The Rebirth of Venus

by Linda Proud

  Who was Pico della Mirandola? He was a changer of destinies. The paper Lorenzo signed and sealed was to prove the ruin of the Medici family.

  As we had approached the Palazzo de’ Medici, I noticed that the Casa Vecchia was shuttered. There was no mention of the Pierfranceschi in Lorenzo’s house, and when I asked Angelo about them, he quite clumsily changed the subject. I was forced to seek out a more fluid source of information.

  ‘The Pierfranceschi?’ Filippino said over our next game of chess (the set now including a rook by Signorelli). ‘No one’s seen them since Luigia died. And it’s not because of grief, if you follow what I mean.’

  ‘No, I don’t follow,’ I said, gazing at the board. Filippino could talk and make strategies at the same time. I could not.

  ‘Work it out for yourself.’ The queen carved by Piero di Cosimo kicked one of my bishops – a plain fellow – off the board.

  Filippino was not by nature a man able to keep his mouth shut, either physically or metaphorically. I only had to wheedle a little before he was telling me the gossip of the taverns, that Giovanni di Pierfrancesco had broken off his betrothal to Lorenzo’s daughter with a phial of poison.

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  ‘That youth with the face of a seraph is capable of anything. Living proof, if ever you needed it, that the idea that a beautiful body houses a beautiful soul is just so much platonic drivel. And yet we all believe it, don’t we? That beauty and goodness are inseparable?’

  ‘And so they are. Perhaps we are confusing beauty with attractive- ness.’ I gazed despondently at my growing pile of vanquished pieces. Leonardo’s rearing knight was causing devastation in my ranks.

  Filippino’s eyes glazed over, as they always did when his mind was presented with abstract concepts. ‘I’ll tell you this much. Giovanni is having an affair with the wife of Tommaso Parenti. A lustrous woman and very curvaceous,’ he said, drawing her figure in the air with his hands. ‘Attractive, you might say, and jealous. It’s only a theory, but I’m not the only one to hold it. Luigia was well and then, suddenly, very suddenly, on the eve of her marriage she was dead.’

  ‘Did Giovanni weep?’

  ‘Not one tear. He wore brown for a while – in which, of course, he looked very attractive – and led her cortege, but he had no trouble hiding his emotions, for he had none to hide.’

  ‘Do you think Lorenzo suspects him?’

  ‘Of course, but he’s not going to let scandal sully the family if he can avoid it. But that’s why the Pierfranceschi live in their villas these days.’ Leonardo’s knight suddenly leapt over my rook in a way that seemed to defy all laws of the game.

  ‘Check!’

  The next time I saw Lorenzino was at a meeting of the Platonic Academy at Ficino’s house. I went hoping and expecting to have a conversation with him, for I needed some commission. Had he not, after all, promised to help me in any way he could? He would, I thought, be generous enough to find me something to do which would not require fine handwriting. As I approached him, he glanced at my hand.

  ‘I hear fate has cruelly robbed us of your talent,’ he said. ‘What will you do now, Tommaso?’

  ‘I was wondering if there could be any service I might perform for you.’

  He was obviously surprised that I should ask. ‘No, nothing,’ he said. ‘Not that I can think of. I will make enquiries.’ He looked as if he had been cornered by a diseased rat. ‘What exactly is it that you can do?’ he asked tightly.

  I shrugged. ‘Teach Greek. Secretarial work. Editing. Any of the talents Poliziano has brought out of me.’

  ‘Does he have no work for you himself?’

  ‘Not enough.’ To release us both from increasing discomfort, I bowed and turned to leave.

  ‘If I can help in any way…’ he said to my retreating back. His brother, Giovanni, who had been talking to Ficino, glanced at me with an expression of sympathy. He looked neither like a bereaved man nor a murderer, just an avid student of Platonic wisdom. Feeling a sudden need to be with men I could trust, I went to join Poliziano and Pico, but they were sitting so close together, and so intent on their own conversation, that I veered away and found a place by myself in a corner. I sat massaging my fingers. I had enough work from Poliziano to keep me occupied. It had been stupid of me to hope for a commission from Lorenzino, stupid. I had embarrassed him and embarrassed myself. I looked around at the men of the Academy. Each had a purpose. I had none. I had sought adventure and suffered the consequences. It was time to settle down now and stop aching for that which I could not have and that which I could never be. One thing, and one thing only, gave solace: with Pico I had learnt how to contemplate, and in that practice I continued.

  36

  THE TRIUMPH OF THE SEVEN PLANETS

  1488

  A YEAR LATER, AND AFTER AN EXPECTANT HOUR OF LOW chatter in the sala of the Palazzo de’ Medici, there came the distant sound of fanfares followed by the rapping of drums. As the music grew steadily louder everyone gathered at the tall windows to see the Triumph pass below. Disinterested, I leant against the frescoed walls and watched the excited room with a jaundiced eye. Lorenzo himself, leaning on a stick, was making a good show of happiness. He had designed this Triumph himself and was looking forward to seeing how it was received; but as he limped past, he noticed me and I saw in his eyes the mirror of my heart. Although Lorenzo had raised it far above its usual tawdriness, Carnival was still a young man’s festival of madness and frivolity, the youth of the city, dressed in fancy costumes or women’s gowns, singing, clowning, having fun. We were no longer young. It was Lorenzo’s sons who were out in the streets on this morning, as they had been out all night while their father retired to bed at a sensible hour. He paused and pointed his stick at me.

  ‘What are you doing skulking and scowling, Maso?’ he asked. ‘The procession is on its way. Get out in the streets.’

  ‘If you would pardon me, Magnifico…’

  ‘Twelve years is long enough for grieving, don’t you think?’ he said, peering at me with his currant eyes. He was both myopic and all-seeing, the physical world a fuzzy blur, the hearts of men transparent.

  I kept quiet, said everything in the gaze I returned him. He flinched a little but said, ‘Time to find yourself a new wife.’

  ‘At Carnival? What, would you have me marry a wanton?’

  ‘You know better than that. You need to get your blood up.’

  ‘The good philosopher transcends desire.’

  ‘The philosophers in ancient times were married men.’

  The previous Carnival that he had designed himself had been the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne; it had thumped home the message he was giving me now. This one, however, was the Triumph of the Seven Planets and it had a different intention, a more philosophical one. I was surprised at what he was telling me.

  ‘It is a question of balance,’ he said. ‘Your excess of Saturn needs tempering. Get out there and look for Venus.’

  ‘Magnifico!’ some at the window called. ‘The procession is in sight!’

  ‘Get out there, Maso. Let me know how the people greet my Triumph.’

  I reached the street just as the Chariot of the Sun was approaching, a golden chariot led by oxen dressed in red and blue trappings. Sun himself, gilded all over and with gold-wrought beams radiating from the crown of his head, threw his arms wide open as if to embrace Lorenzo, who was smiling down on him from the first floor. Musicians preceding the chariot played and sang the Homeric hymn to the Sun. It was an awe-inspiring sight, reminding me of the goal of philosophy, to reach the inner sun. But what did the sun signify to the people dancing by hand-in-hand in garlands, or who stood staring up at the splendid chariots? It meant merely the golden ball in the sky that heats the earth. The earth, their own centre, the geocentric ones. They did not even notice that the order of the planets had been changed with the sun com
ing first. Jostled by the ignorant and the greedy, the mountebanks and minstrels, tumblers and jugglers, I moved against the flow and went up the Via Larga towards the Medici garden from whence the procession was issuing. I wanted to see the chariots but I did not wish to follow them into the ever- thickening city.

  The chariots themselves, made by the city’s finest artists, were wrought with scenes in relief showing the stories of the gods in astonishing detail. On the chariot of Mercury the god stood hand on one hip contrapposto, holding his snake-entwined wand up towards heaven, precisely as Sandro Botticelli had depicted him in his Realm of Venus.

  The Venus of the Triumph, too, had been inspired by Botticelli. In a flowing white chiton, her breasts encircled by bands of laurel leaves, she stood one hand clutching a red mantle artlessly draped about her, the other hand raised as if in benediction. Behind her the Three Graces danced entwined in a circle. ‘Look for Venus,’ Lorenzo had said. I stared up at her. Her unsmiling gaze met mine, with such intensity that I looked away. She was a very beautiful young girl; the daughter, someone beside me told his neighbour, of the Chancellor, Bartolommeo Scala.

  Before the next chariot, that of Mars, arrived, I was kidnapped. A group of boys dressed as nymphs threw a sack over my head and carried me off kicking and struggling to the Duomo. Despite their masks and disguises, I knew them to be boys from the Ognissanti district and, by his pointy ears, recognised their leader as Doffo Spini. Now about ten, he was finding more to interest him in the streets than in Botticelli’s workshop, to Sandro’s immense relief. There was no sense in being angry with him and his friends: I had played the same tricks at their age and I was not so old that I’d forgotten it. The forfeit I had to pay was that Doffo should ride me like a donkey once round the cathedral. I refused to go on all fours and ran round with the boy on my back, he grasping my hair like reins, kicking me in the ribs and screaming for ever greater speed. I pitched him off once we had returned to the steps. Then I found myself in the very thick of the crowd that had gathered to see an alternative procession arriving from the Piazza della Signoria. Seven carts with the seven planets, but a buffoon’s version, built and manned by artisans, running in the usual order of Mercury-Venus-Sun. No beautifully struck poses and lofty, ancient hymns here, but the thumping of naker drums, the wheezy drone of bagpipes and the lusty singing of bawdy songs.

  This Venus was pouting at any young man who caught her eye while Cupid, standing behind her throne, was firing off dummy arrows into the crowd. Keeping my eyes lowered, I concentrated on getting through the crush, but then a sprig of laurel hit me on the head. ‘Olà, Master Misery!’ called one of the Three Graces. ‘Cheer up! It’s Carnival!’ At that, all Three Graces began to sing a hymn to Bacchus. If you would enjoy your life, do it now. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. It had been composed years before by Lorenzo, who was as skilled in composing popular songs as he was sacred ones.

  By the time I got back to the piazza San Marco, the chariot of Saturn was leaving the sculpture garden. The god sat back-bowed, head in hands, apparently oblivious to the crowd. This picture of melancholy suited me well. I could have got up, taken his place and done the job better, for this man seemed to be asleep. Saturn is not sleep: it is a plunging of the spirits into a sucking mire. As I stood staring at the chariot, a masquer crashed into me, already drunk an hour before noon.

  ‘Where’s your mask, cowpat?’

  ‘I’m wearing it,’ I said. ‘Realistic, isn’t it? Behind this image of melancholy I’m laughing.’

  ‘Oh, that’s clever,’ he said, staggering sideways. ‘Clever! Ha!’ He slapped me on the back and lurched on with the procession.

  On the far side of the square Savonarola was giving a sermon to a small, a very small crowd. I admired his faith, that he would try and capture attention on such a day. Seeing the Count of Concordia among the sparse gathering of tailors and carpenters, I crossed the square to join him. Pico wore a simple black gown, no jewels, and his hair was undressed. The change in him was marked, and some said it was because he was a condemned heretic, others that it was the influence of Savonarola. I knew it was the result of our experience in prison. Pico was abjuring Carnival as he had begun to abjure the world.

  I had not heard Savonarola since his return to Florence the previous year, but I had heard about him. It was said that he was receiving visions, which he tried to ignore, but that sometimes in the pulpit he was moved to speak, and the speech was invariably terrifying. Given the tendency of men to exaggerate, I had taken no notice.

  Savonarola was by now nearly forty, his naturally striking features becoming pronounced with age and asceticism. He had known failure and humiliation but somewhere between his two sojourns in Florence he had been given the power to preach. As he addressed this small congregation, though still rough in voice, there was yet some gentleness to him that made him appealing. His text was the Book of Revelation and he used it to warn us against frivolity and lax morals. The Triumph of the Seven Planets had been designed by Lorenzo to lift the people up out of daily concerns and make them think about the heavens. But Savonarola saw it as a gaudy parade of untold extravagance and more to do with the Whore of Babylon than anything celestial. I was in as much mood for righteousness as I was for licentiousness and was about to move on when Savonarola’s head dipped suddenly to his chest. He was breathing heavily and trembling. His listeners tensed in expectation. When the friar lifted his head again, his aspect had changed, as if he had been infused with divine and terrible power.

  ‘Florence!’ he cried, and his voice reduced the sound of revelry to a distant tinkling. ‘You will be scourged! Hear me. The Church will be renovated. These things will happen soon, in the One and a Half Time, the Millennium. PREPARE YOURSELVES, FLORENTINES, FOR THE SCOURGE WHICH IS TO COME.’

  I was struck by these words and the power of them, foretelling a future that I desired. Pico, beside me, his face lifted to the sky and his eyes closed, was shaking his head from side to side, sending his long hair flying about. It seemed in that moment possible that one man speaking the truth was all that was required to cleanse the Church of its iniquities. The rest of the sermon was given in a calmer tone, but those lines resounded within me like the Vacca bell.

  When I returned to the Palazzo de’ Medici, I tried to avoid meeting Lorenzo but he saw me come in. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you have to report?’

  I told him with the polished glibness of a courtier how the people had been struck by amazement at his Triumph. I said nothing about Savonarola.

  Paris, June 15th, 1506

  Erasmus is very pleased to have found a publisher-printer, a man called Bade, who has agreed to do his translations of Lucian and Euripides.

  ‘So,’ said Clyfton amiably, ‘we can continue with the journey.’

  ‘Not until I have recovered,’ said Erasmus, holding his head. Meaning, of course, ‘not until I’ve seen the books come off the press.’ He also wants Bade to do his Adages, a collection of stories he has already published but since enlarged, the number now standing at over eight hundred. We shall be here for months.

  37

  THE BATTLE BETWEEN TRUTH AND BEAUTY

  1490

  LORENZO’S GRANDFATHER, COSIMO, HAD RENOVATED SAN Marco monastery and used it as a retreat from his worldly cares, studying in the library that contained his own fabulous collection of books, praying in a cell reserved for him. The cells had each one a scene from the life of Christ painted by the friar they called Angelico, but I had never seen them. In the cloisters, however, where Savonarola often preached, were some frescoed lunettes of saints, powerful in their simplicity, and on the wall opposite the gate there was a large fresco showing St Dominic at the foot of the Cross. The cloister itself was called after Antonino, a saint of Cosimo’s time who had been prior of the monastery and spiritual guide to Florence. So that is what San Marco meant to us by association: Cosimo’s retreat; his library; his saintl
y friend; the painter they called ‘angelic’ – learning, art and spirituality. By the end of Lent, they were beginning to say that Fra Girolamo Savonarola was a new Antonino. Pico’s faith in him appeared to be justified.

  Angelo Poliziano, oblivious to both Carnival and Lent, had his head down in study. He listened to what Pico told him about Savonarola but the only thing that interested him was Savonarola’s refusal to come to the palazzo to meet Lorenzo. It seemed to him simply bad manners and not how a holy man should behave.

  ‘Come and hear him yourself,’ Pico suggested, and not for the first time. ‘There will be a Vespers sermon tonight.’

  Angelo’s lips turned down, locked into a No that was not to be argued with. God himself could not have had him go to hear Savonarola, not while Savonarola insulted Lorenzo by staying away. ‘You’ve made a mistake, Gianni,’ he said. ‘That man is no saint.’

  ‘You should hear him before you judge him. You make your mind up on no evidence.’

  ‘Poets do not need evidence. We hear the whispers of the gods.’

  ‘Demons more like,’ said Pico. ‘Tommaso will come with me, won’t you?’

  I glanced at Angelo. He shrugged. ‘It is Sunday,’ he said, ‘and you should not be working.’

  ‘Neither should you.’

  ‘Life does not allow me leisure to study during the week and, besides, study is not work. It’s up to you whether you go or not. But I do think it is foolish to think that a man who speaks of God all the time is more holy than one who does not. Do you not agree, Gianni?’

  Pico rolled his eyes. ‘I shall not argue with you.’

  I sat down at the desk with a sigh.

  Even Poliziano could not resist forever and, if only to appease his curiosity for wonders, at Easter he allowed Pico to take him to San Marco to hear a sermon. While most looked up at the friar in the pulpit with expectant faces, Poliziano listened with a knitted brow, often wincing, sometimes gasping. At every rhetorical error made by Savonarola, he said ‘ohibò!’ or ‘davvero?’ and spoiled the sermon for everyone standing near him. Later the Count berated Angelo and said that when the Bible addressed itself to ‘the one who has ears to hear’, it plainly did not refer to him.