Da Vinci's Tiger (18 page)

A
FTER
B
ERNARDO LEFT,
I
COLLAPSED ONTO
THE BENCH, ALL
the fierce energy that had emboldened me now drained away. I decided not to wait for Verrocchio's return. I brushed myself off, straightened my dress, smoothed my hair, took several deep breaths, and went to look for Sancha. I found Leonardo in the work yard instead.

He was sitting on a bench, leaning over clasped hands, looking at the ground. His great curly mane of hair, typically so carefully combed, was matted and tangled. His clothes were covered with grime.

“Maestro!”

Leonardo looked up, unsurprised, as if he had been waiting there for me.

“Where is Master Verrocchio?”

“Still talking with the magistrates.”

I sat down beside him and put my hand on his arm. He looked horrible. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head. “Are you all right?” he countered.

I was startled by his question and the pointed way he asked it. Then I realized. “How . . . how long have you been here?”

“A while,” he said. “Long enough.”

I chewed on my lower lip. “So you heard?”

“Yes. Forgive me for not helping you. I . . . I was uncertain what to do. How you might feel about his advances.”

I withdrew my hand from his arm in embarrassment.

“But you, Donna Ginevra, you were so resolute.”

I sighed, relieved that Leonardo did not think I had somehow provoked Bernardo. Even though I had not done so, certainly the convent, Florence's society, books like Alberti's treatise on family, and priests in the pulpit said that if men acted inappropriately, a woman had incited it. I also knew that I had been lucky. Bernardo had not been drunk or egged on by other less honorable men. He had been willing to concede to my refusal. Many other men would not have.

“We cannot tell our hearts who to love or what to feel,” I said quietly. “But we can decide whether to act on those emotions.”

Leonardo nudged a pebble with the toe of his boot. “I know better than most how much courage and control that took.”

I waited, wondering if he was thinking about some of his own recent choices. But if he was, he never shared that with me. Instead he talked of his mother. “I am the issue of such a moment, you know. As a servant brought from Constantinople, my mother had no choice but to concede to my father's desires. He did free her after I was born—I give him that. And he let me have five precious years with her before taking me to his parents' house. My mother is a good woman, devoted and generous. She always told me I could do anything, learn anything. I remember. But she made no argument when my father took me away from her.”

I chafed at the comparison. I was neither slave nor servant. But Bernardo had certainly acted as if he had rights to me. Indeed, Florence considered all women property in some regard—belonging to our fathers, our husbands, our family. “I am so sorry she had to give you up, maestro, but it sounds like there was little she could have done. Such is the lot of women. Our fates are negotiated by men. I hope someday that will change. Perhaps our painting will help a little in that, yes?”

He nodded but remained unmoved.

“I am sure your mother's heart broke at your separation. But I am also sure she hoped it would mean a better life for you—that is a mother's dearest desire, after all. Certainly Florence has provided you that?”

“Perhaps. It is difficult to see that from a prison cell.” Leonardo drew himself up. “Even so, I will not forget this strength of yours, Donna Ginevra. I will keep it in my heart as I paint other women. I will look for it in them.”

“Oh, maestro, what a compliment. Thank you.” I took a deep breath. “Now we must make sure you receive your commission for your portrait.”

“He will not pay, signora.” Leonardo's voice was contemptuous.

“What do you mean? The ambassador and I parted with respect. Our Platonic affections hold.”

Leonardo raised an eyebrow. “We'll see.”

I was able to share Luigi's warning to Leonardo before Sancha and Verrocchio returned. We did not discuss why Leonardo had been arrested. Just that he had been and that Luigi had passed along that the Officers of the Night sometimes employed spies to substantiate accusations that might otherwise not carry enough evidence to convict.

Leonardo was grim. “Nothing is so much to be feared as evil report.”

I nodded. “So be careful.”

“You, too, signora,” he said. “Gossip will hound both of us for a while. But I have been thinking that patience protects against insults as clothes do against winter winds.”

“Then we must learn to wear many layers,” I said with a smile.

I walked home with Sancha along the Arno. I wanted
to breathe a while before buttoning on the role of wife. The evening light was soft, the Arno placid. The late April warmth turned the water blue again, after months of the river's currents running gray and winter-dull. White herons waded along the marshy edge. Swifts skimmed the air just above the mirrorlike waters, darting under bridges and then soaring up to take another dive and run. In the pink glow of twilight, Florence's tightly packed tan- and mustard-colored houses brightened to a rich, warm gold. Long reflections of them and their bright terra-cotta roofs shivered in the river.

I stopped to take it all in and raised my eyes over the city's fortified walls and watchtowers to the hills and mountains beyond. There, clouds lay flattened out on the peaks and slopes like cats stretching themselves out along the tops of garden walls to sleep. Beyond that, the heavens.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”
Yes, I thought, exactly. A mountain tiger. Even if only in my heart, in my inner world. Nothing could change that. I smiled and felt a bit taller.

That was when an ungodly wail seemed to rise up out of the inner city. A rider thundered past us on his way to the Ponte Vecchio and out to the countryside. Down the street several men clustered, talking excitedly. One of them fell to his knees.

“What is happening?” I turned to Sancha.

More people gathered in knots of worried conversation. A bell began to toll.

“Hey, you there, fellow!” Sancha reached out and grabbed the arm of a liveried servant darting past us, clutching a message. “What is wrong? Why are people spreading an alarm? Are we attacked?”

“No! Worse!” he cried. “La Bella Simonetta is dead!”

The hysteria lasted for days. Italians came from all over to mourn the beautiful Simonetta's untimely death from consumption.
They jammed themselves through the city gates and clogged the taverns. Rumor spread that a new star was shining in the skies above Florence, and surely it was Simonetta's spirit. Each night, dozens of people stood along the city's walls past midnight, pointing and marveling that this beloved and beauteous young woman had climbed into the heavens alongside constellations of Orion and Hercules. The Night Watch gave up trying to enforce the city's curfew.

On the day of her funeral, thousands packed the streets. Simonetta's coffin was open as it was carried to the Church of Ognissanti, so the throng could see how exquisite she remained. Some even claimed she was more beautiful in death than in life. Poet Bernardo Pulchi, brother to Lorenzo's friend and poet Luigi, wrote a moving elegy.

He read it out loud, shouting the words so those within earshot could hear. Simonetta, he wrote, was on her way to the firmament to join Petrarch's Laura and Dante's Beatrice “like a new Phoenix.” Such loud weeping followed that if Simonetta was not already there, the floor of heaven would
have been rattled enough by Florence's sobbing that angels would have thrown open the pearly gates to see what the cacophony below was about.

Only then did the slow, sad procession start. The entourage following her casket was enormous, led by Giuliano and her husband, Marco, his parents, Lorenzo and the Medici clan, and their inner circle. I was surprised not to see Bernardo among them. Perhaps he had already left the city for Venice, his departure lost in the commotion over Simonetta.

My family was included directly behind the Medici. Luigi was among the city's officials, so I walked on my brother's arm instead, clinging to him as a shield against my own grief. I would sorely miss Simonetta, her quick affection and her good-natured advice. She felt more like a sister than my younger blood siblings did. Who would I confide in now? Who could understand the complications of my life, my affections?

Uncle Bartolomeo's young wife, Lisabetta, walked alongside me, too. She was as nervous and mousy as ever. Normally that would not have bothered me, but realizing this was the type of woman I was left with now that Simonetta was gone, I had to fight the urge to slap Lisabetta's simpering face.

Halfway to the church, Lisabetta slipped her hand in mine. “It is all so tragic,” she said. “I am sorry for you, Ginevra. I know you two had become . . . well . . . very close.”

I swallowed to suppress my sorrow. “Yes, she was a lovely woman. So unselfish, which was extraordinary given her
beauty and all this adoration. We can learn from her example of modesty and kindness.”

Lisabetta looked at me with some surprise. “Oh yes, of course, Simonetta Vespucci was an inspiration to us all. But I was talking about”—she didn't bother to lower her voice—“about you and the ambassador.”

“What?” I stopped in my tracks, creating a little avalanche of people bumping into one another's backsides.

Giovanni apologized for us and then gently dragged me forward. “No matter what nonsense comes out of her mouth next,” he whispered to me, “keep walking. Uncle Bartolomeo did not wed her for her wit.”

“Oh, well,” Lisabetta blithered on, oblivious to my growing discomfort. “Of course you will be upset—you and the ambassador were such a romance. All of Florence knows about your sad farewell. How your heart broke when he told you he had to depart for his beloved Venice. How you sobbed like Dido when Aeneas left her shores.”

“What?” I stopped again, my voice raised this time.

Again, that ripple of people crashing into one another behind me. Again, Giovanni apologized, before urging me onward. “Keep moving, sister.”

“Cristoforo Landino has written a lovely poem about your sorrow, commissioned by His Excellency Ambassador Bembo. My husband carries it for you. I know you will just love the verse.”

I fought the urge to strangle her and squelched my fury at
the obvious fact that she had already read something that was addressed to me. I had to wait through Simonetta's funeral and an hour of tearful eulogies before I was able to ask my uncle for my poem as we left the church.

He, of course, took the opportunity to lecture me. “You are very lucky to have the affections of such an esteemed man.” He refused to continue or to hand me the verse until I nodded obediently. “The fact that the Venetian ambassador, who has traveled the world, chose a Florentine lady to be his Platonic muse does our great city of Florence honor as well. And raises our family to fame, alongside the Medici, the Donati, and the Vespucci. Only a foolish girl would not see that blessing and act accordingly.”

Again, Uncle Bartolomeo waited. I nodded dutifully, despite the fact that at this point, my face was burning with anger and embarrassment.

“Only an ungrateful wretch would cause such a great man—who has lavished such gifts upon her—embarrassment. Or stupidly fuel false accusations again him. If Bernardo Bembo's star sinks, niece, with the implication that he and Lorenzo de' Medici were too close in their personal friendship, it makes it much harder for Florence to navigate the waters with Venice, which is a critically important ally of ours against the Papal States.”

I felt chilled all over. Was my uncle implying that by protecting my virtue and refusing to yield up my body or to be used by a self-aggrandizing man that I had somehow endangered Florence's foreign policy?

“This poem will help make it clear that his Platonic courtship of you was as much for state purposes as personal philosophic discourse,” he pronounced, “if you behave accordingly.”

Good God,
I thought, what had my uncle done now? How had he misused me this time?

Uncle Bartolomeo smirked as he handed me the parchment, the seal broken. Clearly, he had already read and shared the contents with Lisabetta and probably a great many more.

I waited until I was safely home in my bedroom with the door locked before I opened the verse. I could see my uncle's handiwork immediately. I just couldn't believe Bernardo would be that cruel, that he would hide behind my skirts this way. The poem made it seem that Bernardo had had to refuse my over-ardent hopes and desires rather than the other way around, that I had misinterpreted what had been purely a courtly intent on his part:

Moreover, Bembo, Ginevra weeps at your departure,

and she protests that the gods are deaf to her prayers.

Alas, Bencia weeps that the deaf gods despise her pleas,

and that she is deprived of her chaste pleasures.

Therefore you will go, happy to see your beloved relatives

and your sweet children and your pious wife;

for finally, now that your great service has been performed,

your lustrum completed, you may rest at your ancestral home.

. . . the Venetian Senate will learn

of their citizen's great gifts,

what his envoy to different cities will have given to his country. . . .

I did not read the rest. I crumpled the verse and threw it into the piss pot.

H
UMILIATED AND FURIOUS,
I
PUT ON MY
BROWN DRESS AND
my scapula and marched to Le Murate. I pounded on the outer door. Of course, Sister Margaret would have to be the one to answer. “It is close to Vespers, you may not enter now.”

“Vespers? Wondrous. The perfect time for me to say my prayers in the chapel my grandfather built for you.” I felt no shame or hesitation in throwing my weight about that evening. I wanted sanctuary, a place I could think through what I would do next, without men telling me what it should be.

Sister Margaret pursed her lips but grudgingly stepped out of the way.

“And after Vespers, sister, I will be spending the night,
perhaps the week, in the Benci cell that my grandfather also paid for and Abbess Scolastica promised would always be open to me and my kin.”

Sister Margaret's face darkened like a squall line, but there was no arguing with that either.

I ended up staying for weeks. Juliet and I fell back into our schoolgirl friendship, a lovely balm to the wound of losing Simonetta as my confidante. Juliet and I talked of Ovid, Virgil, even the playful Boccaccio. I could only wonder where she had procured copies of his stories, as the bawdy romances must surely be forbidden to nuns.

I prayed. I read. I thought. I wrote—which I had failed to do when distracted by the intrigue of Bernardo's courtship and the excitement of the studio and conversation with Leonardo. The poems that came out of me in those first weeks were often angry, yet were still filled with a certainty about the majesty of the human soul.

I think that was Scolastica speaking to me. It was some of the best verse I'd ever written. I sent them to no one, other than one daring sonnet—about a mountain tiger—to a court musician who had been a dear friend since childhood. He was in Rome. I asked him if he could get a rosary blessed by the Pope for me. I thanked him by sending him the verse. He had been bragging to the ladies of that court of the witty banter and literary abilities of Florentine women and needed something to prove it. I hope the sonnet did so.

As more and more poems spilled out of me, I realized the outside world—especially while gossip swirled about
Bernardo and me—did not offer me the quietude or freedom that allowed my heart to sing out clearly, unaffected by others and their opinions or desires. So I found myself lingering in Le Murate.

I sent word to Luigi that I was not well and that rest and prayer seemed to be helping. His reply was polite and concerned, supportive of my staying. After our conversation about Leonardo, I assumed Luigi would be fine with my being away for a while. Perhaps he might fill the time with other company now that our marriage offered him a protective screen. He certainly took advantage of my absence to argue that his taxes be lowered, noting in a letter to the revenue collectors that his wife had been very ill for a long time.

I wrote to Leonardo, explaining my sequestering myself and expressing my gratitude for his painting and dialogue and all that both had inspired in me. I missed him. Enormously so.

Did I miss Bernardo? The affection I'd once had for him had been sullied by our last encounter and his—or my uncle's—public manipulation of our farewell to suit Florence's and Bernardo's political needs. Certainly Landino's verse guaranteed that Bernardo would be saved the embarrassment of people knowing I had spurned his advances. Who would believe me now after that poem had made the rounds of Florence's elite? If I stayed in the silence of the convent, I did not have to hear the speculation or pontificating about us. I could remember the self-confidence Bernardo had helped engender in me, the enlightening conversation and
delightful banter around the Medici table. All that had been so gratifying, so expanding.

I certainly had not intended it to have this effect, but my cloistering played well in the court society surrounding the Medici. Lorenzo wrote me two sonnets, calling me a “devout, gentle spirit,” “a lambkin,” and praising my turning my back on a city “aflame with every vice.” He alluded to “suspicion, disdain, envy, and anger” and told me to “let them talk. Sit and listen to Jesus.”

I wrote back to thank him, never mentioning the rumored affair Florence gossiped he had just begun with my young aunt, wife to my uncle Donato. I couldn't help but wonder if Lorenzo's poetic praise of me was a way of trying to insure my favorable opinion, or loyal silence, regarding that dalliance. I had come a long way in my understanding of the secular world since my first sojourn at Le Murate. I decided to remain there indefinitely.

As a
conversa
laysister, I was free to come and go from the convent. The person I visited most was my brother. One afternoon, he led me to a small chamber off his bedroom. “I have something to show you in private, sister.”

There was my portrait.

“But why did Bernardo not take it with him to Venice? Did he not want it?” His leaving it behind bruised my ego.

“I don't know,” Giovanni said. “But Leonardo insisted you be sure to view the back of the portrait. He was adamant about it.” Giovanni turned the panel so its reverse showed.
“Curiosity is killing me, sister. What is so special about the back side?”

I smiled. Oh, what a clever stroke for my honor Leonardo had parried. He had changed the motto on the ribbon from
Virtus et Honor
—a saying Bernardo claimed as an emblem for himself—to
Virtutem Forma Decorat
. That line could be translated two ways: “Beauty adorns virtue,” or the one I preferred, “She adorns her virtue with beauty.”

The motto now was entirely about me and my choices, the focus on my character and my mind, with physical beauty being almost an afterthought, a casual adornment, like a necklace I might don at the last minute to complement my natural appearance. Leonardo had used the word
forma
, which implies intellect as well as beauty, instead of the more typical Latin word used to describe a woman's prettiness,
pulchritudo
. It was an even sweeter shade of difference, because I knew Leonardo was struggling to teach himself Latin and such nuance bespoke careful thought, a true insight to me.

And I could guess that the change of the motto might have so annoyed Bernardo that he wanted nothing more to do with my painting.

I went back to the convent that evening, happy, and knowing exactly which man I truly missed, whose company I ached for and why.