Painting Mona Lisa

‘Forgive my boldness, but your husband has told me of your suffering, Madonna Lucrezia. I cannot bear to think of one so young and fair being denied a normal life – especially when I know, with infinite certainty, that Fra Girolamo’s prayers can cure you.’

My mother was mortified, furious; she could not meet Pico’s gaze. Yet despite the intensity of her emotions, her tone was controlled as she replied, ‘Other holy men have prayed to God on my behalf. I and my husband have prayed, and we are good Christians, yet God has not seen fit to heal me.’ At last, she brought herself to face Pico. ‘Yet, if you are so convinced of the efficacy of Fra Girolamo’s prayers, why do you not ask him to pray for me from afar?’

In his urgency, Messer Giovanni vacated his chair to bend on one knee before my mother in a posture of outright supplication; he lowered his voice so that I had to lean forwards myself in order to hear him over the crackling of the fire.

‘Madonna … you have certainly heard of the prophecy of the papa angelico?’

Everyone in France and Italy knew of the prophecy of the angelic pope – one elected not by a committee of cardinals but by God, who would come to cleanse the Church of its corruption and unite it shortly before Christ’s return.

My mother gave the most cursory of nods.

‘He is Fra Girolamo; in my heart, I am convinced. He is no ordinary man. Madonna, what harm can it do for you to come hear him once? I will arrange for him to meet you privately after Mass, this very Sunday if you are willing. Think of it: through Fra Girolamo’s hands, God will heal you. You need be a prisoner in this house no longer. Only come once, Madonna …’

She glanced over at my father. There was reproach in her gaze at first, for he had put her in the most awkward possible situation; yet that reproach melted away as she caught sight of his face.

There was nothing conniving in my father’s expression, nothing that smacked of satisfaction or victory. Like Pico’s, his face was aglow – not with reflected firelight or godly inspiration, but with the purest, most desperate love I had ever seen.

It was that, more than Pico’s persuasive charm, which made her yield; and when at last she answered the Count, she was gazing upon my father, with all the pain and love that had been hidden in her heart now visible in her expression. Her eyes shone with tears, which spilled onto her cheeks when she spoke.

‘Only once,’ she said – to my father, not to the kneeling Pico. ‘Only once.’

XVI

That Sunday the sky was blue, lit by a sun too feeble to soften the gripping cold. My thickest cloak, of scarlet wool lined with rabbit fur, was not enough to warm me; the air stung my eyes and made them water. In the carriage, my mother sat rigid and expressionless between me and Zalumma, her black hair and eyes a striking contrast to the white ermine cape wrapped about her emerald velvet gown. Across from us, my father glanced solicitously at his wife, eager to obtain a sign of affection, but she gazed past him, as if he were not present. Zalumma stared directly at my father and did not bother to hide the outrage she felt on behalf of her mistress.

Count Pico rode with us and did his best to distract my father and me with pleasant comments, but there was no ignoring my mother’s humiliation, icy and bitter as the weather. Arrangements had been made for us to meet privately with Fra Girolamo directly after the service, so that he could lay hands upon my mother and pray for her.

I gasped as we rolled up to the entrance of the church at San Marco. My awe was not generated by the building – a plain structure of unadorned stone, of the same style as our parish at Santo Spirito – but rather by the number of people who, being unable to find room inside the sanctuary, pressed tightly against each other in the doorway, on the steps, and all the way out into the piazza.

Had Count Pico not been with us, we would never have gained entry. He called out as he stepped from the carriage, and at once, three generously sized Dominican monks appeared and escorted us inside. Their effect on the crowd was magical; they melted away, like wax before a flame. In a moment, I found myself standing between my mother and father not far from the pulpit and the main altar, beneath which Cosimo de’ Medici lay entombed.

Compared to the grand Duomo, San Marco’s interior was sedate and unremarkable, with its pale stone colonnades and simple altar. Yet the mood inside the sanctuary was one of breathless feverishness; despite the numbing chill, women fanned themselves and whispered, agitated. Men stamped their feet – not against the cold, but out of impatience – and monks groaned as they prayed aloud. I felt as though I were at Carnival, awaiting a much-anticipated joust.

The choir began to sing, and the processional began.

With rapt expressions, worshippers turned eagerly towards the parade. First came the young acolytes, one holding the great cross, another swinging a thurible which perfumed the air with smoky frankincense. Next came the deacon, and then the priest himself.

Last of all came Fra Girolamo, in the place of highest honour. At the sight of him, people cried out: ‘Fra Girolamo! Pray for me!’ ‘God bless you, Brother!’ Loudest of all was the cry, ‘Babbo! Babbo!’, that sweet term only the youngest children use to address their fathers.

I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck, trying to get a glimpse of him. I caught only the impression of a frayed brown friar’s robe poorly filled by a thin figure; the hood was up, and his head was bowed. Pride was not among his sins, I decided.

He sat, huddled and intimidated, with the acolytes; only then did the people grow calmer. Yet as the Mass progressed, their restlessness again increased. When the choir sang the Gloria in excelsis, the crowd began to fidget. The Epistle was chanted, the Gradual sung; when the priest read the Gospel, people were murmuring continuously – to themselves, to each other, to God.

They murmured to Fra Girolamo. It was like listening to the thrum of insects and nocturnal creatures on a summer’s night – a sound loud and unintelligible.

The instant he ascended the pulpit, the sanctuary fell profoundly silent, so silent that I could hear a carriage’s wooden wheels rattling on the cobblestones of the Via Larga.

Above us, above Cosimo’s bones, stood a small gaunt man with sunken cheeks and great, protruding dark eyes; his hood was pushed back, revealing a head crowned by coarse black curls.

He was even homelier than his nemesis, Lorenzo de’ Medici. His brow was low and sloping. His nose looked as if someone had taken a great axe-shaped square of flesh, and simply pressed it to his face; the bridge jutted straight out from his brow in a perpendicular line, then dropped down at an abrupt right angle. His lower teeth were crooked and protruded so that his full lower lip pushed outwards.

No messiah was ever more unseemly. Yet the timid man I had seen in the procession and the one who ascended the pulpit could not have differed more. This new Savonarola, this touted papa angelico, had increased magically in stature; his eyes blazed with certainty, and his bony hands gripped the sides of the pulpit with divine authority. This was a man transformed by a power greater than himself, a power that radiated from his frail body and permeated the chill air surrounding us. For the first time since entering the church, I forgot the cold. Even my mother, who had remained subdued, beaten, and silent throughout the ritual, let go a soft sound of amazement.

On the other side of my father, Count Pico lifted his hands, clasped in prayer, in a gesture of supplication. ‘Fra Girolamo,’ he cried, ‘give us your blessing and we will be healed!’ I glanced at his upturned face, radiant with devotion, at the sudden tears filling his eyes. At once I understood why Zalumma had once derided Savonarola and his followers as piagnoni – ‘wailers’.

But the emotion swirling about us was infinite, wild, genuine. Men and women stretched forth their arms, palms open, pleading.

And Fra Girolamo responded. His gaze swept over us; he seemed to see us, each one, and to acknowledge the love directed at him with eyes shining with compassion and humility. He made the sign of the Cross over the crowd with hands that trembled faintly from contained emotion – and when he did, contented sighs rose heavenwards, and at last the sanctuary again was still.

Savonarola closed his eyes, summoning an internal force, and then he spoke.

‘Our sermon comes today from the twentieth chapter of Jeremiah.’ His voice, ringing against the vaulted ceiling, was surprisingly high-pitched, nasal and rasping.

He shook his head sorrowfully, and lowered his face as if shamed. ‘I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me … because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me …’ He raised his face skyward, as if looking straight at God. ‘But His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing …’

Now he looked on us. ‘People of Florence! Though others mock me, I can no longer hold back the word of the Lord. He has spoken unto me, and it burns in me so bright I must speak or be consumed by its flame.

‘Hear the word of God: Think you well, O you wealthy, for affliction shall strike you! This city shall no longer be called Florence, but Den of Thieves, Immorality, Bloodshed. Then you will all be poor, all wretched … Unheard of times are at hand.’

As he spoke, his voice deepened and grew stronger. The air vibrated with his booming assertions; it trembled with a presence that might well have been God.

‘O you fornicators, you sodomites, you lovers of filth! Your children shall be brutalized, dragged into the streets and mangled. Their blood will fill the Arno, yet God will not heed their piteous cries!’

I started as a woman close behind us let out an anguished howl; the sanctuary walls echoed with wracking sobs. Overwhelmed by remorse, my own father buried his face in his hands and wept along with Count Pico.

But my mother stiffened; she seized my arm protectively, and, blinking rapidly from anger, tilted her chin defiantly at Fra Girolamo. ‘How dare he!’ she said, her gaze fixed on the monk, who had paused to give his words time to take effect. Her voice was raised, loud enough to be heard over the wailing crowd. ‘God hears the cries of innocent children! How can he say such horrid things?’

Just as my mother had clutched my arm protectively, so Zalumma quickly took my mother’s. ‘Hush, Madonna. You must calm yourself …’ She leaned closer to whisper directly into my mother’s ear. My mother gave an indignant shake of her head, and wound her arm about my shoulders. She pressed me tightly to her side as though I were a small child. Zalumma ignored the preacher and his piagnoni, and kept her keen gaze focused on her mistress. I, too, grew worried; I could feel the rapid rise and fall of my mother’s bosom, feel the tension in her grip.

‘This is not right,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘This is not right …’

So many in the church were crying and moaning, murmuring to Fra Girolamo and God, that not even my father noticed her now; he and Pico were far too captivated by the preacher.

‘Oh Lord!’ Fra Girolamo cried sharply. The monk pressed his forehead to his folded hands; he released a bitter sob, then raised his tear-streaked face towards Heaven. ‘Lord, I am only a humble monk. I have not asked for your visitation; I do not crave to speak for you, or to receive visions. Yet I humbly submit to your will. In your name, I am willing, as Jeremiah was, to endure the sufferings inflicted by the unholy on your prophets.’

He gazed down at us, his eyes and voice becoming tender. ‘I weep … I weep as you do, for the children. I weep for Florence, and the scourge that awaits her. Yet how long can we continue to sin? How long do we offend God, before He is compelled to unleash His righteous wrath? Like a loving father, He has stayed His hand. But when His children continue to err grievously, when they mock Him, He must, for their good, mete out harsh punishment.

‘Look at you women: you, with sparkling jewels hanging heavy round your necks, from your ears. If one of you – only one of you – repented of the sin of vanity, how many of the poor might be fed? Look at the swaths of silk, of brocade, of velvet, of priceless gold thread that adorn your earthly bodies. If but one of you dressed plainly to please God, how many would be saved from starvation?

‘And you men, with your whoring, your sodomy, your gluttony and drunkenness: Were you to turn instead to the arms of your wife alone, the Kingdom of God would have more children. Were you to give half your plate to the poor, none in Florence would go hungry; were you to forswear wine, there would be no brawling, no bloodshed in the city.

‘You wealthy, you lovers of art, you collectors of vain things: How you offend, with your glorification of man instead of the Divine, with your vile and useless displays of wealth, while others die for want of bread and warmth! Cast off your earthly riches, and look instead for that treasure which is eternal.

‘Almighty God! Turn our hearts from sin towards you. Spare us the torment that is surely coming to those who flout your laws.’

I looked to my mother. She was staring with a gaze fixed and furious, not at Savonarola but at a point far beyond him, beyond the stone walls of San Marco.

‘Mother,’ I said, but she could not hear me. I tried to slip from her embrace, but her grip only tightened until I yelped. She had turned stone rigid, with me caught in her grasp. Zalumma recognized the signs at once and was speaking gently, rapidly to her, urging her to free me, to lie down here, to know that all would be well.

‘This is the judgment from God!’ my mother shouted, with such force that I struggled in vain to lift my hands to my ears.

Fra Girolamo heard. The congregation near us heard. They looked to my mother and me, expectant. My father and Pico regarded us with pure horror.

Zalumma put her arms about my mother’s shoulders and tried to bring her down, but she was firm as rock. Her voice deepened and changed timbre until I no longer knew it.

‘Hear me!’ Her words rang with such authority that it silenced the whimpering. ‘Flames shall consume him until his limbs drop, one by one, into Hell! Five headless men shall cast him down!’

XVII

My mother fell heavily against me. I crumpled beneath her, colliding with my father as I did. I snatched a fleeting impression of Pico pulling him back before I reached the cold, unforgiving marble. I landed on my side, simultaneously striking my head, my shoulder and my hip.

Then came flashes of green velvet and white ermine, the hems of women’s skirts and the boots of men. I heard whispers, exclamations and Zalumma’s shouts.

My mother lay atop me, her side pressed to mine. Her limbs thrashed; her elbow spasmed and dug into my ribs. At the same time, my mother’s teeth champed; the air released each time she opened her mouth whistled in my ear. The sound terrified me: I should have been holding her head, making sure she did not bite her tongue or otherwise harm herself.

Zalumma’s loud commands suddenly became intelligible. ‘Grab her arms! Pull her out!’

Strong hands seized my wrists, lifted my arms above my head. I was rolled onto my back. My mother’s head fell onto my breast; her teeth snapped fiercely together. All the while, her arms and legs pummelled me; her hand swiped beneath my chin and drew away a piece of flesh beneath her fingernail.

Near my feet, invisible, Zalumma bellowed: ‘Pull her out!’

My father at once came to himself. With uncanny force, he clasped my upraised arms and dragged me out from under my mother’s writhing body. The movement caused an excruciating surge of pain in my ribs.

But the instant I was free, it was forgotten. I did not acknowledge my father’s aid; instead, I clambered to my knees and turned to my struggling mother. Zalumma had already crawled forward and used her body to weigh down her mistress’ kicking legs.

I found the furred edge of my mother’s cape and jammed it between her gnashing teeth. My intervention came late: She had bitten through her tongue, with frightening result. Blood stained her lips and teeth, cheek and chin; the white ermine round her face was spattered with crimson. Though I held her head fast, it jerked so violently in my hands that her cap fell back beneath her. My fingers soon were interlaced in her soft dark hair; the careful coils arranged earlier that morning by Zalumma frayed into tangles.

‘It is the Devil!’ A man stepped forward – young, red-haired, with pock-marked skin; I recognized him as the priest from Santa Maria del Fiore. ‘I saw her do this before, in the Duomo. She is possessed; the evil inside her cannot bear to stand upright in the house of God.’

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