Painting Mona Lisa

It would have been more efficient to head straight down the Via Maggio to the nearest bridge, the Ponte Santa Trinita, but that would have denied me a visual treat. The Ponte Vecchio was lined with the botteghe of goldsmiths and artists. Each bottega opened directly onto the street, with the owner’s wares prominently displayed in front of the shop. We all wore our best fur-lined capes to protect us from the chilly air, and Zalumma had tucked several thick woollen blankets around my mother. But I was too elated to feel cold; I stuck my head outside the carriage to gape at golden plaques, statuettes, belts, bracelets and Carnival masks. I gazed on chiselled marble busts of wealthy Florentines, on portraits in progress. In the early days, my mother said, the bridge was home to the tanners and fabric dyers, who used to dump their noxious-smelling chemicals directly into the Arno. The Medici had objected: The river was cleaner now than it had ever been, and the tanners and dyers worked in specified areas of the city.

On our way to the Duomo, our carriage paused in the vast piazza, in front of the imposing fortress known as the Palazzo della Signoria, where the Lord Priors of Florence met. On the wall of an adjacent building was a grotesque mural: paintings of hanged men. I knew nothing of them save that they were known as the Pazzi conspirators, and that they were evil. One of the conspirators, a small naked man, stared wide-eyed and sightless back at me; the effect was unnerving. But what intrigued me most was the portrait of the last hanging body. His form differed from the others, was more delicately portrayed, more assured; its subtle shadings poignantly evoked the grief and remorse of a troubled soul. And it did not seem to float, as the others did, but possessed the shadow and depth of reality. I felt as though I could reach into the wall and touch Baroncelli’s cooling flesh.

I turned to my mother. She was watching me carefully, though she said not a word about the mural, nor the reason we had lingered there. It was the first time I had stayed for any length of time in the Piazza, the first time I had been allowed such a close view of the famous hanged men. ‘The last one was done by a different artist,’ I said.

‘Yes. He has an amazing refinement, doesn’t he? He is like God, breathing life into stone.’ She nodded, clearly pleased by my discernment, and waved for the driver to move on.

We made our way north to the Piazza del Duomo.

Before entering the cathedral, I had examined Ghiberti’s bas relief panels on the doors of the nearby octagonal Baptistery. Here, near the public entry at the southern end of the building, scenes of Florence’s patron saint, John the Baptist covered the walls, but what truly tantalized me was the Door of Paradise on the northern side. There, in fine gilded bronze, the Old Testament came to life in vivid detail. I stood on tiptoe to finger the sweeping curve of an angel’s wing as he announced to Abraham that God desired Isaac as a sacrifice; I bent down to marvel at Moses receiving the tablets from the divine hand while, at the foot of the mountain, the Israelites looked on in awe. What I most yearned to touch were the delicately rendered heads and muscular shoulders of oxen, emerging from the metal of the uppermost plaque to plough a field. I knew the tips of their horns would be sharp and cold against my fingertip, but they lay too high for my reach. Instead, I contented myself with rubbing the numerous tiny heads of prophets and sibyls that lined the doors like garlands; the bronze burned like ice.

The interior of the Baptistery was for me less remarkable. Only one item caught my attention: Donatello’s dark wooden carving of Mary Magdalen, larger than life. She was a ghastly, spectral version of the seductress: aged now, her hair so wild and long that she clothed herself in the tangles, just as St. John clothed himself in the skins of animals. Her cheeks were gaunt, her features worn down by decades of guilt and regret. Something about the resignation in her aspect reminded me of my mother.

We three made our way into the Duomo proper then, and once we arrived in front of the altar, my mother immediately began speaking of the murder that had taken place there almost fourteen years earlier. I had only moments to draw in the astonishing vastness of the cupola before Zalumma grew worried and told my mother it was time to leave.

So we returned to the present.

‘I suppose so,’ my mother reluctantly agreed with Zalumma’s urgings. ‘But first, I must speak to my daughter alone.’

This frustrated the slave. She scowled until her brows merged into one great black line, but her social status compelled her to reply calmly, ‘Of course, Madonna.’ She retreated a short distance away.

Once my mother satisfied herself that Zalumma was not watching, she retrieved from her bosom a small, shining object. A coin, I thought, but after she had pressed it into my palm, I saw it was a gold medallion, stamped with the words ‘Public Mourning’. Beneath the letters, two men with knives readied themselves to attack a startled victim. Despite its small size, the image was detailed and lifelike, rendered with a delicacy worthy of Ghiberti.

‘Keep it,’ my mother said. ‘But let it be our secret.’

I eyed her gift greedily, curiously. ‘Was he really so handsome?’

‘He was. It is quite accurate. And quite rare.’

I tucked it at once into my belt. My mother and I both shared a love of such trinkets, and of art, though my father disapproved of my having anything so impractical. As a merchant, he had worked hard for his wealth, and hated to see it squandered on anything useless. But I was thrilled; I hungered for such things.

‘Zalumma,’ my mother called. ‘I am ready to leave.’

Zalumma came to fetch us at once, and took hold of my mother’s arm again. But when my mother began to turn away from the altar – she paused, and wrinkled her nose. ‘The candles …’ she murmured. ‘Have the altar vestments caught fire? Something is burning …’

Zalumma’s expression went slack with panic, but she recovered herself immediately and said calmly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world: ‘Lie down, Madonna. Here, on the floor. All will be well.’

‘It all repeats,’ my mother said, with the odd catch in her voice I had come to dread.

‘Lie down!’ Zalumma ordered, as sternly as she would a child. My mother seemed not to hear her, and when Zalumma pressed on her limbs, trying to force her to the ground, she resisted.

‘It all repeats,’ my mother said swiftly, frantically. ‘Don’t you see it happening again? Here, in this sacred place.’

I lent my weight to Zalumma’s; together we fought to bring my mother down, but it was like trying to bring down an immovable mountain – one that trembled.

My mother’s arms moved involuntarily from her sides and shot straight out, rigid. Her legs locked beneath her. ‘There is murder here, and thoughts of murder!’ she shrieked. ‘Plots within plots once more!’

Her cries grew unintelligible as she went down.

Zalumma and I clung to her so that she did not land too harshly.

My mother writhed on the cold floor of the cathedral, her blue cloak gaping open, her silver skirts pooling around her. Zalumma lay across her body; I put my kerchief between her upper teeth and tongue, then held onto her head.

I was barely in time. My mother’s dark eyes rolled back until only the veined whites were visible – then the rigors began. Head, torso, limbs – all began to jerk arrhythmically, rapidly.

Somehow Zalumma held on, rising and falling with the waves, whispering hoarsely in her barbarous tongue, strange words coming so fast and so practised I knew they were part of a prayer. I, too, began to pray without thinking in a language equally old: ‘Ave Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis pecatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae …’

I focused on the linen kerchief in my mother’s mouth – on her champing teeth, and the small specks of blood there – and on her jerking head, which I now held fast in my lap, so I was startled into fright when a stranger beside us began praying loudly, also in Latin.

I glanced up to see the black-frocked priest who had been tending the altar. He alternated between sprinkling my mother with liquid from a small vial and making the sign of the cross over her while he prayed.

At last the time came when my mother gave her final wrenching groan, then fell limp; her eyelids fluttered shut.

Beside me, the priest – a young red-haired man with florid, pock-marked skin – rose. ‘She is like the woman from whom Jesus cast out nine devils,’ he said with authority. ‘She is possessed.’

Sore and halting from the struggle, Zalumma nonetheless rose to her full height – a hand’s breadth taller than the priest – and glared at him. ‘It is a sickness,’ she said, ‘of which you know nothing.’

The young priest shrank, his tone now only faintly insistent. ‘It is the Devil.’

I glanced from the priest’s face to Zalumma’s stern expression. I was mature for my age and knew responsibility: my mother’s delicate health had forced me to act as mistress of the household many times, playing hostess to guests, accompanying my father in her place on social occasions, and for the last three years I had gone with Zalumma to the market in my mother’s place. But I was young in terms of my knowledge of the world, and of God. I was still undecided as to whether God was punishing her for some early sin, and whether her fits were indeed of sinister origin. But I knew only that I loved her, pitied her, and disliked the priest’s condescension.

Zalumma’s white cheeks turned shell pink. I knew her well: a scathing reply had formed in her mind, and teetered upon her rouged lips, but she checked it. She had need of the priest.

Her manner turned abruptly unctuous. ‘I am a poor slave, with no right to contradict a learned man, Father. Here, we must get my mistress to the carriage. Will you help us?’

The priest looked on her with justifiable suspicion, but he could not refuse. And so I ran to find our driver; when he had brought the carriage round to the front of the cathedral, he and the priest carried my mother to it.

Exhausted, she slept with her head cradled in Zalumma’s lap; I held her legs. We rode home directly back over the Ponte Santa Trinita, a homely stone bridge which housed no shops.

Our palazzo on the Via Maggio was neither large nor ostentatious, though my father could have afforded to adorn the house more. It had been built a century before by his great-great-grandfather from plain pietra serena, an expensive, but subtle grey stone. My father had made no additions, added no statuary, nor replaced the plain, worn floors or the scarred doors; he eschewed unnecessary adornment. We rode inside the gate, then Zalumma and the driver lifted my mother from the carriage.

To our horror, my father Antonio stood watching in the loggia.

XII

My father had returned early. Dressed in his usual dark farsetto, a crimson mantle and black leggings, he stood with his arms crossed at the entry to the loggia so that he would not miss us. He was a sharp-featured man, with golden brown hair that grew in darker at the crown, a narrow hooked nose, and thunderous eyebrows above pale amber eyes. His disregard for fashion showed in his face; he wore a full beard and moustache at a time when it was common for men to be clean-shaven or wear a neat goatee.

Yet, ironically, no one knew more about Florence’s current styles and cravings. My father owned a bottega in the Santa Croce district, near the ancient Wool Guild, the Arte de Lana. He specialized in supplying the very finest wools to the city’s wealthiest families. He often went to the Medici palazzo on the Via Larga, his carriage heavy with plush fabrics coloured with chermisi, the most expensive of dyes made from the dried carcasses of lice, which produced the most exquisite crimson, and alessandrino, a costly and beautiful deep blue.

Sometimes I rode with my father and waited in the carriage while he met with his most important clients at their palazzi. I enjoyed the rides, and he seemed to enjoy sharing the details of his business, speaking to me as if I were his equal; at times, I felt guilty because I was not a son who could take over the family trade. I was his sole heir, and a girl. God had frowned upon my parents, and it was taken for granted that my mother and her fits were to blame.

And now there was no hiding the fact that our secret escapade had just caused her to suffer another one.

My father was, for the most part, a self-possessed man. But certain things goaded him – my mother’s condition was one of them – and it could induce an uncontrollable rage. As I crawled from the carriage to walk behind Zalumma and the others, I saw the danger in his eye and looked guiltily away.

For the moment, love of my mother took precedence over my father’s anger. He ran to us and took Zalumma’s place, catching hold of my mother tenderly. Together, he and the driver carried her into the house; as they did, he glanced over his shoulder at Zalumma and me. He kept his tone low so it would not distress my semi-conscious mother, but I could hear the anger coiled in it, waiting to lash out.

‘You women will see her to bed, then I will have words with you.’

This was the worst possible outcome. Had my mother not succumbed to a fit, we could have argued that she had been too long housebound, and deserved the outing. But I was overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility for all that had happened, and was ready to submit to a well-deserved tirade. My mother had taken me into the city because she delighted in me, and wished to please me by showing me the city’s treasures. My father could never be bothered; he scorned the Duomo, calling it ‘ill-conceived’, and said that our church at Santo Spirito was good enough for us.

So my father carried Mother up to her bed. I closed the shutters to block out the sun, then helped Zalumma undress her down to her camicia, made of embroidered white silk, so fine and thin it could scarce be called cloth. Once that was done, and Zalumma was certain my mother was sleeping comfortably, we stepped quietly out into her antechamber and closed the door behind us.

My father was waiting for us. His arms were again folded against his chest, his lightly freckled cheeks flushed; his gaze could have withered the freshest rose.

Zalumma did not cower. She faced him directly, her manner courteous but not servile, and waited for him to speak first.

His tone was low but faintly atremble. ‘You knew of the danger to her. You knew, and yet you let her leave the house. What kind of loyalty is this? What shall we do if she dies?’

Zalumma’s tone was perfectly calm, her manner respectful. ‘She will not die, Ser Antonio; the fit has passed and she is sleeping. But you are right; I am at fault. Without my help, she could not have gone.’

‘I shall sell you!’ My father’s tone slowly rose. ‘Sell you, and buy a more responsible slave!’

Zalumma lowered her eyelids; I saw the muscles in her jaw clench with the effort of holding words back. I could imagine what they were. I am the lady’s slave, from her father’s household; I was hers before we ever set eyes on you, and hers alone to sell. But she said nothing. We all knew that my father loved my mother, and my mother loved Zalumma. He would never sell her.

‘Go,’ my father said. ‘Get downstairs.’

Zalumma hesitated an instant; she did not want to leave my mother alone, but the master had spoken. She passed by us, her skirts sweeping against the stone floor. My father and I were alone.

I lifted my chin, instinctively defiant. I had been born so; my father and I were evenly matched in terms of temper.

‘You were behind this,’ he said; his cheeks grew even more crimson. ‘You, with your notions. Your mother did this to please you.’

‘Yes, I was behind it.’ My own voice trembled, which annoyed me; I fought to steady it. ‘Mother did this just to please me. Do you think I am happy that she had a spell? She has gone out before without incident. Do you think I meant for this to happen?’

He shook his head. ‘A girl so young, so full of such brazen disrespect. Listen to me: You will stay at home, by your mother’s side, all week. You are not to go to Mass or market. Do you not know how serious this offence is? Do you not know how terrified I was, to come home and find her gone? Do you not feel at all ashamed that your selfishness has hurt your mother so? Or do you care nothing for her life?’

His tone steadily rose throughout his discourse, so that by its end, he was shouting at me.

‘Of course—’ I began, but broke off as my mother’s door opened, and she appeared in the doorway.

Both my father and I were startled and turned to look at her. She looked like a wraith, clutching the doorjamb to keep her balance, her eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion. Zalumma had taken down her hair, and it spilled darkly over her shoulders, her bosom and down to her waist; she wore nothing but the billowing camicia, with its long, puffed sleeves.

She spoke in nothing more than a whisper, but the emotion in it could be clearly heard. ‘Leave her be. This was my idea, all of it. If you must shout, shout at me.’

‘You mustn’t be up,’ I said, but my words were drowned out by my father’s angry voice.

‘How could you do such a thing when you know it is dangerous? Why must you frighten me so, Lucrezia? You might have died!’

My mother gazed on him with haggard eyes. ‘I am tired. Tired of this house, of this life. I don’t care if I die. I want to go out, as normal folk do. I want to live as any normal woman does.’

She would have said more, but my father interrupted. ‘God forgive you for speaking so lightly of death. It is His will that you live so, His judgment. You should accept it meekly.’

I had never heard venom in my gentle mother’s tone, had never seen her sneer. But that day, I heard and saw both.

Her lip tugged at one corner. ‘Do not mock God, Antonio, when we both know the truth of it.’

He moved swiftly, blindingly, to strike her; she shrank backwards.

I moved just as quickly to intervene. I pummelled my father’s shoulders, forcing him away from her. ‘How dare you!’ I cried. ‘How dare you! She is kind and good – everything you are not!’

His pale golden eyes were wide, bright with rage. He struck out with the back of his hand; I fell back, startled to find myself sitting on the floor.

He swept from the room. As he did, I looked frantically about for something to hurl after him; but all I had was the cape still about my shoulders, a gift from him of heavy alessandrino blue wool.

I bunched it in my hands and threw it, but it went scarcely farther than an arm’s length before dropping silently to the floor – a vain gesture.

And then I came to myself and ran into my mother’s room to find her on her knees beside the bed. I helped her up into it, covered her with a blanket, and held her hand while she – once again half asleep – wept softly.

‘Hush,’ I told her. ‘We didn’t mean it. And we will make amends.’

She reached up blindly, looking for my hand; I clasped hers. ‘It all repeats,’ she moaned, and her eyes at last closed. ‘It all repeats …’

‘Hush now,’ I said, ‘and sleep.’

XIII

I sat at my mother’s bedside the rest of the day. When the sun began to set, I lit a taper and remained. A servant came bearing my father’s request that I come down and sup with him; I refused. I did not want to be reconciled yet.

But as I sat in the darkness watching my mother’s profile in the candleglow, I felt a stirring of regret. I was no better than my father; out of love and a desire to protect her, I had permitted my rage to overtake me. When my father had lifted his hand, threatening her – though I did not believe he would actually strike her – I had struck him, and not once, but several times. This, even though I knew our fighting broke my mother’s heart. I was a bad daughter. One of the worst, for I was vengeful and plotted against those who harmed the people I loved. When I was ten, we had a new servant, Evangelia, a stocky woman with black hairs on her chin and a broad red face. When she first witnessed one of my mother’s fits, she proclaimed – like the priest in the Duomo – that my mother was possessed of the Devil and needed prayer.

That claim alone would not have provoked my hatred, only my dislike: as I said, I was still undecided as to whether it was true, but I knew such statements embarrassed and hurt my mother. But Evangelia would not let the matter rest. Whenever she was in the same room as my mother, she crossed herself and made the sign to avert the evil eye – two fingers pointing outward in a vee at the level of her own eyes. She began to wear a charm in a pouch hung round her neck, then at last did the unforgivable: she left a second charm hanging from my mother’s door. It was supposedly to keep my mother confined to her room; when other servants confessed the truth of it, my mother wept. But she was too kind and ashamed to say anything to Evangelia.

I took matters into my own hands; I would not tolerate anyone who made my mother cry. I stole into my mother’s room and took her finest ring, a large ruby set in delicately crafted gold, a wedding-gift from my father.

I hid it within Evangelia’s belongings, then waited. The predictable occurred: the ring was found, to everyone’s horror – especially Evangelia’s. My father dismissed her at once.

At first I felt a sense of satisfaction: justice had been served, and my mother would no longer weep with shame. But after a few days, my conscience began to pain me. Most of Florence knew of Evangelia’s supposed crime, and she was widowed with a small daughter. No family would hire her. How would she survive?

I confessed my sin to the priest and to God: neither brought relief. At last I went to my mother and tearfully told her the truth. She was stern and told me outright what I already knew – that I had ruined a woman’s life. To my relief, she did not tell the full truth to my father, only that a terrible mistake had been made. She begged him to find Evangelia and bring her back, so that her name might be cleared.

But my father’s efforts were futile. Evangelia had already left Florence, unable to find employment.

I lived from then on with the guilt. And as I sat watching my sleeping mother that night, I remembered all the angry outbursts of my youth, every vengeful act I had ever committed. There were many; and I prayed to God, the God who loved my mother and did not want her stricken with fits, to relieve me of my dreadful temper. My eyes filled; I knew my father and I added to my mother’s suffering every time we fought.

As the first tear spilled onto my cheek, my mother stirred in her sleep and murmured something unintelligible. I put a gentle hand on her arm. ‘It’s all right. I am here.’

The instant I uttered the words, the door opened softly. I glanced up to see Zalumma, a goblet in her hand. She had removed her cap and scarf, and plaited her wild hair, but a halo of untamed curls still framed her white face.

‘I brought a draught,’ she said quietly. ‘When your mother wakes, this will let her sleep through the night.’

I nodded and tried to wipe my damp cheek casually, hoping Zalumma would not notice as she set the goblet beside my mother’s bed.

Of course she noticed everything, even though she had her back to me. As she turned, with her voice still low, she said, ‘You mustn’t cry.’

‘But it’s my fault.’

Zalumma flared. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s never been your fault.’ She sighed bitterly as she looked down on her sleeping mistress. ‘What the priest in the Duomo said—’

I leaned forward, eager to hear her opinion. ‘Yes?’

‘It is vileness. It is ignorance, you understand? Your mother is the truest Christian I know.’ She paused. ‘When I was a very young girl …’