by Lisa Rochon
There were some vegetables to pick from the garden, some cabbage and chard, mostly onions and herbs, not much to sate her hunger. Chewing on fennel, Beatrice would scoop the chicks into her skirts and sit with them on the stoop to deliver her monologue. Sometimes, if she was resting for the day and not in Florence, there was time to cut triangles from a cabbage leaf and put them on the birds as sun hats. Even when she was worn down to the bone, she still found the energy to wave her arms to begin the drama: “Few in the village believed it possible . . .” and “Nobody believed her to be alive, and yet . . .” She would lean close to the chicks to whisper the exciting part when her mother’s footsteps could be heard approaching, and would nuzzle the tiny birds to her cheeks, feeling their beating hearts, while sharing her joy about how well her returning mother looked and describing the bouquet of roses: “Every one an exquisite crimson, deep and lush, and perfumed in a way that could never be fully captured in a bottle.”
With the chicks still in her skirts, she would pick up the wooden stick by the stoop and draw something in the dirt. A cupid, an angel, a crowing cock with a magnificent fleshy comb on the top of its head. Someday, she thought, instead of a stick and a piece of dirt, she might come by some parchment and colored pigments to make her art. She had glimpsed the abundance of tools at Michelangelo’s studio: the chisels and hammers, the clay and brushes, the sheets of paper and the countless stubs of conté in red, black and white. She wanted to start drawing the women who, like her, lined up outside the city walls, to capture the hollow-eyed girls and emaciated grandmothers carrying sacks of farro on their backs. She wanted to convey their wounds and abuse, but also, somehow, that they were clinging to their dignity like wild ivy to a stone wall.
Her visit with Agnella that day had gone all wrong. Delivering a pot of fennel soup as a way to get herself formally introduced to a man who was in the middle of seducing another man! Since then, Agnella had made herself scarce—something about treating women at a Florentine convent where her healing was badly needed.
There were advantages to being abandoned, thought Beatrice. Since nobody was watching, or cared what she painted, she was free to live according to her whims: climb a tree whenever she pleased, eat an onion when she was hungry and avoid being taught how to draw by an old man in a stuffy Florentine studio. She decided then and there to give herself permission to be in charge of her life and her art. Yes to transferring the sunset onto the wings of her angels and the bodies of her cupids. Yes to heaving the rules aside and drawing the popolo minuto the way they deserved to be drawn.
The sun blazed a final glory and dropped hard into the horizon, leaving the sky looking bruised and sullen. She picked herself up and shepherded the birds inside her hut, guiding them into an old wooden crate for the night. Michelangelo—where was he now? Did he sleep with his models or stay awake alone on his mattress? His kindness at the scene of her father’s murder had left a sweet taste in her mouth. His shuffling shyness, his passion for his art, his hurling of rock against his studio wall—all of it provoked her. Though she knew there was little hope for a match, she committed to seeking him out, the scultore with dust on his hands.
She bolted the door shut and slid the iron rods across to hold it fast. The chicks turned circles around each other and warbled their trills of pleasure. Beatrice smiled and found comfort in believing that everybody inside was safe. She tumbled down a long shaft toward uneasy sleep, then woke abruptly in the morning, cold and alone, refusing to give in to regret for what she had become.
Chapter 11
The bells from the medieval tower of the Palazzo Vecchio rang out. Fourteen heavy booms. Excellent. He still had time to enjoy the piazza before meeting this Francesco, the cloth merchant of considerable means whose summons he was answering.
Summer had deepened to a shimmering heat and Leonardo was glad to remove his ocher-colored cape and relax on the stone stairs. He pulled some parchment and a red pencil from his leather bag. Across the piazza, children shouted as they ran toward a man rolling a cart of fresh baked bread with black olives.
The arcaded Ospedale degli Innocenti sat directly behind him, its loggia punctuated by gracious white columns. Baskets provided for unwanted babies sat at the hospital’s grand wooden doors. He looked over at the woman sitting next to him, her tousled hair, her eyes glossy and ringed with darkness. A swan ravaged by time. Gently moving his left hand, drawing from the lower right up, he applied a fine layer of hatching, deepening the hollow of the cheek. He moved his pencil over the paper to her right eye, pressed there, and left a tiny patch of white to allow the iris to glow. He drew the curve of the neck, capturing tenderness and grief in one stroke.
He felt her fingers pinching him. “You stick out,” the woman said, and nodded to his luridly colored stockings. “You from here?”
“Yes,” he said, caught off guard, catching sight of the yellow triangle stitched to the arm of her dress. Her eyes, the bones of her face, her unpinned auburn hair—there was a certain quality, but here she was, this whore, cast into the street like a piece of rotten fruit. She seemed to be speaking through a haze. Cheap wine or opium? “Though . . . there have been times when I have felt like an outsider,” he added, feeling exposed by declaring it to a stranger.
It was not just the return to Florence at his advanced age. He had to admit to being an outsider even as a child. His mother, Caterina, had been impregnated one spring evening when she was fifteen by his father, ten years her senior, enjoying his privilege as a lawyer fresh out of school. Leonardo was born non legittimo. Given shelter as a young school-aged boy by his grandfather, not his father, down the road from the blacksmith and the parish priest. Banned from attending university or pursuing medicine or law. Whenever he thought of it, of his mother’s humiliation, he felt the cruelty of the world, a place abandoned by decent humanity.
“Rain is coming,” the woman said loudly, interrupting his reverie. She straightened her back, the tiny bells on her ankle bracelets jingling softly. “The olives are thirsty.”
“Rain only dampens the spirits of city dwellers,” he said, observing her shining eyes and wondering if she had been crying. With the overcast sky, the light on her skin was radiant.
“Good for the farmers,” she said. “The summer has been dry.”
He followed her eyes as they examined his velvet cape, richly decorated with gold brocade.
“You are not a farmer,” she said, waving a finger at him.
He smiled charitably at her and shook his head.
“Let me guess,” she said, her voice raspy. “You are a goldsmith.”
“Not at all. Though I was taught well by somebody who was.” Leonardo detected a slight accent in her volgare.
“Wearing too many colors to be a notary.”
“True. I am not my father’s son.” She might be Greek or Turkish, he thought.
“You draw a pretty picture of me,” she said, gazing at his buckled velvet shoes. “I will call you an artist,” she ventured.
“What if I draw instead an honest picture?” he queried, returning to the sketch, deepening the shadows around her eyes, emphasizing the long line for her lovely neck. Then he saw that it was badly bruised. What man had abused this woman as his plaything, he thought, stiffening.
“Harder to sell,” she said, as if she had repeated that phrase often. “People don’t want suffering. They want something sweet to distract them from war and disease. They don’t want my troubles.”
Pointing a finger at him, she gestured to his long, curled beard. “I like your art.” She leaned suggestively toward him, breasts bulging from her tightly cinched gamurra. “My lips are for hire. Big, blooming roses, not the mean stick lips of rich woman.”
Leonardo laughed out loud. “I appreciate your candor. May I know your name?”
She narrowed her eyes. “La Riccia,” she said, finally.
“La Riccia, it is a pleasure to know you,” said Leonardo, turning to his parchment. He looked up to see a kno
t of men gathered in the piazza. A man charged up the stairs where they sat, swerving to kick at the howling cats. The drunkards were still fighting; the similarities between humans and animals could not be ignored. Passioni dell’ anima. A fierce desire to survive. To find food and drink. To lust, to mate, to procreate. To establish dominance. Leonardo had seen the alignment countless times in his dissections. The bear walked on the soles of its feet; the flexor tendons of the beast’s toes were remarkably similar to that of a human.
“God make you joyful,” he said as a goodbye.
“You paint me and rob me of my soul.” Her tone was cool. But Leonardo ignored her, turning his focus to the arrival of a large walnut coach pulled by a pair of elegant horses. The driver stood up on the footboard and whistled loudly to clear some room; children playing with ribbons and ropes bolted out of the way like startled rabbits. Some of the men and women sitting nearby on the steps shuffled to their feet to show their respect; the sight of flamboyant wealth stirred their Florentine pride.
The driver slowed the horses to a walking pace, but before he was able to jump from his post, the passenger wrestled the coach door open himself. A short, stocky man emerged into the public space, pulling an enormous velvet cap festooned with a peacock feather from the leather seat behind him. He adjusted the hat to offset his perfectly coiffed bob of hair. His beard was thick, a sign of virulence, and Leonardo felt a tinge of jealousy. His own beard had thinned in the last couple of years.
“Must be my man,” murmured Leonardo, brushing his beard upward, giving it some lift with his fingers. He stood so that he might be recognized.
“You may have talent, but not so many smarts,” said La Riccia, standing several paces away and turning to laugh at him.
She had his cape! This woman was a prostitute and a common thief, he decided. She was becoming a nuisance.
He looked over at the walnut carriage and waved at the man with the preposterous hat.
She pressed his cape under her cloak, thumbing its gold brocade, and walked breezily down the stairs, swaying her hips.
Leonardo tucked his sketchbook under his arm, unsettled by the woman—a trickster, he thought grimly. There was no time to go after the wretch. He looked at the man approaching with considerable speed. “My lord.” Leonardo bowed, and rose with a gallant sweep of his arm.
“I am but a humble trader of silk,” replied the man, removing his hat with a flourish. He bowed deeply in return. “My lord, it is an honor to meet you at last.”
“Brother of Florence,” replied Leonardo. He estimated the man to be well into his forties. He had pearls stitched into his shoes and was stuffed into a green damask cape decorated with a collar of squirrel fur that said its wearer did indeed have the means to commission a work of significance. Still, the man’s deep-brown eyes, like rich, fertile soil, communicated something to be relied upon. There seemed to be a wounded history in his furrowed brow. Deep pools of personal loss. Leonardo decided he liked him. He shook the stranger’s hand. “I am Leonardo da Vinci, painter, a member of the Guild of Saint Luke.”
The man seized Leonardo’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Your name is celebrated. My name is ridiculously long and yet my fame is short.” He laughed good-naturedly. “I am Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo. Francesco del Giocondo, if you please. My family owns a chapel at the basilica.” He gestured to the Santissima Annunziata.
The flaunting of wealth made Leonardo wince—how unlike Milanese aristocracy.
“I supply the church with the finest of silk for their sacred altar cloths,” Francesco added, sitting heavily on the stone steps and motioning to Leonardo to join him.
Leonardo watched as Francesco removed his shimmering cape to reveal a shirt of silk sleeves decorated with gold thread. From behind one of his cuffs, he pulled a piece of expensive-looking linen, likely imported from Reims, France, to vigorously wipe his face. It might be that the linen enjoyed a pedigree greater than the man. And such was the sorry truth of the Florentine. Newly rich, freshly cultured, considered usurpers in cities beyond its historic walls. Florence was a merchant republic without a king, without the necessary historic weight. Even its ubiquitous symbol, the fleur-de-lys, had been borrowed from the French.
Leonardo felt the man’s hand press his arm. “I am a man of no great culture. Do not be deceived by the pearls stitched into my shoes,” he said, as if intuiting Leonardo’s thoughts. Francesco looked around the piazza. “My wife, Lisa, has a noble spirit. Her family carries an old name: Gherardini. I believe many arrows flew true from the battlements of their castle in Chianti.” He paused and wiped his face again with the linen. “In the old war against Siena.”
Leonardo noted the smell of garlic and lavender wafting from Francesco.
“We have been blessed with five of our own children and a son, Bartolomeo, from my previous wife. But”—he shifted on the steps—“our little girl has taken ill. This has been difficult for both of us.” He stared at his pearl-rich shoes; calf leather, Leonardo noted. “Lisa’s acceptance has been . . . is taking longer than mine. I believe that our sweet Piera will pass from this world. May God bless her.”
“Death often comes too early,” said Leonardo.
“True,” agreed Francesco. “My last wife passed during childbirth. May God bless her.”
The men looked out at the piazza, offering a silent memorial.
“Il filo,” said Francesco, breaking the silence, catching a thread from his coat and holding it in the air. “The wool thread made Florence rich. Such a tiny thing—so much easier to understand than life and death, and what might make us happy.”
Leonardo looked at Francesco, warming to him and marveling at the human condition, what it required of people, made them endure. “In Milan,” he offered, “I was painting colors and shadows evaporating like smoke, from darkness to light. Something new. Full of risk and the possibility of failure. Sfumato.”
“Sfumato?” Francesco pressed a fist to his forehead. “If only Lisa’s pain, and our daughter’s, could evaporate like smoke.”
“Perhaps your child will be cured.”
“We pray most fervently for her to heal. But she has the cough. Every day she struggles to breathe a little more.”
Leonardo nodded and bowed his head. “The loss of a child creates a void inside,” he said, reaching over and pressing his hand to Francesco’s chest. “And all around,” he added, gesturing over his head. “No lines, no angles, but a part of everything.”
“No lines, no borders,” said Francesco, nodding, showing he understood. “Will you meet my wife? I should be honored if you would paint her portrait. We have moved into our own home, next to my parents, and are arranging the furniture and art. Via della Stufa—”
“Behind the Basilica of San Lorenzo, yes, I know it,” said Leonardo. This silk merchant would surely pay handsomely for a portrait of his beloved, troubled wife. “I would be delighted to meet her.” He would prefer a commission to equip warlords with giant crossbows, and yet here he was, agreeing to paint a portrait. But that kind of client was in short supply and his account at the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova bank was dangerously low. Even with free accommodation at the monastery, Florence was expensive.
The man looked as if he had won a cockfight, and he made fists of his hands and pounded them against his knees. “Will you come to Via della Stufa?”
“Have her come to see me at the studio,” said Leonardo lightly.
Leonardo saw the man’s face cloud over with concern. Noble women rarely traveled by themselves, and Francesco did not wish to sully his wife’s reputation. Leonardo touched the man’s arm gracefully: “A portrait of this kind is not only about art—my art—it might also serve to heal your wife’s sorrows. The distance from your home will cleanse her mind and do her tremendous good.”
The man considered. “I shall send her in the carriage with a driver. I believe the honor of your company will indeed lighten her melancholia. All in good time. And payment
will be honorable. I will provide florins by messenger, every month.”
Leonardo allowed a small laugh and placed his hand on his heart; the artist indebted to the patronage of a wealthy merchant. “We can discuss all of these details another day. For now, we might enjoy the humanity on parade in the piazza.” He swept his hand forward to a farmer struggling to drag a reluctant hog across the cobbles. Children scattered, racing after their balls and hoops, while vendors sold olives and bread. Butchers lay back on the steps, shining their bloodied aprons up to a sky turned back to jewel blue. The rain would have to wait for another day. “It, too, is a work of art,” he said, delighted that Francesco had not insisted on a deadline.
He stood to go and regretted that his cape had been stolen. At least he had the sketch of the woman, with her long, tragic neck, and new work to replenish his coffers.
Chapter 12
Being abandoned felt like having a broken candleholder and, besides, no candles to light. There were shadows moving inside her, and she knew she needed some kindness today after walking the streets for hours, looking for signs of her mother. Beatrice needed to go back to Michelangelo and start again. He was a sullen mink, but he was decent and kind—she had seen that in his eyes and in his hands back in Settignano.
The afternoon dripped with heat and humidity, and she was glad to set her hand on the coolness of the iron door handle of Michelangelo’s studio. “Buon giorno?” She nestled an olive oil bottle in one arm and heaved the door open with her shoulder. It was possible the young model would be inside, or they might be together on the straw mattress. Instead, she found Michelangelo with his back to her, naked to the waist, fully absorbed in sculpting. She watched the muscles on his shoulders rising and flexing with every thrust of his arms. A small model of a naked young man was emerging on the table. The weight of his body was supported by the right leg, the other stepped lightly forward. Michelangelo was sloughing off clay to reveal the model’s calf muscles. She could see horsehair and sheep fleece; he’d mixed it into the clay for texture and body.