonardo, his arms open and waiting to take her in. Silent though they were, tucked safely out of the path of the degrading parade, they could not look away.
“Make way for the great knight!” Scevola took up his call even as he gave them a blustery bow, a gesture as insulting as a thumb flicked from his teeth.
The crowd of louts spread themselves out, taking up almost the whole width of the lane.
“Do not tarry,” one pack of the giovani called back to the cadaver. “There are many citizens waiting for you in the piazza.”
Viviana stepped back and back again, Leonardo and Isabetta with her. As the giovani passed by, they saw more than one recognizable face, more than one son of good bloodlines. But none so shocking as the appearance of Lapaccia’s son, Andreano.
“Andreano!” Viviana cried out with the terrifying truth of it. “Andreano!” This time it was sharp with rebuke, a demand for his attention.
The young man followed the sound of his name until he found his mother’s friends. The bulge of his soft brown eyes exposed his surprise, and his shame. Running his hands through his dark hair, darker for the dirt crusting in it, he stepped closer.
“Get yourselves from here, my ladies, this is no place for you,” he hissed.
Viviana could have slapped him, as she would have one of her own sons, had he the courage to come closer.
“It is you,” she pointed a finger of damnation at him, jaw thrust forward. “You must get out of this. You cannot be a party to this despicable bacchanalia. Get out!”
Andreano only shook his head, albeit with little enthusiasm, calling back as he moved on. “I cannot.”
Leonardo pulled on Isabetta’s arm. Limp with revulsion, she barely gave resistance.
“We should leave, madonna,” the artist whispered to her.
“Where do we go, Viviana?” Isabetta snapped, her anger overtaking her disgust. “I can see no more.”
Viviana shut her own eyes for a moment, in the longing to surrender.
“I know, I know,” she pacified. “But I feel we must follow, to be sure of Andreano’s well-being. For the sake of Lapaccia, we must.”
Were she the missing woman, were one of her sons amidst this detestable swarm, Viviana prayed her friends would do the same.
They followed along, doing their best to forget the decimated body slogged through the crowd before them, until a detached, forgotten finger forced them to step quickly aside. Viviana knew the distress this caused her companions, Isabetta with thoughts of her dying husband, Leonardo fearful of recognition and incurring the wrath of the giovani, as he had on too many an occasion.
As they followed the Borgo alla Croce, they saw members of the Eight as well as those of the Podestà. The women saw the law enforcers and the soldiers doing nothing about the giovani and their gruesome guest of honor. “It is an outrage,” Isabetta found her voice. “How can they allow it to continue? Why do they not stop them?”
Viviana shook her head, for she had no answer, no sensible answer. She knew only what her heart told her, not only of the man’s just rewards, but the destiny of all who defied human decency.
The gang brought the body to the edge of the Piazza della Signoria, but here the military force did their due diligence, barring them from entering the square with a barricade of well-built, well-armed men.
Without argument, the giovani turned away, unwilling to suffer physically for their fun.
“You see, Isabetta, they did—”
“Viviana! Isabetta! Signore da Vinci!”
Turning, the trio discovered Natasia and Mattea rushing toward them, the two young women clinging to each other as they ran.
“What happens here? What is amiss?” they fired the questions at them.
The group continued to follow the parade, as Viviana and Isabetta told of the conflagration in which they found themselves.
As they turned onto the Borgo degli Albizzi, it suddenly became clear to Viviana where they were going next, and she groaned with the thought of it.
“What, Viviana, what is it?” Mattea stood on tiptoe to see if she could see up ahead.
“I know where we are headed.”
“Where?”
But Viviana need not answer, for it was a short distance to the next turn, to the Canto de Pazzi and the family’s conclave of palaces.
Now the giovani brought what was left of the once great cavaliere to his very door. They took him by the head then—the largest of the young men using Jacopo’s skull to knock upon the Pazzi door, while others yelled up at the windows.
“Who’s in there? Who’s inside?”
No one came to the door. The shutters remained fully closed and latched over the leaded panes of glass the Pazzi palazzo boasted. Whatever Pazzi remained inside, remained hidden there.
“Is no one here to receive the master and his entourage?” Scevola yelled to the crowd. “Enough of this. I am sickened by his stench.” He aimed his group south, and south they went.
It pleased Viviana, if any pleasure could be found in such moments, to find Andreano always at the back of the pack, always with those of the giovani who did naught more than watch and swagger about. He intimidated with his presence, true, but he touched neither the body nor any of the people who tried to stop the carnage the gang wrought.
As the number of citizens swelled, as the body broke into more pieces, its entourage brought him brazenly passed the Bargello, the Palace of the Podestà, and the court of criminal justice. With no shame or guilt, they dragged him passed church after church—the Apollinaire, the Neri, and even San Firenze. All the way to the river, they brought him, and the Corso dei Tintori.
Here the poorest citizens of the great republic lived, if it could be called living, for the homes of these people who dyed the cloth in massive quantity for those rich enough to afford it, were no more than rickety timbered shacks, makeshift cabins tilted askew by the slightest wind, flooding in the rains. These poorest of the poor who lived in this squalor came rushing out at the ruckus, cheering to see one of the high and mighty taking such a fall.
As the cavalcade of the cadaver reached the water’s edge, its purveyors dragged what remained of the body upstream and onto the Ponte Rubaconte. Crowds surged both sides of the river, pressed up against the barriers, some daring to join the giovani on the lengthy bridge itself, the longest and northernmost in the city.
Women of acquaintance came to stand with Viviana and her group, women whose tongues loved the waggle of rumor, rumors claiming the Eight were in collusion with the giovani, that it was Il Magnifico’s own coin, pressed into the palm of the leaders of the gangs, which brought about this desecration.
As loathsome as this charade was, Viviana
cared little for Jacopo de’ Pazzi and what the gangs did to him, save for the violence it kept alive in her city. She feared for the soul of Lorenzo de’ Medici, for she knew the darkness of it, lived with the same. Consuming hatred turned souls black.
“The Eight are still pulling people from their homes. They are still hanging them from the windows of the palazzo without benefit of a hearing,” Natasia whined as the group watched the gang rifle onto the bridge, peering here and there for the perfect spot.
Viviana scrunched her shoulders. “We cannot fault them for doing their duty.”
“But what if some of them are innocent? They are then killing innocent people.”
Viviana pierced the young, troubled girl with a cynical glare, knowing how well some could hide their evil ways. “How do we know they are innocent?”
“How do we know Lapaccia is innocent?” Natasia simpered. In her words, Viviana heard Fiammetta’s influence.
“Natasia!” It was Mattea who chastised the woman. “You must not speak so.”
The young girl hung her head, refusing to meet their eyes. “This is wrong,” she muttered. “Yes, what the Pazzi did was an outrage, but this is no better.”
Not the one refuted her. Viviana felt the niggling of doubt in the pit of her stomach. In Natasia’s words, Viviana heard a vein of truth. If such all-encompassing power—power the Medici wielded—were allowed unchecked reign, where would it land next, where would it take the Medici control next? She understood the absolute lust for revenge. But there had to be limits. Who limits the man who creates the limits?
Viviana dropped her head into her hands, fingers pushing against her forehead. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Leonardo da Vinci leaning over her, eyes ablaze with concern.
Portrait of a Conspiracy Page 17