Leonardo's Swans (5 page)

“Then, when the bells rang at midnight, Ludovico presented himself costumed as an Oriental pasha. I must say, he looked every bit the magician. He ordered the music stopped and the curtain to rise. Suddenly, all the foliage fell away from the dome, revealing it to be a replication of the sky itself. The entire sphere was gilded, a great golden universe, if you can fathom it. Live players representing all seven of the planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac began to orbit, exactly as they do in the sky! Everything was lit by dozens of torches. The players, each dressed according to character—Mars, Venus, Neptune, and the like—spun around the sky so many times it made us all dizzy. Then, one by one, they floated in front of the stage and delivered fine orations. They hung in the air, as if by magic! No one knows how it was done, but afterward, everyone crowded around the Florentine, who would not reveal any of his secret means.”

Silence.

“They say that in ancient times, the sculptor Pheidias alone was given knowledge of the exact image of the gods, which he revealed to man. I believe that Leonardo has been thus gifted.”

More silence. It must occur to Trotti that Beatrice and her family have waited for weeks for news of her pending marriage, and here he is describing a theatrical presentation. Isabella, for her part, is no longer thinking on Beatrice’s humiliation, but is caught up in the magnificence of the scenario and wants to hear more.

“Well everyone’s talking about it,” Trotti says with a defensive sniff.

“And to what purpose was this
festa
held?” Duke Ercole finally asks.

Isabella sees Beatrice hold her breath.

“It was to celebrate the anniversary of last year’s marriage between Ludovico’s twenty-year-old nephew, Gian Galeazzo, the young Duke of Milan, and his wife, your cousin Isabel of the House of Aragon. That was the intention, but of course it was held entirely to raise esteem for Ludovico. He holds these pageantries allegedly to glorify his nephew, but there is no question that he intends to keep the boy out of the business of government entirely and, as soon as possible, steal the title of duke for himself.”

He looks at Beatrice. “By the way, he
likes
to be called Il Moro.”

“Does he truly look like a Moor?” Beatrice asks.

“You will have to judge for yourself,” Trotti says, and Isabella assumes that he is being the diplomat. Ludovico must be called Il Moro because he is dark and savage like the barbarians she’s seen in paintings—those men who live in tents, cut the throats of their enemies, and eschew the teachings of Our Lord. Poor Beatrice! Imagine having to allow such a man entrance into your bed.

“And of the wedding?” asks the duchess.

“Il Moro expresses his deepest regrets that he is unable to gratify you on the date proposed early next year, but he pledges to send alternate dates by his own messenger in the coming months.”

“There is still no hope, then, of the double wedding of my daughters?” asks the duchess.

“Il Moro repeats that his duties preclude the celebration of the marriage at that time. He asks for your patience.”

“I am losing faith in this man’s promises,” says the duke.

“Your Excellency, it is my opinion at this time that this one may be worth waiting for.”

Beatrice shrugs, curtsies, and asks to be allowed to go to bed.

But Isabella’s curiosity has been piqued by the description of the spectacle at Milan. A thorough interrogation of Trotti is in order, though the hour is late. She has heard stories about the Florentine Leonardo, called Magistro throughout Italy for his innovations in painting. So now he is in the service of Ludovico, Beatrice’s future husband. Beatrice’s
possible
future husband. Pity that the opportunity to be painted by so great a master will be wasted on Beatrice, who cares nothing for posing.

“How is it that the Florentine came to serve the Regent of Milan?” Isabella asks.

“The story goes that Prince Lorenzo the Magnificent insulted the Magistro by giving the commission to do a mural of the execution of the Pazzi conspirators to Sandro Botticelli. Leonardo wanted the commission badly, and had submitted beautiful drawings—or so they say—of the hanging men, so lifelike that one felt as if one were present at the scene. Then, to add to the injury, Lorenzo sent Florence’s ‘best’ painters—Botticelli, Signorelli, Ghirlandaio, and Perugino—to paint Pope Sixtus’ chapel in Rome, but not Leonardo. Imagine!”

“Oh, Lorenzo doesn’t always see what’s right in front of him,” says Ercole. “He’s overly impressed with manners and formality and the reading of Greek. He is quite capable of treating a great genius like a laborer if the man has not studied classical literature. Bravo to the Magistro for going over to Ludovico. Milan—not
Florence
—is the new Athens, and Ludovico its Pericles. That is why we are putting up with the duke’s procrastination over the marriage.”

Isabella has noticed that though her father pays public tribute to Lorenzo, he is not so generous to him in private dialogue.

“True enough,” Trotti says, building on Ercole’s comment. “Leonardo must have known that he had to escape Lorenzo’s service so that he could play Pheidias to Ludovico’s Pericles. So he made a magnificent silver lute in the shape of a horse’s head. And he convinced Lorenzo that he should present the thing to Ludovico at Milan as a gift from the city of Florence! Leonardo appeared at Il Moro’s court with his exquisite lute and sang in his exquisite voice. All of that is true. Then he secretly slipped Il Moro a letter listing all of his qualifications. And so it was accomplished. Leonardo enchanted the duke with his beauty and his voice and the playing of his own compositions, and Leonardo never returned to Florence.”

“He is beautiful as well, the Florentine?” Isabella’s interest heightens.

“So beautiful that he cannot find a model as intriguing as himself. They say he has built an octagon of mirrors so that he might view himself from all angles and paint himself in profile.”

“And have you seen the painting?”

“I have seen others,” Trotti says, tantalizing both of the elder Estes and the young one, all of whom he knows have a mania for collecting.

“What have you seen? Anything we might procure? Or should we approach him with a commission?” asks the duchess.

Isabella realizes that in a few months, she will be Marchesa of Mantua, who, like her mother, will have her own allowance to purchase art. If she wants to commission a painting by a genius, she will have agents and ambassadors of her own to conduct the negotiations.

“Unfortunately, he is notorious for not completing commissions. The monks of San Donato in Florence are suing him over an incomplete
Adoration of the Magi
, though they display it with pride in their chapel. But most things, he leaves undone.”

“So it goes,” says Ercole. “Men of genius rarely behave conventionally.”

But Isabella and Leonora have no intention of giving up.

“What have you seen that is completed?” Isabella asks. “Is it up for purchase?”

“I shudder to think, my daughter, that when you are Marchesa of Mantua, I will have to compete with you over these items,” Leonora says with a mixture of pride and acceptance.

Trotti sits quietly, unusual for him. He looks at the duke, who merely looks back.

“It’s rather indelicate,” he says.

“Our daughter is about to become a bride and a marchesa. I believe you can speak openly in her presence,” replies the duke.

“I have seen a magnificent portrait done by the Magistro of Cecilia Gallerani, Ludovico’s mistress. It is completed. And it is not for sale.” He lowers his eyes.

T
HE
conversation is not pursued. Isabella is promptly dismissed to her chamber. She leaves the room humbly and without protestation, because long ago she discovered a wonderful secret. If she turns the corner discreetly, she can linger against the wall out of sight and hear everything her parents say inside their favorite room, in which they seem to hold their most intimate conversations.

“So Ludovico’s attentions are still solidly affixed to this woman?” Ercole asks.

“She is regarded as a wife at court, Your Excellency.”

“Do you think he will honor the betrothal with Beatrice?”

“He
must
. He has proposed the idea of marriage to the Gallerani woman many times to his advisers, and each time the proposal is rejected. She is a woman of beauty and brilliance, but her family brings nothing in terms of strengthening Milan either politically or militarily. There is danger from Rome and from Venice. There is great danger from Naples. There is danger from France. Losing your allegiance to any of the others would be deadly. He will honor the commitment, but at a time convenient for himself. That is how he does all things.”

“Messer Trotti, speak candidly,” says the duchess. “Are we sentencing our daughter to a lifetime of misery?”

“Your Excellency, Milan is a marvel. Ludovico has summoned the most brilliant artists and architects and engineers and craftsmen in Italy. The finest minds in Europe are now at the universities of Milan and Pavia, thanks to Ludovico’s invitation of intellectual freedom and high salaries that are tax free. In many ways, he is an enlightened man. In others, he’s a snake. But he is not unkind. Though he will probably not love Madonna Beatrice, he will treat her generously. At any rate, my eyes will constantly be upon his affairs.”

The duchess looks at her husband. “I fear for Beatrice’s happiness. She is not as stable as Isabella, and not entirely in control of her emotions.”

“She will have to learn to be so,” answers the Diamond in the icy tone that earned him his nickname. “Beatrice is not daft. She is smart and capable.”

Trotti shakes his head. “Your Excellencies, I say this with all respect for every member of your family, and the high honor due you, but it is a pity that the marriage contracts cannot be switched.”

“Do you believe that we should renege on the contract?” asks the duke. “That will leave us with only remote marital ties to Milan.”

Isabella hears the impatience in her father’s voice.

Trotti continues: “Il Moro
will
make himself the Duke of Milan. He will never be satisfied being the regent to the young duke, Gian Galeazzo, who is weak and incompetent. Il Moro feeds the boy’s vices steadily, as one feeds one’s favorite pets. Gian Galeazzo has weaknesses for wine and for boys with pretty faces. Il Moro sends him an endless stream of both. His wife, Isabel of Aragon, complains loudly of still being a virgin. Of course! Ludovico keeps the boy in a dissolute state, all the while ruling Milan, making alliances with foreign powers, building the army, consolidating his powers, and waiting for the day the boy will drop dead of decadence.”

“What does any of this have to do with our daughter?” asks Ercole.

“Madonna Beatrice is a lovely girl, but—how shall we say?—somewhat flighty. Madonna Isabella has an accomplished and astute mind, and already at her young age, the judgment necessary to be duchess of a world power. Not to mention—the Moor loves blond hair and a womanly figure. Madonna Isabella would be a formidable rival for Cecilia Gallerani, who is also a very brilliant woman, and like Madonna Isabella, has the intellect of a man.”

The duke is silent. Isabella wonders—fears—that he will begin to intrigue with Trotti to make her forsake Francesco and marry the horrible and cunning Moor.

The duchess sighs. “There is nothing to be done. Isabella’s betrothal to Gonzaga was negotiated years ago. At this point, it is a love match as well as a consolidation of the powers of two ruling families.”

Trotti sighs too. “It’s just a pity that the brilliant daughter is going to the provincial, and the one who loves horses as much as the provincial is going to a true man of learning in a city like Milan.”

I
SABELLA
has been listening to this conversation holding her breath. She tiptoes away, slowly opening the door to the colonnade and walking outside. The air is freezing cold, and she has no cloak to keep her warm. She leans her back against the wall, breathing in the frigid atmosphere. She would like to murder that gossipmonger Trotti for calling her beloved a provincial. Francesco is intelligent and masculine and worldly and courtly. She feels disloyal just having heard what was said about him.

At the same time, there is another conversation going on in her mind, battering her love for Francesco and her joy in anticipating her life with him. This conversation she cannot stifle. Her sister is going to preside over a kingdom in which its ruler might achieve the immortality of Pericles; where an artist the caliber of Pheidias is building monuments as spectacular and perhaps as eternal as the Parthenon. Is this not what she, Isabella, was born for? To reign over one of the most powerful realms in the world. To sit for the genius Leonardo. To supplant this beautiful Cecilia Gallerani in the famous Castello Sforzesco and in Il Moro’s heart. To take her place among the immortals who are creating this kingdom of mythical proportions whose monuments and structures and artistic achievements and legends will live on and on long after their bodies have turned to dust.

These are challenges for Isabella, not the wild and naïve Beatrice.

Has Isabella been a fool all along, thinking that Fortuna has been on her side? What irony is this, to find out these things now? Now that she is in love with her betrothed. Now that nothing can be done.

What if Isabella has been cheated out of her true destiny by Chance? Can one challenge Fortuna? Would that be the same as trying to challenge God? Even if there was a way, would she dare?

But, she reminds herself, the Ferrarese have always believed in miracles. Wasn’t that what she was saying to Francesco? If God made manifest the body and blood of His Son in St. Mary’s Church, surely He would not allow anything so terrible as missing out on one’s own destiny to happen to a princess of Ferrara. Surely.

She calls upon her sensibilities to save her. After all, Ludovico is old. He is twenty-three years older than Beatrice. By the time he marries her—if he ever decides to honor his contract—he will have an old man’s musty smell. His skin will be hanging off his bones. His flesh will be decrepit, and his gait bent and crooked. He may even be too old to perform his marital duties, and Beatrice will die childless, whereas Francesco is virile and young and has eyes only for Isabella. The two of them will make gallant sons who will have the best qualities of the Gonzagas and of the Estes. There will be no scheming decadence in Mantua, no evil regent contributing to the ruin of the true ruler of the realm in order to steal his title.