by Lynn Cullen
I stopped at The Creation of Eve. There, the darkest dark met the brightest light where Eve’s plump pale thigh contrasted against the dark shrub below which Adam slept. My gaze slipped directly to the sweetly sleeping Adam, where it lingered on his innocent smile, his tousled reddish hair, his muscular body sprawled on the grass. Only begrudgingly did my eye move to reconsider Eve’s crouching form being raised out of Adam by God. Painted against a light blue background, her pale figure was lumpen and static, the expression on her face Unreadable. The scene felt disturbingly empty.
I bumped into Tiberio. He brought down his gaze.
“Mi scusi,” I whispered. My elbow tingled where it had touched the hard muscles of his belly. I could feel his gaze remain Upon me as I looked back Up at the ceiling. All thoughts of art fled from my mind.
We left soon after. Tiberio and I did not address each other on the walk home through the crowded neighborhoods, nor throughout an early dinner at a tavern on the Macel de’ Corvi, near maestro Michelangelo’s house. I picked at my stewed eel, trying my best to keep my gaze from lingering on Tiberio’s lively gray-green eyes, on his hair curling over his ears in wiry wisps of gold, on his thick, veined wrists. And Sweetest Holy Mary! Was he trying not to look at me?
Too soon, cena was finished. We strolled back with Michelangelo to his house to pick Up the drawing supplies I had left there earlier, as I was to leave for Cremona in the morning, ending my visit to Rome. At his door, the Maestro bade Us good-bye, stating that he wished to continue on through the streets, as he usually does of an evening.
He had hardly stumped away, a furious bow-legged figure in dog-skin boots, when Tiberio said, “Signorina Sofonisba, before you go, would you do me the favor of looking at some drawings? They are studies for a statue I’m finishing for the Maestro.”
“He gave you such a project?” I plucked at the gauzy silk of my veil, which a heated evening breeze had blown across my face. “What a compliment.”
“It is a great responsibility. I have been working on it for two years now.”
“Mi scusi, signorina,” Francesca said. “We go now.”
“I would like to see these drawings. Just for a few minutes, as you gather my supplies.” Then, before Francesca could respond—and shocking myself—I pushed in the heavy carved door.
Tiberio followed with a surprised grin. “How do you like my house?” Pretending to be the host, he spread his arm toward the fresco over the main stairway. “Nothing proclaims ‘Welcome’ like a corpse.”
I pursed my lips so as not to laugh at the fresco of a coffin with a leering skeleton rising from it. “Truly inviting, signore,” I said.
“The old man’s humor. Typical. It is getting dark. Let me get some light.”
Francesca placed herself between me and the stairs as he strode Up, two at a time. “Signorina, it no good for a maiden to be alone.”
My light tone betrayed my happiness. “I am not alone. Maestro Michelangelo will be back soon, and I’ve got you, signore Tiberio, and who knows what other servants are around. Hello?” I called into the growing dimness. No one answered. “In any case, at my age I am hardly a dewy-eyed maiden.”
“What I say about the dew eyes? I say it no good to be alone with a man.”
Tiberio jogged back down the stairs with rolled-Up drawings tucked Under one arm. He held Up a smoking lamp. “Let there be light.”
“Just like in the Maestro’s scene of the creation of the sun and the stars in the chapel,” I said.
He laughed. “Am I convincing in the role of God?”
“Oh, yes.”
He bowed. “Grazie, signorina. But I do not believe you.”
Francesca cleared her throat.
He glanced at her, then put the drawings on the table before Us, his expression growing serious. “I keep thinking about the Maestro’s painting of the creation of Adam. How did he ever think to portray God bringing Adam to life through a touch of fingers? You can feel the very life force being passed from Creator to creation.”
Something that had bothered me came back to mind. “It must be my failing and not the Maestro’s, but I did not get that feeling in the scene of Eve’s creation. It seems, almost, that the Maestro took little care in her depiction.”
“Of course. That is by design. Eve is not as important as Adam.”
I looked at him, wondering why this should be so.
“Trust me, the Maestro knows what he is about. That is why he is famous and we are not.”
“At least not yet,” I said.
His eyes warmed. “I like the way you think, Sofonisba Anguissola.”
Francesca started coughing. When she did not stop, Tiberio pulled his smile from me. “Old woman, are you well?”
“Sì, sì.” Francesca waved him off, still coughing.
“Francesca, are you choking?”
She shook her head, whipping her shoulders with her veil. Her coughs tightened into a breathless bark.
“Go to the piazza and get yourself a drink,” Tiberio ordered. “The water in that fountain comes straight from the aqueduct—good mountain water. Signorina Sofonisba won’t be alone,” he added when she would not budge in spite of not being able to draw breath. “I’ll watch over her.”
“That,” she squeaked, “what give me fear.”
I frowned in apology as she bent into her coughing. I had heard Tiberio’s people, the Calcagnis, were a rich and powerful Florentine family. Tiberio was the one in danger of being tainted, not I. The Anguissolas may have had riches once, but our branch has been withering for generations. Papà’s title as count has little land and no power behind it.
“Signorina,” choked Francesca, “go . . . with me.”
I could stand her discomfort no longer. “Come!” I started for the door.
“You insult me, Francesca,” Tiberio said quickly, “by not trusting me with your lady.”
I stopped. Tiberio wished me to stay. Sweetest Holy Mary! But Francesca’s cough would not stop. “For the love of God, Francesca, please! Go get yourself some water!”
Francesca, doubled over, threw me a last, desperate look, then fled.
Tiberio set the lamp on a table. “She should be fine,” he said when he saw my worried expression. “The water is very soothing.”
“She may need a dram of coltsfoot tea.”
“You have a knowledge of herbs?”
A woman can know too much. I lowered my eyes. “Just a little.”
“I should not be surprised.” He rolled out the papers.
I drew in a breath. “So this is the statue?”
“Yes. The Maestro’s preliminary drawings of it, at least. Once you get into removing stone from the block, plans can change.”
“As in a painting.”
“Similar, yes, though sculpture is the harder art to master. This is why the Maestro calls himself a sculptor, not a painter—why I chose this same path, too.”
“So you think painting is not difficult to master?”
“I didn’t mean to offend you—of course it is. I like to paint. The Maestro does, too, sometimes. But the Maestro says it takes a real man to endure the punishment of working in stone. You have to be brave—one mistake and you’re done. Painting is much more forgiving and simple, better suited for the temperament of a woman. There is no pressure to perform.”
“I see. I shall try to remember that the next time I must paint a man as a good and benevolent family man when all of Italy knows he has just poisoned his brother.” I held my breath. Must I always speak my mind?
But Tiberio only grimaced and said, “Point taken.” He pushed back the curling edges of the red chalk drawing. “Anyway, these are the plans. The Maestro was trying to do something here that no one else has done with success—sculpting four freestanding figures from a single block. Do you know how hard that is to do? Coaxing one body from stone is difficult enough. Four bodies—it’s nearly impossible. All those arms and legs.”
“I see the dying Christ.�
�� I pointed to the dominant figure, holding the sinking body. “Who is this? Joseph of Arimathea, taking him from the cross?”
“There is no cross here. This scene is later, when Christ was being prepared for the tomb. The hooded man is Nicodemus, the rich old man who wished to know Our Lord. As you remember, Nicodemus helped with the burial.” He gestured to the other figures. “Here ’s the Virgin Mary, supporting her son, and Mary Magdalene to His other side, readying His winding cloth. If the Maestro seems preoccupied with death in this piece, it is because it is meant for his own tomb.”
I gazed at the drawing, my every pore taut with arousal, but not from the rendering: Tiberio’s arm was nearly touching mine.
“All had been going well with the work on the piece,” he said. “Over the course of eight years, the Maestro had roughed in the Nicodemus and much of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene. Then one day, while shaping the Christ, he hit a fault in the marble.”
“A fault?”
“One of the worst kinds, a vein of emery. It’s so hard that sparks fly when your chisel hits it. Very difficult to shape, if you can do it at all.” Tiberio shook his head. “I was in the studio at the time, though I didn’t see the sparks. All I knew was, suddenly the Maestro was shouting and smashing the statue with his hammer. The three of Us who were there, I, Antonio the servant, and the painter Daniele da Volterra, dropped everything and tried to hold him back.”
“Did he do much damage?”
“Broke off two arms and the Christ ’s leg. We had to hold the old man Until he cooled down and dropped the hammer. ‘If you like it so much,’ he shouted at me, along with a few choice Florentine curses, ‘you finish it!’ It turned out he was serious—he didn’t care if I worked on it, as long as it was kept out of his sight.” He patted the edge of the drawing. “Well, I was not letting this go. It’s too beautiful, even with the missing limbs. And all that work—eight years of his hammer to the chisel, dust flying Up his nose and in his eyes, chips raining down his back—for nothing. No. It took ten men to inch the Unfinished block out of his studio and down the arcade to the little room the Maestro said I could Use as a studio, but I was keeping it.” He looked at me over his shoulder. “Would you like to see it?”
I glanced at the door.
“I will have you back downstairs before Francesca returns. No one will be the wiser.”
As the Angelus bells began to clang, our eyes met.
He picked Up a lamp. I do not know what possessed me: grinning like two naughty children, we ran Up the stairs.
Even as he showed me into a small, dim room, its air thick with stone dust, I began to regret my actions. It was wrong for a lady, even of lowest nobility, to be alone with a gentleman. But it was for Art, I argued with myself. To learn about Art.
My thudding heart deafened me as I followed him to a hulk in the shadows. He raised his lamp, revealing the rock towering above Us. From it emerged four figures, the top one, the Nicodemus, a pale hooded monster raked with the mark of chisels.
“Can you tell who the model is?” Tiberio brought the lamp closer, illuminating the full beard of the Nicodemus and its heavy scowling brow.
“The Maestro.”
“Good eye. It was his idea.” In the flickering yellow light, I could see Tiberio’s dimples when he smiled. Sweetest Holy Mary.
“It ’s beautiful,” I breathed.
He lowered the lamp, casting a glow Upon the face of the dying Christ. “I started my work on it on my birthday two years ago. I hope to finish it by next year, when I am twenty-eight, though I am already behind schedUle if I am to make as great a mark on the world as the Maestro with a piece that is completely my own. The old man was twenty-nine when he finished his David. I have only two years to create my own work of genius if I’m to keep Up with him.”
I reached for a paper on a nearby table to hide my agitation. I held it Up to the dim light.
“An emblem?”
I think he might have blushed, though it was too dark to be certain. “I was working out a way to sign my work. A T and C combined with an A for artista—or architetto, as I become famous for my buildings. I do those, too.” He grinned in his self-effacing way. “Do you think it’s too much?”
Could he hear my heart beating? Grasping at a diversion, I picked Up a chalk on the table. “Not Unless you go so far as to call yourself a king and add the letter R for re.” I did just so with the chalk.
I could hear him breathing next to me. What a fool he must think me, playing a child’s game. But the closeness of his person, with his warm scent of earth, leather, and flesh, Undid me. “Should there be any doubt,” I heard myself say, “we might add an arm and a leg to your T, to form a K, for the English word ‘King.’ ”
“You are an extraordinary girl, knowing English. Is there nothing you do not know? I am almost afraid of you.” He took the chalk, sending a bolt of heat through my fingers. “What if that R is not for re but is truly for ritrattista, in honor of my friend, the brilliant lady portraitist?”
I took back the chalk just to feel his touch again—madness. “Then you must add a little leg to the R for the letter L, as in ‘Lady,’ as the English call their noblewomen.”
He put his hand over mine before I could finish. “Lady, do not the two letters wish to be as one? Here is an arm, joining them.” A current flowed between Us as we moved the chalk in Unison.
“They look good together,” he said, his breath on my ear, “see?”
I could bear his closeness no longer. I turned to the statue and, trembling, touched the chill marble of the Christ’s arm, draped lifelessly in the foreground. “How do you do this? How do you turn a drawing into something with three dimensions?”
“I don’t. Not exactly.” I felt the warmth of his body as he leaned over me to touch the statue. “Even if I have a drawing, I still must be willing to listen to the stone and change my plans if need be. The being hidden inside the block reveals itself only by degrees, like a wax figure being lifted from water. I will show you.”
He put my hand to the Christ’s face. My skin felt on fire as he traced my fingers over the cool polished stone. “I am removing stone, chip by chip. Something emerges: a nose. Do you feel it?”
I nodded, the back of my veil brushing against his chest.
“Yes,” he said, “good. Good. And here. Here another rounding comes forth: an eye. It demands to be carved just so—the being in the stone insists. Can you feel it, Sofonisba?”
I was deafened by the roaring of my blood. “Yes,” I whispered.
He slid our fingers down the ridge of the nose to the curve below, his breath caressing my ear. “And now. What is this?”
My mouth formed the word. Lips.
“They speak,” he whispered, “if you listen. Can you hear them?”
My skirt raked the floor as he turned me toward him, my fingers still on the statue. We faced each other, the flame of the lamp licking at the silence.
“Sofonisba, you cannot deny the being within.”
Slowly, he touched his lips to my exposed wrist.
I dropped my hand. “Francesca.”
He went over and, softly, closed the door. “Only Michelangelo has the key.”
He came back, set the lamp on the floor, then stood before me. In the golden shimmering light, he laid back my trembling veil.
“I am afraid.”
“Don’t be.” He bent toward my mouth.
I closed my eyes as flesh met flesh, searing me wherever he kissed—lips, neck, shoulder. Our lips reunited, grateful pilgrims at journey’s end, and then our kisses became Urgent, desperate, Until my body raged against my clothing and moans issued from the pleading creature within me.
Tiberio stopped, causing me to gasp. Gently he set me on the edge of the table and, with shaking hands, lifted my skirt.
I don’t know how long the Maestro had been standing in the doorway, four thin flames wavering above his head from the pressboard cap of candles he wears when he works into the
night. I don’t know how I became aware of his presence. How did he get in so quietly? Or was he not so very quiet, I was just so very loud? All I know is, he was in the doorway, the candles flickering in his pressboard crown.
Tiberio straightened from the table against which we leaned, holding me loosely as my skirts slid down. He kept his back to the Maestro, shielding me from exposure as he snatched at the laces to his codpiece.
“Maestro,” he said, “it is not as it seems.”
The Maestro paused, his crown of candles dripping. “Signorina Sofonisba’s woman is downstairs looking for her.”
The shuffle of dog-skin boots receded down the hallway.
Tiberio covered his eyes with the crook of his arm, then ran it over his head before reaching out and hooking me toward him. He kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry.”
A wave of nausea had washed over me. Coupled with the throbbing in my nether parts, I felt faint. I sagged against him. “I am so ashamed.”
“Don’t be.”
“But the Maestro—”
“The Maestro has a few secrets of his own.”
ITEM: Do not be swayed by those who would hurry you in preparing to paint. Before he would lift a brush, Leonardo da Vinci planned a work from its frame to its final varnish. Not even the Pope had been able to hasten him, chiding, “This man will do nothing, for he is thinking of the end before the beginning of the work.”
ITEM: Hungary water is made of distilled rosemary and thyme infused with spirits of lavender, mint, sage, marjoram, orange blossom, and lemon. It relieves lethargy, loss of memory, dizziness, derangement, and mood-induced headaches. Drink with wine, bathe temples, or inhale from a cup.
ITEM: It is the law that a man who deflowers a virgin must marry her or provide funds so she may marry another or take the veil. If the maiden did not resist her seducer, his blame is less and there is no penalty.
