Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici (10 page)

We had much more to learn besides the virtues.

Suor Paolina accompanied us to our meals and turned her attention to our table manners. We had spoons for soup and knives to cut portions of bread and meat, which we ate using only the thumb and the first two fingers, then wiped our hands clean on a linen napkin. But now we were told that we must learn to use a fork, something new that had become accepted among the best families of Florence.

“It's essential that you learn to use a fork instead of your fingers,” said Suor Paolina. “All it takes is practice.”

“A
lot
of practice,” Niccolà lamented, as a forkful of pigeon pie dropped into her lap.

The virtues were just one part of our training. Suor Rita was assigned to tutor us in arithmetic. “When you are mistresses of your own households, you'll need to know how to keep records of expenditures.” I enjoyed arithmetic—there was something fascinating about numbers—and had already received some training from Fra Matteo at Palazzo Medici. But the others scowled through every lesson.

Suor Assunta tried hard to instruct us in the arts of needlework: spinning and weaving, which I found tedious but Tomassa took to immediately—"You don't have to think about it,” she said. Sewing and embroidery seemed to be a pleasant way to pass the time, although I had small talent for it.

When the four of us were sent off to work on our stitchery, we found it an ideal time to discuss matters that we couldn't very well speak about in front of the nuns.

“Do you really think,” Niccolà whispered, “that we can make men fall into sin? That we can inflame their carnal appetites just by
looking
at them?”

I hadn't any idea. Not quite nine, I was the youngest in the group and hadn't the advantage of growing up in a household with a mother and older sisters who might have imparted some basic knowledge of the ways of the world. But Giulietta had.

“Women are far more lustful than men,” she informed us. My needle hung in midair, and I leaned closer in order not to miss a single syllable. “Everyone knows that. But we're also much stronger, and that's why it's up to us to keep men's passions under control. They can't resist us, you know.”

I
didn't
know, but I found the subject interesting.

I thought of Suor Immacolata, the hateful nun at Santa Lucia, who claimed that my father had taken her virtue and left her with child. If she had been trained in the virtues, as we were being trained by Suor Paolina, surely nothing bad would have happened to her. Even if she had been a servant, she would have walked sedately, kept her hands still and her mouth closed, and—this was most important—she would have lowered her eyes and not inflamed my father's helpless lust. So it was not my poor father's fault that he had fallen into sin. It was the fault of the brazen servant who had led him there—or so I believed then.

W
HILE
I
LIVED
at Palazzo Medici and Fra Matteo was my tutor, he had abruptly stopped giving me instruction in reading.

“But why?” I'd asked, deeply disappointed.

“Cardinal Passerini's orders,” he'd replied.

“But
why?
”

“I don't know, Duchessina. But I do know that you ask too many questions.”

I'd taken my questions to Aunt Clarissa. The next time she'd gone with me for one of the cardinal's monthly inspections, she offered him her opinion.

“Surely, Reverend Father,” she said, “you agree that it is entirely desirable that Caterina continue to develop the skill of reading. Undoubtedly it would stand her in good stead as she prepares for her future.”

Passerini had shaken his head sternly. “Surely you understand, Signora Strozzi,” he'd said in his arrogant manner, “that reading presents real dangers for women and girls?”

Wide-eyed, I'd looked from one to the other during this debate.

“I know of none,” my aunt insisted stubbornly. “And for every danger, there is doubtless a positive good.”

“You know nothing of the world, that much is clear,” the cardinal had continued loftily. I thought he must be wrong about that; it seemed to me that my aunt knew a lot more than he thought she did. “A woman who can read is very likely to read the wrong things. I cannot allow such a corrupting influence.”

“But surely, someone wise may guide her choices,” my aunt had dared to argue.

“Reading is not wholesome for the pure minds of girls,” the cardinal lectured her sternly. “Young women must heed only God and the will of their husbands! This ends our discussion. Good day, Signora Strozzi.”

Aunt Clarissa had lost the argument, but it didn't really matter. Thanks to Fra Matteo, I could already read well, both Latin and the everyday Italian of Dante Alighieri, whose
Divine Comedy
I had studied before Cardinal Passerini had imposed the ban. Now, at Le Murate, I was pleased to learn that the nuns believed one must be able to read Latin in order to perform the Opus Dei—the work of God—at each of the devotional hours. Prayers and psalms were the heart of convent life. Reading, therefore, was essential.

Girls who'd had no previous tutoring—as most of them had not—were to receive their first reading lessons from the old priest who came to the convent church each day to say Mass. Not wanting to be left out, I went with them to stand at the iron grille. We listened as the priest on the other side mumbled each letter or combination of letters, and then tried to repeat after him, following along in a crude book. The lessons were very dull. It was a wonder anyone could learn that way, but somehow they did.

F
AR MORE INTERESTING
were the lessons I learned from Niccolà, Tomassa, and Giulietta. I listened as the girls chattered about their families, discussing the plans their fathers were making to marry them into this noble family or that one and the problems that came about as wealthy parents of young men demanded huge dowries from the brides' parents. I hadn't thought much about my future—I'd been too concerned with surviving the present—but now I began to wonder what might lie ahead for me. I mentioned this to my friends.

“Oh, don't worry,” Giulietta said, dismissing my question with a wave. “Pope Clement has no doubt been shopping for a husband for you for years. You'll get a good one.”

“And you're luckier than most of us,” Tomassa sighed. “You're a Medici, and you've got heaps of money for a dowry.” She pressed her knuckles to her lips. We all knew her story: Several ships owned by her father had been lost during a storm, leaving her with a dowry too small to attract a husband of her social class. “My father wants me to stay here and take the vows. The dowry is much less.”

“Or no dowry at all,” said Giulietta, who always seemed to know such things. “Like Suor Marta, the one who sings bass in the choir. I've heard that they let her come for nothing, because she has a beautiful singing voice as low as a man's.”

Niccolà was sympathetic. “When my older sister married last year, Papa said it nearly bankrupted him. Now he has me to worry about. He's glad that his other children are boys.”

I listened wide-eyed to these conversations. According to Aunt Clarissa, Pope Leo had been thinking of a proper husband for me when I was an infant. He had arranged the marriage of my parents, and he'd have done the same for me. But Pope Leo was dead, and Pope Clement was a different story.

What sort of husband does my uncle intend for me?
I wondered. I couldn't imagine—but I
could
imagine the kind of husband I would want: someone like Ippolito.

6

E
ACH DAY AT
Le Murate unfolded like the one before it, periods of study separated by prayers marking each of the canonical hours. I applied myself to my lessons. I struggled to master the virtues. I enjoyed a group of friends. And the nuns were good to me—perhaps too good, in the opinion of some.

“You're the nuns' pet, because you're a Medici,” Giulietta said.

Everyone knew that my family had contributed many gifts to Le Murate.
Il Magnifico
had rebuilt parts of the convent once damaged by fire, and he'd donated several valuable paintings by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci and other fine artists. Giulietta and some of the other girls were actually my distant cousins, but I was the only one who carried the Medici name. And I was the only
duchessina.

It was the gift of a lute that had triggered Giulietta's jealous remark. I had mentioned one day to Suor Margherita that I'd once enjoyed playing the lute; scarcely a week later she saw to it that I had one.

I hadn't touched the instrument in so long that I had forgotten a lot of what I'd once learned. But I still remembered some of the simple tunes I'd played in the garden of Palazzo Medici during that brief, idyllic time when Ippolito had sat with me, singing the songs that I played.

The conversations of the other girls about marriage and the search for a proper husband had prompted me to think more and more about Ippolito. The more I thought about him, the more I yearned to see him again. True, he had deserted me when he ran away with the dreadful Alessandro and the hated Passerini. But, I told myself, surely he had no choice.

I often reimagined the scene in the stable at Palazzo Medici. In my new, much altered version of the event, Ippolito would refuse to leave and insist on staying behind to protect me. He, and not my aunt, would find a way to flee with me to Poggio a Caiano. Once there, he'd discover a little shelter down by the river and hide with me there, and the soldiers would never find me, and they'd give up and ride away without me. In my fantasy Ippolito and I would stay there, feasting on bread and cheese and wine brought to us by the kindly steward, picking grapes from the vineyard and fruit from the orchards until the danger had passed. Then we would ride together back to Florence and the Palazzo Medici, where life would go on as before, but without Alessandro and Passerini.

But, of course, that was not the way it had happened, and, as I plucked the strings of the lute, I wondered if I would ever see Ippolito again.

Giulietta was watching me. I handed her the lute. “Here,” I said, “it's meant for all of us.”

I
HAD LIVED AT
Le Murate for four months when I observed my ninth birthday on the thirteenth of April. A little more than two weeks later, on the twenty-ninth, the entire convent celebrated the Feast of Santa Caterina of Siena, my saint's day. Because Caterina was much beloved and many girls were named for her, the cooks prepared their most festive dishes in her honor. All day I hoped for a message from Aunt Clarissa, who had never failed to send me some small gift for my saint's day. I was even more thrilled when the abbess told me that my aunt had come to visit. It was her first since Christmas, when she'd told me she was expecting a child.

My aunt was waiting at the grille. Although I couldn't see her, I thought she sounded weary. I told her about my instruction in the virtues and in reading and arithmetic, knowing she would be pleased. I mentioned the lute.