“OUCH!” I YELPED THE NEXT DAY. “OH PLEASE, SANCHA, rest a moment.”
She had been plucking my hairline to give me the appearance of a high forehead, a mark of intelligence in Florence. Many a woman was tortured this way with tweezers when God had not thus endowed her—especially for important occasions and portraits.
Flopping onto the edge of my bed as I rubbed my head to sooth the sting, Sancha eyed the clothing she’d spread out for me to put on for my sitting. “I think you have gone mad, my lady. This is a dress my mother might wear!”
Her face puckered with disapproval at my brown dress. “Why would you choose such a garment, when you have this?” She reached for the rich red dress punctuated with a delicately loomed pattern of white lilies. It rustled and shimmered as she lifted it, and the sunlight played along its different weft and weave. Indeed, the dress was its own work of art. And its detachable sleeves! They were even more beauteous, a midnight-blue velvet, embroidered from wrist to shoulder with one full-bloom lily in pearls and gold thread and tied to the dress with long silk ribbons of red, gold, and white.
Looking at the dress that morning, I wondered myself if I was insane. I had agreed to the simple brown frock, mesmerized by Leonardo’s glowing enthusiasm. Away from him, it seemed a foolishly Spartan choice, perhaps even disrespectful of my station and my husband. I did look so pretty in that red dress. But I had said yes. I would not be some simpering, foolish woman and back away from a promise.
“It will be all right, Sancha. A magnificent dress would distract from what Leona—the maestro—wishes to accomplish. He wants to focus not on the details of luxurious clothes or jewels, but instead on what my face says about my soul, my inner thoughts.”
Sancha frowned. “I don’t know about you, my lady, but I have plenty of thoughts I prefer no one know about. I would think twice about inviting people into my head.”
I laughed. “But Sancha, it is such a good head you have upon your shoulders. I am grateful for its wisdom.”
That brought back her protective smile. “Well, my lady, I do not agree with you, but I will defend you like a mare would her colt if asked about it.” She lowered her voice to a fond teasing. “And I will respect what you decide with Leona—oh!” She held her hand to her mouth and fluttered her eyes like a courtesan. “I mean . . . the maestro.” She grinned at me.
“I—I—what do you mean by that?”
“Oh, nothing.” She was still amused with herself. But then she quieted. “The ambassador is another matter. There is something about him. It’s clear he has his own plans about you. You know that?”
I, too, sobered. Bernardo was a disquieting, alluring mystery to me thus far. All I knew for certain was that this portrait would solidify his friendship with the Medici, just as a hunting party brought men fellowship. And that he was a gambling man, of what degree Sancha had not been able to determine from her sources of gossip.
“What will you tell your husband about your dress?” she asked.
That I did know. I had lain awake all night planning my reasoning. “I will say it is a perfect way to draw attention to the beauty of simple wool, the mainstay of Florence’s trade and his shop.”
Sancha snorted. “Godspeed with that, my lady.”
But that conversation went better at breakfast than either Sancha or I had anticipated. Luigi seemed flattered by my concern for the state of his beloved wool trade. I actually felt a twinge of guilt as he nodded and thought over my justification for the plain brown dress. It was the first time I had sought to convince him of something by using an argument I had fashioned and that suited needs of my own that I did not reveal. It felt disingenuous.
Luigi popped a fat sausage into his mouth and chewed loudly. “In truth, wife”—he splattered sausage as he talked—“there are sumptuary laws being passed that might make your choice of modest brown better politically for me. I sense a growing discomfort among magistrates with the grandeur of display by Florence’s wealthiest. There is a law prescribing the number of buttons women may have on their dresses. Buttons!” He shook his head. “A woman is now allowed only twenty-two gilded silver buttons on her everyday gown. As if buttons were the sin that led to Satan. Plus, legislators just passed an edict prohibiting fur trim except on state occasions and special events like weddings. The tamburi boxes are stuffed to the brim with accusations of vice and sexual misconduct.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hopefully this mood is temporary. And certainly there are ways to get around all this if one knows how.” He paused and considered for a moment. “But perhaps it would be wise for me and my brothers to display a godly reserve in our cloth business and to emphasize how rich one can look even in the simplest gown—if it is made of the finest-quality material.”
And so later that day, I sat in the afternoon sun while Leonardo sketched me. For almost an hour there was no sound save the scratch of his drawing, the song of a chaffinch, and the flirtatious laughter of Sancha and an apprentice in the front courtyard. And then Bernardo, the handsome master of grand entrances, stood in the archway of the studio’s inner garden, his voice booming into the quietude like a cannon. “Carissima!”
Leonardo startled and looked toward the door with annoyance.
Bernardo’s arms were filled with dog-rose blossoms. He swept in and knelt by my feet. “My Bencina,” he crooned. “How lovely you are. I have brought blooms for you, my own flower.”
He held the thatch of pink blooms toward me. As I gathered them up, a thorn stabbed me. “Oh, ouch,” I squeaked.
A little teardrop of blood glistened on my thumb. Before I could move, Bernardo clasped my injured hand to wipe away the blood, turning my thumb upward to make sure no more blood would form. Then he kissed it, holding his lips to my flesh for one, two, three, four, five spellbinding seconds before looking up into my face. “There now,” he said, his voice warm, his eyes caressing, “all better.”
I knew I should withdraw my hand from his. But I was frozen, enthralled by Bernardo’s smile. When I finally made myself slide it out of his grasp, I lifted my hand to my heart and cradled the bouquet of roses close to my chest with my other arm.
“Oh my, look at that, Leonardo. What a picture.”
I glanced up and realized that Verrocchio had entered behind Bernardo and now stood beside his former apprentice. He beamed.
“Forgive me, my lady, but if I may . . .” Verrocchio slowly circled me. Bernardo rose from his knees and stepped back to allow Verrocchio to study me from every angle. Verrocchio stopped, frowned, stuck out his lower lip in thought, and then circled me again in the opposite direction.
He looked to Bernardo. “Your Excellency, I have always believed that hands and gestures, the movement of a body, suggest a person’s emotions. I have been able to do that with my narrative sculpture.” He pointed across the studio toward an enormous wax figure, still being formed for bronze casting. “I am creating a sculpture of Doubting Thomas. He will be stepping forward, his hand extended to touch the wounds of the risen Christ. I believe his gesture will convey Thomas seeking proof and help the viewer feel his crisis of faith.
“Portrait sculpture, on the other hand, has always stopped with the shoulders. It does not allow such expressiveness. With your permission, I would like to sculpt Donna Ginevra from the waist up, with flowers, so that we see her lovely hands and how she cradles the blossoms with such tenderness. If I can re-create the sense that she has just plucked the flowers from a field she is walking in . . . Well”—he nodded as he spoke, more to himself than to anyone in the studio—“that motion would say so much about her leggiadria, her inner harmony and grace. And certainly it can hint at her vaghezza, that powerful attraction a woman has on a man’s soul.”
“Magnificent!” Bernardo clapped his hands together. “I have not seen anything like that before.”
“No, indeed not, Your Excellency. I believe it will be the first portrait sculpture of its kind in our great city of Florence.” Verrocchio smiled with palpable pride. “Thanks to your beneficence. But”—he reined in his enthusiasm—“I will need a much larger piece of stone to carve such a statue, my lord. It might double the cost of the marble.”
“Psssssh.” Bernardo waved his hand impatiently. “No matter. Find the best and purest slab of marble in all of Tuscany. If I must, I will borrow the money!”