The Passion of Artemisia (16 page)

The painting was to be presented to il granduca at a court affair one evening in the Palazzo Pitti. Pietro did not attend. It was a shortsighted decision. There in the Palatina would be the whole Medici collection and all of Cosimo's present artists to talk to about composition, interpretation, and technique. He could have met a new patron. I would have introduced him to Cosimo as a fine painter. Pietro wouldn't hear of it.

They sent a carriage for me. When I stepped up into it, I heard something rip over my ribs. Fina had made me a tight new bodice of dark green with detachable sleeves, so if I were to be invited again, different sleeves would make it look like a new gown. I couldn't tell where the rip was. All I could do was to trust that it didn't show.

In the palace, colors of gowns, paintings, and frescoed ceilings leapt out around me as I passed through the rooms to get to the large, square Sala dell' Iliade. The walls were covered with paintings three rows high, in no apparent order, all in elaborately carved frames, a feast for the eyes. My
Judith Slaying Holofernes
was there too, in an elegant gold frame carved in deep relief. It made me catch my breath to see it hanging in the presence of masterpieces. Who had painted them? Raphael? Titian? Tintoretto? Rubens? Andrea del Sarto? What a boon for me if I could just get someone to talk about them.

I curtseyed before il granduca. This time he was dressed with the colors reversed—emerald breeches and waistcoat, with sleeves intricately slashed to show purple satin beneath. I gripped a velvet chair back as my new
Judith
, covered by a drape, was set on a carved walnut display easel adjacent to my
Judith Slaying Holofernes
. The moment it was unveiled, I looked at Cosimo only. He pulled at the little triangular tuft of hair under his bottom lip in a self-satisfied way, looking from one painting to the other.

“
Brava
, signorina.
Magnifico,
” he said, and the whole assembly assented in one breath. “I have made a discovery. Here in Artemisia Gentileschi Lomi we have the rational mind of man and the sensuous hand of woman.”

I couldn't help but look at my painting. Light from candles in the wall sconces showed off the highlights of Judith's face and throat, Abra's head wrap and sleeve, even the white piping between Abra's bodice and the gathers of her skirt. I
noticed now more than ever the beautiful shape of a shadow coming to a point where her neck ended and her chest began. I was supremely satisfied.

“Non c'è male,”
I heard from somewhere in the room. I hated that overused Florentine expression, “not bad.”

“But more than that,” Cosimo continued, “with the two paintings together, we have two aspects to the feminine. We have the active and the contemplative.
Brava
again.”

Others who now thought it better than “not bad” delivered compliments of “fine” and “formidable” accompanied by courtly bows.

One gray-bearded man nearing fifty, wearing brown breeches and standing separately, came toward me smiling. His long, straight nose, and that beard curved over his chin like the back of a pewter spoon, were familiar, but more individual than the beard was the wen high on his full cheek under his left eye. I was certain I had seen him somewhere before.

“You have a great future, signorina,” he said, “which will, no doubt, match the great beauties of your person.” The expression in his brown eyes was genuine.

What could I say after stumbling over my gratitude? “Perhaps you could tell me about this magnificent collection.”

A fluttering of ladies in rasping violet, ultramarine, and deep green brocade skimmed toward me across the marble floor like a swarm of iridescent insects on a still pond. They surrounded me, their tall wired collars quivering, and the man in brown retreated. “Do you come from Rome?” one lady asked, waving a painted paper fan on a stick.

“Or further south?”

I felt trapped. “I was about to ask that gentleman about the paintings. He seemed to know—”

“Who? Signor Galilei? No, he knows nothing of painting.
He's the court mathematician. His head buzzes with only stars and numbers.”

“Tell us, please,” another woman asked in a stinging whisper, “in the south, have you known, intimately, I mean, a man so swarthy as that man on the mattress?” The others tittered.

I held myself rigid as I said the single word “No,” so as not to show that I even noticed the insult.

I was delivered home across Ponte Vecchio by carriage, without an escort. As we rattled across the Arno, I held to my nose a sprig of lavender given to each lady so as not to swoon.

No man had called me beautiful since—I hated to admit—since Agostino had.

Black velvet darkness enveloped the city. No moon. No stars. Only a few lanterns flickered on entries to the larger houses or illuminated the small niche carvings of protector saints. At Fina's, I half-wakened Palmira and carried her downstairs. Nearly four years old now, she was really too big for this. Her foot knocked against the same place on my thigh at every step.

“I had a dream, Mama. I was in the palace with you. In a beautiful red dress,” she murmured.

“That's wonderful.”

“With pearls sewn on.” She was asleep again by the time I laid her down.

Pietro was not at home. I lit a candle and opened one of the doors onto the balcony, hoping for a breeze in spite of the rank odor. Somewhere on the riverbank, a bullfrog croaked, no more able to sleep than I was. Cosimo de' Medici reminded me of a lordly, emerald green frog, surrounded by flitting insects busy with their fan flipping.
Standing next to il granduca, I had been at the very heartbeat of Florence, with masterpieces, painters, future clients all around me, and Cosimo himself asking for a Mary Magdalene next.

Yes, it was a magnificent victory, sweet as lily-shaped marzipan, but a temporary one. Strung like beads through the years ahead was a line of gala court occasions with harpsichord, poets and players, almond cakes and perfumed candies—which I would be invited to only when Cosimo had a painting of mine to unveil. Fine. That was just fine. I was doing what I loved, learning every day, and being honored for it. I hung the lavender from a ceiling hook among our iron pots. When it dried I'd grind it with mortar and pestle and add it to a dipper of well water, boil it a minute to make a sweet perfume, and I'd splash my throat and cheeks with it the next time I was invited. Maybe the court mathematician would be there too.

I swatted at a mosquito, but couldn't bear to close the door. I undressed and put on my night shift. The soft high chirping of bats swirling up from the river was the loneliest sound in the world.

What now? Write it all to Father? Yes, I could do that. He would revel in my triumph, even if Pietro didn't. But then Father had always claimed me as his product.
“. . . Carnal actions that brought grave and enormous damage to me, the poor plaintiff, so that I could not sell her painting talent for so high a price.”
That he considered me a novelty to sell still hurt me, but there was danger in bitterness. It might carve itself into my face permanently or show itself as woman's insolence, and a patron, taking offense like the academy had done at first, might cast me away. I could not afford to display resentment. Restraint had to be my public self. Besides,
he
was not selling my talents. I was. An enormous difference which might not have happened had I stayed in Rome—that
is, had there been no trial. I'd never thought of it that way before.

Pietro did not come home. It would have been pleasant to talk over the evening in quiet tones—if not with him, with someone, that man who had called me beautiful, for example—to muse about the duke, the court, other possible clients, the music, the food, the finery, and, if it were Pietro, to undress bit by bit in candlelight while chewing on a fig, moments of the evening spilling out like plump grapes from a tipped bowl. Desirable certainly, but not essential. Painting was essential.

The eerie, whining night cry of a cat in heat startled me, made my heat-damp flesh go cold a moment. Made me conscious of a yearning issuing from some dark place, to touch, stroke, pet like a cat. And to be touched, to nestle myself in a palm, to arch against the pads of fingers, the push of flesh.

Restless, I lifted out Michelangelo's brush from the bottom of my
cassone
and unrolled it from the cloth. I'd never used it. I held it up to the air as if I were painting something, someone. Whom? The man with his head in the stars. The wide white collar that stood up in a curve over his shoulders, his straight, aristocratic nose, his intelligent, kind eyes. I realized where I'd seen him before—standing opposite me at the academy admission ceremony. Smiling.

I lay on the pillowed bench and touched the soft sable to my throat, the throat Vanna thought was ugly. So what if she thought that? Not everyone did. Besides, I had something that no one else did. The brush hairs, soft as cat fur, up my throat, around the back of my ear, their touch in my ear excruciating and titillating, il divino's own hand on this brush, down my neck, closing my eyes to candlelight, to anything that would distract me from the sensation, between my breasts, lowering the cotton of my shift, stroking softly in a big circle one and then the other, the circles getting smaller,
hesitating, smaller and smaller circles, around the nipple, feeling the tingle deep in my belly, contracting, loosening, contracting, a rhythm lifting me, a wave about to crash, about to, then crashing. I trembled and relaxed, still and content and dreamy for a long time.

12
Galileo

S
an Giovanni's Day dawned in the splendor of immediate blue. Warm, silky June air invited me to pause and breathe deeply when I opened the doors to the balcony. Fina's beloved thrushes heralded the holiday of the city's patron saint.

“It's going to be a spectacular day. Are you sure you don't want to come with me to the Pitti?” I said over my shoulder as Pietro was pulling on his new cinnamon-colored hose. “Cosimo's invitation is for both of us. It will be a grand meal. There'll be music and Commedia dell' Arte, and afterward we can walk in the garden.”

“I'll leave the garden and music to you,” he said airily. “I'm going to the
calcio
.” His lips twisted into a self-mocking smile. “To get my fill of barbarians cracking skulls for the year.”

He made fun of the brutality, but still every San Giovanni's Day he went and did his share of shouting. In other years, I'd gone with him to the Piazza di Santa Croce to see the games—a tournament of four wild mobs pounding and
kicking each other over a ball, each team named after a church in one of the four sectors of the city, creating a riot in the name of John the Baptist. Last year the Brethren of the Misericordia carried off two players on litters.

On such a holiday as this, and since my invitation was for two people, I felt I could bring Palmira. She would be thrilled. Besides, I didn't want Fina to be tied down at home when there were musicians and singing in every piazza.

Pietro sang in a bombastic baritone, tucking in his chin as the three of us walked downstairs and out the gate together. Everyone in the whole city seemed to be out in the streets. Where the Corso dei Tintori angled away from the Lungarno and we would go our separate ways, Pietro twisted Palmira's ear playfully.

“Be a good girl in front of the duke, eh!” And to me,
“Ciao, amore,”
with a kiss vaguely placed at my temple.

“Ciao, amore.”
He rarely said
amore,
and so I savored it a moment. I almost decided to go with him instead, his mood being so blithe and loving, but an invitation to the Medici's palace was not to be taken lightly. We would both come home and tell each other what we saw and did. That would be like living the day twice.

It was a good thing the goldsmiths' shops along the Ponte Vecchio were closed for the holiday. Otherwise, I would have had a hard time getting Palmira across without a tedium of “oohs” and “
che bella
's at every shop. This was her first time in the Pitti Palace, and as soon as we walked up the stairway, Palmira's little eyes opened wide. She was so awed by the beautiful clothing that she became quiet as a rabbit, only whispering to me to look at this or that dress. The people seemed much less real to her than the fabrics. I knew that when we got home, I wouldn't be able to get her to stop talking about all of it.

In the large Sala Bianca, her gaze was fastened on the
dozens of double-tiered crystal
candelaria
. “Are they going to light them, Mama?”

“Probably not. People will leave before dark to go to the last game of the
calcio
.”

On the credenzas there were trays of antipasti—melon wedges wrapped with prosciutto, and
crostini
spread with peacock liver paté, the tray decorated with a fan of peacock feathers. Palmira loved the exotic beauty of the display but was afraid to try one. Instead she ate the little pocket cookies filled with jam. The tables were arranged in a wide, shallow U facing the windows and the courtyard below. The open doorways to the terrace were hung with sprigs of lavender and basil to keep out the horseflies and odor from the carriage yard below.

I watched the Archduchess Maria Maddalena sitting at the center table. She wore a sheer black headdress, something like a nun's wimple, which came down over her forehead in a point. I couldn't understand why she had chosen such a severe style. It emphasized her narrow oval face to poor effect. A large, dark ruby hung from a gold chain that seemed about to strangle her. Her children came up behind her to whisper to her. She dismissed them, it seemed to me, rather than attending to them. Cosimo wanted my Mary Magdalene as a compliment to her. I knew nothing about her. How could I make the figure of a prostitute, even a high-class prostitute, honor her?

The meal consisted of roasted guinea fowl, beef tripe with bell pepper sauce, and spinach, finished off with baked peaches stuffed with almond paste. Palmira liked that best.

After the meal, I took Palmira out to the balcony which connected to a large terrace where Signor Galilei was standing with a group of men. I was sure it was him even without his brown waistcoat. Today he was as stylish as any courtier in a long blue sleeveless
lucco
. The white sleeves of his shirt
puffed out like clouds. His gray hair threading through his brown glinted in the sunlight. Would he remember me?

The other men seemed to defer to him, letting him speak more, but when any of the others spoke, everyone still watched him to see his reaction. I listened a moment. They were engaged in a lively debate over the relative merits of sculpture over painting—far different entertainment from the rampage taking place on the other side of the Arno. This I could speak about. I left Palmira dancing her straw doll on the balustrade and stepped over to join them.

“Statues, being three-dimensional objects rather than two-dimensional paintings, are more real than paintings,” one gentleman said. “Therefore, they are capable of creating a more deceptive illusion—which is to say that sculpture is the highest of arts.”

“I disagree entirely,” I said, standing a few steps away and behind Galilei. The moment he recognized me, his smile reached all the way up to the wen under his eye. He opened their circle to allow me to step forward.

“What does the signorina think?” one gentleman prodded, as if a lady venturing an opinion were a novelty.

I didn't know these men, but I plunged ahead, adopting their artificial style of speech. “Relief which deceives the sense of vision is within the reach of painting as well as sculpture because painting has all the colors of nature to give shape, whereas sculpture merely has lights and darks. Though sculpture has relief which is perceived by the touch, painting achieves a visible relief without that advantage. Therein lies the greater challenge, and therefore its superiority.”

“The signorina is right,” Galilei put in. “What is so impressive about imitating the sculptress, Nature, by using nature itself, stone, to create volume?” He turned to me for my agreement. “Of the two, painting is the superior art, but for
one more reason. Being two-dimensional, painting is farther removed from reality, and the farther removed the means of imitation is from the thing to be imitated, the more worthy of admiration the imitation will be.”

“Is that a general principle applicable to all the arts?” one of the men asked.

“Indeed. We ought to admire the musician who moves us to sympathy with an unrequited lover by representing his sorrows and passions in song much more than if he were to do it by sobs.” His smile directed to me was playful. “Songs are opposite to the natural expression of pain while tears and sobs are very similar to it.”

“Then in that sense, Signor Galilei”—I flashed him a sidelong look that suggested I was about to trump him—“music with the lute alone is higher than either song or painting by virtue of its greater distance from the human.”

The men in the circle teased him for being overmatched. He waved his hand at them good-naturedly and asked me, “Even though I am sorely overpowered, might I have the pleasure of taking a
passeggiata
in the garden with my conqueror?”

I held out my hand to Palmira. She did a sprightly skip-hop to join us. “My daughter, Palmira.”

“Ah, a lovely child. Her mother's image in miniature.”

We walked downstairs and up a ramp to the entrance to the garden and a grassy amphitheater where some small boys were imitating the
calcio
. The greens of the cypress trees and ornamental box hedges were greener, the grass more velvety, the breeze fresher, the birds more melodious than anywhere I'd ever been.

“Everything seems brushed with a sheen that saturates the colors.”

“That's the painter in you speaking.”

Then he did remember me. “Where does this path lead?” I asked.

“To many delights, I hope. Specifically to several hedge labyrinths.”

“Oh, you'll like that, Palmira.” In the meantime, there were plenty of people strolling so she would be content looking at their clothing.

“You were about to ask me something the last time we saw one another,” he said.

“Yes, what you knew about the paintings in the palace, but now I need to know something else.”

“What might that be?”

Palmira spotted a black and raw sienna butterfly and we stopped to let her watch it until it fluttered away.

“What do you know about the archduchess?” I asked.

“She's from Austria. Uncompromisingly religious. Fond of somber masses and endless vespers. Contrarily, she's a woman who feeds on the dramatic moments of Christian history, who loves its excesses and extremes. She would have followed Saint Francis if she'd been alive in his time.”

“Or the example of Mary Magdalene? That is, if she had found herself in other circumstances.”

“Even without those circumstances. There are women who take on the world's sins and make a practice of continual repentance.”

“Renouncing the world and praying like a penitent while wearing their jewels?”

“Precisely.”

“Thank you. That may prove helpful.”

With his open palm Galilei directed us to take a narrower path between white flowering hedges. The sweet scent of jasmine was heady in the heat of the afternoon.

“Helpful for a painting?” he asked.

“Yes, a Mary Magdalene that the archduke has commissioned. I want to discover and display another side than the conventional belief of a sinner struck by unpremeditated
conversion or spontaneous repentance. I think it must have been deep, prolonged, painful reflection that caused her great personal upheaval. Have you seen Masaccio's
Adam and Eve
in the Brancacci Chapel?”

“Of course.”

“All of Eve's body is thinking and feeling. In the same way that Eve's body thought in Masaccio's hands, I want my Magdalen's body to think, too. I don't know yet what I want her to think, but I know it has to be more complex than anguish at her vision of herself.”

“Might I suggest you see Donatello's carving in wood of the Magdalen in the Baptistry? It has an excessiveness the archduchess would appreciate.”

“How can I, this time of year? I'd have to wait until March, the yearly baptism.”

He stopped in the pathway to think. “With a little authorization from His Serene Highness, I'm certain you will be given admittance. I can easily obtain it and shall feel honored to accompany you today. You and your pretty daughter.”

“Today? Won't that seem ungracious?”

“No. People will be leaving soon for the evening
calcio.
”

We cut short our walk, and he spoke privately to Cosimo. When we noticed some people leaving, we said our respectful goodbyes, and rode across the Arno in an open carriage, another delight for Palmira. She'd never been in one. Galilei reached into his pouch and pulled out his fist. “Palmira, open your hand, if you please,” he said.

She glanced up at me for permission and then did so. He dropped into her palm a hard, yellow-green candy, irregularly shaped. He offered one to me too.

“Citron. I have several citron trees at my villa.”

Palmira pulled in her cheeks and made sucking sounds. “Why don't we have candies like this, Mama?”

“If we did, then these wouldn't be so special. Rarity increases the value of something.”

Galilei looked at me for a long moment before he popped one into his mouth.

The river, less murky and more blue than usual, was crowded with every kind of boat surrounding a barge with musicians playing under gold banners. The
remaioli
had stopped their work of dredging sand from the riverbed and building up the banks. Today every sand gatherer used his slim boat as a floating house of revelry. On the far bank, we heard trumpets from the
calcio
procession. Palmira was beside herself with excitement.