After Signore Corsini rescued me, he became a frequent visitor to my house. I liked him. We shared the same taste in poetry, preferring Dante to Petrarch, and considered Greek a superior language to Latin. We read the entire Decameron aloud to each other. We argued about Plato’s dialogues. But never once did our relationship stray beyond the bounds of friendship.
It was Signore Corsini who brought me the sad news of Lorenzo il Magnifico’s death, and we mourned together, raising a glass to the great man.
“Florence will no longer be what it was.”
His words reminded me of that conversation I’d had long ago with my grandfather, on the night he asked me to promise to keep his books safe. He hadn’t believed Piero, Lorenzo’s heir, would ever live up to his father’s legacy.
Six weeks later, I summoned Signore Corsini to my house. My grandfather had died in the night. Again, we grieved together. Again, we raised a glass.
“I knew he could not live forever, but at the same time, I never truly believed he would die,” I said.
“That’s because the little girl he adored is still somewhere inside you. She would have considered him invincible.”
“You’re insightful, Signore Corsini—”
“You must stop addressing me so formally. We’ve known each other for more than a year and spend so much time together my mother is convinced I plan to marry you. My father, on the other hand, is convinced you’re my mistress. Surely that means you can call me Cristofano.”
“She thinks you plan to marry me?” My jaw went slack with horror.
He laughed. “You’re not offended at the suggestion you’re my mistress, only that someone suspects you’ll become my wife.”
“I’ll never be either to any man. You know that.”
“I do, Mina.”
Our eyes met. It was the first time he’d addressed me by my Christian name. He’d always followed my lead, never wanting more than I, content to adopt the formality I’d imposed on our friendship.
“That comforts me greatly, Cristofano.” His name felt awkward on my lips.
He looked away from me and changed the subject. “Where is Bia today? I expected her to race to greet me when I arrived.”
“Her nurse took her to see the lions in the Piazza della Signoria. She was very upset when I told her about Nonno.”
“He doted on her.”
“He had already started to teach her Latin,” I said. “I’m sorry she won’t have the pleasure of learning more from him.”
“As am I. He was a good man. Did she go willingly to see the lions?”
I smiled. “You know her too well. She protested, insisting that, at eleven, she is too old to find consolation in such distractions. I told her she could watch them being fed and all her objections faded in an instant.”
“I suspected as much.”
“You’re good to her.”
“She makes it easy.”
Bia loved Signore Corsini fiercely. It was a different love than she’d had for her father, more guarded and more possessive. When he’d first met her, he brought a chess set as a gift and taught her how to play, even though everyone else told her she was too young. She appreciated the attention, and from that day, considered him hers.
“Not many men would bother with her.”
“You wouldn’t tolerate me coming around if I didn’t.”
“I wouldn’t tolerate you coming around if I thought you were using her to impress me.”
He took my hands. “Happy though I always am to banter with you, I’m not doing much to console you. The loss of Signore Portinari is a blow to all of Florence, but for you it is not just intellectual. I know what he meant to you. Is there anything I can do to ease your pain?”
“Having you here is more than enough,” I said. “He’s left me his library. I knew he planned to. We spoke about it long ago. He trusted me to keep it safe. It seemed such an odd thing to me at the time, but Savonarola had started preaching here again, and his fire and brimstone never made a favorable impression on Nonno.”
“Nor me,” Cristofano said. “He’s only grown more powerful since Lorenzo’s death.”
“He’s saying that we’re approaching the end of times, that we’re facing tribulations of epic proportion.”
“More terrifying than his prophecies is the reaction of the citizens of our city. Many of them are starting to believe him.”
“Lorenzo has not been dead long,” I said. “Piero is mourning his father at the same time he’s learning to rule. Periods of transition are always unsettling. Once Piero proves he’s capable—”
“Lorenzo did what he could to prepare him, but it may be that Piero is not capable.” He frowned. “I have great concerns about what he will do to Florence. But we are not meant to be discussing politics, not today of all days. Instead we should read aloud from Lucretius. He was your grandfather’s favorite, and his ideas are potently applicable in the present circumstances.”
“Nonno always regretted that it was Poggio, not him, who discovered the manuscript,” I said. “Did you know he copied it out himself, so that he’d have it, even before Poggio managed to acquire a personal copy of his own?”
“I did not.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I will ever treasure more than that volume of Lucretius, written in his own hand. What a gift to be given.”
“You don’t have it here, do you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Bring me your own copy, then. I will read to you.”
I did as he asked and listened as he read:
Denique si vocem rerum natura repente
mittat et hoc alicui nostrum sic increpet ipsa:
“quid tibi tanto operest, mortalis, quod nimis aegris
luctibus indulges? quid mortem congemis ac fles?
nam si grata fuit tibi vita ante acta priorque
et non omnia pertusum congesta quasi in vas
commoda perfluxere atque ingrata interiere;
cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis
aequo animoque capis securam, stulte, quietem?”
Once more, if Nature
Should of a sudden send a voice abroad,
And her own self inveigh against us so:
“Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern
That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?
Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?
For if thy life aforetime and behind
To thee was grateful, and not all thy good
Was heaped as in sieve to flow away
And perish unavailingly, why not,
Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,
Laden with life? why not with mind content
Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?”
He closed the book. “There is some comfort in that, I hope.”
“How can I feel regret to know that he rests now, forever without pain or want or need?”
“Seek solace in the poet’s words, but they don’t mean that you’re not allowed to be sad, Mina. I know how much you will miss him.”
When I went to bed that night, I could not sleep. I cried and cried, consumed with loss. I was thinking about my grandfather, but then my thoughts turned to Salvi. He would be eleven now, and I would not recognize him if I saw him. Was he still in Florence? The loss of Nonno was something over which I had no control. Painful though it was, it fell neatly within the bounds of the natural order of things. Losing my son was altogether different. I had chosen that loss, chosen it because I was too young and too cowardly to face my sins. My grandfather was free from the suffering that comes with life, but Salvi was not. He would never experience the daily luxuries I took for granted. Instead of becoming a successful merchant, like my father, he would be apprenticed to a tradesman. He would never study humanism, never know the delights of art. His life would be defined by backbreaking work that might never bring him a decent living.
I sat up in bed and dried my eyes.
If Salvi showed an aptitude for art, in any form, he might not be destined for a miserable existence. Had not Brunelleschi himself apprenticed as a goldsmith and worked in that trade until he became one of the greatest architects of our age? Florence was not a city that required inherited wealth. Yes, it helped, no one anywhere in any century could deny that universal truth, but here a man was judged first on his merits. He could study with a famous painter or sculptor.
Did he like art? Was he drawn to it? If I could find out, I could ask Botticelli to teach him. He would not judge me for taking an interest in an orphan.
I sank back against my pillow. It was nothing but fantasy. I would never be able to find Salvi unless I used my half of the St. Anthony charm to identify us both. I was no longer so young as when I’d given him up, but I was just as cowardly, still unwilling to face the shame that would come from acknowledging my greatest sin.