“You should be maturing. You should have wisps of a beard and a creaky voice. But no, you look exactly as you did when I first took you. I know that you’re the boy from my document, your hair color is so distinctive, Bastardo, but maybe it’s not that you have special blood. Maybe you’re just a sorcerer. Do you know what we do with sorcerers?”
“They’re imprisoned,” I said flatly. But prison would be better than this, I thought.
“We burn them,” he said, mirth in his voice. “A slow process to melt the skin and fry the brain in its skull, to extract every tiny bit of agony…. It’s not pleasant to be a sorcerer, Bastardo. Lucky for you that I employ you here. Be sure you continue to please my patrons. If I put you back out on the street and give that document to the Church fathers, they’d burn you as an abomination and a witch.”
“I’m not a sorcerer, sir. I’m just different,” I said.
“Different? You’re a freak who doesn’t age as the rest of us do.” His thin lips curled in a sneer. “And the rest of us do age. Like Simonetta here, she’s aging. Isn’t that right, Simonetta? You’re getting old and you’re worried you’ll never have children? Isn’t that what you said to Maria the other day?” He tossed the questions out without looking at her and she shrank back against the wall of my room, her mouth like a gash in her pale face.
Silvano turned my face from side to side. “Unlike you, I am getting older. Age makes a man think, if he’s not a wastrel. I’ve been thinking. I would like a son, an heir. A son who will marry into one of Florence’s best families and enhance the luster of the Silvano name. A son who will ascend to great social heights, when you finally do come to look like a man, and I sell you to the Pope for the social station I deserve!” He released me abruptly and stepped away. “My son will be respected. He won’t be a freak whore and sorcerer like you, Bastardo. He will see to my old age.” He turned to Simonetta. “There’s an ufficiale, Alberti, who is a frequent patron, send for him. I’ll explain the situation. And send for a doctor, one of the Hebrew doctors who can be persuaded to agree with my story. Promise him a florin if he says what he’s told to. If he tries to refuse, threaten to have his family put out of Florence.”
ALMOST ANOTHER YEAR PASSED, and still I hadn’t changed. I took to examining myself in the dark mirrors around Silvano’s palazzo into which patrons liked to look to tidy themselves before they left. My face remained boyish, unfuzzed, unaltered. What was wrong with me, that I wasn’t maturing the way other boys did? Was Silvano right, was I a freak? An abomination? What did his document say, and why was he sure it spoke of me? I knew I wasn’t a sorcerer. Was this why I’d been put out on the streets in the first place? Even Giotto commented on it, one day as I walked with him.
It was a summer morning, enlivened by good weather, and thick with the welter of sights, sounds, and smells of the Florence that I loved in those days: flowers blooming in window boxes and piled high on wooden carts from farms in the contado, the outskirts; pretty women in colorful dresses carrying baskets filled with produce like sweet figs and young beans or goods like swaths of our excellent Florentine wool; odds and ends with which regular people with families—whole people—defined their lives. Close to the front of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, stones were being laid for Giotto’s bell tower. The clanging rose up along with the clatter of horse hooves, the chiming of church bells, the creaks and rumbles of wagons, and the distant sussuration of the flour mills and wool-washing shops along the river. Giotto and I were headed for the construction site of Santa Maria del Fiore when the Master stopped, panting from our brisk trotting, and pointed to a stone.
“Do you know what that is, Luca Cuccolo?” His voice was affectionate as he called me “Luca Little Dog,” but I knew the affection wasn’t for me. It was meant for the flat gray stone in front of us. There were black letters painted on the stone, but I didn’t read, so I just shook my head. “That is a timeless place of reverence, a sacred holy place like an altar,” Giotto said. “I call it Sasso di Dante, Dante’s stone. He would sit here for hours, watching the construction, writing his immortal Commedia, and thinking.”
“Dante the great poet, who was your friend.” I nodded. “So this stone is sacred because a great man, a perfect man, sat here often.”
“My old friend sinned. In his great work The Inferno he admits to lust and pride—”
“Hell must be more crowded than Florence, if everyone who sins with lust and pride confesses it,” I commented. A grin split Giotto’s homely, wonderful face.
“We’re all human. You’ll be prey to lust, too, when you grow into a man.”
“It isn’t my lust that will damn me,” I murmured, thinking uneasily of Silvano’s insinuations that I was a sorcerer.
Giotto laughed, a deep resonant laugh from his belly that only he could produce. Passersby smiled. “Me neither, pup. That’s what the grace of purgatory is for: purification.”
“If you believe in purification,” I countered dryly. It would take more than purgatory to fit me for heaven.
“I do,” Giotto said. “It isn’t perfection that makes this stone holy. Dante was a good man, but flawed, as we all are. Dante was even exiled because of corruption, though he wasn’t guilty of what they accused him.”
“It’s about his genius,” I reflected, running my hand over the rough surface of the stone. “His mastery as a poet. That’s what makes the stone holy, even if he wasn’t a perfect man.”
“Exactly.” Giotto clapped me on the shoulder. “There are no perfect men. Just men with sublime parts. You have good understanding, Luca.”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I thought only things the Church anoints were sacred and holy. Like the bread and wine of communion.”
“That’s an instance of holiness,” Giotto acknowledged. “The deeper mystery of the sacrament, that moment of heaven entering earth, makes it so.”
“I don’t think heaven ever enters earth, the earth is too full of cruelty and ugliness. If heaven comes here, it must take on the taint of evil, like fabric dipped in dye. But then I haven’t had any catechism. I don’t even know that I’ve been baptized,” I confessed, with a short laugh.
“Surely your parents had you baptized!” Giotto responded.
I shrugged. “I don’t remember them or the life I might have lived before the streets.”
“Luca, you must have some idea about your origins!”
I glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “I heard a tale about foreigners, traveling with Cathars, who lost a child.” I had asked around in the Oltrarno about this, but Silvano had caught wind of my queries and made fun of me, so I seldom spoke of it.
“I’ve heard of the Cathars,” Giotto said slowly. “They were a devout group full of Christian virtue. They cared for the sick and the needy, tried to live pure lives that reflected the most basic teachings of Jesus. I never understood why the Church called them heretics and tried to eradicate them. Perhaps because they had a strange idea about the Christ and baptism, that the Lord made the river Jordan flow upward, in reverse. It’s a beautiful poetic image, but why destroy a people because of it?”
“Why destroy a people at all?” I asked, enjoying our discussion, as I always did. “Why not leave people alone to follow their own faith as they see fit?”
“There’s a truly heretical belief: tolerance.” Giotto laughed. Then he shrugged. “I considered many times this river flowing in reverse. I thought it was a demonstration of the Lord’s mastery over nature, which is a great primal force, an original source. I go to nature first to find what is sacred and holy.”
“The priests don’t say things like this,” I ventured.
“You’re too clever to believe what priests tell you.” Giotto laughed again. “You’ve been around for enough years to have your own thoughts.” He tilted his grizzled head, stared at me with his keen eyes. “Though your years don’t show in your face. You’re like a painting, unchanging and timeless. There’s a mystery to you,
Bastardo,” he said. “You have the face of a boy but the words of an old man who has spent too much time stewing in his own thoughts. Be careful that you don’t burn for it. The Church doesn’t much like those who think for themselves.”
“No one does,” I said, recalling Silvano’s threatening words. But after all I’d seen and done, I didn’t know how I was going to stop myself from stewing in my own thoughts. They were like the flotsam tossed about by a river, bobbing up and down within me, differentiating me from other people, and from the other whores, even more than my work or my youthfulness.
“Be careful who you confide in. I’d hate to see harm come to you,” Giotto said, his mouth drooping as a rare air of sadness enveloped him. Then his stout body twanged like a viola string, and his jovial nature returned. “Come, pup, let’s see my bell tower. The tribunal fathers complain about the cost, but beauty doesn’t come cheap, especially beautiful marble inlay!”
Chapter 5
GIOTTO DIED IN 1337, and all of Florence mourned. People who had merely heard of him went about with woeful faces and dark vestments. He was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore, whose walls were finally complete, under a slab of white marble. I did not attend the lavish public funeral procession or the long Mass. I went a few days later and stood near the white marble with Giotto’s small panel of the Evangelist and his peach-colored dog hidden in my shirt. I didn’t pray, I just remembered Giotto’s paintings. I thought of his homely face and the way he loved to laugh and how his cheerfulness drew people to him. And I recalled, and savored, each of our conversations over the years. My friendship with Giotto had been the sweetest thing in my life. It made me feel worthy. It inspired me with hope for other friends, better circumstances, a better self, and even, perhaps, one day, a wife of my own. It was a lofty ambition for one such as me, who probably wouldn’t make it out of childhood. I didn’t even hope to free myself from Silvano. I had tried once, two years previously, partly as a result of a conversation with Giotto. The painful memory came up unbidden and unwanted, and showed how sorrow was woven into even the brightest tapestries of my life.
It had been an entirely spontaneous attempt at freedom. One afternoon I was out trailing Giotto from a small distance, ducking furtively behind people and rocks and carriages so I didn’t bother the Master, when a tall man with a sweet face and lively eyes suddenly pounced up.
“See here, boy, why do you slink around after the Magnus Magister? Are you planning to empty his pocket?” The man’s dark eyes danced as his hands held my shoulders firmly.
“No, sir!” I yelped. “I like to watch Master Giotto. I learn things.”
“You learn things? What is it you want to learn?” the man asked, releasing me abruptly.
“Everything, I guess,” I said, shrugging.
“Everything? A lofty peak to scale. What would be your motive for such an ascent?” He had a faint accent, as if he had come from Florence but didn’t live here.
“Why does anyone climb a mountain?” I responded, with some asperity because Giotto had moved on and I wanted to follow him. “To see the view!”
“To see the view indeed!” The tall man burst out laughing. “But don’t you think most people climb mountains simply to cross over them to the other side?”
“How would I know what most people do? I’m not most people, I’m me.” I straightened my mantello. “May I go now?”
“Yes, by all means, and I shall ponder your desire to ascend a great height merely to see what it has to offer!” He waved me on. I darted after Giotto. I didn’t find him at first, and when I did, he was standing with the tall man. Giotto spied me and waved me over.
“This young pup is a friend of mine,” Giotto said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Luca, this is my friend Petrarca.”
“A fine protégé”—Petrarca winked at me—“whose great desire is to learn everything!”
“I thought your great desire was for freedom, Luca,” Giotto teased.
“Yes, that is what I want,” I said, softly. “More than anything!”
Giotto laughed and ruffled my hair. “Go on about your rascally ways, then, and pursue freedom with all your heart! The Lord knows you deserve to have what your heart longs for.”
Something about Giotto’s affection, and his words, and Petrarca’s approval, set me mindlessly ablaze with thoughts of freedom. Heedless of the consequences, I threw myself onto a peddler’s cart going out of the city. Two condottieri who frequented Silvano’s saw me right away. They hauled me out of the cart and dragged me back to Silvano’s, hoping for a reward.
“Take your choice of my workers, on the house.” Silvano waved, though he never offered his wares for free. He smiled. “This was very naughty, Luca! Simonetta, bring me Bella. And my knife.”
“What do you want with Bella, sir?” I whispered, fear hardening my stomach.
“She’s a pretty child, isn’t she, Luca? Rather like little Ingrid who worked here years ago, with the big blue eyes and milky white skin. Though Bella’s not blond. There she is.” Silvano nodded. We stood in the carpeted foyer. It was daylight outside, but the windows were sheathed in heavy brocades, so the only light came from candles set in sconces on the wall. Bella was about seven years old, dressed in a sleeveless yellow camicia with her slender white arms bare and her brown hair unbound, as if she’d been sleeping.
“Bella, Luca here has done a very bad thing,” Silvano said, taking his knife from Simonetta. Bella peeped at Silvano out of her sky-blue eyes. “He must be taught a lesson.” Silvano raised Bella’s hand to his lips. Then he held her hand out and extended her index finger. With his other hand, swiftly, he swiped his knife into her finger, and it popped off. Bella and I shrieked as blood spurted from the stump at her knuckle. Simonetta bowed her head, covering her face with her hands as her shoulders shook.
“No, no,” screamed Bella, thrashing, trying to pull free from Silvano’s grasp.
“Yes,” Silvano said, holding out her thumb. “See, Luca doesn’t care so much about his own life and limb.” Silvano swiped his knife again, and Bella’s thumb flew off. “He cares about other children, though, don’t you, Luca?”
“Please, stop hurting her,” I begged, sobbing. “Hurt me instead!”
“Wouldn’t work, and I need you whole to sell to the Church,” Silvano said, panting like a man in the throes of lust. He extended her middle finger, though she tried to curl it and begged pitifully for him to stop.
“Please kill me.” I writhed on the ground in a pool of Bella’s blood. “Bella, I’m so sorry!”
“This is tiresome,” Silvano muttered, and a quick slash of his knife left a gaping hole in Bella’s throat. It was a relief to watch the blank hand of death wipe her soul out of her eyes. “Luca, learn from this. If you ever try to escape, I will kill another worker, and I won’t go easy on her, the way I did with Bella.” He stepped away, wiping his blade on his lucco. “Simonetta, clean this mess. And you can go back out, if you wish, Luca,” he called airily.
It was the one memory concerning Giotto that held anguish for me, and Bella’s murder led me to forbid myself the whole notion of escape, of freedom. I even stopped inquiring about foreigners with a Cathar connection who might have lost a baby. It wasn’t Giotto’s fault, of course, and I found great joy in all my other recollections of him. Only a few months before his death, he’d shown me a panel he’d painted for the nuns of San Giorgio. He’d ushered me before the painting and said nothing until I yelped with delight.
“He has my face! That’s me!” I said, pointing to a boy in the corner, a reverent onlooker.
“A man who knows himself will go far in life.” Giotto laughed.
“I’m not worthy,” I murmured.
“Of course you’re worthy. Better your face than that of any of my children or grandchildren. We’re not a lot that God has blessed with beauty, my wife and me least of all.” He rolled his eyes in mock despair. “At least we’re a good match for each other, eh? I don’t know what you’ll do for
a wife, Luca. There are few women whose beauty will match your looks. It’s a great blessing you’ve been given, though you don’t seem to value it.”
“You have a greater blessing: you create beauty,” I had replied softly, happy to hear him mention a wife for me, as if I were as worthy as anyone else in marriage-obsessed Florence. So I’d started to think about how I might one day earn the love of a wife, what I could do to deserve her. It became a secret motivation of mine.
In our last meeting, Giotto and I walked in the heart of Florence around the octagonal Baptistery with its colorful robe of bright marble. He recited from Dante’s Paradiso: “That which dies not and that which can die are nothing but the splendor of that Idea which our Sire, in Loving, begets; for that living Light which so streams from its shining Source that…of its own goodness gathers the beams, as it were mirrored, in nine subsistences, remaining forever one.”
“That’s beautiful, but I don’t understand it, how three or nine can be one,” I said. I stopped to admire the facade’s geometrical green-and-white patterns. They were encrusted with the finest white Carrara marble and with green serpentine stone that Giotto had told me was “verde di Prato.”
“My old friend admired this ancient building, which was a Roman temple devoted to Mars. It’s so exquisite that we can’t let it alone, but keep making changes to it.” Giotto smiled and stroked his beard. “Arnolfo di Cambio added the striped facing to the corner pilasters, and its precise forms are perfectly in keeping with the rhythms of the wall surface.” He ran his hand along a stripe, then turned to me. “Don’t fret over Dante’s poetry, pup. You’re intelligent, you can think about it, and much will reveal itself to you; that’s the beauty of his art. He’s talking about the nine orders of angels, and how all creation, everything, whether mortal or immortal, is a form of love streaming like light from the mind of God. Dante thought of God as light.”
Immortal Page 8
