The Rossetti Letter (v5) (5 page)

26 April 1617

P
ERCHED IN FRONT
of her easel, Alessandra skillfully drew the scalloped edges of a budding rose, putting the final touches to her charcoal sketch. A small, snowy flower drifted down from the pear tree that shaded her. She glanced up at the tangle of white-blossomed branches outlined by clear blue sky, then out at the surrounding garden, a riot of new growth and bright blooms. It was a spectacular spring day, warm enough that the cool breeze off the lagoon brought welcome relief.

“My lady!” Bianca, her housekeeper and cook, burst out of the back door and walked along the garden path as quickly as her plump, aging body allowed. She waved a letter in the air. “From Padua!”

Alessandra eagerly took the letter from her.

“Well?” Bianca prompted as Alessandra folded the letter and set it beside her on the stone bench.

“They cannot help,” Alessandra said. “Unless we’re willing to go to Padua.”

“Padua,” Bianca repeated without enthusiasm.

“I would not force you to go with me.”

“Did you think you would leave me behind?”

“No, I only thought you did not care to go—”

“If it’s to be Padua, then so it is,” Bianca said philosophically. “I will not leave you, my lady.”

“Thank you, Bianca.”

Bianca and her husband, Nico, had been with Alessandra’s family for years, ever since her mother had died. They’d suffered with her the tragedy of her father’s and brother’s deaths, and stayed with her even after she had become Lorenzo’s mistress. They were discreet and they did not judge, and in spite of their advancing years—Nico was almost fifty—they were hard workers, dependable, trustworthy, and always concerned for her care.

“You think about it,” Bianca said. “I’ve got our supper to get on.”

Giovanna’s offer was kind, but Alessandra could not imagine leaving Venice, or leaving her home. In this very spot she’d spent many of the happiest moments of her life, drawing, reading, studying with Jacopo. Everything she cherished was here, in her house and garden overlooking the lagoon. From here she could watch ships sailing from the port at Malamocco to the Molo, the dock near the Doge’s Palace, or gaze upon the shimmering lagoon as it changed with the seasons. Even though the view from the parlor was better, Alessandra preferred the garden, where she could feel the sun on her skin, could smell the salty Adriatic and revel in the earthy, sweet scents of the roses, the blackberry vines, the herb garden that Bianca had planted.

And yet everyone, even Giovanna in her own way, was telling her that it wasn’t proper for her to remain in this house by herself. She was an embarrassment—a woman alone, not married, not widowed, not a virgin with a dowry. It wasn’t suitable. She thought of a popular adage:
Aut maritus, aut marus:
If not a husband to govern her, then a girl needed a wall to contain her.

In Venice, this was more than a saying, it was common practice: hundreds of Venice’s daughters had been consigned to the convent. Few of them went willingly, for it had nothing to do with religious vocation. In true Venetian fashion, it was a matter of money. The typical marriage portion settled on the daughter of an aristocratic family was twenty thousand ducats; few families could afford to marry off more than one daughter. The not-so-marriageable girls—the sick or lame, the unlovely, the obstinate or ungovernable—were forced to take the veil. The cost of putting a girl in the convent—for even convents required a dowry—was substantially less than a marriage portion, only a thousand ducats. The religious orders had kept many a Venetian aristocrat from financial ruin.

In the fifty convents scattered around the city and the islands of the lagoon, a few thousand women whose names were listed in the Libro d’Oro, the register of Venetian aristocracy, were immured for life. There they lived behind walls intended to separate them from society, urged by the patriarch to meditate on the glories of their virginal state.

The reality was somewhat less lofty than that, Alessandra knew. Most of these women had no true calling for the monastic life and performed their vows with little enthusiasm. They spent their time embroidering, gossiping, and socializing with visiting friends and family members in the convent parlor: a place open to visitors but accessible to the nuns only through grated windows. It was an insignificant life of trivial pleasures. No wonder the convents were rife with flirtations and romances—stories of affairs between nuns and priests were commonplace, so much so that Patriarch Priuli had condemned the convents as being no better than brothels. But who could blame the sisters, for what of life was left for them to live?

In her own case, the convent would be even less tolerable. Alessandra wasn’t nobly born, and without money for a conventual dowry, her only option was to become a
conserva,
a lay sister who carried out the menial chores that the more privileged nuns did not want to do. The thought of spending the rest of her life behind convent walls, the servant of women who were less educated than herself, without books, without music, without freedom, was unbearable to her. Perhaps she had too much pride, but Alessandra saw the convent as a living death, an entombment. Better she had been born a man; she would have rather taken her chances with Jacopo on the open sea than kiss the stony ground and take those irrevocable vows.

But if not the convent, then what? Alessandra lay back on the bench. The dappled sunlight made her feel warm and drowsy. She would have to do something about money—what little she had wouldn’t last past August. She’d already made economies: Bianca had made over her winter dresses for the summer, and she’d had to dismiss Zuan, her gondolier. Nico would have to suffice as gondolier from now on. Perhaps she’d send him to the Ghetto tomorrow with an item for the secondhand shops. What would she sell first? The painted chests, the tapestries, the lute made in Verona? It pained her to think of it; these were not just her belongings, but her mother’s, her father’s, Jacopo’s. But it was either that or starve. She had a vision of herself, Nico, and Bianca living in the house as it slowly emptied, hanging on until there was nothing left. And what then? It was an impossible question to answer.

She awoke to the sound of a monkey chattering and the feeling that someone was watching her. Alessandra opened her eyes and gasped. Above her towered a blackamoor, the darkness of his skin accentuated by the bright blue sky behind him. He had a long, lugubrious face and was dressed in a gondolier’s uniform of striped jerkin and scarlet tights.

“Signorina,” he said, bowing low. His voice was very deep, and oddly accented. “My mistress wishes a word.”

Alessandra sat up. Into her view walked La Celestia, resplendent in a gown of gold cloth so brilliant it was as if a second sun had come into the garden. In flagrant disregard of the sumptuary laws, she was dripping with jewels. Her throat was circled by a half dozen strands of pearls, her earlobes weighted with diamonds, her bodice studded with rubies and emeralds. Behind her stood a pert young maidservant and a boy trailing a small monkey on a leash. The monkey was outfitted in a purple silk jerkin and a tiny, tasseled cap. When he saw Alessandra, he jumped up and down and screeched, then scampered up to perch on the boy’s shoulder, chattering all the while. Alessandra was tempted to pinch herself. Surely this was the strangest dream she’d ever had.

“Charming,” La Celestia said as she took in the garden, the lagoon, the four-story house with its pointed Moorish windows. She came closer to Alessandra and studied her face with a curious but pleased expression. “As I thought, you’re very pretty when you’re not crying.” She squinted at the sky. “Shall we go inside? The sun is ruinous to my complexion.”

Alessandra stood up. “Of course.” She was burning with questions, but she knew it wasn’t polite to ask. She led La Celestia upstairs, to the parlor on the second floor. The room was shaded and cool, the thick damask curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. The courtesan looked over the furnishings and the wood-paneled walls with a practiced eye.

“It’s a bit plain for such a well-situated house, but with some work it could be handsome enough,” she said. “I know some very clever artisans who could help you with the decor.”

“Thank you, but—”

“No Petrarch?” La Celestia asked as she inspected a row of books lining the fireplace mantel. Alessandra watched her fingers pass over the volumes: Virgil, Aristotle, Ovid, Boccaccio, Dante. “You should always have a pocket Petrarch at hand. The finest ladies always carry a copy.” She looked over at her maid. “Isabella?”

Isabella curtsied and help up a small, beautifully bound edition of Petrarch’s poems.

“See? I always carry one.” La Celestia looked back at the books. “Have you read all of these?”

“Yes.”

“Including the Latin and Greek?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm…” Her expression was inscrutable. “There is such a thing as being too well educated.” She turned to the lute in the corner. “Do you play?”

“Yes.”

“Sing and dance?”

“Yes…a little,” she added honestly.

La Celestia stepped over to the best chair in the room, spread her skirt, and sat down. She nodded at Isabella and the girl silently slipped out the door, apparently heading downstairs to wait with the gondolier, the boy, and the monkey. “Your manners as a hostess could use some improvement,” the courtesan said. “Aren’t you going to offer me a refreshment?”

“Forgive me, but I don’t understand why you’re here,” Alessandra said.

“To discuss your plans for the future, of course. What are you going to do now that Signor Liberti is dead?”

“You know about Lorenzo?” Alessandra was so astonished that she blurted out his Christian name.

“Very little goes on in Venice that I don’t know about.” Apparently La Celestia took some pleasure in surprising her, for she wore a self-satisfied smile. “It took a few days, but I finally remembered where I’d seen you—at a
comedia
at Ca’ Pesaro that you attended with Signor Liberti. You turned no small number of heads there, though you seemed to be quite unaware of the effect you had. As you were the other day at the Palazzo Camerlenghi.” Her expression grew serious. “I’ve heard that you are now without means, but surely Lorenzo left you with something: jewels, houses, land, livestock?”

“No…well, some gold earrings, and he paid the taxes on this house.” That Lorenzo may have paid the taxes with her own money was something Alessandra chose not to say. The courtesan’s tone made her feel defensive.

“Is that all?” La Celestia asked.

“Yes.”

“You mean you have nothing put away?”

Alessandra shook her head.

“I was told that you were smart. Have you so immersed yourself in those books that you’ve given no thought to your future?”

“How could I possibly have known that Lorenzo would die?”

La Celestia burst out laughing. “My girl, he was a man. Men die all the time. They’re positively geniuses at it, always running off to war or some such thing. It’s a woman’s destiny to be abandoned by men, in one way or another. Tedious, but you must admit it’s true. Your mistake was to rely on a man to take care of you.”

“But you yourself…,” Alessandra ventured.

“You’re thinking that I’m a living contradiction of my own advice. There you’re wrong. I don’t rely on one man, I rely on many. That way, if one of them dies, the effect is not felt so strongly. A wiser course for you to follow in the future.”

The future? Alessandra thought.
What future?
La Celestia waited patiently for Alessandra to comprehend her meaning.

“Are you suggesting”—Alessandra knitted her brow; she would be embarrassed if she had misunderstood—“that I become a courtesan?”

“I admit that was my intention in coming here. However, I’m concerned about your lack of business acumen. You sold yourself very ill.”

“Sold myself?” Alessandra felt her cheeks flush.

“You might not like the sound of the words, but the difference between being a kept mistress and a courtesan is only one of degree. You bartered away your most precious commodity, your maidenhood, for a few baubles and back taxes.” La Celestia clucked softly. “Not even a pearl on those earrings?”

“No,” Alessandra admitted.

“It grieves me deeply,” she sighed. “With your pretty face, you could have sold your virginity for a very high price.
Numerous
times.” She shook her head. “But no regrets, I always say—there’s no profit in them. So, what will you do? I take it the convent doesn’t appeal to you.”