The Rebirth of Venus
Page 1
To my beloved husband.
Also in memory of the many friends recently departed, particularly Cynthia and Michael Macmillan, Thérèse FitzGerald and John Allit: a splendour of souls in divine company.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
I Corinthians 13, 2
But how are you to see into a virtuous Soul and know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue.
Plotinus, ‘On Beauty’
Contents
England
1. THE HEART IN A PRESS. 1482
2. VENUS IN A SEASHELL. 1482
3. THE WRONG LOVE. 1482
4. THE NIGHT THE SKY CAUGHT FIRE. 1482
5. PLATO RESTORED. 1483
6. THE VILLA BRUSCOLI. 1483
7. THE SECRET OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 1484
8. THE PLATONIC ACADEMY. 1484
9. PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA ARRIVES WITHOUT SAYING HELLO. 1484
10. DOING THE WASHING. 1484
11. THE WITCHES. 1484
12. PLATO IS PUBLISHED. 1484
13. PREDICTIONS AND PROPHECIES. 1484
14. PICO LEAVES WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE. 1485
15. THE CASA VECCHIA. 1485
16. AT THE HEARTH. 1485
17. INVOKING ANGELS. 1486
18. PICO AIMS TO CURE THE WORLD OF IGNORANCE. 1486
19. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 1486
20. VENUS LAYS A TRAP. 1486
21. HOW TO FORGIVE. 1486
22. POETIC THEOLOGY. 1486
23. THE SIX FRENZIES. 1486
24. A WARNING FROM MY BROTHER. 1486
25. CATERINA SFORZA RIDES AGAIN. 1487
26. ANOTHER WARNING. 1487
27. PICO IS CONDEMNED. 1487
28. THE ACADEMY UNDERGROUND. 1487
29. PICO IN FLIGHT. 1487
30. A GRAMMARIAN WITH A DREAM. 1487
31. THE BURNING OF THE BOOKS. 1488
32. THE THRESHOLD OF PURGATORY. 1488
33. THE DEATH OF RIARIO. 1488
34. THE MIDGET MONARCH. 1488
France
35. THE FRIAR OF BRESCIA. 1488
36. THE TRIUMPH OF THE SEVEN PLANETS. 1488
37. THE BATTLE BETWEEN TRUTH AND BEAUTY. 1490
38. THE PAINTED SMILE. 1490
39. A LACK OF SPACE. 1490
40. A PRIVATE VIEW OF THE FRESCOES. 1490
41. IN THE SCULPTURE GARDEN. 1490
42. POETRY IS AN ART OF DIVINATION. 1490
43. POETRY IS NOT DIVINE. 1490
44. POLIZIANO CONFRONTS SAVONAROLA. 1490
45. THE ICE STORM. 1491
46. FEAR OF THE FUTURE. 1491
47. WET DREAMS. 1491
48. LORENZO SENDS FIVE MEN TO SAN MARCO. 1491
49. THE WAY OF ART. 1491
50. DIVINATION BY CARDS. 1491
51. SITTING ON FENCES. 1491
52. I TRY MY HAND AT SCULPTURE. 1491
53. FOOLING A PRINTER. 1491
54. AN INVENTION OF THE DEVIL. 1491
55. BANISH HIM!. 1491
56. BOTTICELLI IN THE ARNO. 1491
57. LORENZO LONGS FOR EASE. 1492
58. THE INVESTITURE OF A CARDINAL. 1492
59. JANUS TIMES. 1492
60. LORENZO IN HIS BATH. 1492
61. A HAIL OF LIGHT. 1492
62. IN ONE SENTENCE. 1492
63. THE DEATH OF LORENZO. 1492
64. WHERE WAS FICINO?. 1492
65. A DEATH BY DROWNING. 1492
66. THE FUNERAL OF MAGNIFICENCE. 1492
67. HOW TO BE A SYCOPHANT. 1492
68. THE IMMORTAL SOUL PACKS A PUNCH. 1492
69. POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY UNDER THREAT. 1492
70. INTIMIDATION. 1493
71. FICINO FINDS HIMSELF IN AN ENGLISHMAN. 1493
72. THE ACADEMY OF SAN MARCO. 1493
73. WHAT HAPPENED TO MARIA?. 1493
Italy
74. THE VOICE OF GOD. 1493
75. THE CALUMNY OF APELLES. 1493
76. POLIZIANO AT WAR AND IN LOVE. 1493
77. WHAT IS LOVE?. 1493
78. SNOW. 1494
79. CONVERSION. 1494
80. THE COMPANY OF THE LIBRARY. 1494
81. FALLING STARS. 1494
82. THE COMING SCOURGE. 1494
83. POETRY COMES FROM GOD. 1494
84. FEBRIS. 1494
85. MARIA’S REQUEST. 1494
86. SAVING THE BOOKS. 1494
87. THE DEATH OF THE KISS. 1494
88. THE FATE OF PICO’S SOUL. 1494
89. THE NEW JERUSALEM. 1494
90. GIANFRANCESCO. 1495
91. THE SOURCE OF PROPHECY. 1495
92. THE BURNING OF BEAUTY. 1497
93. THE DECEIVING DEMON. 1497
94. SARZI. 1497
95. SAVONAROLA IS ATTACKED. 1497
96. GIANFRANCESCO REVEALED. 1497
97. FICINO TURNS HIS BACK. 1497
98. THE SACK OF SAN MARCO. 1498
99. SEEDS AND CUTTINGS. 1498
100. THE HEART IN A BOX. 1499
HISTORICAL NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE BOTTICELLI TRILOGY
GODSTOW PRESS
By the same author
Copyright
England
London, November 2nd, 1505
This spindle-legged boy has no interest in the ancient poets or philosophers, no interest in the knowledge of things; he is oblivious to beauty, impervious to fine thought. Poxed by adolescence, his beard preceded by pimples, he looks on my books with over-boiled eyes.
De Greye studies because his father commands it; and his father commands it to please the king and impress his peers. The English nobility prefer to hunt and to hawk rather than to read, but the new king would have his courtiers follow Italian fashion and acquire at least a modicum of learning. Basta! I closed the Greek grammar, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs so far as he is concerned. ‘It is enough. Let us spend the rest of the morning reading Latin.’
I drew forward my copy of Plato’s Dialogues, written out by me so many years ago, when I lived in my own country with my own kind. When I was a member of the Platonic Academy. When the Platonic Academy existed. When Ficino lived.
‘We shall read from Plato’s Symposium in Latin translation.’
The words of Plato in my finest script: blue ink on vellum, titled in ultramarine obtained from Botticelli – without Botticelli’s knowledge – and gilded roman capitals that catch the light, as near perfection as I have ever achieved. The young boar regarded it in scathing silence. No gasp of admiration from my swine at this pearl. Nothing. Chin sunk in his hands, he was determined not to be impressed.
‘Let us start here, with the speech of Socrates. I will read the Greek and you the Latin.’
He sniffed, turned his head and gazed out of the window where, through the leaded panes, he could see a hawk poised in the sky.
‘Come on,
boy. Just because the words are in a book and not an inch high on slate does not make them any different.’
He went to speak but was choked by phlegm, that humour so often excessive in the English. He snorted into his sleeve.
‘By Apollo! That is disgusting!’ I handed him my piece of linen. A thousand years ago the Roman Empire was overrun by barbarians. Here their blood is still strong. Ficino told me, ‘Take Plato north, to England, and cultivate men as a gardener.’ But this boy is beyond cultivation: he needs to be pulled up by the root and composted.
So there I was, standing over a fourteen-year-old, pale-skinned heir to a quantity of acres near Greenwich, his father a courtier of King Henry VII, teaching him the languages of civilisation – and failing. He looked up at me with the naked cruelty of youth, then his face tightened and his brows knitted together.
‘What is the matter?’ I asked, thinking he was in some sudden agony.
‘Nothing,’ he said, relaxing. ‘I just wondered what it was like to wear your face.’
I am an Italian. For all my stoic philosophy, when my temper breaks I cannot hold it. Although I remembered what Colet says about loving your pupils, it was no use. My temper exploded, as sudden as a storm in the Appenines – a rolling black cloud coming out of nowhere, emitting tremendous noise and flashes of lightning. I thundered at him, this pustulated son of England who thinks he is a noble.
‘Read the book!’
He just grew more sullen. ‘What’s the point?’
‘The point, you ape, is that this is a book about Love.’
He laughed, then, and turned back to watching the hawk.
I tried to swallow my bile. After all, if a boy resists knowledge, but the father still pays, what is it to me? But as I brought the book, my book, my treasure, back under his nose, he snatched it up and flung it at the window, with such force that the latch on the casement gave way and the book flew out. Then my rage burst any bound and, as the boy had snatched my book, so did I snatch him. He whirled and flailed in my grasp, but I was stronger. I had him by that curly red hair so that the more he struggled the more it hurt him.
‘You jumped-up scribbler!’ he shouted. ‘You droning, spleeny oil-drinker! Basta – pasta. Get your hands off me! How dare you touch me?’
I flung him against the desk and ripped his hose down in one movement – truly, I was Hercules, I was Achilles, I was Hector all in one.
Now the birch rod, to my mind, should be an impotent symbol of office, but this morning I snatched it up and used it. I pushed the boy over the desk and thrashed his buttocks. His buttocks – as pale as his face if not paler, with blue veins visible in the white skin, skin now rising with both goosebumps and red weals, skin that was trembling. Skin that was innocent. I stood back, my breath juddering, and for a moment saw just arse and legs, thin, pathetic legs. Of course he was soon round and facing me, and the demon staring out of him, but for that moment I had seen him as he truly was: just a poor little body being beaten, and not for the first time. It was enough to douse my rage.
‘You – are – finished – here,’ he said through his teeth.
‘Indeed I am, but not before you have restored my property.
Go now and find my book.’
‘I do no servant’s bidding!’ he shouted as he struggled out, drawing up and tripping over his hose as he went. ‘Go back to Italy, inky fingers, you son of a peasant!’
A peasant? I am a Maffei, one of a family who has served the papacy for generations! Illegitimate, yes, I admit that. A love child. A lust child. Son of a fine man who could not resist the daughter of the house steward. But not a peasant. I found the book in the garden below the window, lying in mud amongst dormant lavender bushes. Its spine is broken but all its pages are intact, and the mud will brush off once it’s dry. I suppose I am fortunate not to have been pursued by de Greye’s servants and given a similar beating myself, but no doubt a letter of dismissal is on its way.
So now here I am, back in the City of London, enjoying the peace of the deanery of St Paul’s, a recipient once more of the generous hospitality of John Colet.
Ah, I wish I were a chameleon and took on the colours of my surroundings. Instead, I do the reverse and stand out in stark contrast. Here in this serene and holy place I rage in Tuscan. What Italian would be proud of his lack of knowledge of the humanities, of Greek and Latin languages? But here in England the nobles consider literature a matter for classes of men lower than themselves. The king champions the New Learning; therefore all his lords and knights must follow suit, but they want the skills I can teach as mere plumes in their fashionable caps, at any expense but no effort on their part. Thus I railed about philistines today, my voice bouncing off the Dean’s panelled walls. Colet, who has enough of my language to know what I was saying, smiled fondly. ‘Whenever you break into your own vernacular, I can feel the hot sun on my skin and can taste olive oil. It quite takes me back,’ he said, remembering his journey through Italy ten years ago. ‘All that vocal passion. Is there another race on earth as capable of expressing itself in voice? Whether you are singing or prophesying, wooing or quarrelling, you Italians are better at it than anybody. Come along, Tommaso, food is on the table.’
If Colet himself is a quiet man, it is because he has made himself so. Everything about him says repose, restraint, and it all comes from self-discipline. Not himself from the stock of boar-hunting barons, but from what they call here the ‘yeomanry’, Colet enjoyed a good education from boyhood and here is its consequence: a gentleman. I would rather have supper at his table, no matter how simple it might be, than any manorial banquet.
‘Ah, John,’ I said, calming down and taking my place at the table. ‘I am unemployed again and need your help.’ Shakily at first, and then more boldly, I told him all that had happened and confessed to him that I had used the rod on my pupil. ‘And I know how you feel about schoolmasters who beat children.’
‘No doubt he deserved it,’ he said generously. ‘You may stay here as long as you wish. It costs me nothing to accommodate you.’
I sighed. ‘If I do not earn my living, my sense of dignity will rub me like a hair shirt.’
‘Scratch away if you must or else stay here and share my good fortune. The choice is yours. Of course, the boy was right,’ he added, stabbing at a pickled walnut. ‘You know nothing about love.’
I stared at him. ‘That’s not quite what he said.’
‘But it is what he meant.’
‘I know a great deal about love. Who is it who has the Symposium by heart? Can I not discourse for hours on the seven steps by which the soul may return to its source by way of love? My master was Marsilio Ficino, the chief priest of the Higher Venus. I can sing his hymns to Venus – indeed, I believe I can even invoke her. Fetch me a lute and, with the grace of the goddess, I shall attain a divine frenzy and speak in her own words.’
John laughed. ‘Oh, you pagan.’
‘And if some brat snatched the Bible from your hands and flung it out of the window, how would you feel?’
‘The hurt would be considerable – and an error on my part. Does Plato not say that we make a mistake if we consider beauty to reside in an object? I would make the same mistake if I were to think that a mere book was God. What is more important, a book about love, or love itself?’ He placed his hand on my chest. ‘Here is where love is. If you believe in love as you say you do, you would not beat a child, even if he is your enemy. Love is not a philosophy, my friend, it is a living substance and a practical reality. If you love Love, then practise it.’
London, November 7th, 1505
We celebrated Plato’s birthday yesterday with a symposium in the private chamber of the Dean of St Paul’s. Where it does not seem strange to us that John Colet, Master of Arts, should have been elected to one of the highest positions in the Church, it is most gossip-worthy amongst Londoners. Discounting his lately (an
d hastily) awarded degree in divinity, they say he has been advanced by favouritism, being the son of an ex-mayor. They have no concept of merit. They want what they are used to: a doctor of divinity swathed in scarlet and holding banquets, not this slender upstart not yet forty, who goes about the churchyard tacking up notices that say, ‘This is holy ground – urinate elsewhere!’
What is exercising Londoners in general, and the cathedral clergy in particular, is that this new dean stands in the pulpit of St Paul’s and tells them how to live the Christian life, in terms so simple that they cannot help but understand. Some fidget and blush during his sermons, others scowl. As for the clergy, he encourages them to practise what they preach. If they knew he was a cabalist and a Platonist, they would have the reason they seek to depose him. So we meet in secret; that is, when we have dinner, it is a simple meal the dean is sharing with friends. None of the servants need know it is Plato’s birthday.
As usual there were eight of us, and as usual we set out nine oak chairs. It is four years since Erasmus vanished from our lives. The last we saw of him was at an inn on the Dover road, just beyond Southwark. There we embraced him, bade him godspeed and watched him leave with a party of travellers bound for the coast and France. Each of us had given him money: he would not want on his journey.
We’ve never heard from him again.
Each time we gather together, this fledgling Platonic Academy in London, we put out his chair and, at the beginning of the evening, say a prayer for his soul. Year on year it gets no easier. Death at least brings grief; vanishing has no resolution. I have persuaded myself that his dear bones lie somewhere in a French ditch while our money is easing the lives of bandits, but Will Lily is convinced he is still alive.
‘Alive or dead,’ said John, ‘he has a soul, and we pray for that.’
I was invited to read a passage of my choice from the Symposium; I chose the speech of Socrates on love and recited it from memory. Grocyn followed by reading it out in Greek. I closed my eyes to imagine myself in the agora of ancient Athens, but where my imagination took me was to Florence twenty years ago, and I was listening neither to Grocyn nor to Socrates but to Marsilio Ficino. These words, these Greek words on love, have eternity in their core.
One by one the circle read a speech – More did an excellent Alcibiades – but when it came to Colet, he left the book aside to give his own discourse on love.