Da Vinci's Tiger (6 page)

Lorenzo laughed heartily at the ambassador's shift in phrase:
I came, I saw, I was conquered.

Oh my.

Bernardo Bembo smiled and offered his arm to escort me to dinner. I climbed the carved marble stairs to the hallowed
piano nobile
floor of the Palazzo Medici, my hand resting lightly upon the charming diplomat's arm, Lisabetta on Lorenzo's, and our husbands following behind.

R
OASTED PIGEON, VENISON, AND PEACOCKS
'
TONGUES.
F
ISH
pies spiced with nutmeg and saffron, topped with dried dates and oranges. Pasta stuffed with goat cheese. Sugared almonds and chestnut cake. The trestle tables almost buckled with the lavish fare. I had not seen such a feast since my wedding.

But the greatest wonderment of the meal was a set of silver jewel-handled table forks Ambassador Bembo presented to the Medici. “The princes of Byzantium used them to keep their hands clean as they ate,” Bembo explained, and demonstrated, stabbing a slice of meat with the tiny, two-pronged spear, then cutting it with his knife. “Muslims have created a great many things we would do well to imitate.
Forks have become quite popular in Venice—one of the benefits of our trade with the East.”

With giggles and guffaws, we all imitated his use of the new table utensil. Sitting to my right, Bembo turned the fork to the correct angle in my hand and gently skewered an olive for me, his hand atop mine.

“I see no need for such heathen goods when God in his wisdom gave us fingers,” the Medici's priest grumbled. “On the sixth day, God made Adam in his own image and saw it was good.”

“But Father, God did not give us swords either, and certainly they have been useful in the Crusades,” the poet Luigi Pulci said. He sat next to Lorenzo. The two were great friends, hunting and writing verse together. “Besides, if we are indeed thinking men, must we not sometimes interpret our biblical stories in the context of the real world? I suspect had we been there, we might have seen Moses simply open the floodgates of a very large pond to drown the Pharaoh's men rather than parting the entire Red Sea. And that is not to denigrate his accomplishment!” Pulci raised his cup. “To Moses and his defeat of the Egyptians.”

The priest gasped. “You best mind your tongue. Such insolence borders on blasphemy!”

“W-w-we all might be accused for s-such, Father,” said Marsilio Ficino, Florence's most renowned philosopher. Even with his stammer and stooped bearing, Ficino immediately commanded everyone's attention. A clergyman, he had translated Plato's teachings from Greek into Latin and helped
found the city's famous Platonic Academy. His own writings promoted a belief that pagan Roman and Greek mythologies were, in fact, infused with Christian virtues and were therefore allegories for our faith. It had been quite shocking to his fellow priests, particularly since many mythological stories were lusty ones.

“Let us think about this using logic,” Ficino continued. “If God created man with a godlike mind, then surely the fact that we have many religions—Muslim, Judaism, and Christianity—is merely an expression of our Lord's complexities, his infinite aspects. These religions are cousins of sorts.” Ficino held up his hand to stay the priest's protests. “I believe our souls are capable of understanding many metaphors of God's word. Therefore, going back to our friend Pulci, w-whether s-sea or pond, Moses led the Hebrews to safety, following the edicts of his faith. Thanks be to God.”

A few of us crossed ourselves in rote reaction to his thanksgiving.

Pulci, however, vindicated by Ficino and well into his cups, felt safe making yet another irreverent joke. “Well said, Marsilio! If only more churchmen could see this. Of course, too many of them spend their time draining off the communion wine so they cannot see a thing—except perhaps the lovely young sinner they ogle in the confessional!” He threw back his head and laughed.

The Medici family priest spluttered.

“Now, now.” Lorenzo raised his hands to keep the peace, although he was clearly amused by the exchange. “Do not
pay too much heed to Luigi, Father. Sometimes he fixates on a thing like a hunting dog on the trail of a boar.” Lorenzo punched the shoulder of his friend. “Like an overly ardent hound, Luigi may get gored by that which he hunts someday.”

Everyone laughed.

“I think perhaps you wrote of that very quality in your poem ‘The Partridge Hunt,' did you not, my son?” Lorenzo's mother, Lucrezia, interjected herself quietly, obviously accustomed to taming her son's playful conversation. “Let us now speak of poetry, instead of . . . mmm . . . delicate church matters.” She smiled. “Can you remember the stanza about our dear friend Luigi?”

“Yes, my lord, do recite it,” Lorenzo's wife, Clarice, cajoled him. “I love to hear you speak your verse.”

“Yes, yes,” we all said.

Lorenzo closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He began, tentatively at first, and then gaining speed as if reading from a page in his mind:

“And where is Pulci, that he can't be heard?

A while ago he went into that spread

Of trees, perhaps he wants to spin a sonnet—

He's sure to have some notion in his head.

Watch out . . . if I'm not wrong,

He'll skewer you in some lampoon or song.”

While Lorenzo recited his Tuscan verse, I tentatively inched my own bit of poetry out of my sleeve. I had tucked
it in between my tight, brocaded outer sleeve and linen under-dress, which peeked out in poufs from slits in the over-sleeve. I smoothed the parchment out on my lap. My hands shook at the audacity it took to bring it to the Palazzo Medici.

We applauded Lorenzo, and his smile of gratitude almost made that misshapen face of his handsome. Pulci stood to take a bow, good-naturedly laughing at Lorenzo's teasing portrayal of him as the absentminded writer.

“What about you, Cristoforo?” Lorenzo turned to the poet Landino. Lorenzo had indeed invited Florence's greatest minds and writers to his table. “Ambassador Bembo is a true connoisseur of fine literature. I hear he owns an original manuscript by Petrarch. What can you offer us that is fit for the likes of Ambassador Bembo?”

Landino stood and recited in Latin about the glories of Florence: “‘
Nunc tua maiori, praestans Florentia, versu
. . .'”

My husband nodded his head in approval of Landino's descriptions of battles and politics, cliffs and churches, impregnable gates and the waters of the Arno.

As he droned on, I looked down at my own neat handwriting. It was my best-turned verse, detailing my struggle to rein in my wayward heart to run quietly apace with my more reasoned and morally upright intellect. I reread it for the thousandth time.

My soul is as a poor charioteer

Steering two horses, one black, one white-gray.

The steady gray keeps his course, the black may

Instead overturn us—he bucks and rears

And against my reins he flattens his ears.

He is distracted, wild, and in his day

Has run through town, causing many to say

I lack direction, and at me throw sneers.

But we work together, these steeds and I,

The black is headstrong, and the gray is calm,

Dignified, beautiful, and like a psalm

In his devotion to keeping our course.

But at last, when the sun sets in the sky

I hope to guide them well, Christ as my force.

“Ginevra de' Benci Niccolini?”

Startled, I looked up, realizing with horror that Lorenzo must have already called my name several times by the way all the guests were staring at me.

“I think our Medici host would like to hear that verse you hold in your beauteous hands,” Bembo said, leaning toward me.

Nervously, I cleared my throat in preparation for reading and glanced around the table. Uncle Bartolomeo was glowering at me, and I suddenly remembered how he had ridiculed me the one time I had shared a poem at our own dinner table. I hesitated.

“I—I—I—forgive me, my lord,” I simpered, crushing the paper closed. While rereading my poem—waiting, hoping,
thrilled at the opportunity to finally be sharing my creative work with like-minded poets—I had begun to realize that my verse stripped me as naked as the
David
in the courtyard. Laid bare were my misgivings, my fear that my tempestuous side might overtake my more contained virtues. What had I been thinking? Even though my poem was inspired by Plato's analogy of man's soul being a chariot, these important citizens could make all sorts of misinterpretations of my character from it. I could scandalize them. I could disgrace my family. Worse yet, they might not like my writing!

“I—I—I fear it is inadequate, my lord. . . .”

“Nonsense.” Lorenzo tried to coax me to read.

But before I could find my courage, Uncle Bartolomeo—who had been seething with impatience at my clumsy hesitation—took over. “It's sure to be of dainty stuff, my lord. Instead give us one of your carnival songs. I can still remember following along behind a band of lusty youths shouting out one of them. Let's see. I believe it is called ‘Song of the Village Lasses.'”

“Oh no, Bartolomeo! Not that one! Not at the table with—”

But Uncle Bartolomeo was already singing.

“We also have some bean pods, long

And tender, morsels for a pig.

We have still others of this kind,

But they're well cooked, quite firm, and big.

And—”

“Peace, friend, peace.” Lorenzo held up his hands in surrender to stop my uncle continuing in his bawdy verse. He glanced in embarrassment at his mother before saying, “Now I will tell a story on you, Bartolomeo de' Benci.” He turned toward the ambassador. “Let it never be said, Bernardo, that Florence does not have as much pageantry as Venice.”

He looked mischievously at my uncle before beginning his story. “During Carnival 1464, Bartolomeo organized the most famous
armeggeria
in our city's history.”

An
armeggeria
was a carefully orchestrated mini-tournament in which youths banded together, dressed alike, paraded through the city, and then fought pretend battles against other gangs of young blades. These parties-on-horseback were all about showing off riding abilities and lances, without getting hurt.

“For this brigade,” Lorenzo continued, “Bartolomeo amassed four hundred men!”

“Four hundred riders?” Bembo asked in surprise.

“No, no, my lord, four hundred men total,” Uncle Bartolomeo explained. “Florence allows us only a maximum of twelve riders—for fear more might cause mayhem in the streets. I gathered nine riders to my brigade. But each rider, out of honor, was allowed nine other youths around his horse and thirty liveried torchbearers. Then, of course, we needed musicians and pages. Luigi Niccolini was one of my riders.” He pointed to my husband.

Luigi beamed. “Yes, that was quite the day.”

I felt my mouth pop open in amazement. My husband
had been part of that riotous group? I was seven years old when that party descended on our palazzo, eating and drinking all our stores and leaving wreckage that took days to repair. My mother had locked her children into her bedroom for safety so drunken revelers would not trample us.

“What a spectacle, yes?” my uncle bragged. “Oh, the sweetness of the music from the trumpets and flutes. Do you remember the applause of the people as we passed?”

“Indeed,” Luigi said.

“And what, pray tell, was the aim of this enormous
armeggeria
?” Bembo asked.

“To declare my chaste love and complete devotion to Marietta di Lorenzo degli Strozzi!” Uncle Bartolomeo blustered, as if offended that Bembo did not already know the legend of his exploits. “Once my entire
armeggeria
arrived at the Strozzi palazzo, and
La Bella
Strozzi appeared on her balcony; we each galloped at the lady's gate and broke our lances upon it. But the best was the float the pages pulled at the end of our parade. You should have seen it, Ambassador. This float was twenty feet tall and displayed a painting of the triumph of love. Atop it was a bleeding heart. We pulled it up underneath her window and set it aflame for her! It burned high and long.”

Uncle Bartolomeo leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, looking toward the ceiling. “She wept at the sight.” He seemed transfixed at the memory, and the dinner guests surrounding him were as well. He sighed. “What a beauteous, rare thing she was in those days.”

I could not help myself. I leaned toward the ambassador to whisper, “It should be added, my lord, that this was the year Cosimo de' Medici lay gravely ill and there was much conjecture about who would retain power in the city upon his death, the Medici or”—I paused—“the Strozzi.”

“Ahhhh.” Bembo smiled at me. “Clever.”

Yes, very.
Clever
should be my uncle's middle name. The goodwill that extravagant display built between the Strozzi and the Medici via one of its most loyal allies probably did much to ease tension between the dynastic families. But looking at his lit-up face, I wondered for the first time if Uncle Bartolomeo had actually loved the Strozzi girl, even though he had absolutely no chance of such a match for himself.

“But, but, Bartolomeo, you leave out the best part,” Lorenzo prompted gleefully.

My uncle frowned slightly. “Your Grace?”

“The snowball fight!” Lorenzo looked round at each and every face of his assembled guests to make sure he had our rapt attention. “Here the Benci had gone to such lengths to host one of the most splendidly attired and outfitted
armeggeria
. Ever! And it even snowed—as if our Lord himself wanted to add to the glory of the night by sending snowflakes to sparkle in the torchlight. Perhaps God meant it as a symbol of the pure soul of the Strozzi girl and snow-white purity of Bartolomeo's Platonic affections. But”—Lorenzo paused dramatically and extended his arm toward my uncle—“what does this man do?”

We all shook our heads, not knowing. “I will tell you,”
Lorenzo crowed. “Amid all that pageantry, Bartolomeo scoops up a handful of snow, packs it into a white cannonball, and hurls it at the maiden!”