SUCKED INTO THE URGENT TIDE OF THE CROWD, GIOVANNI and I followed Lorenzo and his protectors as the great bell in the Signoria tower began to toll. Only in the direst trouble was La Vacca, “the cow,” sounded. Its resonant lowing pulled cascades of citizens rushing out their doors, armed with swords and shields, hurriedly fastening on breastplates yanked from the home arsenal all Florentines seemed to have.
In the distance, we could hear shouts of “Vivano le Medici” and then a chant, growing in intensity and rage: “Palle! Palle!” The battle cry referred to the most recognizable element of the Medici crest—its cluster of golden, coin-like balls.
Enormous waves of people converged on via Larga as Lorenzo and his protectors disappeared behind the huge gates of the Medici palazzo. They shouted for Lorenzo to appear and tell them what to do.
“Palle! Palle!” The chant echoed along the streets. More men surged toward the Medici’s fortress-palace from the direction of the Signoria.
Giovanni recognized a friend among them and called over the din, “Do you know what is happening?”
The man leaned in close to be heard. “While Lorenzo and Giuliano were attacked, Archbishop Salviati led a band of hired soldiers to the Signoria. He planned to capture the priori and take over our government.”
“The archbishop? A man of God?” I couldn’t help but gasp.
“Yes, my lady,” the man said. “We think in revenge for Lorenzo refusing to recognize his appointment to the office.”
Giovanni put his hand on my arm to quiet my questions so the man could talk. “What happened then?”
“Salviati demanded to be seen, saying the Pope had sent him on important business. But our gonfaloniere was suspicious and grabbed the archbishop by the hair and threw him to the ground and called the palace guard. Even his servants seized cooking-spits and impaled a few of Salviati’s thugs themselves. Thank God they did, because within moments Jacopo de’ Pazzi galloped in, leading an army of mercenaries that had been waiting just outside the city until the Medici brothers were killed. They are saying the Pope, maybe even the king of Naples and Giuliano’s own godfather, the duke of Urbino, were part of the plot.”
“God’s blood!” Giovanni cursed. “Have the Pazzi and their army taken the Signoria?”
“No! Had the priori been prisoners of Salviati, they might have. But the Signoria servants, grown brave by their successful attack on Salviati’s brigade, hurled stones over the battlements onto the soldiers below. That emboldened the crowd in the square. The people stood down Pazzi and his mercenaries, chanting ‘Palle! Palle!’ The priori put nooses around the necks of the conspirators they held—including the archbishop—and hurled them out windows to swing and dangle until they choked. That’s when the mercenaries scattered.”
“What about Jacopo de’ Pazzi?”
But before the man could answer, Lorenzo appeared at a second-story window. His luxurious tunic was covered in blood and his throat was bandaged, but he managed to call down to the crowd. “Citizens of Florence, please, control yourselves. My wound is not mortal. Let justice prevail. Save your energy to resist the enemies who engineered this conspiracy. They are likely to attack the city.”
But somehow Lorenzo’s self-effacing words seemed to make Florentines’ blood boil. Their favorite son, Giuliano, lay dead, mutilated. Their trusted civic leader, the Magnifico, who had brought them honor and grand entertainments, was injured—at the hands of a haughty family that had never done anything to help the common Florentine. Every man in the city could sing at least one of the colorful songs Lorenzo had written for Carnival. He seemed one of them.
Like waters are sent roiling by the wind, a storm of fury broke lose, breaking the dikes of self-control. Cursing, waving swords or kitchen knives or pitchforks, the mob swept out into the city, seeking other conspirators.
Watching the madness take hold, Giovanni said, “Come, Ginevra, I need to get you home. Now! Hurry!”
We hastened through the streets, Giovanni clutching his sword with one hand, holding on to me with the other as men knocked into us in their hurry. We turned a corner too hastily and crashed headlong into a gang of drunkards, delighted to have a legitimate excuse for havoc. Before Giovanni could raise his sword, one of the reprobates swung a knife to my brother’s throat. “What about this one?” the man asked his friends. “He seems in a hurry. Well-dressed. I bet he is a Pazzi. I say we gut him.” The point of his knife drew a spot of blood.
“No, please, I implore you,” I gasped. “We are Benci. Friends to the Medici.”
Another man staggered toward my brother. He reeked of wine. “Wait. Maybe. No. I don’t recognize him.” He shrugged as if to tell his companion to go ahead.
“Hold, signori,” I cried, and this time I put my hand on Giovanni’s arm to stop him from speaking. I knew he would do so in anger and sensed that would further enrage this horde. I tried flattery instead. “You look like clever gambling men to me. Surely you recognize the Six Hundred. His horse Zephyrus won the palio two years back. Please tell me one of you won a good wager that day.”
The men stuck out their lower lips and nodded. “I won fifteen florins on that horse,” the main drunkard proclaimed. He stepped so close to Giovanni their boot toes touched. He eyed my brother up and down slowly, taking a pinch of Giovanni’s ribboned azure-blue sleeve between his thumb and fingers to rub it. Such luxurious material in such dirty, bloodied hands was a startling image. “Hmmm. Good cloth. Yes. You could be the Six Hundred.” He focused intensely on Giovanni’s face, breathing heavily on it. Giovanni winced from the smell. “Yes,” the man decided. “Yes, I think you are him.”
Giovanni yanked away his arm and glared. My brother was no coward. But arguing the point with these ruffians could get us killed.
“Come, brother, please.” I tugged on his hand. “Let us go.”
Before we continued on our way, I turned to thank the man who’d identified Giovanni. I wished I hadn’t. Beside him stood another man I hadn’t focused on before. In one hand he held a jug of wine, in the other a severed arm, dripping gore.
He saw where I looked. “We’re leaving this at the Magnifico’s door,” he said, bragging. “It’s part of a priest who worked for the archbishop. Someone is carrying his head around the streets on a pike. I’m not sure where the rest of his body is.”
Giovanni got me to the next street before I vomited.
“Where is your master?” Giovanni shouted, when we’d pounded on my front door long enough that Sancha finally cracked it open, peeping around to make sure it really was us. Even Sancha, with her stout heart and no-nonsense bravery, was afraid that day.
“He’s gone to the Signoria. That’s where the guild leaders are gathering. In case war is declared.”
Giovanni kissed me on the forehead. “Bolt the door behind you, sister. Luigi is well-known as a Medici follower. As long as you stay off the streets, you will be fine.”
“But where are you going?”
“I want to make sure Mother and our sisters are all right. You know Uncle Bartolomeo will only be looking out for himself.”
“But, brother!”
“I’ll be all right.” He smiled at me. “Just use that wit of yours to charm anyone who comes. The Six Hundred, indeed. Thanks a lot, sister!” He disappeared down the street.
“Come into the kitchen, my lady. I will get you something soothing. What a day, what a day,” Sancha muttered as we walked down the hall to the back of the house. She warned me not to be startled when I saw the boy who slept in Luigi’s store at night to watch its cloth. “He was bloodied by the mob.”
Given what I had just seen, a few scratches would hardly affect me. But I asked how it happened. “That boy is young and sweet. Why in the world would anyone attack him?”
Sancha stopped and turned. “Because he is young and sweet and gentle . . . and pretty, my lady.” She shook her head. “This vengeance against the Pazzi allows for all sorts of pent-up hatreds and stupidity to erupt to the surface. There are men out there using the conspiracy as an excuse to go after anyone they don’t like, with the claim that the poor souls might be involved in the plot against the Medici.”
I froze. I understood exactly what she was saying. “Leonardo!” I darted to the kitchen, scaring the poor battered houseboy, and grabbed a knife. I was out the door before Sancha could stop me.
“My lady!” I heard Sancha running after me. “This is madness.”
“Go back to the house, Sancha!” I shouted.
“I will not.” She caught up with me.
“Sancha, go home.”
“No. Why are you doing this?” She put her hand on my arm. “This man is not for you.”
I hesitated.
Sancha pressed her point. “This is a fool’s errand, my lady. Look about you.” She pointed up the street to the Piazza di Santa Croce, where men were cheering, shouting, and shoving one another.
A bloodthirsty rage had indeed taken over the city, but there was a wildness boiling up in me, too. I felt a certainty about what I needed to do, stronger than anything I had ever felt before. “Go home, Sancha. It may be a fool’s errand, but it is my errand, not yours.”
She crossed her arms. “No, my lady. If you are out and about in this lunacy, I am, too.”
Another group of men rushed past us. “Palle! Palle!” they shouted, shaking their fists. One of them eyed Sancha appreciatively and slowed.
No turning back now. I was endangering her as well as myself by standing there. I grabbed her hand. “Come on then.”
We hoisted our skirts and ran. Leonardo’s rooms were just on the other side of Santa Croce. We had to get across the piazza, but it was writhing with groups of men bellowing and smashing things on the ground. I thought fleetingly of the joust that had been held in that square, of Giuliano’s triumph that day, of Simonetta’s beauty, of the beautiful banner Leonardo had helped paint. What a contrast this scene was to that glorious day of chivalry, the best of man’s creativity, sense of honor, and agility. This was the worst of humankind.
Quickly, I realized why such violence raged in front of the steps of Santa Croce. The Pazzi had built an enormous, elaborate chapel adjacent to the church, commissioned of Brunelleschi himself, most likely to compete with the Medici’s San Lorenzo church. The mob was looting it.
“Palle! Palle!”
“Come, Sancha, we must stay on this edge and try not to be noticed.” We slid along the shops fronting the square, staying in the shadows as best we could.
We emerged onto an alley on the other side of the piazza.
“Just up this way a bit, my lady,” Sancha said, trying to catch her breath. We were winded. Ever my gatherer of gossip, Sancha had found out Leonardo’s whereabouts many months before this.
The narrow street was filled with the stench of garbage and dye vats. It was hard to breathe in the foul-smelling air.
Abruptly, Sancha yanked me to a halt. “Look, my lady.”
There was Leonardo, easily spotted in the distance because of that vibrant rose-colored tunic of his. He was backed against a wall, facing three men. One of them was jabbing Leonardo’s chest with his finger. His companions leaned toward Leonardo threateningly as the man spoke.
“It’s the man from the tamburi. Do you remember, my lady?”
I looked at Sancha and then back to Leonardo. Yes, now I did. The man Leonardo had argued with the day Sancha and I followed him to Verrocchio’s studio. The man who had dropped an accusation in the “mouth of truth.” Perhaps he had been Leonardo’s accuser as well when Leonardo had been arrested for allegedly being a Florenzer.
“Leonardo!” I called, waving, and rushed toward them. “I have been looking for you everywhere.” I threw myself past the men to Leonardo and wrapped my arms around his neck. Assuming the man threatening Leonardo might have been involved in his denunciation, I knew exactly how to discredit him. I clung to Leonardo, saying in his ear, but careful to be loud enough for them to hear, “Now’s our chance, my love. My husband is away.”
Leonardo’s accuser was dumbfounded. His friends looked at him like he was an idiot. I smiled at them in my most courtly manner, putting my arm through Leonardo’s, and said, “Good sirs, thank you for protecting the maestro. I can see you escorted him in safety to his studio. He and his old master Verrocchio are great favorites of the Medici. Lorenzo will be so grateful for this service of yours. He has lost so much already this day with the death of his brother. In his current grief, he would punish severely anyone who might harm the painter Leonardo da Vinci.”
One of his companions punched Leonardo’s accuser in the chest, sending him staggering back a step. “You trying to get us drawn and quartered?”
“Come on,” the other said. “We waste time here. I know where some of the Pazzi bank workers live.”
They skulked away down the street.
I’m not sure how we made our way back to my house. Our escape was a blur of anxiety and hurry, as more and more men flooded the streets. Palle! Palle! The madness only seemed to grow.
Once safely behind our heavy wooden door, bolted shut, the noise of anger in the street muffled, my knees buckled. I collapsed to the floor.
“My lady!” Sancha cried.
“I have her,” Leonardo said, lifting me gently.
“Take her to her chamber at the top of the stairs. I will fetch water.”
Their voices sounded far away. I felt myself sway and dip up and down as Leonardo climbed stairs and then the softness of my bed as he laid me down. I opened my eyes, but the room seemed to spin.
“Here, my lady.” Sancha pressed a cool, wet cloth to my face.
“Let me.” Leonardo took the cloth. “Get her some warm wine. That will revive her.”
But the sound of his voice did that well enough. My vision cleared, the room stopped whirling. I focused on that excellent face, so finely chiseled.
Leonardo pressed the cool cloth to my forehead, my face, and my throat. “You are a madwoman.”
“Probably so.”
We laughed.
“Maestro,” I began.
“For God’s sake, call me Leonardo. You just risked your life for me.” He stopped moving the cloth along my neck and stared in that intense, inquisitive way of his. “That gaze . . . that gaze of yours . . . it . . .” He paused.
My heart began to skip.
Leonardo took a deep breath. “Your gaze captivates . . . but . . .” He stopped again. “Do you understand?”
Slowly I nodded. “We cannot tell our hearts who to love or what to feel.”
“Ah. I recall your saying that before. You are indeed a poet, wise and beautiful.” He took my hand. “And what does your heart feel, Ginevra de’ Benci?”
Should I tell him? Should I tell him that in my hours at the convent it was his face that sweetened my thoughts, our banter I remembered? That when I dreamed of love, it was his hand holding mine as it did now?
I studied his expression a moment longer. I had thought when Leonardo stood up for me with Bernardo in the studio that day, when he changed the motto on my portrait to make the painting such a celebration of my person, that he must feel a stirring for me as well. But I could see no heat, no longing in his face—although there was a true fondness for me clearly etched there. And admiration—perhaps for my mind, perhaps because I had fought being, in essence, owned by Bernardo. Sweet Jesu, love is a bittersweet fruit indeed. Bernardo had wanted me, I wanted Leonardo, and he . . . well, the crucible, the hell-hot test of love was to give it whether returned or not.
I smiled slightly. “What my heart feels is its own mystery.”
He kept staring, as always. “I will remember that smile . . . for inspiration.”
“Then I am to be your muse?”
“You already have been. Any woman I paint in my future will have a spark of you in my depiction of her. Or”—he paused—“at least I will be searching for it.”
I thought of Simonetta, of her saying that the inherent romance between a painter and a subject as he searched to find the noblest in her to immortalize was almost a sacred bond. Of Verrocchio calling that dialogue so intense, so complete, that the artist and his subject saw straight into each other’s hearts. It was a love few could understand and that could satisfy for a lifetime. They were right. How could I be disappointed in being a muse for Leonardo da Vinci? I had sung of the treasures in women’s hearts and minds and made men listen as Abbess Scolastica had implored. Leonardo had helped me do so.
“Then it is well enough, maestro,” I said.
“You overwhelm me, my lady.” Leonardo leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips. Once. I knew it was in good-bye. And that was enough, too.