Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

by Jeanne Kalogridis

“Too dark,” he said. “I am not in favor of harsh light, which steals softness, but we must have more…” He stepped over to the window and, using a pulley, raised the canvas shade all the way up. Once the degree of brightness suited him, he wondered aloud whether I might take down my hair, for he could not be sure how it now appeared-but an arch look from me silenced him. I could well imagine what Claudio would think if I returned from the chapel with my hair unruly.

  At last he took up his brush. I remained still a long time, listening to the whisper of the wet fur against the dried plaster, doing my best not to scratch my nose, not to fidget. Leonardo was intense and impervious; his full attention was focused on the work in front of him. He stared at my face, seeing each curve, each line, each shadow, but he did not see me. At last I asked:

  “Is this for Piero? Will you give it to him?”

  He lifted a brow but did not allow the interruption to affect his concentration. “I am not yet sure whom I will give it to. Perhaps I will give it to no one at all.”

  I frowned at that. At once he chided softly, “No, no… only smiles now. Think only of happy things.”

  “What happy things? I have none in my life.”

  He looked up from his work with a look of faint surprise in his pale eyes. “You have your son. Is that not enough?”

  I gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “More than enough.”

  “Good. And you have memories of your Giuliano, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “Then imagine…” His voice grew faintly sad. “Imagine you are with Giuliano again,” he said, with such wistfulness that I felt he was speaking to himself as much as to me. “Imagine that you are introducing him to his child.”

  I let go of my sadness. I imagined. I felt my features melt and soften, but I could not quite smile.

  I left eager to do whatever I could to facilitate Piero’s advent, but for days after my meeting with Leonardo, my surreptitious nocturnal searches were in vain: The old letter had disappeared from Francesco’s desk, but no new one appeared in its place.

  On the seventh night, however, I found a letter folded into thirds, with a broken seal of black wax. I opened it with unsteady hands, and read:

  Piero has been in touch with Virgines Orsini, his soldier-cousin from Naples. He appears to be gathering troops, ostensibly in response to Pope Alexander’s request for an army to protect the Pisans from King Charles’s return. But who is to say that, once gathered, such a force might not well make its way to Florence, with a different aim?

  Cardinal Giovanni is of course arguing his brother’s case. He has the Pope’s ear-but so do I. His Holiness has written a brief, by the way, which shall soon be delivered to the Signoria. He has threatened King Charles with excommunication if he and his army do not leave Italy, and threatened Florence herself with the same if she continues to support Charles. He has also ordered the prophet to cease preaching.

  Ignore this last, and trust in me. In fact, our prophet should now redouble his fervor, specifically against the Medici. I will ensure that His Holiness eases his stance. As for Charles-it would be best for the friar to begin to distance himself.

  I have written Ludovico. We cannot trust him but may need to rely on him for men if Piero decides to make an attempt on the city in the near future.

  I appreciate your invitation, but my coming to Florence would be premature. Let us see first what Piero plans.

  Send my cousins my regards-how sweet it is to see them home again after so many years, and Messer Iacopo avenged. Florence has always been, and will ever remain, our home.

  My cousins… Messer Iacopo avenged.

  My memory traveled back through the years, to my mother standing in the Duomo, weeping as she spoke of her beloved Giuliano’s death. To the moment I stood staring up at the astrologer, as he sat in his carriage.

  In your stars I saw an act of violence, one which is your past and your future… What others have begun, you must finish… .

  LIX

  The one who writes the letters-he is one of the Pazzi,” I said.

  Leonardo was master of his emotions. Yet as I spoke on that rainy autumnal day, two days after finding the letter, I could clearly see his unease.

  Carefully posed, I sat on the chair while he bent over the easel. I had insisted on seeing the beginnings of the portrait before I settled down to sit for him. My features were outlined in black, the edges softened by layers of muddy verdaccio; pools of shadow had collected beneath my right jaw, in the hollow of my right cheek, beneath my right nostril. I stared out at the viewer with unsettlingly blank white eyes. My hair had been filled in with flat black. I was surprised to see that-although I always wore it coiled and pinned up, usually veiled-Leonardo had remembered exactly how it appeared years ago, when I wore it loose and flowing to the Palazzo Medici. It hung with just the right amount of waviness and the little hint of curl at the ends.

  Five small tin dishes were set out on the little table today: one of oil to hold the brushes, one of the verdaccio, and three of varying shades of a grayish color called terre verte. These last colors he administered to the panel with a delicate, fluid motion, to create, as he said, “Shadows between shadows between shadows.” Dark colors were to come first, followed by the medium tones, then the lightest, layer upon layer upon layer.

  I had recited from memory the text from Francesco’s mysterious correspondent. I was cold and shivering; my skirts were damp from rain, despite the black cloak Salai had wrapped around me. The room was dark, even at midday, though a lamp cast yellow light against the oiled paper covering the window. The hearth was lit, but even that could not dispel the chill or the gloom. Winter threatened.

  Leonardo lifted his gaze and stroked his chin thoughtfully, as if his beard were still there. “It is dangerous,” he said at last, “for you to interpret what you have read.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “The answer to your question is unimportant. What is important is your safety.”

  “I don’t care,” I responded. “Piero is coming. He’s gathering an army. And when he is here, everything will change.”

  “Perhaps he is coming. Perhaps not… Do you really think he would let the Pazzi become aware of his movements?” He lowered the hand which held the brush and looked intently at me.

  He was going to say more, but I interrupted him. “This all began long ago, didn’t it? With Lorenzo?”

  He blinked, and I saw the reticence, the disapproval, in that tiny gesture. “Lorenzo made a grave mistake, giving full vent to his hatred when his brother was murdered. It came to haunt him in his final years. Even after his death, it haunts his sons. The question is whether the cycle of violence can be halted.”

  “You know who I am,” I said. “You told Lorenzo. You gave him a sign, that night at the Palazzo Medici, when you showed me the sculpture of Giuliano.”

  He lifted a brow at that. “You are far too perceptive, Madonna.”

  “Did… did my Giuliano know?”

  “Not when you married him, but-” He caught himself. “You should take care that your emotions don’t reveal themselves to others.” He lifted his brush again, then said, very softly, as if to himself, “Sometimes I wish you had never discovered Salai that night.”

  “I won’t be caught.”

  “Perhaps not. I realize now you are as clever as your father. Too clever. Again, I urge you not to meditate overlong on your discoveries. Doing so may well lead to your detection, which could cost you your life. Do you understand?”

  “I can hold my tongue,” I answered, a bit sharply. “I am, as you say, clever. I won’t be discovered. After all, I live with a man I despise-and he doesn’t know how I feel.”

  “But I do. I saw it on your face, in your every gesture. Who is to say others have not noticed?”

  I fell silent.

  His tone eased. “Here. I am not helping matters by speaking glumly. And worse, I have caused you to lose your smile. I know that you are wise and will be discreet. Let
us speak about something more cheerful. Your son, perhaps? I’m sure he must resemble you.”

  His words had the intended effect; I remembered Matteo and softened at once. “He’s getting so big. He crawls,” I said proudly. “Faster, sometimes, than I can walk. And he looks like me. Dark-eyed, with great long lashes, and his grandmother’s full lips… And when I look at him I see his father, of course… his hair is softer and curlier, like his.”

  He looked up from his easel, smiling faintly.

  “Do you?” I asked suddenly.

  “Do I what?”

  “When you look at me, do you see my father? My real father?”

  His expression darkened, grew unreadable. At last he replied, “I see him. But most of all, I see your mother. You have the same kind of sadness I saw in her when…”

  “When? Did you ever see her outside of the Palazzo Medici?”

  He blinked; his gaze lowered. He looked at the portrait, not at me, as he replied. “I saw her, some time after he died. At Santo Spirito.”

  I leaned forward, intrigued. “What were you doing on the other side of the Arno?”

  He shrugged. “I had commissions all over the city, at many churches. I was going to speak with the Dominican prior about an altarpiece for a chapel…”

  “Was she praying? At Mass?”

  “Leaving Mass. Her husband was not with her, but her maid-”

  “Zalumma.”

  “The one with the amazing hair? I so wanted to draw it… Yes, her maid was with her. She was pregnant with you.”

  I was entranced. “How did she look?”

  “Beautiful. And broken,” he said softly. “Broken, yet somehow hopeful. You gave her reason to continue, I think.”

  I turned my face away, toward the papered window and the drab light.

  “I am sorry,” Leonardo said, looking up at me again. “I did not mean to make you sad.”

  I shrugged, still gazing at the window. “I can’t help wondering whether he let her go to Giuliano’s funeral.”

  “He could not stop her,” he answered, with such sudden vehemence that I turned my head to stare at him.

  “You saw her there?”

  “Yes.” His cheeks flushed.

  I thought of the two of them there-two people in love with the same man-and wondered whether my mother had known, whether they had ever spoken of the fact. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but Leonardo set his brush down carefully into a little dish of oil and stepped from behind the easel. “Nearly an hour has passed; you dare not stay longer,” he said firmly. “Madonna, I will be returning to Milan for a time. I am obliged to my patron, the Duke, and I have a commission to paint a Last Supper scene for a refectory…”

  “You are leaving?” I could not keep the disappointment from my voice; I rose. Salai’s damp black cloak slipped from my shoulders onto the chair.

  “I’ll be returning, of course, though I cannot say precisely when. In the meantime, Salai will remain here. You will continue just as you have before, except that you will now tell him the content of any letters you discover. And he will relay that content to me.”

  “But… what if Piero comes? What should I do?”

  He smiled gently at that. “If Piero comes, you’ll have no worries. Your safety, and your child’s, will be assured.

  “In the meantime… you may well learn many things that disturb you, or even anger you. Please understand that there are many things I don’t tell you now because it would increase the danger to you… and those you love most dearly.”

  “If you are to return to Milan,” I said, “and we may not meet again for a long time… I must ask you your response to the letter I sent you so long ago.”

  He knew precisely what I meant, but was reluctant to reply.

  “The assassin in Santa Maria del Fiore, the day Giuliano died,” I prompted. “The first man to attack him, the man who escaped. My Giuliano, my husband, told me about him. He said that you told Lorenzo about this man. That you had been in the cathedral when Giuliano the elder was murdered.”

  “He was wearing a penitent’s robes,” Leonardo answered shortly. “With a hood. I couldn’t see his face clearly.”

  “But you must have seen part of it. My Giuliano said that you saw him. That his uncle died in your arms.”

  “I… saw a part of it. But it happened more than fifteen years ago; I saw him only for an instant. You can’t expect me to remember.”

  “But I can,” I said. “You remembered my face when you saw me only once, at the Palazzo Medici. You sketched it perfectly, from memory. And you told me exactly how to remember a face: Surely you used the same technique to remember this one. You carry your little notebook everywhere. I can’t believe you never sketched his face-at least the part of it you saw.”

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor; I turned to see Salai standing in the doorway. “She cannot stay long. The clouds have grown black; a hard rain is coming.”

  “Understood,” Leonardo said, and dismissed the lad with a nod. He looked back at me and drew in a breath. “I must take my leave of you now.”

  Unkindly, I said, “When you first met me here, you told me that Piero wanted to see me. And I wanted so badly to believe you that I didn’t notice you were lying. But now I see very clearly that you aren’t being truthful. You have sketched the penitent, haven’t you? You must have been looking for him for years. I have the right to see the face of the man who killed my father. Why won’t you show it to me?”

  His expression grew stony; he waited for me to finish, then after a long moment asked, “Has it occurred to you, Madonna, that it might be better for you not to know certain things?”

  I began to speak, then stopped myself.

  “Giuliano was murdered a long time ago,” he said. “His brother Lorenzo is dead. The Medici have been banished from Florence. The assassin-if he still breathes-will certainly not live much longer. What good will it do to distract ourselves with finding one man? And what do you think we should do if we find him?”

  Again, I had no answer.

  “No noble cause would be served by revenge. We could only stir up old pain, old hatred. We are already trapped in circumstances born of distant mistakes. We must hope not to repeat them.”

  “I still deserve to know,” I countered evenly. “And I don’t want to be lied to.”

  He raised his chin sharply at that. “I will never lie to you. You can trust that. But I will, if I deem it best for you, hide the truth. I do not do so lightly. Do not forget, you are the mother of a Medici heir. That is an enormous burden. You and the boy must be protected. And I am sworn to do so, even if my heart did not already demand it.”

  I stared at him. I was angry, frustrated; yet I trusted him as deeply as I trusted the man who had raised me as his daughter.

  “You need to leave,” he said softly. “Your driver mustn’t become suspicious. And there is the rain.”

  I nodded. I lifted the damp cloak from my chair and slipped it over my shoulders, then turned to him. “I don’t want to say good-bye on unpleasant terms.”

  “There is no unpleasantness; there is only goodwill.” He nodded at the painting. “I will take it with me and work on it, if I am able. Perhaps you will have the chance to sit for me again.”

  “I know I will.” I stepped forward and took his hand; his grip was warm, with the perfect degree of firmness. “Be safe. And well.”

  “And you, Madonna Lisa. I know that these are difficult times for you. I can only promise that great happiness awaits you at their end.”

  His tone carried conviction, but I took no comfort in it. My Giuliano was gone; happiness was, for me-as it had been for my mother-buried in the past.

  Once again, Salai fastened a dark cloth over my eyes; once again, he stuffed bits of uncarded wool into my ears. With his guiding hand on my elbow, I walked slowly, unsteadily, down a short corridor, then paused as a large piece of wood-a door, I decided, or a large panel-was slid aside for me, rumbling, scrapi
ng against the stone floor.

  We moved down a flight of stairs-I uncertainly, one hand worrying with my long skirts, my heavy overdress, the sweeping hem of the cloak. There came our usual pause as Salai waited for word from a lookout that the path was clear. The signal was given, and we trotted across smooth floors.

  Then, for the first time, we hesitated-in a doorway, I am certain, for beyond, rain crashed down violently, only inches from my face. Errant darts, driven by the wind, grazed my cheeks. Thunder roiled so powerfully, the earth beneath my feet shuddered.

  Beside me, Salai tensed, readying himself, and gripped my upper arm. “Run,” he commanded, and pulled me with him.

  Blindly, I ran. And gasped as sheets of icy water pummeled me. The rain lashed down at a fierce diagonal under my hood, directly into my face; I angled it away and down, trying to shield it, but my blindfold quickly became soaked; the water stung my eyes. I put my free hand to them.

  As I did, my shoe caught the soggy hem of my cloak. I lost my footing and fell, torn from Salai’s grasp, and came down hard on my free elbow, my knees. I struggled to push myself up; my palm pressed against cold, slick flagstone. At the same time, I raised the back of my wrist and wiped my burning eyes.

  The soaked blindfold slipped and fell away. I found myself staring up at Salai’s handsome young face, now stricken with panic.

  Near us, the horse and wagon waited. And behind him stood the massive walls of a great monastery, one I recognized quite well. He reached for me, tried to restrain me, but it was too late: I turned my head and glanced through the gray downpour at the piazza in the distance behind me.

  The graceful colonnades of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the Foundling Hospital, looked back at me from the other side of the street. Farther down, so far to my left that he appeared no larger than a fly, my driver Claudio had sought refuge beneath a loggia.

  Salai and I were on the northern side of the church; Claudio waited for me on the western side, which faced the piazza.

  Each time I had met with Leonardo, I had been at Santissima Annunziata the entire while.