The Creation of Eve

by Lynn Cullen

  “I love my God,” said Don Juan.

  “Your God. That is good. Your private God.” The King smiled slightly. “Congratulations, my brother. You shall leave for Rome tomorrow. When you come back, in several years’ time, you shall be wedded to your God as a cardinal.”

  ITEM: “Painted figures must be done in such a way that the spectators are able with ease to recognize through their attitudes the thoughts of their minds.”

  —MAESTRO LEONARDO DA VINCI

  22 JUNE 1562

  EL Alcázar, Madrid

  We returned to Madrid after the King’s birthday. The Queen has been quiet and given to fevers. I have had to leave her in the care of Francesca while I work on studies for Doña Juana’s portrait, for Doña Juana will brook no excuses for me not to go forward with her picture. But even in this drawing stage, the process is made painful by her constant disapproval. “My brow is so prominent that it looks like a smith could hammer a rod Upon it,” she said yesterday, and the day before, “Those are a man’s thick lips!” These are but two of the myriad complaints that have issued from her pursed mouth nearly every afternoon over the past month as she has stood before me in her severe black dress. She spares me exactly one turning of the hourglass, always in her chamber, and always with doña Eufrasia reading out loud to her from her Book of Hours. There is no conversation, not even about maestro Michelangelo—a blessing, though this makes it clear she thinks little more of me than as an instrument to needle My Lady, saving her pointed remarks about the Maestro for when we are in the presence of the Queen. Indeed, I have come to believe she wishes me to do her portrait only to deprive the Queen of my company.

  Today, after her usual moaning, she struck Upon the idea of borrowing the little daughter of one of her ladies to “enliven” the picture, since I was obviously on the way to producing a dull portrait. I was enthusiastic. The music of a child’s voice would have been a relief in that dreary chamber, heavy with the sounds of Doña Juana’s stern breathing, doña Eufrasia’s halting reading of the Scriptures, and the hiss of the sand dwindling in the hourglass. But no such music was to be heard. Once Doña Juana clamped her jeweled hand Upon the girl’s thin shoulder, the child was terrified into silence.

  I was holding out my chalk, visually taking measurements of the poor little girl to record on my paper, when doña Eufrasia’s soft voice caught my attention. She was reading a lesson from John in her Book of Hours when I heard the word “Nicodemus.” I paused. Nicodemus was the character from the Bible whom the Maestro had chosen to depict as himself in his Unfinished statue.

  “What is it, Sofonisba?” said Doña Juana.

  I marked where the top of the child’s head came against Doña Juana’s skirt on my study. “Just measuring, My Lady.”

  “Have you a special interest in Nicodemus?”

  “Do not we all, My Lady?” I said quickly. “He is a worthy figure.”

  “Is he? As a leader of the Jews, he was so afraid of his people’s bad opinion that he came to Christ only at night, when no one would see him. He was a coward who would have no one know his faith.”

  I thought of the statue. These three years after seeing it, I could still remember how even in its Unfinished state, the Maestro, depicted as Nicodemus, lovingly looked down Upon the dying Christ. “But he did come to Our Lord, Your Majesty.”

  “Did he? After Our Lord told him he must leave everything and be born again in the faith, Nicodemus asked how it could be possible. How could a man be born when he was old?”

  I pictured the Nicodemus of Michelangelo, laying the Christ to rest. “He must have done so, My Lady, because he was there when Christ was buried.”

  “Again, a safe thing to do. Who saw him at the grave? No one, besides Mary Magdalene and the Blessed Virgin. Show me in the Scriptures where we see Nicodemus proclaiming his faith to others.” She watched with satisfaction as I marked measurements in silence. “That is correct. Nowhere. You’ve made no remarks on doña Eufrasia’s other readings. Why this interest in the cowardly Nicodemus, he who hid his faith from the world?”

  Why had maestro Michelangelo chosen the ambivalent Nicodemus to represent him on his own grave? He could have chosen anyone—Peter, Paul, John the Baptist—any of the saints.

  But I said nothing more, and soon the sands ran out, releasing me from Doña Juana’s inquisitive eye. This assignment cannot be done quickly enough. I shall start the painting tomorrow, if my studies are ready or not.

  To Sofonisba Anguissola,

  In the Court of the Spanish King

  With immeasurable pride, I enclose a commemorative medal of the most worthy of subjects: you, my dear. It was done by a Leone Leoni, a most famous worker of metals in Milan. Have you ever heard of him? The medal is being circulated all around Lombardy, Rome, and Florence, perhaps in Venice, too. Its existence came as a complete surprise to me—Count Broccardo brought me one. He says your friend Michelangelo commissioned it and drew the study for it, though this I do not know for certain. That the likeness is so true to you that it must have been supplied by an expert who knows you does lend credence to this conjecture. But all I know is that Broccardo is gathering up as many as he can get his hands on, boasting of the close friendship he shares with the most famous person Cremona has ever produced. All this is too wondrous for me to contemplate. I am just your father—how proud this must make you feel!

  All is well here, though your mother prays too hard. It is as if she does not trust God to answer her. If only she could stop praying long enough to rejoice in all He has given us. We have so much. You are aware, I think, of my most blessed gift. Although you are so very far away, I thank Our Heavenly Father for you each and every day.

  From Cremona,

  this 9th day of October, 1562

  Your loving Father

  ITEM: “Tiziano Vecellio can go hang himself, for the portrait that he has painted resembles Her Serenity as much as a wolf does an ass.”

  —THE DUKE OF MANTUA, upon receiving his wife’s painfully accurate portrait

  ITEM: Let not your flesh color freeze. Let it not be too cold or purple. Vermilion makes even the coldest flesh warm. Use yellow ochre with the vermilion chiefly on peasants, shepherds, or mariners.

  10 JANUARY 1563

  El Alcázar, Madrid

  I have not written in this notebook for six months. Much of my energy has been sucked out of me in working on Doña Juana’s portrait. Bearing in mind Francisco de Holanda’s admonishment that the image of a person of high standing must be contrived in order to leave a portrait worthy for centuries to come, I have tried to cast her in a favorable light. I have softened every line in the picture to reduce the formidableness of the subject, I have painted her cold countenance in a friendly shade of pink, I have cast the brightest light in the painting on the child’s innocent face and little yellow gown to coax the eye to safer ground, but still the result remains the same: It is a chilling portrait of a woman with a taste for control.

  I had sought out don Alonso Sánchez Coello for advice.

  “How do I breathe some warmth into this?” I plunked down the mostly finished canvas on an easel in his studio. It was an afternoon in late October, and raining, hard, as it is wont to do in that month in Madrid.

  In his typical slow and deliberate fashion, he turned his drooping gaze away from the Tiziano he was copying for the King and to the portrait. His palette still hooked to his thumb, he carefully looked it Up and down.

  “Good Usage of color, doña Sofonisba. And I like how you’ve softened the lines. Here now—” He pointed with the maulstick he had been Using. “Here I believe you are striving for detail, but perhaps it might be too much?”

  I frowned at the sharp widow’s peak slicing an auburn V into the bulge of her brow. Avoiding Doña Juana’s threatening gaze, I had spent much time on her hair. Indeed, I had delineated each hair coming out of its shaft where it met her forehead.

  “Look at this Tiziano,” he said.

  The work d
on Alonso had been copying for another of the King’s palaces was Tiziano’s painting Venus and the Organ Player with Cupid. When I bent to study it, instantly my eye went to the place of greatest contrast: the dark fork where Venus’s torso met her thighs. That the organist’s gaze led in a direct line to this place only reinforced its central importance in the painting. I glanced toward the arcade. I was glad I had made Francesca wait outside.

  Don Alonso broke into a mournful smile. “I apologize for the subject.”

  “Do not apologize. I am an artist.” Or at least I was.

  “I hoped you would Understand. I find this fascinating. He got you to look exactly where he wished you to look, yet what did you see? Darkness. Nothing. A smudge. Yet you saw everything, or at least all you needed to, all by suggestion.”

  “Yes, I do see what you mean. But I don’t know how this may bring warmth to my painting.”

  “If only you could suggest warmth.”

  But I couldn’t, not in Doña Juana’s case. Even after much smudging, her portrait was hard and forbidding. It was as if the creature staring from within her cool eyes wished me to fail and I did.

  The painting now hangs in the entrance hall of the convent in which Doña Juana lives, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, the small palace near to El Alcázar in Madrid that she has made into a well-feathered nest for her and a select group of noblewomen who have become nuns. There Doña Juana’s grim image challenges all visitors, reminding those with the temerity to enter who is in control of the house.

  At least she does not suggest now that don Alonso carried out the painting. She does toss me that scrap of respect, though she will not have any medals struck to honor my work. That Michelangelo or any other person would want to commemorate me, as Papà had written, is astonishing. Does Michelangelo honor all his students this way?

  The King has been gone from Madrid during much of this time. His most recent journey was to Aragón in September, putting down the Unrest there. The nobles of that court have challenged the King’s authority, as indeed people all across Europe are challenging any authority, be it of kings or emperors or popes, encouraged by their claim to self-determination Unleashed by LUther. His Majesty returned only seventeen days ago, just in time for Christmas.

  He arrived on a quiet afternoon soon after the Queen’s siesta, while some of the ladies were still sleeping. Her Majesty, an expert now with the chalk—and fairly skilled with the brush, if I prepare the canvas and pigments and set her palette—had been chuckling and sketching Cher-Ami as he chewed on the pomander that had rolled Upon the floor while its owner slept. I was admiring the texture of the dog’s fur in Her Majesty’s drawing when the King strode into the chamber and flung off his hat.

  The condesa woke with a start as he scooped the Queen into his arms and kissed her on the neck while a page ran after His Majesty’s hat.

  “I have been dreaming of you,” the King said.

  The Queen turned away her head. “You came straight from the road.”

  “I must smell. I am sorry.”

  The Queen put her arms around his neck and leaned back, her train falling prettily from her shoulders. “You were good to come to me first.” She kissed his dusty cheek.

  The King placed the Queen away from him. “I will bathe, then come back. Ladies—” The row of Us dipped in curtseys like keys plunked on a clavichord. “Ladies, attend to her needs as she wishes, then please leave her in her chamber.”

  I dined with Francesca that night on ham and bread, alone in our chamber. For the King did claim his marital rights, as he has done every night that he has been home since his birthday last year, when he sent away Don Juan. It seems he has put aside his vow of physical temperance. Still, there is no child.

  I found My Lady in bed that next morning, making Cher-Ami dance by holding his front paws. “There you are, Sofi!” she cried as I entered, Francesca stumping behind. “How are you this morning?” The question was asked more as an announcement of her own high spirits than as an inquiry about my own.

  “I am well, Your Majesty.”

  “Just ‘well’?” The Queen stretched and yawned luxuriously.

  “Well enough.”

  “You lie.” She patted her chin for Cher-Ami to lick it. “We really must find you a husband.”

  “But I do not wish for a husband,” I said lightly. Inwardly, I cringed. I have not heard from Tiberio since laying my soul bare to him. But what other result did I expect?

  “Another lie. Everyone wants a husband. Even doña Eufrasia. At least that is what I told the King. And at last, he says he has found her one—the Prince of Ascoli.”

  I tied back the bed-hangings. “Doña Eufrasia is to marry?”

  “Oh, Cher-Ami, what terrible breath you have,” she said, then to me: “Yes, immediately. The King arranged it while he was gone. Heaven knows how much he had to pay Ascoli to take the simpering whore.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Well,” said the Queen, “I say good riddance, though the King should not have wasted a prince on her, and a handsome one at that. A rat catcher would have been more suitable—a loutish, hairy, stinking one. At least Ascoli will take her to his own palace, far away from here.”

  “Congratulations, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a grin. “You are next. I will ask the King today.” She smiled to herself. “I think this morning I could ask anything of him.”

  She put down her dog and hopped out of bed before I could object to her plan. It little mattered. Her mind was not truly on me.

  “You’re coming with me, Sofi, to the Casa de Campo,” she called from her velvet close stool. “I am meeting the King there after Mass.” She came to Us when she had finished, and held out her hands for Francesca to pour water over them. “Francesca, you needn’t go with Us this time. I am not having any of my other ladies. It is to be a private meeting.”

  As exciting as an out-of-doors assignation must seem to a seventeen-year-old girl, I was surprised the King had agreed to one, with the Queen’s tendency toward illness and his extreme caution with her health. Madrid in December is windy and frigid. Even indoors in the palace of El Alcázar, with room-sized tapestries covering the thick stone walls, braided rush mats on the floor, and braziers burning charcoal in every chamber, you could often see your breath. “Is it not too cold outside for excursions?” I asked.

  “You sound just like my old man of a husband,” the Queen chided. “What do you think furs are for?”

  “To keep animals warm?”

  She swatted at me as I helped her to put on her morning robe.

  “As for you, mon petit chou-chou,” she said to Cher-Ami, who stood on his back legs and barked, “you can go with Us, too, if you are good.”

  Soon after Mass and breakfast, we were huddled next to each other in a mule-drawn litter, the Queen wrapped in a lynx robe with Cher-Ami, and I in a robe of squirrel, as around Us the scarlet hangings shuddered in the bitter wind sweeping down from the Guadarramas. We jostled from side to side as we descended the road that wound its way from the cliff Upon which the palace was built to the gardens of the Casa de Campo in the valley below.

  I nestled my chin into the softness of the fur. “You must be very glad for the King to be home.”

  “Yes, it is good to have one’s itch scratched.” She opened her robe enough for Cher-Ami to pop out his head.

  Her flippant dismissal of the attentions of the most powerful man in the world discomfited me. She had not just his bed but his heart. Woe to her who broke it: as kind as the King seemed in his contentment, I feared that she had not yet fully tested his wrath. I wished to remind her of her good fortune.

  “So it is as Don Alessandro said last spring, then—fulfillment is greater in love than desire.”

  The smile fell from her face. In a moment’s time, her expression changed from that of a teasing girl to that of a hollow-eyed woman. “Do not speak to me of such.”

  She said nothing after th
at, only sat stroking her little dog as we made the final descent to the Casa de Campo. I drew back a curtain. Ahead, the mules’ black manes slapped against their thick brown necks as we passed Under a stone arch wound with bare and thorny rose canes. Past clipped juniper hedges we rode, by empty flowerbeds heaped over with dirt, Until we came at last to a collection of low brick buildings fronted by wrought-iron cages: the Royal Zoo. From the pointed top of the largest cage, a scarlet and gold Royal banner snapped straight out in the wind.

  “There he is,” I said.

  The Queen leaned forward to peer around me, a red-gloved finger to her lips. Ahead, the King stood talking with two African gentlemen wrapped in striped robes.

  The Queen sank back.

  The King turned around. When he saw the Queen, his face shed its usual coldly polite expression and lightened with a smile.

  The muleteer stopped our conveyance. The King stepped over to help Us down from our couch. He kissed the Queen. “Now hide your eyes.”

  The Queen pulled back her chin, brightening. “What? A surprise for me?”

  “Do as I say, my darling.”

  She handed Cher-Ami, yapping, to me and covered her eyes, knocking the diamond dangling from her cap with the cuff of her red gloves. He led her by the crook of her arm to the closest iron cage.

  “Now look.”

  She put down her hands. “Oh, Felipe! A lion.”

  “A lioness,” he said. “Like you.”

  “Oh!” she breathed. “Will she have cubs?”

  “You would think the woman would be happy just to have a lioness,” he said to me with a contained smile. “But My Lady, I have thought of that, too. I tried to ask that of the gentlemen who brought her here. Unfortunately, none of Us can Understand them, though apparently they are Upset. I believe they are worried about the animal catching a chill.” He arranged the Queen’s cloak around her chin. “As I am about my lioness.”