Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  To avoid the danger of traveling back and forth over the Arno, my father came to stay with us for a time. After Francesco’s visitors departed, he often called my father into his study, and the two men would speak together at length. I did not try to spy on these meetings, but there were times I could hear their low voices, the pitch and timbre of their conversations. Francesco always sounded argumentative, imperious; my father sounded simply unhappy.

  After an oddly early and lengthy visit from one Lord Prior, Francesco and my father came down in the morning to eat. I was at the table, with Matteo squirming in my lap; I had never before brought him downstairs to eat, but he was almost two years old, and I dreamt of teaching him to eat with a spoon. When the two men arrived, Matteo was happily pounding the utensil against the surface of Francesco’s fine, polished table. I expected my husband to be displeased, to speak sharply, since he had been in foul temper of late. But Francesco, for the first time in days, smiled.

  My father stood beside him, grim and cautious.

  “Wonderful news!” Francesco exclaimed, raising his voice just enough to be heard over Matteo’s drumming; he was in far too good a mood for the noise to irritate him. “We have just captured a Medici spy!”

  I tried to draw a breath and failed; I sat up straight, barely averting my head in time to avoid Matteo’s wildly flailing arm. “A spy?”

  My father seemed to sense my sudden fear; he pulled out a chair and sat beside me. “Lamberto dell’Antello. You’ve heard of him: He was one of Piero’s friends,” he said quietly, next to my ear. “He even went with Piero to Rome. He was discovered trying to get into Florence with a letter…”

  Francesco stood smiling across from us; I put a restraining hand on Matteo’s wrist and ignored him when he complained. “Yes, Lamberto dell’Antello. He was captured yesterday, and is being interrogated now. This will be the end of the Bigi. Lamberto is talking, giving names.” He moved toward the kitchen. “Where is Agrippina? I need some food, and quickly. I must leave for the Palazzo della Signoria this morning. They’re holding him at the Bargello prison.”

  “Do you think it’s safe to go out?” I asked out of concern for appearances’ sake, not for Francesco.

  “It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t-this is far too important to miss!” He disappeared into the kitchen. “Agrippina!”

  In the instant he was gone, my father studied me searchingly. I tried my best to appear mildly interested in the news about Lamberto, mildly and pleasantly distracted by my wriggling child. I tried, but I suspected my father saw my fear.

  I know I saw his.

  Once Francesco had eaten and left in the carriage, my father and I took Matteo out to run in the gardens behind the palazzo. The garden was green and lush, the mist rising from the lion fountain soft and cool. I strolled beside my father, letting my son run slightly ahead of us, calling out to him not to trample the boxwood, not to touch the thorny rosebushes. I might as well have told him not to be a little boy.

  I was still angry at my father. I knew he would never cause me harm, but each time I looked on him, I saw the penitent. Even so, I worried for his sake. “I am afraid,” I told him. “The excommunication-Francesco will say that you’ve failed him.”

  He gave a little shrug to make light of it. “Don’t worry about me. I have spoken with Fra Girolamo-I, and others. He is finally convinced that he must make amends. He knows he has been foolish-that he has failed to control his tongue and that he speaks like one possessed in the pulpit. But he will write his apologia. And he has already sent private letters to His Holiness, begging for forgiveness. Alexander will be soothed.”

  “And if he isn’t?”

  My father stared ahead at his sturdy grandson. “Then Florence will be placed under papal interdict. No Christian city will be allowed to do business with us unless we turn over Savonarola for punishment. But that won’t happen.” He reached for my hand to comfort me.

  I did not mean to pull away, but could not stop myself. His eyes filled with hurt.

  “You have been angry with me. I don’t blame you, for all I’ve done-terrible things. Things I pray God will forgive, though I long ago gave up any hope of Heaven.”

  “I’m not angry,” I said. “I want only one thing: for us to leave Florence with Matteo. I can’t bear it here any longer. It’s growing too dangerous.”

  “It’s true,” he admitted sadly. “But right now, it’s impossible. When they found Lamberto dell’Antello, the Lord Priors became crazed. Every one of them is a piagnone now and out for blood. They’ve closed all nine gates of the city: No one can come in, no one can go out; every letter is intercepted, read by the Council of Eight. They are questioning everyone, looking for Medici spies. Were it not for my usefulness to Francesco, they would question us.” His voice grew hoarse. “They will destroy the Bigi-every man who looked kindly on Lorenzo or his sons. And they will have Bernardo del Nero’s head.”

  “No,” I whispered. Bernardo del Nero was one of Florence’s most revered citizens, a longtime intimate of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was a strong, clearheaded seventy-five years of age, childless and widowed, and so he had devoted his life to the government of the city. He had served with distinction as gonfaloniere, and was irreproachably honest. So well liked was he that even the Signoria respected and tolerated his political position as head of the Bigi. “They wouldn’t dare hurt him! No citizen would stand for it.”

  But I was even more worried for Leonardo, who was effectively trapped within the city, unable to communicate with the outside.

  My father was shaking his head. “They will have to stand for it. The appearance of Lamberto dell’Antello has filled every piagnone’s heart with fear. After the food riots in the Piazza del Grano, the Signoria is desperate to stifle any more cries of ‘palle, palle.’”

  “But when Piero was ousted,” I said, “Savonarola called for mercy for all the friends of the Medici. He insisted that everyone be forgiven and pardoned.”

  My father looked out across the garden, down the cobblestone path lined with blooming rosebushes and sculpted boxwoods, at his grandson, currently distracted by an unfortunate beetle. The sight should have gladdened him; instead, his eyes grew haunted.

  “There will be no mercy now,” he said, with the conviction of a man who held secrets. “And no hope. There will only be blood.”

  I wanted desperately to go to Santissima Annunziata, to warn Leonardo of the imminent peril to Bernardo del Nero and his political party, but Francesco would not hear of me leaving the house to pray-especially when it meant going to the family chapel, which stood across from the Ospedale degli Innocenti, where many of the sick were housed. And no amount of arguing could convince Claudio to disobey his master’s orders.

  So I remained housebound. Francesco’s letters had all spoken of the Bigi as enemies who must be contained; now it was clear that they must be destroyed. I trusted Leonardo knew more about the danger than I did.

  In the meantime, I stole onto my balcony alone and unsheathed my knife. My opponent was no longer the third man, the murderer of my true father. He was Francesco; he was the writer of the letters-the murderers of my beloved Giuliano. Night after night, I wielded my blade. Night after night, I killed them both, and took comfort in it.

  Arrests were made; the accused were tortured. In the end, five men were held and brought before the Signoria and the Great Council for sentencing: the august Bernardo del Nero; Lorenzo Tornabuoni, Piero’s young cousin, who, though titular head of the Bigi, was nonetheless a much-loved citizen and a pious piagnone; Niccolò Ridolfi, an older man whose son had married Lorenzo’s daughter Contessina; Giannozzo Pucci, a young friend of Piero’s; and Giovanni Cambi, who had had many business dealings with the Medici.

  Pity! supporters cried, certain that the sentences would be light and, in the case of Bernardo del Nero, commuted. The accused were all admired, upright citizens; their confessions-that they were actively involved in arranging for Piero de’ Medici’s return as
the city’s self-proclaimed ruler-had been elicited under the most brutal torture.

  The people looked to Savonarola for guidance. Surely the friar would once again call for forgiveness, forbearance.

  But Fra Girolamo was too distracted by his efforts to placate an angry Pope. He could no longer be bothered, he said publicly, with political matters. “Let them all die or be expelled. It makes no difference to me.”

  His words were repeated thousands of times by followers whose eyes were troubled, whose voices were hushed.

  Three hours before dawn on the morning of the twenty-seventh of August, Zalumma and I were startled from slumber by pounding on my chamber door. Zalumma rolled out of her cot and opened the door to find Isabella, disheveled and squinting in the light shed by the taper in her hand. Still bewildered by sleep, I moved into the doorway and stared at her.

  “Your husband summons you,” she said. “He says, ‘Dress quickly, for a somber occasion, and come downstairs.’”

  I frowned and rubbed my eyes. “And Zalumma?” I could hear her behind me, fumbling for the flint to light the lamp.

  “Only you are to come.”

  As Zalumma laced me into a modest gown of gray silk embroidered with black thread, I began to worry. What possible “somber occasion” required that I be wakened in the middle of the night? Perhaps someone had died; I thought at once of my father. Savonarola’s excommunication left him in his masters’ bad graces. Had they decided at last to be rid of him?

  The air was heavy, warm, and still; I had slept fitfully because of the heat. By the time I was fully dressed, my breasts and armpits were damp.

  I left Zalumma and went down the stairs, stopping one level below to visit the guest chambers, where my father now slept. At the closed door, I paused-but my desperation overcame all notions of courtesy. I opened the door just long enough to peer past the antechamber into the bedroom and confirm that my father lay sleeping within.

  I closed the door quietly, gratefully, and went downstairs to Francesco.

  He was pacing by the front entrance, fully alert and restless. I could not have described him as happy, but in his expression and eyes I saw nervous triumph, a dark joy. It was then I realized that we were waiting for Claudio, that something so important was happening that Francesco was willing to risk exposing himself and his wife to plague.

  “Has someone died?” I asked, with a good wife’s gentle concern.

  “There is no point in discussing it with you now; you will only become agitated, as women do about such matters. You will see soon enough where we are going. I ask only that you contain yourself, that you exert as much bravery as you are able. I ask that you make me proud.”

  I looked at him with dawning fear. “I will do my best.”

  He gave a grim little smile and escorted me out to the carriage, where Claudio and the horses waited. The air outside was stifling, without hint of coolness. We did not speak during the ride. I stared out at the dark streets, my dread increasing as we rolled east toward the Duomo, then relentlessly south.

  We pulled into the Piazza della Signoria. In the windows of the Palace of the Lord Priors, every lamp burned-but this was not our destination. We rumbled to a stop in front of the adjoining building: the Bargello, the prison where I had been held, where Leonardo had been taken by the Officers of the Night. It was a forbidding square fortress crowned by jagged battlements. Great torches burned on either side of the massive entry doors.

  As Claudio opened the door, my heart quailed. They have captured Leonardo, I thought. Francesco knows everything. He has brought me here to be questioned… But I showed no outward sign of my turmoil. My face was set as I took Claudio’s arm and stepped lightly onto the flagstone. I thought fleetingly of Zalumma’s knife, at home beneath my mattress.

  Francesco stepped from the carriage after me and gripped my elbow. As he directed me toward the doors, I saw wagons waiting nearby-five of them, in a cluster, attended by small groups of grim black-clad men. A keening sound made me turn my head and look at them more closely: A woman, veiled in black, sat atop a wagon, sobbing so violently that she would have fallen had the driver not clutched her.

  We made our way inside. I expected to be led to a cell, or to a room filled with accusatory priors. Armed guards scrutinized us as we passed through the entry hall, then outside into a large courtyard. In each of the four corners stood a large pillar, of the same dull brown stone as the building; on each of these pillars were affixed black iron rings, and in each ring burned a torch, which cast wavering orange light.

  Against the far wall was a steep staircase leading down from a balcony, and at the foot of those stairs stood a broad, recently constructed platform. Mounds of straw had been scattered on its surface. Beneath the smells of fresh wood and straw was a faint, fetid undercurrent of human waste.

  Francesco and I were not alone. There were other high-ranking piagnoni present: seven sweating Lord Priors in their scarlet tunics, a handful of Buonomi, and members of the Council of Eight. Most prominent was the gonfaloniere Francesco Valori, who was serving for the third time in that capacity; a hard-eyed, gaunt man with streaming silver hair, Valori had stridently called for the blood of the accused Bigi. He had brought his young wife, a pretty creature with golden ringlets. We nodded silent greetings, then joined the crowd waiting in front of the low platform. I let go a shuddering breath; I was here as a witness, not a prisoner-at least for now.

  People had been murmuring to one another, but they fell silent as a man mounted the scaffold: an executioner bearing a heavy singleedged axe. With him came another man, who set down a scarred wooden chopping block upon the straw.

  “No,” I whispered to myself. I remembered my father’s words about the Bigi; I had not wanted to believe them. If I had found a way to see Leonardo, could I have prevented this?

  Francesco inclined his head toward mine, to indicate that he had not heard me, that I should repeat myself, but I said nothing more. Like the others, I stared at the scaffold, the executioner, the straw.

  The clink of the chains came first; then the accused appeared on the balcony, flanked by men wearing long swords at their hips.

  Bernardo del Nero was first. He had always been a dignified white-haired man, with large, solemn eyes and a straight, prominent nose. Those eyes were now puffed almost entirely shut; his nose, twisted and crusted with black blood, was enormously swollen. He could no longer stand straight, but leaned heavily on his captor as he took each halting step down. Like his fellows, he had been forced to surrender his shoes and meet death barefoot.

  I did not recognize young Lorenzo Tornabuoni; the bridge of his nose had been crushed, and his face was so bruised and swollen he could not see at all, but had to be led down the stairs. Three other prisoners followed: Niccolò Ridolfi, Giannozzo Pucci, Giovanni Cambi, all of them broken, resigned. None of them seemed aware of the assembly gathered to watch them.

  When they at last stood upon the scaffold, the gonfaloniere read the charges and the sentence: espionage and treason, death by beheading.

  Bernardo del Nero was granted the mercy of dying first. The executioner asked his forgiveness, and was told, in a frail, thick-tongued voice, that he was forgiven. And then Bernardo squinted out at our small assembly and said, “May God forgive you, too.”

  He was too weak to kneel without aid; a guard helped him settle his chin properly into the chopping block’s darkly stained cradle. “Strike neatly,” he urged, as the executioner lifted the axe.

  I did not care if I made Francesco proud; I averted my face, closed my eyes. But I opened them again immediately, startled by the warm spray and the collective gasp of the crowd. I caught a sidewise glimpse of Bernardo’s kneeling body falling to one side, of blood spurting in a thick upward arc from its headless neck, of a guard moving forward to retrieve something red and round from the straw.

  And suddenly I remembered. Remembered a day years before, in the church at San Marco, when my mother, her gaze fixed and terrible,
had stared up at Savonarola in the pulpit. And she had cried out:

  Flames shall consume him until his limbs drop, one by one, into Hell! Five headless men shall cast him down!

  Five headless men.

  I stepped backward, treading on the slippered foot of a Lord Prior. Francesco caught my arm and held me steady. “Nerves,” he whispered to the offended man. “Forgive her; it is only nerves. She is young and unused to such things; she will be fine.”

  Guards came and took the corpse away; Tornabuoni was pushed forward, forced to murmur words of forgiveness, to kneel, to die. Two more followed. Giovanni Cambi was last. He collapsed from fear and had to be dragged to the block; he died screaming.

  In the end, the straw was sodden. The smell of fresh wood was eclipsed by the tang of blood and iron.

  By the time Francesco and I rode home, the darkness had not yet begun to ease. We sat in silence until Francesco abruptly spoke.

  “This is what becomes of Medici supporters.” He was watching me curiously. “This is what becomes of spies.”

  Perhaps my pallor seemed suspicious; perhaps he spoke simply out of a desire to relish his political victory. In any case, I did not answer. I was thinking of my mother’s words. And I was thinking of my father, and what would happen to him when the prophet was cast down.

  LXV

  As the weather cooled, the plague’s grip on the city eased. My father returned to his house, Francesco took up with his prostitutes again, and I went to the marketplace and church as often as I could. One morning I placed the book on my night table, even though I had found no new letter in Francesco’s desk, and the next I day went to Santissima Annunziata.

  Leonardo was well, to my relief. He had even worked on the painting. The bold outlines and shadows of my features had been softened by the application of light cinabrese, a translucent curtain of flesh. I was beginning to look human.

  But when I told him of my father’s warning that the Bigi would pay with their blood-of my anguish that I had not been able to come and warn him-he said, “You bear no guilt. We knew of the danger, well before your father spoke of it to you. If there is any fault, it is mine. I was unable-I could not-bring influence to bear in time. And the horror of it was, even had we been able to arrange a rescue…” He could not bring himself to continue.