Signora Da Vinci (40 page)

Then wordlessly, each clutching a candle to see us down the steps, we left my house, and with angry hammer blows boarded up the broad apothecary window and door. In wrenching sadness, we went our separate ways.

 

Lorenzo and I had gone to see Leonardo off to Milan. Standing together in his empty, echoing bottega, he gathered me into his arms.

“Don’t cry, Mama,” he whispered, “please don’t cry.” But then his broad shoulders heaved and he pulled me tighter, and his own weeping began. “Look how you have watched over me. Protected me.” His voice broke with emotion. “All these years. And now Lorenzo. What friends you are. So beloved . . .”

“My darling boy,” I murmured, trying hard to be brave. “I haven’t the words to express what I wish for you. For your future. Perhaps Hermes said it best.” I closed my eyes and saw the sage’s words as they had been written in the ancient text.

“‘Contemplate the world and consider its beauty. See that all things are full of light. See the earth as the great nurse that nourishes all terrestrial creatures. Command your soul to cross the ocean, to be in India. In a moment it will be done. Command it to fly up to heaven. It will not need wings. And if you wish to break through the vault of the universe and to contemplate what is beyond, you may do it. Believe that nothing is impossible for you. Think yourself immortal and capable of understanding all—all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being. Mount higher than the highest height. Descend lower than the lowest depth. Imagine that you are everywhere—on earth, in the sea, in the sky, that you are not yet born, in the material world, adolescent, old, dead, beyond death. If you embrace in your thoughts all things at once—times, places, substances, qualities, quantities—you may understand God. The intellect makes itself visible in the act of thinking, God . . . in the act of creating.’”

“Mama . . . ,” he said, tears glistening in his eyes. I knew that every word spoken had penetrated to his core. And I could see his love for me etched, with the pain of parting, in his beautiful features. Finally he released my hands, holding my face with the tenderest look. “Will
you
be safe? Perhaps you should come to Milan.”

“I cannot leave Lorenzo,” I said. “His illness is growing worse.”

Leonardo smiled. “You mean your love is growing deeper.”

I nodded, my eyes wet, my heart threatening to burst with that truth.

We walked outside together, where Lorenzo was waiting with the horses and wagon he had gifted Leonardo. Zoroastre finished tightening the canvas that covered the transport’s bulging load and climbed into the driver’s seat.

From a distance I watched Lorenzo and Leonardo embrace. They spoke momentarily, words I could not hear. But such affection suffused their faces, and such sadness, that I was forced to turn away, lest I weep and draw unwanted attention to what was meant as a simple, manly farewell.

Leonardo mounted the fabulous bay stallion he had named Giuliano and led the way down Via da Bardi, Zoroastre and the wagon carrying all that was left of my son’s material life in Florence rattling after him.

Leonardo never looked back.

Lorenzo came to my side then. “He will thrive under
Il Moro
’s patronage, Caterina. He will prosper. It has been hard for Leonardo to live in the same city with that blighted father of his. In Milan he’ll become a man in full.”

“Defeat at the whim of a mad priest,” I said. “It is a hard pill to swallow. There must be something we can do. Something to pull that monster from his evil pulpit.”

“I feel Florence as I do my own body,” Lorenzo said. “And she is very ill. She will grow sicker and weaker before she heals. But there is a cure for what ails her, and we
will
find it. I promise you that. I’ll give everything,
anything
—my last breath—to save this city. Out of that unsavory creature’s bonfires will come the spark of an answer. An idea. And we will bring him down, my love. We will bring him down.”

CHAPTER 30

Lorenzo’s promise seemed an empty one on the day I brought my apothecary wares to the Piazza della Signoria. A crowd, a large one, had gathered there. And it was strange and terrible to see. The Florentines I had come to know had merrily gathered for festival days, spectacles, and even High Mass in their richest, most colorful silks, taffetas, and brocades. Men affected long point-toed shoes and held their heads high in fabulous rainbow turbans. Women’s bodices were fantasies of embroidery, their hair intricately curled or braided with pearls and lace.

This, today, was a sober gathering. A veritable funeral crowd for all the blacks and grays and browns they wore. Not a flash of red or green or peacock blue was to be seen. No cloth of gold. Nary a slashed sleeve, nor burnt-orange hose. I saw no one smiling, and the only sounds were somber, muted whisperings.

But it was, after all, a funeral. A funeral pyre—Fra Savonarola’s “Bonfire of the Vanities.” The people had gathered round the largest one yet, a great pyramid twenty feet tall of their willingly sacrificed luxuries. As I drew my cart closer I saw a vast trove of treasures—fine Turkey carpets, antique tapestries, intricately carved chairs and mother-of-pearl tables. Books—there were hundreds of books. Paintings and statues. Adding my jars of herbs and unguents to the mountain, I could see masses of gold trinkets, silken shawls, Spanish lace
mantillas
, jeweled chains. There were dozens and dozens of mirrors, large and small, as though the friar’s call had gone out that not just the vanities themselves but the means by which to view them must also be put to the torch.

Now from the direction of San Marco came a company of singing angels in their flowing white garments, and behind them a double row of tonsured monks in brown robes, each of them bearing a simple wooden cross. Following behind came Savonarola himself, he carrying a torch burning with a dark, oily flame.

The crowd silenced themselves further on sight of him and assumed a humbled, almost shamed demeanor. It made me more wretched, I thought, to see how this once-proud people now cowered and shrunk within themselves than even to have to lay the healing fruits of Nature on this terrible altar.

The new Prince of Florence came very close to me as he moved to the pyre. In fact, his green eyes briefly fell on my face, but if there had been recollection of the sinful apothecary whose shop he had ordered shut down, there was nary a flicker of recognition. He stood with his torch arm outstretched and glared into the crowd.

“Wicked, wicked, wicked!!” his voice rang out above our heads. “Piled before you are the symbols of your souls’ degradation. There are demons, tiny demons that skip along the threads of silver on your sleeve,
incubi
who hide in the folds of your silken gown, Devil’s familiars who lurk behind your looking glasses mocking your pointless vanity! Your evil ways shall be punished, people of Florence, and Satan’s minions will triumph if you do not heed the voice of God. Do you hear me?! I have come to help you hear Him, for He does speak to me. Oh, He speaks in my ear and what He says again and again is ‘Repent’!”

With that, he thrust his torch into the pyre. By the smell of pitch and oil I knew that the pile of goods had been well doused, but the way the mountain of goods exploded so quickly and violently into flames was shocking even to me.

“Watch how the fire burns!” Savonarola shouted. “See the demons burning before your eyes! Oh, repent, sinners! Repent or die like Satan’s minions in these flames!”

Voices around me took up the chant, at first meekly, then gaining strength and fortitude. “Repent! Repent! Repent!!”

A pretty young woman came forward from the crowd, terror in her eyes, holding out from her body a heavy gold and gem-studded necklace as though it were a poisonous serpent. “Oh, God, I have sinned!” she shouted and flung the necklace onto the bonfire, then fell to her knees weeping. More men and women and even children rushed forward with their offerings.

I could hardly take my eyes from the friar, a red, writhing wall of flames behind him, those repugnant lips twisted into a gleeful smile.

A commotion began, and I turned to see the crowd parting behind me. A figure walked through—someone well known, I imagined, by the way the spectators respectfully retreated. When he reached the infernal bonfire I saw it was Sandro Botticelli. Like everyone else he wore a costume of subdued shades—a gray and black tunic—long and covering the shapely legs he’d so loved to display in varicolored hose. He carried under his arm a gilt-framed painting. At the front he turned to face the crowd and with decisive force thrust it high over his head, moving it from side to side for all to see. People gasped and groaned and others hissed at the sight. It was Botticelli at his pagan best—a naked Greek goddess fleeing in fright from a lust-ravaged satyr.

“God forgive me for the abomination of my art!” he shouted above the frenzied crowd. “I have sinned, but I will sin no more!” I watched as he spit the words from his mouth but I saw, as no one else could have, the lie behind his eyes. Brave or cowardly, this was the necessary deceit that would spare Sandro his life, ensure his survival in the coming years.

A triumph beyond measure for Savonarola. The Dominican strode to Botticelli, who fell heavily to his knees and bowed his head to receive a blessing. The priest raised his hands to heaven. “Even the most vile of creatures can see the error of his ways!” he cried. “Behold this sinner’s redemption!”

The crowd roared its approval. I heard people weeping all around me. “He is saved!” a man behind me called out. “Oh, let me be redeemed!”

“But there are some,” Savonarola shouted above the fray, “some who are beyond redemption! Some who will not bow to the will of the Lord! Who blaspheme His name, who spit on the cross!”

There were dangerous murmurings in the crowd, and I felt a thrill of terror pass through me. Something horrible was about to happen.

The sound of young, innocent voices singing hymns heralded a new parade of boy angels marching into the square. But this brigade surrounded other figures. Here were half a dozen men, their hands and feet bound in chains, their faces beaten and bloodied, terror in their eyes. As they reached the fire the angels parted to flank these helpless citizens.

One of them was Benito.

My knees jellied and my voice, as sometimes happens in a nightmare, altogether failed me.

“Look upon these creatures!” Savonarola railed. “They once were men, but now they have let the darkness overtake them! They are the Devil’s own! Their hearts and brains are black and crawling with maggots!”

As I watched in growing horror, six wooden crosses in the shape of an X were hauled before each of the prior’s victims and propped at an angle. The men were tied ankles and wrists, spread-eagle facing the crosses. Then six hooded henchmen carrying iron-pronged whips took their places before these poor souls and ripped their shirts down to their waists, baring the flesh that I knew, within moments, would be nothing but raw, bloodied meat. I cursed myself for not having warned Benito more strongly. For not having told him my story of arrest.

“Save these sinners!” Savonarola shouted. “Save them!”

As the first violent blows fell I felt a defiant “No!” welling up in my throat. I lunged ahead, but before I’d covered an arm’s length, I felt myself plowed into with such force I was thrown to the ground. A hand covered my mouth, muting my cry.

Sandro Botticelli’s body lay atop my own, his mouth at my ear. “Cato,” he whispered desperately. “Don’t be a fool. You will only make it worse for him.”

Without another word Botticelli hoisted me to my feet and dragged me through the assembly of docile sheep.

By then we were running through the streets, praying to reach our unspoken destination before madness overtook us. The Palazzo Medici loomed
. Safety,
I thought.
Lorenzo. Sanity. Love
.

Sandro and I wheeled round the corner and into the central courtyard. There stood Donatello’s
David
—beautiful, effeminate, profane. This family, beloved Medici, would be square in Savonarola’s sights.

No safety here,
I thought.
No safety at all
.

CHAPTER 31

Sometimes there is a grace that attends life . . . when all is possible and the dawning of every day promises a new <> adventure—the way it was when I first arrived in Florence. Other times we simply survive, placing one foot before the other, waiting for a door to appear before us that, when opened, might thrust us headlong into an unexpected destiny.

After Leonardo’s departure whole years passed with head-spinning swiftness.

To my great joy, he thrived in the fashionable city of Milan. Honors, not scandals, were heaped upon him by
Il Moro
and his people. He was named Official Court Painter, Revels Master and Engineer. And gone was the constant reminder of a father who wished his bastard son had never been born. Selfishly I longed for the warmth of Leonardo’s company, the sight of his handsome face, and that mad glint that came into his eyes when he’d had another of his wild ideas.