by Karen Essex
But that was two years ago.
Though most of the painting is complete, Judas—Beatrice assumes that it is Judas because the figure is clutching a purse—remains headless. And unlike all other representations of this event, Judas sits on the same side of the table as the others.
“Judas is always portrayed as isolated from the rest, sitting on the opposite side of the table from Our Lord and the Apostles. Why have you seated him on the same side?” Beatrice asks.
“Because, Your Excellency, he would have been,” he answers politely, as if all the painters through the ages until himself have simply been wrong. “One must consider the state of mind of the betrayer. He would have done anything to keep his wicked deed secret. He would have tried to look most innocent. He would not have separated himself from the Twelve. It would have aroused suspicion. A drama must be as true to life as possible to convince.”
The painting is, in fact, and as promised, a drama. Each of the Twelve is frozen in the moment, the contents of his mind, and his fear that he is the one who will betray the Lord, etched on his expression and in each movement of the body. Beatrice has never seen a painting that so perfectly captures one moment in time. It is as if the Magistro stopped Time itself and preserved it in his mural. The effect is eerie, she thinks, another of Leonardo’s mystical tricks, undoubtedly borne out of his inquiries into the inner workings of man’s brain and body. She decides to bring the conversation back to a more practical level.
“And why is the head of Judas not yet painted?”
“Because I have yet to find the correct model for him, a face that might embody betrayal itself.”
“But a betrayer might have many faces, some of them beautiful or comely or quite handsome.” Beatrice feels the words choking her as they exit her mouth. Does the Magistro realize that the duchess has recently been betrayed by two faces, one beautiful and the other handsome? Has he, too, heard the gossip? Does he pity her even as he must patronize her?
“That is true,” he says darkly. “Treachery is too often hidden by a sweet or handsome face.” He says it not in a condescending way, as if he is responding to court gossip, but as someone who has also been slain by the deceiver behind the beautiful mask. She has never seen him look so vulnerable. His eyebrows cinch together, and she notices the exquisite web of lines shooting from the corners of his eyes like pencil drawings of the sun’s rays. A line of worry bisects his forehead, making it look as if his face might split in two if he continued with whatever thought was passing through his brain.
“Why is it that in others’ renditions of Our Lord’s Last Supper, Judas is isolated, but in yours, it is Jesus who looks so very much alone?”
“Because, Your Excellency, if you had just prophesied that you would soon be betrayed by someone whom you loved and trusted, and if that betrayal were inevitable, which you knew because it had been revealed to you by God, and was therefore beyond question, would you not feel isolated?”
“OUR task together is simple,” Leonardo says, guiding Beatrice to the south wall of the refectory, where he is to insert her portrait into Montorfano’s mural. The room has no hearth, and the warmth from the burning fire bowls seems to dissipate into the tall ceiling before it can do anyone any good. Beatrice shivers as the Magistro explains. “You will see on the left side of the painting where I have outlined the profile of the duke and your elder son. See how they are kneeling, as if being blessed by the Pope and St. Francis? On the right side of the mural, I will paint you in profile too, Your Excellency, with your younger son at your side, kneeling in the shelter of the Dominican nuns, whom the excellent Montorfano has so interestingly painted into the scene of the Crucifixion of Jesus, some thousand years before.”
Was he mocking the other artist? Leonardo kept himself in a host of legal battles by refusing to make these allowances meant to glorify those holding the purse strings in the commissions he accepted. The Montorfano mural, in fact, embodied all of the present-day conventions rejected by the Magistro—a blatantly Italian backdrop to the Crucifixion; angels with many-colored wings flying about; demons perched on the shoulders of the wicked while saints whisper into the ears of the good; the presence of the pope and other clergy; and soldiers and Crusaders on horseback, witnessing the suffering of the Lord. The mural gives an overall effect of sorrow, whereas the Magistro’s painting witnesses the climactic moment of a great drama. One can see not only the character but, as Leonardo himself said, each character’s state of mind.
“I need only make a sketch of your profile,” he says as his assistants bring him sheets of paper of various size and weight. Wordlessly, he rejects each piece of parchment until he finds one to meet his approval. “And I would like to also make a sketch of your hands folded in prayer.”
The assistants return to their task of mixing colors, presumably so that Leonardo can later continue to work on the Last Supper. This is what Beatrice will report to Ludovico, anyway. Easels sit about the room, some upon which rest copies of the Last Supper, and some of which are covered with long white muslin cloths, hiding the paintings. One in particular looks ghostly, Beatrice thinks, sitting in the chair the Magistro has brought for her. She cannot take her eyes off of the tall, white form. Its conical top stretches from the crest of the easel as it stands alone like a specter, looking very mysterious, yet at the same time daring its revelation. Isabella always allows that there is no excitement like pulling the drape back on the work of a great artist. If she were here, she would ask the Magistro to reveal his work to her, as if it were the most natural thing to do. But Beatrice is not comfortable asking to see that which the artist has cloaked. If he has covered it, he must have his reasons.
Because Leonardo says he wishes to sketch her hands, Beatrice pulls off her leather gloves, revealing her pale, dry skin. She is twenty-one years old; how is it that the skin on the tops of her hands can look more wrinkled than the unpressed cloth covering the paintings? The room is very cold, colder even than the church where Bianca Giovanna lies, causing Beatrice’s skin to shrivel even more.
“Your Excellency, your hands shake. I will have the friar in the kitchen send a bowl of hot broth to warm you,” the Magistro says, his eyes full of concern as he leaves her to order the soup.
Beatrice wraps her cloak about her, standing so that she can pace the room to keep warm. She is drawn to the covered painting. She thinks that she will peek under the cloth, perhaps discovering some masterpiece in the making that she will be able to describe later today in a letter to Isabella. Beatrice has already made up her mind that she will invite Isabella to Milan to be with her when her baby is born. As a gift to her sister, she will make certain that Isabella sits for the Magistro—and not in this frigid refectory for a mere sketch, but in a room in the Castello near a warm fire, where drawings will be made for a fine oil painting like the one Leonardo made of Cecilia. Beatrice will not trust this enterprise to Ludovico, who will only carry it out if he can think of something to ask from Isabella in return, but she will appeal to the Magistro herself. How foolish were the competitions between the sisters in the past. Now they are two grown women, both suffering from losses. Giving Isabella the gift of a portrait by the Magistro is the least Beatrice can do for her sister.
The apprentices are busy at their labors. Surely they would not stop the duchess from peeking at a work in progress. After all, it is undoubtedly her money that is financing whatever work has been done beneath that long white drape. Pretending that she is moving closer to one of the fire bowls to keep warm, she bends over and lifts the drape, revealing the lower right corner of the painting. She can see that the panel is of dark wood, walnut, just like the panel Leonardo used for Cecilia’s portrait. She looks up to see if she is being caught in her act of spying—she is not—and then lifts the drape a little more. On the canvas, a golden ribbon, much like the one the Magistro painted into the boughs on the ceiling of her apartments, rests against a crimson velvet robe. Intrigued that she has discovered what is undoubtedl
y a portrait, Beatrice proceeds with the unveiling, anxious to know who the sitter might be. If the Magistro is taking commissions for portraiture, then he will hardly be able to refuse the duchess when she demands a portrait of her sister.
Slowly she pulls up the drape. Red velvet embossed with gold makes up the bodice of the sitter’s gown. The beads of a simple necklace hang below embroidered ribbon lining the neck, exposing creamy skin. The shoulder is curved, the neck, long. The sitter is a woman, and young. The chin is round, the lips full, but set seriously. Raven hair, pulled back into a braid of sorts, hugs a high cheekbone.
Suddenly, the eyes are exposed. They stare slightly to the left, as they have often done in recent times, when Lucrezia Crivelli has been too timid, or too guilty, to meet Beatrice’s direct gaze. Lucrezia refuses once more to look right at Beatrice, instead turning her serious—studious, almost—stare at something just off to the side of the portrait. Look at me, Beatrice wants to scream, pains taking over her body. She is sick in the stomach and light in the head all at once, and she doesn’t know whether to bend over or drop to the floor. Instead, she grabs onto the easel for support, almost knocking it to the ground. The noise alerts the apprentices.
“I am not well,” she says, dropping the drape over the painting and looking at the stone floor of the refectory, not wanting them to see her flushed, disturbed face. One of the young men tries to approach her to offer his arm, but, without looking at him, she rushes past him and out the door.
The trees in the courtyard of the refectory are bare. The sky has turned from blue to gray, and the air seems much colder than just a little while ago. Beatrice sees that her attendants wait for her in two carriages, all huddled together to keep warm, snuggled under thick blankets, and laughing at whatever gossip they are exchanging to keep their minds off of the cold weather. What if they are laughing at her? What if the talk that brings those smiles to their faces is that the naïve little duchess sits for a family portrait by the Magistro to be painted in a solemn pose with her husband and two children glorifying their union and its issue, while she is also sitting right under the nose of Lucrezia Crivelli, who has taken her husband’s heart?
She cannot, will not, return to the carriages, only to see her ladies snap their mouths shut, quieting the gossip because its victim has just appeared. She sees the door of the church and knows where she must go—to Bianca Giovanna, whose sweet spirit will listen to her troubles and soothe her.
The church is empty, frigid, and dank. Beatrice falls on the floor next to Bianca’s crypt. “We are both alone,” she cries into her hands. “The only difference is that your husband would be with you if he could. My husband uses the death of his precious daughter as an excuse to stay away from me while he consoles himself with another woman. Is she so much better than I?” Beatrice pleads to the dead girl, who offers no response. She feels a pulling within her womb, as if the baby has suddenly become too heavy for her body and is pushing to get out. She doubles over, clutching her belly. The child seems to be making himself known to her at this hour of her need. “Does this child mean nothing to him either?”
In just a few years, she has gone from her husband’s sweetheart, confidante, and partner to his breeding machine. Lucrezia Crivelli is beautiful, true, but older than Beatrice, and married. And, Beatrice is sure, no intellectual match for Cecilia or Isabella, her former rivals. What is she offering to him that he cannot find in the arms of his wife? Did Ludovico simply tire of Beatrice because he possessed her? Do men automatically tire of a woman after she gives him the very best she can offer—love, companionship, partnership in his ambitions, children to carry on his name and fortune? It seems to Beatrice that a woman’s love is something to cherish, not toss aside for some new bauble.
And what bauble? Beatrice thinks that Lucrezia looks awful in the Magistro’s portrait—stern, serious, shoulders drawn tight, as if she is worried over something. As if she has something to hide. Beatrice is certain that Leonardo, like the rest of the kingdom, is upset over Ludovico’s indiscretion and has rendered Lucrezia less desirable than she is. The portrait looks to her as if the Magistro sketched in the outline and left the painting to his apprentices, since the face embodies neither the life nor the mystery nor the beauty nor the animation of the portrait of Cecilia.
But the meaning of Lucrezia’s portrait is inevitable. It is an indication that Ludovico’s feelings for her are permanent. She has replaced Beatrice. Did he not say that he would only ask the Magistro to paint a woman he loves? Now she has seen the awful proof that his affections have flowed away from her like water draining to lower ground. What is she to do?
You have your children, people will whisper to her. She hears their voices in her head already, anticipating the words that will come if she dare complain to anyone of her plight. As if that is all she, or any woman, should want. Beatrice is only one and twenty. Must she spend the rest of her life cooing over her children and attending to their needs while her brief romance with her husband fades more and more from memory? It is unthinkable.
I should have thrown him to Louis of Orleans at Novara and then cut my own deal with the French. Why did she help him? What has been her thanks? I should have sided with Isabel of Aragon and Naples. It would have been a wiser move. Then, perhaps, the young duke would still be alive, and Beatrice and Isabel would be running the kingdom while Gian Galeazzo busied himself with wine and the behinds of young men, and the present Duke of Milan would be dead or in a Neapolitan prison. Could Aragon—gloomy, unhappy Aragon—have been a worse or more deceitful partner than Ludovico?
“Oh unhappy daughter, forgive me for reviewing the faults of your father at your grave.” Is she causing the spirit of that girl unintended grief? Yet she is bitter, and Bianca Giovanna, who had witnessed Beatrice’s triumphs with Ludovico, would surely understand her sorrow at this latest and most devastating failure.
Beatrice’s ladies—mercifully not Crivelli, whom Beatrice could at this moment tear apart like a lion ripping into a rabbit—appear at the rear of the church with cries of how this incessant sorrow and grieving is good neither for the duchess nor for her child. How Bianca Giovanna had been a happy girl and would not wish for her death to cause permanent grief to those she loved. How the chill in the church is sure to settle in Beatrice’s very bones and make her give birth to a sickly boy. She feels arms pick her up off the stone floor, dragging her away.
“You’re the lucky one,” she says to the crypt, surprised at the snake’s hiss that emanates from her throat. Has she ever sounded so venomous in all her life? “You died before your husband got tired of you and threw you away.”
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:
The swan is white without any spot, and sings sweetly as it dies; with this song its life ends.
She has humiliated herself before members of her court. They will take her parting words to the corpse of Bianca Giovanna and spread them throughout the kingdom. Her stature as the wronged wife is now confirmed by her own testimony. Before a fortnight, everyone in Italy will know.
There is little she can do to counter the damage. She might speak to Ludovico, to impress upon him the harm that he is doing not only to her but to the strength and sanctity of their family, and to the whole of the kingdom by extension. But she is in no mood to ask for his attention or his affection or even his loyalty. If he does not realize what he is doing—that removing his love is the death of something beautiful—she does not feel like reminding him.
She feels like forgetting, and that is why she has summoned the singers and the musicians to her ballroom this evening. She has only one month until she enters her confinement, and what with the winter weather, she cannot spend it as she would like, outdoors on her horse, hunting until the sun sets. So she has decided that gaiety will be the order of the evening.
She does not ask her husband to attend the festivities. She hopes that he hears that Beatrice d’Este, despite his betrayal and public humiliation, is hosting a party. Without hi
m. And dancing and singing with beautiful young men late into the evening. Men who find the duchess alluring despite the fact that he does not, despite that she has grown large with child and is no longer the nubile naïf who came to court six years ago.
Perhaps she will emulate the behavior of other women whose husbands take their attentions elsewhere. She looks around the room right now to see who might be a potential lover and is astonished at her choices. Have they all just recently appeared at court, or has she, in her consuming love for Ludovico, been blind to their charms? It seems that with each twist of her head to the tune of the music, she encounters another pair of tempting and hungry eyes falling upon her. She cannot rise from a curtsey without meeting some man’s appreciative gaze and blushing when she guesses his thoughts. They are all spry, lean, and young compared to her husband. She cannot know at this moment what is more beautiful to her, the thick brown curls of her guests from Calabria and other cities in the south, or the icy Nordic features of their friends from over the Alps. Some of the knights, guests from Emperor Max’s German court, have let their wolf-blue eyes settle for an uncomfortably long time upon the figure of the duchess as she dances, and she notices that she enjoys what once might have sent her into discomfort.
Were these looks of appreciation from other men always present? How is it that she has not noticed them until now? Do they admire how she twirls so gracefully when a pregnant belly might have thrown a less agile woman off balance? Have they seen her riding the ever-faithful Drago through the meadows outside the Castello, astonished that so small a woman has such dominion over so large a beast? Have they heard that she can pierce the heart of a wild boar with a single arrow, dropping him dead at her feet? Or are they thinking how the attentions of the Duchess of Milan might advance their own political and military ambitions? How is she to know? At this moment, she does not even care. She is enjoying the notion that her heart need not cease to beat because Ludovico has taken his love away.
