THE NEXT DAY I AWOKE WITH EXCITEMENT. I DRESSED MYSELF in one of my best, most colorful day dresses long before the sun arose. When our house echoed with the sound of someone pounding its heavy ring knocker, I ran down the steps, skirts hoisted to my knees, to answer it myself. But when I pulled open the heavy wooden door, a different messenger than I expected stood there—Abbess Scolastica’s son, a Franciscan monk.
“She is sick and requests you.” Beneath the shaved crown of his head and its fringe of hair, Friar Don Ugolino’s round face lacked the composure expected of a monk. His expression told me that his mother’s illness was grave.
Despite the heat, I donned the cloak required of women when they stepped out of their homes into the city. I followed him through the streets, still littered with bits of festive flags and haunted by stray dogs sniffing out scraps of holiday sweets.
When we arrived at Le Murate and entered its familiar gate, I heard soft chants and weeping. I took in a sharp breath. Under Scolastica’s leadership, Le Murate’s numbers had grown from twenty women to more than one hundred fifty. Many of them were educated young women like my friend Juliet, enticed into becoming cloistered nuns by Scolastica’s promise of being able to study and grow as scholars as well as brides of Christ, unmolested by earthly concerns. But the mourning I was hearing went beyond the respect such a leader and mentor was due. Scolastica was loved like a real mother, not just a spiritual one. When I heard the depth of sorrow emanating from those walls, my heart sank. She must be dying.
I was led to her cell by one of the older nuns, Sister Margaret, who had always berated me for my impatience and pride. She kept silent until we reached the door, where she grasped my sleeve. “Do not tax our Mother Superior too long. There are many who long to say their good-byes, who have cared for her daily and have remained faithful to our Lord Savior.”
My face aflame with the rebuke, I entered Scolastica’s room.
“Ahh, my dear.” She motioned weakly for me to come to her bedside. I knelt and took her hand. At first her eyes had the distant, watery look of the very ill, but then that intrepid spirit, that keen mind I so loved in her flickered. She looked at me carefully and reached out to touch the ribbon threaded through my sleeves, a dark-blue striping through peach-colored challis wool. Despite her Spartan surroundings, her years devoted to spiritual simplicity, the woman who had once been named Cilia and dazzled onlookers with her beautiful face and lavish dresses awoke. “What a vision you are, Ginevra, so full of life and color. That garment makes you look like our hoopoe bird in spring plumage. Such a compliment to the high color in your cheeks. You are glowing.” She smiled. “Perhaps my prayers for you have been answered? Tell me, my dear, are you with child?”
“Oh no, Mother, I am not.” I felt my cheeks flush red again.
She shifted on her stiff pillow to see me better. “Such a grand dress. Did you don that for me?”
“I—I—no, Mother.” I shook my head. “I was already dressed when your friar son arrived to summon me here.”
She nodded, pressing her lips together in thought, and fixed her gaze on mine. “Is there anyone outside the door, Ginevra?”
Over my shoulder I could see an edge of Sister Margaret’s white habit beyond the doorframe. She hovered, waiting to swoop in and hurry me out. “Yes.”
“Go close the door, child.”
I looked at her in horror. I knew the wrath that would await me with Sister Margaret if I did so.
“Go on, child, I know you are braver than that.” She smiled. “Do not forget that the Benci crest of lions decorates our gates. You have some sway here.” I swallowed hard to suppress sudden tears, wondering how I would get by without her guidance.
I rose and shut the door in Sister Margaret’s face. God forgive me, I did feel satisfaction doing it.
I settled back down beside my abbess.
“Ginevra,” she said, “I wish to speak to you now as your spiritual adviser, of course. But also woman to woman, a mother to a much-beloved daughter. I see it in your face, child. The man you told me of, the allure of his admiration is much upon it. Am I right?”
I nodded.
“As you go forward, then, remember this: Most men are hunters and collectors. You must come to know the difference between those who do so out of true appreciation and affection, those who do it for sport, those who do it for prestige and to possess what others admire and desire, and those who do it desperate to use a woman as a shield. The fourth man is hiding something, Ginevra. The third man can be like a dog that teases others in its kennel with a bone it will never share. That kind of man might tear his object of affection to shreds, without meaning to, just as a dog would a bone. The second man can amuse you with the game of the hunt, if you do not take him too seriously. And the first? Well, if you can find the first kind of man, you have found heaven.”
She shifted herself and grimaced a bit. “But no matter what, do not lose the core of who you are. That inner poetry we talked of.” She flinched and sighed. Her voice dimmed to a whisper. “I wanted to ask a gift from you, child. And only you will be able to do it for me, without worrying about breaking a sacred rule of the convent.”
I leaned closer to hear.
“Go to my cabinet when you leave and find that embroidery you saw when last you visited. I have finished it. Find a way to put it in my casket with me. I wish to present it to the Lord on my day of reckoning. My thanks for his giving us this beautiful world. My own bit of poetry. Do you promise?”
Now the tears came. I could not hold them back.
“There, there, child. It is all right. I have lived a full life, with many different roles that have brought me fulfillment. Now go and do what I ask.” She smiled. “I promise the only danger you will face in completing this task is getting it past Sister Margaret!”
I laughed. She laughed—a final little peal of earthly mirth. “Le Murate is always a home for you, Ginevra,” she whispered. “And remember the wisdom I just passed to you. I had to learn it for myself long ago, and it may save you some pain.”
As I stepped out of Le Murate’s protective walls, Abbess Scolastica’s embroidery tucked carefully into my dress, I was surprised to feel the bright Tuscan sun. Florence should be dark and gloomy, in mourning with me.
“Wife.”
I startled at Luigi’s voice. “Husband! Why are you here?”
“To walk you home,” he said matter-of-factly. “I heard the news of the abbess’s illness. I knew you would be sad.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking his arm. We walked several streets and were nearing Santa Croce when I thought to congratulate him on the festivities of St. John.
He nodded his thanks. “I wish to discuss something else with you.”
“Yes?” I guessed at the topic but had no idea what Luigi’s reactions to Bernardo’s proposal would be. I braced myself.
“Ambassador Bembo and the Magnifico talked with me yesterday about His Excellency commissioning a portrait of you. Are you aware of this?”
“Yes, husband,” I said carefully.
“And what do you think of that?”
I glanced at his face. Beyond recognizing the studied look of concentration he often had when bartering a labor deal with his workers, I could not read it. I chose the safest answer. “I should like to know your opinion, signor.”
“I think it an excellent opportunity.”
“Opportunity?”
“For my shop and for the Niccolini family. To have one of us noticed by the Venetian ambassador and to become part of the Medici patronage of the arts, well, that certainly elevates us above other wool merchants. Times are difficult. Weavers in the Netherlands and England are beginning to compete with our work. Worse, silk is becoming the preferred fabric of the upper class. My brothers and I are not set up to make that shift. So to stand out as a wool merchant, it is not enough to be a priore anymore or influential in the guild. To be seen as part of the Medici inner circle will be critical to our survival. Do you understand, my dear?”
“Yes, completely.”
“Also, the ambassador has promised to introduce my fabrics to the doge and his wife, just as you suggested he might. That could open a lucrative client for me.”
“So I have your permission to sit for the portrait?”
“By all means!” Luigi stopped and stood still for a moment, to pat my hand and look into my face for the first time since we began walking from Le Murate. “I know you will do the Niccolini—and the Benci, of course—great honor, my dear. As Lorenzo the Magnificent and your uncle Bartolomeo explained the Platonic love ideal to me, you are the perfect subject. Someone who inspires others to virtue.” Then he started walking again, mumbling to himself, considering which dress to put me in, which jewels to pick from my dowry trousseau.
I thought of Scolastica’s words and felt fairly certain which of her four categories of men she would put Luigi into. The question for me to determine, of course, was which type Bernardo was and how that might affect my virtue.