“Yes-yes-yes,” said Friar Lorenzo, forcing the lid down and very nearly slamming it over the other’s wrist, “death turns all men into great lovers. Would that they were equally ardent while the lady was still alive!”
“Very true, Friar,” nodded Romeo, getting up at last. “Well, I have seen and heard enough misery for one night. The tavern calls. I shall leave you to your sad business and go drink a toast to this poor girl’s soul. In fact, I shall drink several, and perchance the wine will send me straight to Paradise that I may meet her in person and …”
Friar Lorenzo sprung forward and hissed, for no apparent reason, “Before it throws you from grace, Messer Romeo, bridle your tongue!”
The young man grinned, “… pay my respects.”
Not until the rogues had left the workshop for good and the sound of hoofbeats had waned, did Friar Lorenzo again lift the lid of the coffin. “It is safe now,” he said, “you can come out.”
Now at last, the girl opened her eyes and sat up, her cheeks hollow with exhaustion.
“Almighty God!” gasped Maestro Ambrogio, crossing himself with the mortar. “What manner of witchcraft is this?”
“I beg you, Maestro,” said Friar Lorenzo, gently helping the girl to stand up, “to escort us to Palazzo Tolomei. This young lady is Messer Tolomei’s niece, Giulietta. She has been the victim of much evil, and I must get her to safety as soon as may be. Can you help us?”
Maestro Ambrogio looked at the monk and the girl, still struggling to catch up with reality. Despite her fatigue, the girl stood straight, her tousled hair alive in the candlelight, and her eyes as blue as the sky on a cloudless day. She was, without a doubt, the most perfect creation he had ever beheld. “May I ask,” he said to the monk, “what compelled you to trust me?”
Friar Lorenzo made a sweeping gesture at the paintings surrounding them. “A man who can see the divine in earthly things, surely, is a brother in Christ.”
The Maestro looked around, too, but all he saw was empty wine bottles, half-finished work, and portraits of people who had changed their mind when they saw his bill. “You are too generous,” he said, shaking his head, “but I shall not hold that against you. Have no fear, I will take you to Palazzo Tolomei, but first, do satisfy my rude curiosity and tell me what happened to this young lady, and why she was laid out for dead in that coffin.”
Now for the first time, Giulietta spoke. Her voice was as soft and steady as her face was tense with grief. “Three days ago,” she said, “the Salimbenis raided my home. They killed everyone by the name of Tolomei—my father, my mother, my brothers—and everyone else who stood in their way, except this man, my dear confessor, Friar Lorenzo. I was in confession in the chapel when the raid took place or I, too, would have been—” She looked away, struggling against despair.
“We have come here for protection,” Friar Lorenzo said, taking over, “and to tell Messer Tolomei what happened.”
“We have come here for revenge,” Giulietta corrected him, her eyes wide with hatred and her fists pressed hard against her chest as if to prevent herself from an act of violence, “and to gut that monster, Salimbeni, and string him up by his own entrails …”
“Ahem,” said Friar Lorenzo, “we will, of course, exercise Christian forgiveness—”
Giulietta nodded eagerly, hearing nothing. “… While we feed him to his dogs, piece by piece!”
“I grieve for you,” said Maestro Ambrogio, wishing he could take this beautiful child in his arms and comfort her. “You have borne too much—”
“I have borne nothing!” Her blue eyes pierced the painter’s heart. “Do not grieve for me, just be so kind as to take us to my uncle’s house without any further questioning.” She caught herself, and added quietly, “please.”
WHEN HE HAD SAFELY delivered monk and girl to Palazzo Tolomei, Maestro Ambrogio returned to his workshop in something resembling a gallop. He had never felt quite this way before. He was in love, he was in Hell … in fact, he was everything all at once as Inspiration flapped its colossal wings inside his skull and clawed painfully at his rib cage, looking for a way out of the prison that is a talented man’s mortal frame.
Sprawled on the floor, eternally puzzled by mankind, Dante looked on with half a bloodshot eye as Maestro Ambrogio composed his colors and began the application of Giulietta Tolomei’s features onto a painting of a hitherto headless Virgin Mary. He could not help but begin with her eyes. Nowhere else in his workshop was such an intriguing color to be seen; indeed, not in the entire city was the same shade to be found, for he had only invented it on this very night, almost in a fever frenzy, while the image of the young girl was still moist on the wall of his mind.
Encouraged by the immediate result, he did not hesitate to trace the outline of that remarkable face underneath the flaming rivulets of hair. His movements were still magically swift and assured; had the young woman at this very moment sat before him, poised for eternity, the painter could not have worked with more giddy certainty than he presently did.
“Yes!” was the only word escaping him as he eagerly, almost hungrily brought those breathtaking features back to life. Once the picture was complete, he took several steps backwards and finally reached out for the glass of wine he had poured for himself in a previous life, five hours earlier.
Just then, there was another knock on the door.
“Shh!” hushed Maestro Ambrogio, wagging a warning finger at the barking dog. “You always assume the worst. Maybe it is another angel.” But as soon as he opened the door to see what demon had been dispatched by fate at this ungodly hour, he saw that Dante had been more right than he.
Outside, in the flickering light of a wall torch, stood Romeo Marescotti, a drunken grin splitting his deceivingly charming face in half. Apart from their encounter only a few hours earlier, Maestro Ambrogio knew the young man only too well from the week before, when the males of the Marescotti family had sat before him, one by one, in order to have their features incorporated into a formidable new mural in Palazzo Marescotti. The paterfamilias, Comandante Marescotti, had insisted on a representation of his clan from past to present, with all credible male ancestors—plus a few incredible ones—in the center, all employed, somehow, in the famous Battle of Montaperti, while the living hovered in the sky above, poised and guised as the Seven Virtues. Much to everyone’s amusement, Romeo had drawn the lot least suitable for his character, and consequently Maestro Ambrogio had found himself forging the present as well as the past as he expertly applied the features of Siena’s most infamous playboy to the princely form perched on the throne of Chastity.
Now Chastity reborn pushed his kind creator aside and stepped into the workshop to find the coffin still sitting—closed—in the middle of the floor. The young man was clearly itching to open it and peer once more at the body inside, but that would have meant rudely removing the Maestro’s palette and several wet paintbrushes that were now resting on top of the lid. “Have you finished the picture yet?” he asked instead. “I want to see it.”
Maestro Ambrogio closed the door quietly behind them, only too conscious that his visitor had been drinking too much for perfect balance. “Why would you wish to see the likeness of a dead girl? There are plenty of live ones out there, I am sure.”
“True,” agreed Romeo, looking around the room and finally spotting the new addition, “but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?” He walked right up to the portrait and looked at it with the gaze of an expert; an expert not of art, but of women. After a while he nodded. “Not bad. Quite the eyes you gave her. How did you—”
“I thank you,” said the Maestro hastily, “but the true artistry is God’s. More wine?”
“Sure.” The young man took the cup and sat down on top of the coffin, carefully avoiding the dripping brushes. “How about a toast to your friend, God, and all the games he plays with us?”
“It is very late,” said Maestro Ambrogio, moving the palette and sitting down on the coffin next to Rome
o. “You must be tired, my friend.”
As if transfixed by the portrait before him, Romeo could not tear away his gaze long enough to look at the painter. And when he finally spoke, there was a sincerity to his voice that was new, even to himself. “I am not as much tired,” he said, “as I am awake. I wonder if I was ever this awake before.”
“That often happens when one is half-asleep. Only then does the inner eye truly open.”
“But I am not asleep, nor do I wish to be. I am never going to sleep again. I think I shall come every night and sit here instead of sleeping.”
Smiling at the ardent exclamation, a most enviable privilege of youth, Maestro Ambrogio looked up at his masterpiece. “You approve of her, then?”
“Approve?” Romeo nearly choked on the word. “I adore her!”
“Could you worship at such a shrine?”
“Am I not a man? Yet as a man, I must also feel great sorrow at the sight of such wasted beauty. If only death could be persuaded to give her back.”
“Then what?” The Maestro managed to frown appropriately. “What would you do if this angel was a living, breathing woman?”
Romeo took in air, but the words fled from him. “I … don’t know. Love her, obviously. I do know how to love a woman. I have loved many.”
“Perhaps it is just as well she is not real, then. For I believe this one would require extra effort. In fact, I imagine that to court a lady like her, one would have to enter through the front door and not skulk beneath her balcony like a thief in the night.” Seeing that the other had fallen strangely silent, a brushstroke of ochre trailing across his noble face, the Maestro proceeded with greater confidence. “There is lust, you know, and then there is love. They are related, but still very different things. To indulge in one requires little but honeyed speech and a change of clothes; to obtain the other, by contrast, a man must give up his rib. In return, his woman will undo the sin of Eve, and bring him back into Paradise.”
“But how does a man know when to trade in his rib? I have many friends without a single rib left, and I promise you, they were never once in Paradise.”
The earnest concern on the young man’s face made Maestro Ambrogio nod. “You said it,” he acknowledged. “A man knows. A boy does not.”
Romeo laughed out loud. “I admire you!” He put a hand on the Maestro’s shoulder. “You have courage!”
“What is so very wonderful about courage?” retorted the painter, bolder now that his role as mentor had been approved. “I suspect this one virtue has killed more good men than all the vices put together.”
Again Romeo laughed out loud, as if he did not often have the pleasure of such saucy opposition, and the Maestro found himself suddenly and unexpectedly liking the young man.
“I often hear men say,” Romeo went on, unwilling to quit the topic, “that they will do anything for a woman. But then, upon her very first request, they whine and slink away like dogs.”
“And you? Do you also slink away?”
Romeo flashed a whole row of healthy teeth, surprising for someone who was rumored to occasion fisticuffs wherever he went. “No,” he answered, still smiling, “I have a fine nose for women who ask nothing more than what I want to give. But if such a woman existed”—he nodded towards the painting—“I would happily break all my ribs in pursuit of her. Better still, I would enter through the front door, as you say, and apply for her hand before I had ever even touched it. And not only that, but I would make her my one and only wife and never look at another woman. I swear it! She would be worth it, I am sure.”
Pleased with what he heard, and wanting very much to believe that his artwork had had such a profound effect as to turn the young man away from his wanton ways, the Maestro nodded, rather satisfied with the night’s work. “She is indeed.”
Romeo turned his head, eyes narrow. “You speak as if she were still alive?”
Maestro Ambrogio sat silently for a moment, studying the young man’s face and probing the depth of his resolve. “Giulietta,” he said at last, “is her name. I believe that you, my friend, with your touch stirred her from death tonight. After you left us for the tavern, I saw her lovely form rise by itself from this coffin—”
Romeo sprang from his seat as if it had burst into flames beneath him. “This is ghostly speech! I know not whether this chill on my arm is from dread or delight!”
“Do you dread the schemes of men?”
“Of men, no. Of God, greatly.”
“Then take comfort in what I tell you now. It was not God who laid her out for dead in this coffin, but the monk, Friar Lorenzo, fearing for her safety.”
Romeo’s jaw dropped. “You mean, she was never dead?”
Maestro Ambrogio smiled at the young man’s expression. “She was ever as alive as you.”
Romeo clasped his head. “You are sporting with me! I cannot believe you!”
“Believe what you want,” said the Maestro, getting up and removing the paintbrushes, “or open the coffin.”
After a moment of great distress, pacing back and forth, Romeo finally braced himself and flung open the coffin.
Rather than rejoicing in its emptiness, however, the young man glared at the Maestro with renewed suspicion. “Where is she?”
“That I cannot tell you. It would be a breach of confidence.”
“But she lives?”
The Maestro shrugged. “She did when I saw her last, on the threshold of her uncle’s house, waving goodbye to me.”
“And who is her uncle?”
“As I said: I cannot tell you.”
Romeo took a step towards the Maestro, fingers twitching. “Are you saying that I will have to sing serenades beneath every balcony in Siena until the right woman comes out?”
Dante had jumped up as soon as the young man appeared to threaten his master, but instead of growling a warning, the dog merely put its head back and let out a long, expressive howl.
“She will not come out just yet,” replied Maestro Ambrogio, bending over to pat the dog. “She is in no mood for serenades. Perhaps she never will be.”
“Then why,” exclaimed Romeo, all but knocking over the easel and portrait in his frustration, “are you telling me this?”
“Because,” said Maestro Ambrogio, amused by the other’s exasperation, “it pains an artist’s eyes to see a snowy dove dally with crows.”
[ III.I ]
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet
…
THE VIEW FROM THE OLD MEDICI FORTRESS, the Fortezza, was spectacular. Not only could I see the terra-cotta roofs of Siena broiling in the afternoon sun, but at least twenty miles of rolling hills were heaving around me like an ocean in shades of green and distant blues. Again and again I looked up from my reading, taking in the sweeping landscape in the hope that it would force all stale air from my lungs and fill my soul with summer. And yet every time I looked down and resumed Maestro Ambrogio’s journal, I plunged right back into the dark events of 1340.
I had spent the morning at Malèna’s espresso bar in Piazza Postierla, leafing through the official early versions of Romeo and Juliet written by Masuccio Salernitano and Luigi da Porto in 1476 and 1530 respectively. It was interesting to see how the plot had developed, and how da Porto had put a literary spin to a story that—Salernitano claimed—was based on real events.
In Salernitano’s version, Romeo and Juliet—or rather, Mariotto and Giannozza—lived in Siena, but their parents were not at war. They did get married in secret, after bribing a friar, but the drama only really began when Mariotto killed a prominent citizen and had to go into exile. Meanwhile, Giannozza’s parents—unaware that their daughter was already married—demanded that she marry someone else. In desperation, Giannozza had the friar cook up a powerful sleeping potion, and the effect was so great that her imbecilic parents believed she was dead and went ahead and buried her right away. Fortunately, the good old friar was able t
o deliver her from the sepulchre, whereupon Giannozza traveled secretly by boat to Alexandria, where Mariotto was living the sweet life. However, the messenger who was supposed to inform Mariotto of the sleeping-potion scheme had been captured by pirates, and upon receiving the news of Giannozza’s death, Mariotto came blasting back into Siena to die by her side. Here, he was captured by soldiers, and beheaded. Chop. And Giannozza had spent the rest of her life pulling Kleenex in a convent.
As far as I could see, the key elements in this original version were: the secret marriage, Romeo’s banishment, the harebrained scheme of the sleeping potion, the messenger gone astray, and Romeo’s deliberate suicide mission based on his erroneous belief in Juliet’s death.
The big curveball, of course, was that the whole thing supposedly happened in Siena, and if Malèna had been around, I would have asked her if this was common knowledge. I highly suspected it was not.
Interestingly enough, when da Porto took over the story half a century later, he, too, was eager to anchor it in reality, going so far as to call Romeo and Giulietta by their real first names. He chickened out on the location, however, and moved the whole thing to Verona, changing all family names—very possibly to avoid retribution from the powerful clans involved in the scandal.
But never mind the logistics; in my interpretation—aided by several cups of cappuccino—da Porto wrote a far more entertaining story. He was the one who introduced the masked ball and the balcony scene, and his was the genius that first devised the double suicide. The only thing that did not immediately fly with me was that he had Juliet die by holding her breath. But perhaps da Porto had felt that his audience would not appreciate a bloody scene … scruples that Shakespeare, fortunately, did not have.
After da Porto, someone called Bandello had felt compelled to write a third version and add a lot of melodramatic dialogue without—as far as I could see—altering the essentials of the plot. But from then on the Italians were done with the story, and it traveled first to France, then England, to eventually end up on Shakespeare’s desk, ready for immortalization.