The Birth of Venus

  I waited.

  “The other night . . . the night before your wedding, when we . . . when you were in the courtyard . . .”

  But though I knew what he was going to say, I was too angry to help him now. “What of it?”

  “I dropped something . . . a piece of paper. A sketch. I would be grateful to have it back.”

  “A sketch?” I could hear my voice grow distant. Just as he had dashed my hopes, so I would do the same to him. “I’m afraid I don’t remember. Perhaps if you reminded me what it was of?”

  “It was . . . nothing. I mean, nothing important.”

  “Important enough to get it back, though?”

  “Only because . . . it was done by a friend. And I . . . must give it back to him.”

  It was such an obvious lie—the first and maybe the only one I ever heard him tell—that he didn’t dare look at me as he said it. The torn piece of paper rose up in front of me: the man’s body ripped open from neck to groin, his innards exposed as on a butcher’s hook. Only now of course it had a companion in my mind: the city’s most notorious pimp hanging from the chapel post, the dogs snapping at his entrails. While the drawing predated the body by weeks, the evisceration was almost identical. My brother’s words echoed in my mind. “Your precious painter was a mess, face like a ghost and stains all over him.” A gaunt face and bloodshot eyes could be the signs not just of a man who walked the streets at night but someone who even when he rested could not sleep.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my words in cold homage to his own. “I cannot help you.”

  For a moment he remained frozen; then he turned, and I heard the sound of the door closing behind him. I sat with the roll of drawings in my lap. After a while I picked them up and threw them across the room.

  Twenty-two

  I HAD PRECIOUS LITTLE TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT. MY husband returned a few days later, his timing coolly precise. Savonarola’s Christmas sermons were due to begin the next morning, and the godly should be seen to go to church from the beds of their wives and not their lovers.

  He even made it his business to take me with him out walking that same evening, so we could be noted together in public. It had so long been my dream: to wander the streets in that magic hour between dusk and dark, the life of the city lit by the setting sun. But though the light was beautiful, the streets were somehow lackluster. There were fewer people than I imagined, and almost every woman I saw was veiled and—to an eye fed by my father’s bright fabrics—drearily dressed, while the few who were unaccompanied had their heads down, intent on reaching their homes. At one point, under the loggia in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, we passed a young cockerel of a man in a fashionable cloak and feathered hat who, I thought, tried hard to catch my husband’s attention, but Cristoforo dropped his gaze immediately and maneuvered me away and we soon left him behind. By the time we reached home in the dark, the city was almost empty. The curfew of the mind was making as much impact as any new law. It was the greatest irony that I had negotiated my freedom just when there was no Florence left to explore it in.

  That night, we sat together in the drafty receiving room, warmed by a myrtle-wood fire, discussing affairs of state. While there was a wounded part of me that wanted to punish him for his absence, my curiosity was too acute and his company too interesting for me to resist him for long. I believe the pleasure was mutual.

  “We should be there early to secure a good place. I would lay you a wager, Alessandra—except of course a wager itself would be illegal now—that the cathedral will be overflowing tomorrow.”

  “Do we go to see or be seen?”

  “Like many, I suspect, a mixture of the two. It’s a wonder how suddenly the Florentines have become such godly people.”

  “Even sodomites?” I said, proud of my own courage with the word.

  He smiled. “I do believe you get a rebellious pleasure from saying that word out loud. Though I would suggest you expunge it from your vocabulary. Walls have ears.”

  “What? You think servants will betray their own masters now?”

  “I think when slaves are offered their freedom in return for informing on their masters, Florence has become a city of the Inquisition, yes.”

  “Is that what the new laws say?”

  “Among other things. The punishments for fornication are made severe, for sodomy even more so. For the younger ones, flogging, fining, and mutilation. For older and more practiced sinners—the stake.”

  “The stake! Dear God. Why such a difference?”

  “Because, wife, young men are held to be less responsible for their actions than older ones. Just as deflowered virgins are considered less guilty than their seducers.”

  So Tomaso’s inviting swagger would be classed as less damning than my husband’s quiet hunger for him. Though he was my flesh and blood, the cruel truth was I cared less for his welfare than for the man who lusted after him.

  “You must be careful,” I said.

  “I intend to be. Your brother asks after your welfare,” he added, as if reading my thoughts.

  “What do you tell him?”

  “That he would do better to ask you himself. But I think he fears to see you.”

  Good, I thought. I hope he lies quaking in your arms. I found myself shocked by the image, which I had not let myself conjure up before: Tomaso in my husband’s arms. So my brother was the wife now. And I . . . well, what was I?

  “It has been quiet with the house so empty,” I said at last.

  He paused. We both knew what was to come. Savonarola might police the night, but in the end all he would do was drive the sins farther into the dark.

  “If you prefer, you need not see him,” he said quietly.

  “He is my brother. If he comes to our house it would be strange if I did not.”

  “That is true.” He was staring into the fire, his legs pushed out in front of him. He was an educated, cultured man who had more brains in his little finger than my brother did in the whole of his soft coquettish body. What was this lust made of, that it made him risk everything for its consummation? “I don’t suppose you have any news for me?” he said, after a while.

  Oh, but I did. That very afternoon I had felt shooting pains in my womb, but rather than an early baby I had given birth to streaming ribbons of blood. But I didn’t know how to say that, so I simply shook my head. “No. No news.”

  I closed my eyes and saw again my drawing of our nuptial night. When I opened them again he was looking at me intently, and I swear the pity had something of affection in it. “I hear you have been using the library in my absence. It pleased you, I hope.”

  “Yes,” I said, relieved to be back on the dry land of learning. “I found a volume there of Plato by Ficino with an inscription to you inside it.”

  “Ah, yes. Praising my love of beauty and learning.” He laughed. “It is hard now to imagine there was a time when our rulers believed such things.”

  “So it was Lorenzo the Magnificent! You actually knew him?”

  “A little. As the inscription suggests, he liked his courtiers to be men of taste.”

  “Did he . . . did he know about you?”

  “What—my sodomy, as you so enjoy calling it? There was not much that Lorenzo did not know about those around him. He was a student of men’s souls as much as of their intellects. You would have been enthralled by his mind. I am surprised your mother has not told you of him.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes. When her brother was at court she came sometimes to visit.”

  “She did? Did you know her then?”

  “No, I was—er, busy with other things. But I saw her a few times. She was very beautiful. And she had something of her brother’s wit and erudition when it was called upon. She was much appreciated, I remember. She has not told you anything of this?”

  I shook my head. In all my life she had never said a word. To have such secrets from your own daughter! It made me think again about her story of watching th
e Medici assassins pulled through the streets, drowning in the blood of their own castration. No wonder the horror had turned me in her womb.

  “Then I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn. I hear you also asked about the keys to the cabinet. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I think the manuscript will be gone soon.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  “Back to its owner.”

  “Who is he?” And, when my husband said nothing, “If you believe I cannot keep your secrets, sir, you have made a bad choice of a wife.”

  He smiled at the logic. “His name is Piero Francesco de’ Medici, Botticelli’s sometime patron.”

  Of course. Lorenzo the Magnificent’s cousin and one of the first to flee to the French camp. “I count him as a traitor,” I said firmly.

  “Then you are more foolish than I thought.” His voice was sharp. “You should be more circumspect with your words, even here. Mark me, it will not be long before those who support the Medici will go in fear of their lives. Besides, you know only half the story. There is reason enough for his disloyalty. When his father was assassinated, Piero Francesco’s estates were left in the care of Lorenzo, who leeched money from them when the fortunes of the Medici bank fell. His resentment is hardly surprising, but he is not a bad man. Indeed, as a patron of art, history may put him alongside Lorenzo himself.”

  “I have seen nothing he has given to the city.”

  “That is because as yet he keeps it for himself. But his villa at Cafaggiolo has paintings by Botticelli that the artist himself might live to regret. There is a panel in which Mars lies conquered by Venus, prostrate with such languor that it’s hard to tell whether it is his soul or his body she has just vanquished. And then there is Venus herself, rising naked in a shell from the waves. You’ve heard of her?”

  “No.” My mother had told us once about a set of screen paintings of the Nastagio legend that Botticelli had done for a wedding, and how all who saw them marveled at their detail and life. But, like my sister, I was resistant to tales of woman’s flesh torn apart, however fine the artist. “What is she like, his Venus?”

  “Well, I am no connoisseur of women, but I suspect you would find in her the chasm between the Platonic and the Savonarolan vision of art.”

  “Is she beautiful?”

  “Beautiful, yes. But she is more than that. She is a joining of the classical and the Christian. Her nakedness is modest, yet her gravity is playful. She both invites and resists at the same time. Even her knowledge of love seems innocent. Though I imagine most men who look on her think more of taking her to bed than to church.”

  “Oh! I would give anything to see her.”

  “You should hope that no one sees her for a while. If news of her were common, our pious friar would almost certainly want to destroy her along with his sinners. Let’s hope Botticelli himself does not feel bound to give her up to the enemy. From what I hear he is leaning heavily toward Savonarola already.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, yes. I think you would be surprised by how many of our great figures will follow. And not just the artists.”

  “But why? I don’t understand. We were building a new Athens here. How can they bear to see it pulled down?”

  He stared into the fire, as if the answer might be found there. “Because,” he said at last, “in its place, this mad and clever monk will offer them a vision of something else. Something that talks directly to all men, not just the rich and the clever.”

  “And what will that be?”

  “The building of the New Jerusalem.”

  My husband, who seemed to have always known that he was bound for hell, looked for that moment almost sad. And I knew he was right.

  Twenty-three

  SO MANY OF THE SERVANTS ASKED TO ATTEND THE sermon next morning that there was almost no one left to guard the house. It was a story repeated through the city. A smart thief could have made away with cartloads of wealth that Sunday, though he would have to have had a strong stomach for hell to sin at such a moment—like using the darkness after Christ’s crucifixion to pick the pockets of the crowd.

  While the poor put on their best clothes, it was the rich who dressed for the occasion, turning their fur collars inward and making sure their jewels were well hidden, in keeping with the new Sumptuary Laws. Before we left, Erila and I inspected each other for anything dubious or frivolous that might be revealed under our cloaks. Our modesty proved not to be enough. As we crossed the square toward the cathedral it was clear something was wrong. The place was awash with people and there were angry voices, punctuated by the sound of women crying. We had barely got to the steps when our way was blocked by a heavyset man in rough clothing.

  “She can’t come in,” he said rudely to my husband. “Women are barred.”

  And there was such aggression in his voice that for a moment I wondered if he knew something more about us and it made my blood run cold.

  “Why is that?” my husband said coolly.

  “The friar preaches on the building of the godly state. Such matters are not for their ears.”

  “But if the state is godly, what could he possibly say that could offend us?” I said loudly.

  “Women are barred,” he repeated, ignoring me and addressing my husband. “The business of government is for men. Women are weak and irrational and should be kept in obedience, chastity, and silence.”

  “Well, sir,” I said, “if women are indeed—”

  “My wife is a vessel of exemplary virtue.” Cristoforo’s fingers pinched a line of flesh under my sleeve. “There is nothing even our most diligent Prior Savonarola could instruct her on that she does not practice naturally.”

  “Then she would better go home to tend the house and let the men be about their business,” he said. “And that veil of hers should have no edging and cover her face properly. This is a state of plain virtue now, not messed with rich man’s fancies.”

  Six months before he would have found himself whipped home for such disrespect, but now his insolence was so confident that there was nothing to reply. As I turned I saw the same scene being played out at a dozen points on the steps around us: prominent citizens being humiliated by this new coarse piety. It was easy to see how it worked: As the rich dressed down, so the poor had less reason to look up to them. And it struck me, not for the last time, that if this was indeed the beginning of the New Jerusalem, it had a smell of more than spiritual revolution about it.

  My husband, however, who would have seen it as clearly as I, wisely chose not to take offense. Instead he turned and smiled at me. “My dear wife,” he said, with studied sweetness and silly language, “go you now home with God and pray for us. I will join you later and relate what, if anything, is said that does affect you.”

  So we bowed and parted like players in a bad rendition of Boccaccio’s tales, and he disappeared into the cavernous interior.

  AT THE FOOT OF THE STEPS, ERILA AND I FOUND OURSELVES IN A sea of women torn between piety and indignation at their exclusion. I recognized a few whom my mother might have counted as equals, women of grace and means. After a while a group of boys, their hair cut short, and dressed more like penitents than youths, came up and started herding us away to the edge of the square. It seemed to me they used the excuse of their holiness to prod and demean us as they would never have been allowed to do before.

  “This way.” Erila grabbed me and pulled me to one side. “If we stay here we’ll never get in.”

  “But how can we? There are guards everywhere.”

  “Yes, but not every door is for the rich. With luck they’ll have picked lesser thugs for lesser people.”

  I followed her out of the crowd and around the side of the cathedral until we found a door where the river of people was less grand but moving with such force that it was impossible for the vergers at the entrance to police everyone surging inside. As we pushed ourselves forward we could hear a rising tide of sound from within. It seemed that Savonarola had appeared at the altar,
and suddenly the crush was heavier and the momentum faster as the great cathedral doors began to close.

  Inside, Erila pulled me quickly backward, so that we pressed ourselves into the space between the second screen door and the church wall. Any earlier and someone would have spotted us. Any later and we would not have got in. I sneaked a glance out over the mass of bodies and saw we weren’t the only women to defy the ban, because a few moments into the mass there was a great commotion to the left and an elderly woman was rough-handled out the doors, the men hissing at her as she went. We kept our heads down, folding ourselves into the gloom of the interior.

  When the service reached the sermon, the whole cathedral fell silent as the little monk made his way to the pulpit. This would be the first time he had preached publicly since the new government had been formed. While it might not have added to his stature (though to be fair from where I stood I couldn’t see him anyway), it had clearly blown a greater force into him. Or maybe it was indeed God. He spoke with such an easy familiarity about Him.

  “Welcome, men of Florence! Today we meet to do great business. As the Virgin made her way to Bethlehem in preparation for the coming of our Savior, so our city takes the first steps along the road that will lead it to redemption. Rejoice, citizens of Florence, for the light is at hand.”

  An opening ripple of approval ran through the crowd.

  “The voyage is begun. The ship of salvation is launched. I have been with the Lord these days, seeking His advice, begging His indulgence. He has not left my side, day or night, as I have prostrated myself before Him awaiting His orders. ‘O God,’ I have cried, ‘give this great duty to another. Let Florence guide herself through this stormy sea and let me go back to my solitary haven.’ ‘It is impossible,’ the Lord replies. ‘You are the navigator and the wind is in the sails. There can be no turning back now.’”

  Another roar rose up around him, louder this time, further urging him on, so that I could not help but think of Julius Caesar, who each time he spurned the crown incited the mob to offer it him again with even more fervor.