What Remains of the Fair Simonetta (6 page)

Sandro pointed out a male trio standing on the far side of the courtyard. “That is Andrea Verrocchio, with Antonio and Piero Pollaiolo. I have been an apprentice for both the workshops of Andrea and the brothers Polliaoli. However, Piero is quite displeased with me at the moment.”

“Why?” I asked, instinctively wanting to kick Piero’s ass for the audacity.

“The Court of the Mercanzia commissioned him to paint the Seven Virtues on the backs of their chairs in the Tribunal Hall. The Court felt Piero was painting too slowly and were not pleased with the appearance of the first six, so they gave the last virtue,
Fortitude
, to me. And unfortunately for Piero, they preferred my work to his. That is when I decided to strike out on my own. And I cannot say that I am sorry. I have received many commissions because of that work.” His almost arrogant words came out in the gentlest, most humble voice. “Also, Antonio and Piero dissect humans in order to study muscle movement. The stench in their
bottega
is atrocious!”

“I’m pretty sure you made the right choice by leaving.” I smiled.

It has always been said that Sandro had much more concern with the beauty of line than with anatomical correctness.
Fortitude
was the first documented painting by him, though no longer part of a chair. It hangs near Piero Pollaiolo’s six other virtues in the Uffizi gallery.

I continued to scan the courtyard while remaining in our dark corner, for fear of drawing the attention of someone I should have known, but didn’t.

“Who’s that?” I asked of a handsome young man, intently sketching with his left hand in a corner beyond Sandro’s past masters. He sat on a planter by himself, seemingly unaccustomed to this sort of gathering.

“That is a pupil of Verrocchio. His name is Leonardo. He is an odd little fellow, but a talented painter with brilliant ideas. He painted an angel that so surpassed his master’s in every way that Verrocchio has since vowed never to paint again!”

“Leonardo da Vinci?” I asked, astounded.

“The same. But do not mention Vinci to him. He is not proud of his upbringing.”

“No. I won’t,” I agreed.

Leonardo da Vinci
.

If anyone in this era would be open-minded enough to believe my story, it would be him. Perhaps the most inventive, creative, ingenious man who ever lived could provide the answers I couldn’t find on my own. I knew I needed to get to Leonardo.

“I should like to meet him,” I muttered to Sandro, and he nodded quizzically. As I made a beeline towards the legend of invention with Sandro trailing behind, Antonella and the retinue remained as wallflowers, lined up with the retinues of the other guests. Before we reached Leonardo, we were spotted by Lorenzo, who immediately headed towards us, his innate ill-tempered face softened by his large smile.

“
Buonasera
Sandro,” greeted Lorenzo jovially, then he looked to me and bowed. “And the lovely Simonetta. Where is Marco this fine evening?” he asked politely, as he gestured to a servant so they might hand us each a goblet of wine.

“I have no idea,” I confessed with a laugh.

After a brief pause, Lorenzo also burst out into laughter, followed by Sandro, and Poliziano, who was just walking up to join us.

“Marco can be a bit of a pest. You are best off without him!” Poliziano interjected. “Did you see San Lorenzo on the way over?”

“Yes, it turned out nicely,” Sandro answered. “Just needs a façade.”

Unfortunately, it would never get one.

“Did you know that I was named after the Saint and the church, Simonetta?” Lorenzo asked.

“No,” I answered truthfully, “I always thought it was the other way around.”

Another round of laughter rolled through the group.

Who knew the truth could be so hilarious?

“It is not a wonder why everyone adores you my lady,” Lorenzo said with a bow. “Both men and women love you without envy.” He had an unexpected air of modesty.

“Poliziano, I hear you’re to write a poem about a joust?” I asked, trying to make polite conversation.

“
A
joust?” Poliziano laughed. “I am to commemorate the love between Giuliano and yourself, and the joust he will surely win in your honor!”

Love? For Giuliano?

As I tried to decipher the situation, Poliziano began to recite: “I will not show any pity to Giuliano until he carries off a new triumph for us: for I have shot an arrow into his heart from the eyes of The Fair Simonetta.”

“But, what about Marco?” I decided to ask, since a reasoned dose of honesty had been working for me so far.

I received nothing but another round of laughter in return. I wasn’t sure how else to react but to laugh along with them. Once I caught my breath, and while I was still ahead of the game, I downed the wine and excused myself to hunt down Leonardo, who I found still alone in the distant corner. Sandro joined me, and as we approached Leonardo, I noticed that his soft, young, beautiful face was just about the same age as my current one. His sculpted jaw and cheekbones were framed by ebony hair and just the shadow of facial stubble.

“
Salve
, Leonardo,” Sandro greeted. “May I present Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci.”

“
Buonasera, Signora
Vespucci
.”
He stood from the planter and bowed, but quickly returned to a sitting position with his sketch paper and coal.

“Pleased to meet you,” I replied. “May I ask what you’re drawing?”

“I have designated the appellation of
ornitottero
to the indicated conception, representing
ornithos,
a Greek word for avian creature, conjoined with
pteron,
or ‘wing.’”

“Oh…okay,” I replied as I scratched my head. I could barely understand what he was saying. “How does it work?”

“The navigator must lie in a procumbent position on the indicated pine wood plank. He would henceforth circumvolve the crank with all four of his extremities provoking the
pteron
to oscillate in an ascending and descending manner.”

“Yeah, I draw stuff like that all the time,” I chuckled.

I noticed there were Italian words—or parts of them—written backwards on the left side of his sketch. I was about to ask him about the odd text, but he spoke first.

“Why is your speech divergent from that of other Florentines?” Leonardo queried. I was surprised he was the first to notice.

“I’m from another place,” I replied.

And time.

“Simonetta is from Genoa, Leonardo,” Sandro answered.

“A land of a different tongue! I wish I had one hundred tongues!” Leonardo enthused.

“You wish for many tongues, Leonardo, and yet you already have more than half of what you need. Instead, you should wish for a brain. That is what you are missing!” Sandro said, with obvious sarcasm.

“Ahh, but I have amassed an exceeding amount of knowledge on how to paint a landscape in comparison to you, my friend!”

“I have little interest in landscapes,” Sandro retorted. “Such studies are in vain, since merely by throwing a sponge soaked in different colors at a wall, a spot is formed in which a beautiful landscape may be discerned.”

The two then laughed together, clearly good friends.

One of the Pollaiolo brothers, I’m not sure which, began talking with Sandro about ultramarine, tempura, and light and shadow effects. While Sandro was distracted, I decided to pick Leonardo’s ample brain. With little time for pleasantries before someone else would inevitably interrupt, I decided to delve right in.

“Leonardo, I must speak with you privately because I feel you might be the only one who would understand my particular…situation.”

“Oh?” he asked quizzically.

“I speak differently because I’m from another place, but I’m also from another time,” I anxiously blurted. “I was born in the twenty-first century in a place called America…I learned the Tuscan language from Sandro’s father, Mariano, after he’d been dead for over six-hundred years…When I also died… in my future life… I was placed in the Chisea di Ognissanti, but then I woke up today in Simonetta’s body.” Out of breath, I smiled demurely, and waited for his sage reply.

He pondered my words for a few moments before drolly saying, “You have evidently spent a superfluous duration with Sandro.”

“What? No! I’m not joking. I came to you because you’re the most open-minded man the world has ever seen!”

Before hallucinogens came along anyway.

“How do you cognize my aforementioned un-shut mind?”

“It is a well-known fact where I come from. Every person on the planet has heard your name and knows of your accomplishments.”

“Really?” His face suddenly brightened. Flattery seemed to have gotten me somewhere. “And you have not overindulged in some form of intoxicating liquid?”

“No, I only had one glass of wine. Look, I’m not drunk. I’m telling you the truth. I really need your help.”

He paused for another painfully long moment. “You would request for me to formulate a time contraption to dispatch you back where you belong?” He said with a grand smile, evidently excited at the prospect.

“No! God no!”

Yeah, please send me back to a place where I’m dead and alone with the spirit of a cantankerous old man.

I really hadn’t fully considered what Leonardo could do for me, other than believe me. My reaction made me realize, rather than going back to my future with Mariano, I really wanted to find a way to stay in the Renaissance with his son.

Chapter 12

I loved Mariano, but I had to love him. He was all I had, and therefore, was like a father to me. And just as we can’t choose our biological fathers, I did not choose Mariano. I felt a strong resistance to returning to the future version of him, even if he was the one responsible for bringing me to my Renaissance paradise. I never thought I would feel that way, but realized his curmudgeon negativity had gotten to me. And what was there left to talk about after eleven years? Granted, those eleven years were a drop in the bucket compared to the eternity we were destined to spend together in the Ognissanti, but it wasn’t as if we could talk about current events in our lives. I realized after a while that a person has only so many stories to tell, especially when you’re not creating new ones.

There had been the occasional anecdote about visitors to the Ognissanti that we could reminisce on—like the woman who wept maniacally at the sight of Sandro’s tomb before stripping her clothes off and crawling on top of it to show her particular brand of reverence, almost knocking my urn over in the process. Mariano was often horrified at the way tourists behaved in a place of worship. Even though Mariano and I had yet to see God, he still very much believed—always searching for that ray of light that never came to claim him.

Since I’d awakened in the fifteenth century, I immediately felt at home with Renaissance inconveniences. It all seemed so natural to me. When Mariano spoke of his life, he often focused on the downside of the
quattracento
: the various foul odors, the crime, the hangings, but mostly the lasciviousness of the noble families—which, in his opinion, was also a crime. Not that he had much direct interaction with nobility. What interaction he did have was for the sake of his sons, and usually involved something to be gained for their benefit. Though Mariano always had a certain fondness for the noble Rucellai family, from whom he rented his house—until they took his son, that is.

Mariano couldn’t keep up with the rent. When he was more than a year behind, Paolo Rucellai demanded that one of Mariano’s sons go to Naples to work for him as a cloth merchant to pay off the rent. Mariano couldn’t give him Sandro, who would’ve been useless in such a capacity. His eldest, Giovanni, was already married and working as a pawnbroker. Antonio was a successful jeweler and goldsmith and a significant contributor to the household. That forced Mariano to send his favorite son, Simone, to Naples at the tender age of fourteen.

Simone was a very pious young man, just like Mariano. He returned home from his duty in Naples just in time for the arrival of Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican monk who condemned Lorenzo de’ Medici for his love of art and humanism. Simone became one of Savonarola’s most trusted followers, called the
Piagnoni
, or “snivelers.” They were called this because they were seen as continuously weeping over their sins.

What the
Piagnoni
didn’t know was that Savonarola’s religious fervor was borne out of rejection he suffered at the hands of a young girl to whom he had professed his undying love. His hideous face combined with his rough demeanor suggested that there might never be a willing girl in his future. He was desperate to find someone deserving of his passionate love and devotion, so he turned to God, and used His name to punish all of Florence for one girl’s rejection.

After reading the book of Revelation, Savonarola became convinced that the end of the world was near, and he preached that hellfire and damnation would soon rain down upon the Florentines if they didn’t give up their “worldly” belongings. He enlisted a gang of followers who would go door to door in search of these “vanities.” He had a secret society of informants; people who turned one against another in hopes of earning their salvation. Even children were convinced to report their parents.

Mariano’s favorite son, Simone, was responsible for convincing Sandro to throw one of his own paintings into one of Savonarola’s
Bonfires of the Vanities
in the Piazza della Signoria. I never knew if this was because Sandro truly believed he was sinning, or because he was in fear for his very life.

Simone had not yet returned from Naples in my current existence. I knew all of this because Mariano had shared it with me in the Ognissanti. Mariano and his conservative, religious ways, which were passed along to Simone, were to blame for the loss of Sandro’s precious painting. Just thinking about it made me cringe. I was definitely not ready to go back to my isolated world with Mariano.