The Passion of Artemisia (11 page)

9
Inclinazione

E
ventually I had enough work, and confidence, to show to Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. Because I could not write well in the florid style such a letter required, I asked Pietro to write a letter from me reminding Buonarroti of my father's letter and requesting an audience.

“Your father knows him?”

“Yes. From years ago.”

“No.”

“Pietro, please. I can't write that fancy language. Just tell me what to say. I'll sign it Artemisia Gentileschi, wife of the painter Pierantonio Stiattesi. Then he'll know you too.”

He relented. I trimmed a quill and wrote what he told me. “Go slower,” I said, and labored over each letter.

A response came back quickly inviting me to the Buonarroti home on Via Ghibellina. Pietro read it, arched an eyebrow but didn't comment. I went alone, tripped on a dislodged paving stone, was splashed by a passing carriage, and arrived at a nondescript doorway in a narrow street, anxious
and out of breath. A boy servant ushered me upstairs through a small empty anteroom to a rectangular audience hall with a coffered ceiling. A man wearing a green sleeveless
lucco
was carrying a sheaf of pages from a tall cabinet desk to a long table in the center of the room. The servant announced my name.

“Ah, signora, I've been waiting,” he said, his voice coming softly from under his overhanging moustache.

“I'm sorry, Your Lordship. I didn't know the way.”

“I meant, I've been waiting since your father's letter. You should have come to me directly when you came to Florence.”

“I didn't know.”

“No matter. Show me what you've brought.”

He cleared off books and portfolios to make space on the table of polished wood with a border of inlaid stone. I laid out the new studies and drawings. He examined them all carefully, pulling at his tapered beard and murmuring. It sounded like appreciation. We tacked the
Judith
and
Susanna
on drawing tables. He tipped up the tabletops, stepped back, and I let the canvases unroll. His eyebrows shot up and a smile played about his lips. “Just as your father wrote.”

“They please you, signore?” I dared to ask.

He chuckled and gave me a tender look, unmistakable even through his bushy beard. “That's real flesh your Susanna is wearing. Those lines in her neck, the crow's feet at her underarm, the fold of flesh below her stomach—male painters wouldn't think of those details. And this
Judith
is an astoundingly complex composition, yet as real and true as if you had been there. Your interpretation will change how the world thinks of her.”

My heart pounded against my chest so hard I thought he'd hear it. “Thank you, Your Lordship.”

“I am in the process of turning the rooms on this floor into a memorial gallery to my great-uncle, il divino. This
room will present an allegory of his virtues and achievements. Many artists will contribute. All these ceiling coffers will be filled with paintings.”

I looked up to see deep recesses edged by heavy moldings of gold scrollwork on white.

“Might I commission you for a panel in
quadro riportato
?” he asked.

I lowered my head and gave a slow curtsey, as elegantly as I knew how. “It was my greatest hope.”

“One figure. A female nude. I want her to represent Inclinazione, by that to mean his natural talent. A quality you share with il divino.”

I couldn't control my face to reveal only modesty at that compliment.

He smiled in a fatherly way and looked at the
Susanna
again. “Yours will be the only female nude. Clearly, it's your gift and your advantage by reason of access. Life drawing of nude models is not permitted in the Accademia. Painters have to imagine women by using young male models, and their imaginations aren't trustworthy. In painting after painting, they create only the ideal. Your touches of realism are beyond their conception.” His eyes wrinkled at the corners, as if in delight that he would have something no one else did.

He opened a copy of Cesare Ripa's
Iconologia
, just like Father's, and we found Inclinazione holding a compass and having a bright star shining above her like a guide. “Place her against a deep blue sky. Give her a proud aspect. You shall have the model of your choice, and a liberal allowance for supplies. I will be pleased, I know.”

“I will begin tomorrow. With all my heart.”

My first commission! I felt like leaping and shouting the news all the way to Rome. I wondered if I would have been
given it without Father's letter to him, but I couldn't think about that. In a rush of hope and excitement I threw myself into the preliminary sketches as soon as I got home. Pietro watched in silence from the edge of the room, arms folded across his chest. I didn't tell him what Buonarroti said about my inclination.

“Where can I find a female model?” I asked.

“At the academy.”

I saw it as a wonderful opportunity to let the academy know that even without them, I had been commissioned by a man of importance. “I'll go there tomorrow.”

“Who will take care of Palmira? I'm going to work.” His voice was flat and final.

“I won't be gone long.”

“I'm going to draw from sculpture at the Uffizi.”

“They let you?”

“My friend is doorman there. He's going to let us in.”

“Us?”

“Friends of mine.”

“I can't take Palmira with me to the academy.”

“Take her upstairs to Fina.”

I had seen Fina almost every day on the stairs or down in the courtyard drawing water, and we always passed a few moments in conversation, but I had never been upstairs to her rooms. Whenever she saw Palmira she called her sweet, funny names like Stella del Mattino if it was in the morning, or Diva del Lungarno if Palmira had been crying. Sometimes she stroked Palmira's skin or tickled her softly. The first time I'd let her hold Palmira, Fina's whole face shone as though lit from within, and she whispered, “Fiore Dolce.”

I ran right upstairs to ask. Fina had the door open and was singing as she was washing clothes. I was surprised at her strong contralto. She was obviously enjoying herself.

“Isn't it a perfectly beautiful day,” she said, not as a question, but as an affirmation.

“How can you tell? You haven't gone downstairs.”

“It comes in if you let it. The windows are all open. Have you been listening to that thrush?”

“No, I guess I haven't.”

Fina wore the day on her face so that even her plain, puffy features were pleasant. “Your singing reminds me of my mother. She was always singing around the house. And my father too. Robust songs of adventurers and the campaigns of
condottieri
and drinking matches. But my mother's songs were from the troubadours.”

“Singing helps to ease the way.”

Apparently there was only a large attic room with bed, small table, trunk, oil stove, fireplace, sink, and washtub. One item stood out, a once-elegant straight chair, the seat and back of worn burgundy velvet with frayed silk fringe and brass studs. It hinted of better days. Clothes lay scattered helter-skelter.

“Are all these clothes yours?” I asked.

“Madonna, no! You take me for a lady of means? They belong to the family below you.”

I helped her stir them with a wooden paddle as she poured heated water into the washtub. “You do washing for others too?”

“Yes, sure, for Pierantonio too until he married you.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Since he was nothing more than a bulge in his mama's belly.”

I was curious to know what kind of a boy he was and what else she knew about him, but that had to wait until I got to know her better.

She leaned out the window to wring out some clothes, and hung them on a line stretched between two horizontal rods attached to the building. “Signora Bruni on the ground floor doesn't want them hanging in our courtyard where people who come to visit her can see them, so I hang them here
above the street. Foolish woman. Now everyone passing on the street sees them.”

“I have a job for you, but it isn't washing clothes.”

“I'm not good for much else. What is it you want?”

“You see, I'm a painter too, and I've just been given a wonderful commission to do—”

“A painter? Like that husband of yours?”

“Yes.”

“For money?”

“Yes.”

“
Mamma mia
, I suppose if it's for money, he'd allow it. Imagine, a woman painting for money. You sure you don't mean modeling? You're a beauty, you know.”

“No, Fina. A painter. Is that so absurd?”

She tipped her head and her bottom lip protruded beyond the shadow of a moustache on her upper lip.

“I must go to the Accademia del Disegno tomorrow and he won't take care of Palmira while I'm gone. May I bring her up to you?”

“Oh, that's what you're after, eh? Of course. Bring her up. You know I love the little
principessa
.”

“There might be more times too, Fina, if you don't mind. I'll pay of course.”

The next day, the yeasty-faced steward at the academy looked me over, sniffed, and asked, “What is your business here?”

I was not going to overstep myself this time.

“I wish to inquire about female models, Your Lordship.”

“We have a list that artists refer to as they need.” He brought down a sheaf of papers tied together with a leather thong, and laid them on a desk. “You may add your name.” He pushed an inkwell toward me. “If you can write.”

Rub the mold off your brain, I thought.

“Your Lordship may recall, I am a painter. I wish to secure a model for a commission I've been given by Signor Buonarroti for the memorial gallery. Surely you know of the project.”

He pursed his lips. “The list is only for members' use.” He made a quick move to pick up the papers.

“Is Signor Buonarroti a member?”