The Miracles of Prato (4 page)

Flanked by Sisters Pureza and Camilla, the novitiates offered a humble greeting with their heads bowed. Lucrezia let her gaze flicker across the monk's feet in thick sandals, the flecks of green and gold paint splattered along the hem of his robe.

“Benvenute,”
Fra Filippo said. “Welcome.”

He reached a hand toward the young women and put a palm on Lucrezia's bent head, another on Spinetta's, and invoked a quick prayer. As he removed his palms, the scent of chamomile rose into the air.

“We're blessed to have you with us, Sister Spinetta and Sister Lucrezia.” The monk noted the sisters' soft hands, so different from the callused palms of the others, and willed Lucrezia to meet his gaze. “I'm sure the good sisters of Santa Margherita will educate you in the many manners of devotion to the Lord,” he said.

The sisters nodded.

“I have seen—” Lucrezia broke the silence, then stammered as she saw the robes around her stop their gentle swaying. She did not look up. “I have seen your magnificent work in the chapel, Fratello.”

Sister Pureza put a gentle hand on the novitiate's shoulder.

“Our young sister has admired your
Coronation
only this morning,” Sister Pureza said. “It allowed her to contemplate the rich gifts God has given us here at Santa Margherita.”

Tongue-tied by a rare flash of modesty, Fra Filippo merely nodded.

“May God bless your stay here,” he said finally. “I will be honored to attend to your spiritual needs.”

As he prepared to step away, Lucrezia raised her eyes and Fra Filippo saw they were a startling blue, a lapis lazuli as wonderful as the sky over the Bisenzio Valley.

She smiled at him almost imperceptibly.

“Thank you, Fratello,” she murmured.

Her lips moved and the monk's mind flew into the world of
fantasia
where his paintings began, and he heard the voice of his intuition urging him to memorize each detail of her face.

 

Morning prayers flowed into the hour of Sext, and Fra Filippo lingered at the convent. He offered himself to the service of the prioress, and let his eyes linger on Lucrezia whenever he dared. After the midday meal, when he could think of no other excuse to remain, the monk walked quickly back to his workshop with her face still burning in his mind. He'd almost reached the piazza when he heard the unwelcome greetings of Gemignano Inghirami, provost and head of the confraternity of the Church of Santo Stefano. The provost rarely left the shadowy halls of his church, and Fra Filippo had no doubt the cleric had come solely to see him.

“So there you are, Fratello.” The provost's voice grated the air.

Arranging his features carefully, Fra Filippo smiled.

“
Buongiorno,
and God's blessings to you.” The monk threw out his arms in greeting as Inghirami dragged his red robe across the dusty path.

The provost was a thin man with a rangy, beaklike nose and a
sharp gaze. He gave Fra Filippo a weak smile and stepped back from his embrace.

“I've just come from the church,” Inghirami said coolly. “It appears there's been no progress on the frescoes since you laid down the underpainting in sinopia. Nor are there any lines on the
intonaco,
where the scenes of Saint John are to be.” The provost laughed unpleasantly. “Unless they are visible only to the chosen few.”

As provost and rector of Santo Stefano, Inghirami was the most powerful church figure in the city. Along with his clerical duties he was charged with guarding the
Sacra Cintola,
the Sacred Belt of the Blessed Virgin, which was said to possess the power of miracles. The relic was visited yearly by hundreds of pilgrims whose generous alms enriched the church's coffers and allowed the confraternity of Santo Stefano to commission costly works and adornments, of which Fra Filippo's fresco series for the church's
cappella maggiore
was the grandest.

“I've been eager to show you my progress,” said the monk, putting an arm around him and turning him toward the piazza.

“Progress?” Inghirami muttered. “I haven't seen anything.”

“Then you haven't looked carefully, Padre, begging your pardon.”

Fra Filippo had been paid five hundred gold florins for the fresco cycle, and would receive many hundreds more when it was completed. But instead of finishing the work in three years, as he'd agreed, the painter had accepted yet another commission to design a stained-glass window for the church's main chapel. He'd acquired several more commissions from the Medici family, and there was still de' Valenti's Madonna to deliver before the woman's birth pains began.

“Let us look together,” the monk said. “And I can explain my progress.”

Keeping a firm grip on Inghirami's thin shoulders, Fra Filippo led him quickly across the Piazza della Pieve. On this warm summer day
the city's central plaza was filled with housemaids and messengers from the grand palazzi in the Santa Trinità quarter, stout merchants' wives who hurried to and from the market, and monks whose sandals scuffed slowly across the square.

The air inside the
pieve
of Santo Stefano was scented with incense and candles, and markedly cooler than on the streets. The two men made their way down the nave, under the high Corinthian columns, and stopped to genuflect before climbing the
alberese
staircase, passing behind the altar, and stepping into the grand chapel of the church, the
cappella maggiore
.

The chapel was dominated by a maze of rough scaffolding and a large open window at the rear, and buzzed with apprentice painters and two stained-glass artisans from the Florentine studio of Fra Lorenzo da Pelago. The visiting artisans stood at a large worktable studying Fra Filippo's design for the window that would replace the one Inghirami had ordered removed.

“You see, it will be as you wished.” Fra Filippo kept up a constant dialogue with Inghirami even as he greeted the young men and surveyed the elaborate window sketch. “The lunette window will celebrate the Madonna's
cintola
and by extension, of course, commend your honor in keeping the Holy Belt safe these many years.”

Inghirami scowled and nodded as the painter described in detail the colorful glass arrangement that would depict the scene of the belt being passed from the Virgin to Saint Thomas.

“The window will take many years,” Fra Filippo said with a loud bravado. “But my fresco series is already well under way.”

Keeping his hand on Inghirami's shoulder, he turned his attention to the cycle of six frescoes which would fill the high walls of the grand chapel. The series was to illustrate the lives of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Stephen, to whom the church was dedicated, begin
ning at the top of the walls with scenes from their births, and ending at the bottom, with a scene from the end of each saint's life.

Using a rich palette of green and gold, daring perspective, and animated expressions that brought his figures to life, Fra Filippo intended to make these frescoes his greatest achievement to date. But after three years, only the scene of Saint John taking leave of his parents contained any finished
giornata,
the work that marked the rhythm of the fresco painter's life. Everything else remained largely in the painter's mind.

“See here, among this patch of
arriccio
?” The painter directed the provost's gaze to the middle tier, which was covered with a layer of preparatory plaster. It was clearly uneven, and needed to be smoothed. “Here is where I'll place the scene of Saint Stephen's disputation in the synagogue. You can see where the drape of the saint's robe might fall to the floor.”

The monk waved a hand, and in his mind's eye saw Saint Stephen's black and red robe, and his bald head covered by a rich silk
berretto.

“The synagogue steps will be here.” Fra Filippo scanned the wall until he found a blemish in the preparation, roughly the size of a man's head. “And here is where you will stand: in the synagogue, worthy of your presence. I've prayed deeply on this matter, but didn't want to proceed until I had your consent.”

“Myself?” The provost's mouth fell open. “In the fresco?”

It wasn't uncommon for a painter to include a patron in his work. But it surprised Inghirami that he would be commemorated in the frescoes, because the commission had been given to the painter by the provost's predecessor and not by Inghirami himself.

“If it honors you, blessed provost,” Fra Filippo said, bowing slightly. “Of course you'll want to study the arrangement, and prayerfully contemplate it.” The monk gestured toward the wall. “Naturally, I won't proceed until I've heard from you further.”

Inghirami squinted, and took in the painter's strong profile. In the records, the painter had been given a dignified name:
Frate Dipintore,
Brother Painter. The great Medici and all who claimed to know such things said the angels and saints created by Fra Filippo were more alive than those of Fra Giovanni the Dominican, his figures weightier than those of Piero della Francesca. Inghirami couldn't see the difference between one painting and the next, one hungry artist or another. But he trusted what was said in Florence and Rome.

“So be it,” the provost said with a toss of his chin. “I will consider what you have proposed.”

Leaving Inghirami staring at the nearly empty wall, the monk hurried out, shaking with silent laughter.

 

Finally alone in his workshop, Fra Filippo sank onto a stool and put his face to his hands. The monk knew beauty when he saw it, and he'd seen it in Lucrezia Buti as certain, as vivid, as the wounds in Christ's flesh. God had heard his prayers, and sent him the most exquisite face he'd ever seen. A face caught in the moment between childish innocence and womanly beauty. A face about to blossom and break open with love, joy, and sadness.

Lifting his head, the painter took up a piece of red crayon and a soft sheet of parchment, and drew the simple lines of the novitiate's countenance. He drew a graceful line for her cheek, another for the jaw that anchored the face, then the long neck.

Fra Filippo Lippi was a butcher's son: he knew the shape of the skull, the span of the limbs, the size of the delicate bones of the hands. For years he'd watched his father quarter calves, cows, lambs, and sheep. He knew that first there was bone, then ligament, sinew, muscle, veins, and flesh. And he knew that after all of this there was life, and beauty.

Fra Filippo drew Lucrezia's lips, her shoulders, and her arms below her robes. He drew the ribs, the delicate clavicle, and the backbone that snaked and bent the length of torso from neck to buttocks. He saw each limb and muscle and understood how one connected to the other, how all sprang from the same center. Other painters drew faces; Fra Filippo created men and women with the breath of life.

The day faded and the painter's hand grew more certain. Images and sounds from childhood came to him as he worked. The painter saw himself as a small boy in tattered breeches, kneeling in his father's dank butcher shop sucking on a piece of smoked beef. He saw his mother's face sighing over him as she held out a crust of bread, leaning to kiss him good night in their thatched shack near the Ponte Vecchio. He heard the Arno River passing, the neighbors' cries, his father's shouts, the cold thud of a stripped sheep carcass as it fell into the river.

He remembered the months after his parents' deaths, when he'd wandered the streets of Florence with his brother, hungry and frightened. The monks of Santa Maria del Carmine had taken them in, giving the boys food, shelter, and the education young Filippo had sorely resisted. In time they'd given Filippo what he loved best: the feel of a brush in his fingers; the chalky smell of gesso; the chance to watch the master painter Masaccio creating frescoes of Saint Peter's life in the Brancacci Chapel.

These gifts were great, but they'd come at a price. In order to have an artist's life he'd taken monks' vows of poverty and chastity, and been ordained as a priest. Fra Filippo lived alone, and owned only the small residence that adjoined his workshop. The
bottega
where he worked was rented, and even his white robes belonged to the Carmelites. As a member of the Order he was held to a high standard, and punished when he strayed. An impetuous man, he'd been jailed,
whipped, and endured stinging shame for acts of lust, greed, and temptation. He believed this was the price God exacted for his talents. When the work transported him to a place of fantasy and intuition, or the Medici lauded him with praise and riches, it seemed a fair fee. But on days when he didn't feel the spirit move in him, and nights when Fra Filippo wished for a woman in his bed, it seemed he'd given up too much.

 

Sketches in hand, Fra Filippo lit two oil lamps and stood before the small
Madonna and Child
for Ottavio de' Valenti. He'd gone through an entire red crayon, half a softened silverpoint, a dozen pieces of parchment. On the blank oval of the Virgin's face the painter could now see the novitiate's eyes, he could feel her soft cheeks. Already he knew the precise amount of madder he would need to capture her lips' rosy tint.

Shadows fell across the workshop as Fra Filippo moved to the wooden block that served as a table for his knives, scrapers, bowls, and crumpled rags. Carefully, he ground green oxide for pigment, and poured the last of the egg yolks into his pestle. He made a fresh batch of green
verdaccio,
and a small bit of ochre tempera. Then he dragged a stool over to the easel and studied his work. He looked from the sketch of Lucrezia's face to the oval and gently began transferring the drawing onto the panel.

Saturday of the Fourth Week After Pentecost, the Year of Our Lord 1456

“We haven't had enough rain,” Sister Pureza said in a low voice. “The marjoram and lemons must have plenty of water or they won't survive.”

Lucrezia nodded, although it was dark in the night stair and she couldn't be sure if Sister Pureza was addressing her, or talking to herself.

“We'll need the marjoram,” Sister Pureza went on. “And birthwort, too. The child is coming at de' Valenti's palazzo, and Signora Teresa is well past the age of five and twenty.”

Following the old nun up into the church, Lucrezia found her place between plump Sister Bernadetta and Spinetta, and knelt. It was Saturday, the Buti sisters' fifth morning at Santa Margherita, and they were gathering for confession in preparation for Mass and Holy Communion in honor of the Feast Day of Saint Lawrence. It was still dark, but the air was already thick and warm.

“Surely the rain will come soon,” Lucrezia said under her breath.

“Hush.” Spinetta opened her eyelids only a sliver. Her voice softened at the sight of her sister's face. “Remember, Lucrezia, there's no speaking between confession and the time of communion.”

Again, Lucrezia envied the ease with which her sister had taken to the cloistered life, the way the words and rhythms of the prayers unfurled easily from her tongue.

Closing her eyes, Lucrezia thought back to the plush kneeler in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, where her mother had taken her to visit the Brancacci Chapel and make a final confession before entering the convent. There, Lucrezia's eyes had lingered on Masaccio's great frescoes—the illustrated stories of Saint Peter's life, Adam and Eve's anguished faces as they were expelled from the Garden—and she'd begged the monsignor to save her from the cloistered life.

“I don't want to give my life to the church,” she'd said. “I beg you to intercede on my behalf.”

“Your life already belongs to God,” the monsignor had said firmly. “It is only by His mercy and generosity that we speak these words. Your fate is in the hands of the Lord, and there it will be well.”

Now, in the small church of Santa Margherita, Lucrezia entered the airless confessional, knelt on a rough wooden slab, and faced the dark cloth that hung between her and the chaplain.

“Yes, my child?” Fra Filippo Lippi waited impatiently. He'd worked late into the night, furiously revising his sketches for the provost of Santo Stefano, who'd confounded his plans to include him in a scene by demanding a sketch to present to the
Comune di Prato
for approval.

“Chaplain, I am very troubled,” Lucrezia said.

Her voice caught Fra Filippo's attention. All morning he'd listened to the weary prattle of nuns confessing to the small transgression of an extra bun at breakfast, or a flash of jealous vanity. Of course he recognized their voices, knowing it was always plump Sister Bernadetta who sinned with her hand in the larder, and thin Sister Simona who was pained by her own lack of compassion for the weaker among them. Only the prioress occasionally surprised him with her desire for greater recognition for the small convent, petitioning men far beyond her reach and harboring anger when her requests
for greater resources or an invitation to the councils of the highest convents were ignored.

“Since coming to the convent I've been filled with despair,” Lucrezia said with far more passion than she'd intended. “I wake each morning feeling bitter and old. And angry.”

The monk leaned closer to the cloth that hung between them. He looked to the floor, and saw the tip of a clean boot. The young woman's voice broke, but not before Fra Filippo recognized Lucrezia's voice.

“Everything has been so sudden and unexpected.” Lucrezia struggled to keep her words steady. “First, my father died. Then the shop was emptied to settle his debts, and before I knew it my dowry was gone.”

“Go on,” he said. He wanted to pull aside the curtain and look into the face that filled his studio, the eyes that looked out at him from the vellum, the sad smile that now graced the panel of his
Madonna and Child
.

“I never wanted to be a nun.” Lucrezia paused. “I expected to have the life of a Florentine
signora
.”

Fra Filippo had heard many novitiates lament their internment, and it always brought him back to his own reluctant initiation into the Order: the surrender of all property, the vow of celibacy, the constant vigilance against temptation.

“Reluctance isn't a sin,” he said at last. His voice was deep, and it soothed Lucrezia.

“In words I've renounced everything,” she said carefully. “But in my heart I still want so much. I desire and I yearn, and my thoughts are neither humble nor pure.”

For a moment the friar didn't respond.

“Go on, my sister. Speak of this desire, this yearning.”

“It's a sin, I know, but I miss the beautiful silks in my father's shop, I miss the garden I saw from my bedroom window. Fratello, I wanted a wedding pall of fine
seta leale
. I wanted my children to rest in an embroidered blanket sewn by my hand. I can't be pious or gracious when I've lost so much.”

She paused, expecting the chaplain's rebuke.

“Go on,” he said.

“I miss my world.” Lucrezia was driven to speak what she'd choked down for days. “I want my pearl baptism bracelet. I want the blue pitcher in my mother's house. I want my mother. I want my father.”

She went on, her voice breaking.

“Why does God ask me for devotion and sacrifice without showing me the way?”

This question struck a chord in the monk's heart. Hadn't he asked nearly the same question just hours before he'd first seen her face?

“I'm only a conduit to the Lord's ear,” he said thoughtfully. “But I believe God understands those who long for beauty.

“It's no sin to want these things,” he said carefully. “Even here, in the monastic life, we have beauty and art and pleasure.”

Something in the chaplain's voice had changed. Lucrezia leaned forward.

“God made the world so beautiful.” Fra Filippo closed his eyes, imagining the curtain between them might lift and allow him to look at her face.

“There's no shame in finding the world beautiful, and celebrating that beauty.” He searched for the right words. “The holiest men have known this world is a
speculum majus,
a mirror of the Lord's kingdom. The beauty we find here and the beauty we make here pleases God, for it makes our world closer to His.”

Lucrezia waited.

“God has a plan for each of us, my child. I don't pretend to know His plan, but I know we must trust in Him and pray that He sees fit to show us the beauty that we're part of creating. Trust the Lord. He sees everything, and knows everything.”

Fra Filippo paused, but Lucrezia was silent.

“Remember, Saint Paul said that in surrender, there is holiness,” he said. “Here, among the sisters of Santa Margherita, you will have a good life.”

Still, she said nothing. The monk heard Spinetta cough as she waited on the cold stones for her turn in the confessional.

“For your penance, you must say twenty Hail Marys.”

“Yes, Fratello.”

“Say them when the sun is high and the garden surrounds you. And while you pray, you must look for the Lord's radiance in His world.”

She waited while the chaplain offered his final blessing.

“Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

 

Brushing past Spinetta, Lucrezia found her way to the garden. The humidity had lifted and the sun was bright but not scorching. The green hills were visible over the garden wall as she knelt on the straw scattered below a clump of hollyhocks.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena.”

Forgetting the required silence, Lucrezia began her act of contrition in a whisper. She tipped her face to the sky.

“Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” she prayed, thinking of
her own womb, which would remain barren forever. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.”

When Lucrezia finished her penance she stood and stretched.

As if she'd been watching for some time, Sister Pureza stepped silently from the thick garden foliage. She handed the young woman a sharp blade and an iron trowel, indicating for Lucrezia to follow her to a chaste tree shrub, where the old woman demonstrated how to harvest the dark berries and fragrant flowers. Later, the berries would be pounded with nettle to make a tincture for the relief of weakness and pain in the limbs, and the flowers dried for sachets.

“You came to us with a chamomile sachet,” Sister Pureza said, watching the girl's hands work. Lucrezia looked up, surprised. “I found it among your clothing, and I kept it.”

Lucrezia felt the silver medallion, secret and warm inside the hem of her undergarment, and nodded.

“It belongs to the convent now,” said Sister Pureza, who felt it was more important to reach Lucrezia in her sadness than it was to observe the Rule of Silence before communion. “But this doesn't mean you can't enjoy what you've made with your own hand. It's in the
infermeria,
where you may find sanctuary whenever you need it.”

Lucrezia fell into a comfortable motion, cutting the chaste berry branches at their divide, dropping the petals into a burlap sack and the berries into the deep basket. Soon her fingers were working on their own, and Lucrezia let her mind wander to the chaplain's words. Was it truly not a sin to long for pleasure and beauty even here in the convent? By preserving her chamomile sachet, and reminding her of it at this moment, hadn't Sister Pureza just said as much, also?

In the week since her arrival, Lucrezia had been going through the days in rote motion. She'd knelt with the others, prayed when they
prayed, followed Sister Bernadetta as the nuns moved from church to refectory to work. At night she'd tumbled onto her hard cot nearly asleep, and stumbled from dreams before dawn.

Now, in the heat of the garden, in the silence of the long day before the Holy Eucharist, something began to stir in Lucrezia's heart.

She felt it like a timid flower poking through the hard ground. And when Sister Pureza, who'd begun dragging clay pots into the shade, looked across the garden and saw the trouble easing from Lucrezia's face, she prayed the girl had found the surrender that would make the veil easier for her to bear.