The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (53 page)

“Then what brings you to Maestro Mantegna’s studio?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw the maestro, with great casualness, throw a sheet over his easel. “Have you come to inquire after the progress of our altarpiece to the Madonna of the Victory?” Then, in the same breath: “How does the work go, Maestro Andrea?”

“Slowly.” His tone was gruff as ever.

“We are sorry to hear that. May we see it?” she asked, ignoring the roughness of his reply.

“You are looking at it.” He waved his hand to indicate the three lengths of canvas fabric hanging on the opposite wall.

“Is this a jest, maestro?”

“Not at all, my lady. You ordered a triptych, did you not?”

“That is correct.”

“Well then, there is your triptych. Panel one, the commander in full regalia — but without his horse — kneeling reverently at the left hand of the Holy Mother with his honorable brothers behind him. Across from him kneels his lady — that is you,
illustrissima
— with her patron saint, Elizabeth, behind her. Panel two” — he waved at the second piece of blank canvas — “presents the patron saints of Mantova, Saint Andrew and Saint Longinus. Each bears a distinct resemblance to the honorable brothers of the victorious commander. And on panel three we see the heavenly warriors, Saint George and Saint Michael . . .”

“Stop this nonsense at once! The truth is that you have not even begun your work on the altarpiece. Is that not so?”

“No, lady. I have begun. I sketch. I think. The real work of painting is in the mind.”

“For my purposes, the real work is in the brush, maestro. And I see no brushwork on these canvases.”

“But to plan a triptych, my lady, with so many figures to be included, and such exacting terms of execution . . . that the ultramarine for the vault must be purchased for four forms an ounce, that I must use forty forms’ worth of gold —”

“How long will it take?” she cut him off.

“Possibly a year.”

“Out of the question.”

“The muse cannot be rushed, madonna.”

“How do you think the muse would enjoy a stay in one of our dungeons?” Her eyes flashed with a fury she was now making no effort to disguise. “You are welcome to bring her to spend a night there and see how the accommodations suit her.”

“As you wish, my lady.” He held out his muscled brown arms. “Shall I go shackled?”

For this retort he was rewarded with a smile and the appearance of a new Madonna Isabella, a lady with a soft, teasing voice. “Let us stop this charade, maestro. You know we love you far too much ever to punish you, as well as you know that a year is out of the question. The altarpiece must be ready by the anniversary of the victory at Fornovo. Beyond that date everyone will have forgotten the purpose of it.”

“Perhaps another artist . . .” he purred, matching the sheen of her tone with his own. “My esteemed brother-in-law might possibly —”

“Giovanni Bellini? He’s even slower than you are.” A stray twinkle in the maestro’s eye told me he had been aware of this facet of his brother-in-law’s temperament when he made the suggestion.

“No, no. You are the only artist my esteemed husband wants for this commission. No other will do. And it must be finished by June. What you need, maestro, is encouragement. Perhaps we should take a hostage. One of your children. Your son Orsino . . .”

“Welcome to him, madonna.”

“Mmm. Not the best hostage.” She rubbed her nose thoughtfully. “What about her?” pointing in my direction.

“The girl?”

“Me?”

“Not you, Grazia. No, it is Faustina I have in mind. I know how you treasure her, maestro. Sometimes I think you love that stone woman better than you love your own wife.”

“Better even than that, madonna,” he answered, deadly quiet now. “For she is more perfect than any woman nature can show. The master who made her borrowed from all living women for his creation. She is my inspiration.”

“She does not seem to have inspired you to work on my triptych,” she answered.

“You are impatient, madonna.”

“It must be done by June,” she insisted.

“Forgive the interruption,
illustrissima
. . .” My interjection went into the silence as into a void.

I cleared my throat and tried again. “There may be a way to resolve the problem,” I said.

“There is,” she answered without looking at me. “The maestro must paint faster.”

“Impossible,” from the other side. “When I painted the San Zeno
pala
it took over my life for three years.”

More silence and murderous looks. Dare I jump into the void one more time? “Maestro Andrea.” I picked him as the less menacing of the two. “There are six panels in the San Zeno altarpiece, are there not?”

“Three large ones, three small in the predella,” Madonna Isabella answered for him. “Each one a jewel.”

“That means it took you roughly six months to finish each panel.” I pursued my thought.

“We do not measure our art the way a pawnbroker counts out his ducats, lady,” he sneered. “How long do you think it took the master who made my Faustina to create such perfection of form? Two weeks? Two years? What matters is that we stand here today, hundreds of years later, enthralled by her. Our measure is eternity, do you not understand that, ignorant fool?”

Oh, he had a whip for a tongue. But I was quite inured to his lashes by then and went right on with my scheme.

“I merely mean to demonstrate that it is possible for you to create a single work of genius within six months, maestro,” I answered sweetly. “How large are the biggest panels at San Zeno?”

The question drove him even deeper into his fury. “Here . . .” He threw a ball of string at me, narrowly missing my eye. “Use this. Take it to Verona. Measure the
pala
. How can I remember after all this time?
Dio
, it is at least thirty years since I made the thing. Do you not understand that I do not measure out the works of my hand by the yard?”

Perhaps not, old man, I thought, but you certainly do charge by that measure. However, I kept my temper and continued in the same bland tone as before. “I am merely trying to make a point, maestro,” I said.

Meanwhile, as we bickered on I saw Madama turn toward the draped easel. Like a bird dog sniffing her quarry, she quivered a little and began slowly to move in on it. Now I understood Maestro Andrea’s haste to conceal the work. It was on account of my portrait that he had fallen behind. He had been painting me instead of the Madonna of the Victory.
Dio!

“Please, maestro, I beg you to tell me the size . . .” The urgency in my voice must have come through, for he finally responded.

“Perhaps three
braccias
in height,” he answered.

“And the width?” I asked.

“Some two thirds of that.”

“The
illustrissima
’s panel must be larger than that,” I announced. “Much larger. Is that not so, madonna?”

“I have agreed to nothing,” she answered sternly. “But if I were to consider a single panel . . .” A slight, tight smile crossed her lips. “If I were to agree, as I say, certainly the panel would have to be much larger than any one of the San Zeno panels.”

“And would not a panel of that size be the largest panel you had ever executed in your long and illustrious career, maestro?” I asked. By now my nervous glances at the easel must have warned him, for he answered quite politely, “Certainly the largest.”

“How would it compare with your other large pieces such as your Florentine circumcision?”

“The Florentine panels are small in comparison.” He was clearly onto the game now. “One might almost say inconsequential.”

That, I thought, was going too far. But contrarily, the answer seemed to please Madama. And the sarcasm in his reply, thinly veiled as it was, escaped her completely. For her it was enough that her panel, should she agree to it, would be larger by twice than the one Maestro Andrea had executed for the Medici family.

“What will become of the figures in the side panels — the Beata Orsanna and our noble brother-in-law, the Protonotary Sigismondo —
if
we should agree to the plan, maestro?” she asked. “Can they still be included within the confines of one large panel?”

“They cannot. Not unless we float them up above the fruit and flowers,” the painter replied with a wicked grin. “Or unless you are prepared to give up your place opposite your illustrious consort at the Virgin’s left hand.”

“Would you have
me
floating above the fruit and flowers, maestro,” she inquired with a sour sweetness.

“It
is
closer to heaven,
illustrissima
,” he answered, deftly dodging the arrow.

“No, maestro. I fear I am slightly too heavy to float. Indeed, if you go ahead with this plan, I will be forced, albeit reluctantly, to relinquish my position at the left hand. Yes, I will be forced to yield to Beata Orsanna.” She paused. “But now I think of it, the place of honor ought more properly to go to that holy woman in any case. For there is no doubt that her intercessions with our Lady were instrumental in bringing about the great victory at the Taro River.” And she smiled a most complacent smile, as if she had won a vital point in a
disputa
.

“But will his Excellency, the Marchese, approve?” I asked. “Did he not intend to share the honor with you who stayed bravely at home and conducted the affairs of Mantova so nobly in his name?”

“His honor on the battlefield he shares with no one,” she answered sharply, as if irritated at being held back in this new plan. “Nor need he share his piety. It was he who entreated the Holy Mother, he whose courage She rewarded with victory. I see now that Fra Redini was mistaken in his program. Neither I nor the Protonotary should be included. Only the saints, the Blessed Mother, and my noble consort. For they are the chiefest actors in this wonderful drama.” She nodded with satisfaction at her own mental process. “It is all quite clear to me now. Not only need I not sit for this portrait, I must not sit. All the honor goes to the commander. I shall send off a letter to him at once explaining our inadvertent insult to his glory. I am sure he will understand.”

Then, without taking a breath, she turned to Mantegna and asked, “What are you hiding under that sheet, maestro? Something you do not wish me to see?”

“It is a portrait of Faustina,” he answered, truthful to a point. “Not yet finished.”

She stepped forward and grasped the corner of the sheet between her thumb and her forefinger. “Not even a peek, maestro?”

“I cannot forbid my princess,” he answered, suddenly altogether a courtier. “But I guarantee she will not like what she sees. And I beg her humbly not to look. For I prefer to show her only works that bring her joy and satisfaction.”

“Very well then. I will wait.” She dropped the cloth. “But, mark you, I will return one month from today to see how far you have progressed with the Madonna of the Victory. And I will send a message to Beata Orsanna to expect you at the convent tomorrow.”

“At the convent?”

“Surely you do not expect the sainted woman to come to you for her sitting?”

“Of course not.” He knew when he had been bested.

“Very well.” She turned to me all haughty once again. “My regards to Maestro Daniele, and tell him how pleased we are that he is recovered enough to run the
banco
.”

“But he is not recovered,” I answered. “Not at all.”

“Really?” she drawled. “Then who takes care of business?”

“I do, madonna.”

“In that case, if I were you I would stick closer to my tasks at the loan bank. It is not seemly for a young woman to be sprawling about with her hair down in an artist’s studio. Believe me, no good will come of it.”

And with that she swept out, leaving both the maestro and me on notice that we shoemakers had best stick to our lasts: he to his altarpieces, I to my counting table.

Without any discussion we agreed that work on the portrait must cease at once. “But never fear, Madonna Grazia,” the old man assured me, with a touch of courtliness he must have had left over from his encounter with Madonna Isabella, “I am no Leonardo da Vinci. I finish what I start. You will yet see yourself immortalized by the greatest master in Italy.”

36

T
he year 1496 began with a series of bad omens. In the midst of a hailstorm it had rained blood over the gates of Siena. In Ferrara, Duke Ercole, seized by a late-in-life burst of religious fervor, once again ordered the Jews to wear the obnoxious yellow circle on their breasts. This time, the dei Rossis were not excluded. To Mantova, an early spring thaw and freeze brought ruined crops and the threat of empty stomachs; while upstairs in our fine house my father began to refuse food, a step in his slow separation from those of us who loved him.

God must be on holiday, I thought, to permit so much misery all at once. However, it was not God but the Gonzagas who launched the final thunderbolt at our sorrowful household. The telling blow was delivered by two gentlemen of the court, a friar and an architect. They oozed in through the door of the
banco
one morning, the friar thin and oily, the architect fat and twitchy.