Daughter of Venice

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “So the Senate found a way around the denunciation?” I ask, incredulous.

  “A most elegant, and, thus, Venetian way.” Francesco’s eyes shine. “The Committee on Heresy simply changed the name of the painting to ‘Il Convito in Casa di Levi’—the banquet at Levi’s house.”

  Elegant indeed. The lucky painter. I’m laughing.

  “Who was Levi?” asks Paolina.

  “A man in the holy testament who offered a banquet for Jesus,” says Laura. “You know that story, Paolina.”

  “So Veronese is a free man and Venice got our wonderful painting as is.” Francesco stands and wags a finger at us. “Remember that, my lovelies. To be Venetian is to be practical.” He leaves.

  I wonder where he’s going. It could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. That’s his right.

  We are silent.

  Finally, Laura picks up her bobbin. “Shall we be practical, my Venetian sisters?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE XILOGRAFIA

  It’s late afternoon and I’ve finished my lessons—dance and music. Laura remains in the conservatory, practicing violin. She’s good at it. I, on the other hand, have a stone ear; I’ll never make anything but screeches with my violin, no matter how many years I practice. So I’m standing in the bedchamber I share with Laura, picking up the bronze statues of animals that Uncle Leonardo has given us. Every time he returns from his travels, he brings us another. The boar with the real bone tusks is my favorite. But the bumpy toad and the wide, scuttling crab are almost as precious.

  The canals of Venice teem with crabs. Small boys crab all the time. I know that because of my brothers.

  And I have a secret. Once, when I was Maria’s age, I overheard my older brothers as they went down the stairs, talking about which baits they’d use to lure the crabs and who would get to swoop down with the net at the just the right moment. I snuck into their bedchambers and searched through their clothes until I found the shirt I wanted. I was such a little fool, I picked one that had long sleeves with red lace at the cuffs and collar. I even put on a red cummerbund with lace, too. Somehow my four-year-old brain thought the boys would take me in as another brother if I wore boys’ clothes—and I chose the clothes I loved the best.

  I raced down the stairs and found the boys on our fondamenta—our bank on the canal—squatting in a huddle. They laughed when I came up decked out in party clothes. All but Antonio. He handed me a string and told me to try crabbing. And he called me “little brother.” I actually believed he thought I was a boy. And, to everyone’s amazement, within minutes a monster-sized crab tugged on my string. But then Cook came outside and shooed me back upstairs with the threat of telling Mother if I ever tried that again.

  What fun it was. What fun, just to go crabbing.

  I glance out over the balcony at the canal below. A small boat, a sandalo, carries four young men, standing tall. It turns onto a side canal.

  I don’t know the name of that canal. I’ve never been down it. And there it is, opening to my eyes, then disappearing behind the buildings.

  Everything disappears behind buildings, around bends. Everything teases.

  I think of the map in Cristina Brandolini’s home, the one that shows every alley and canal of my dear Venice.

  And now I’m rushing down a flight of stairs to our map room. I pass the library, where the door is ajar, and I can hear Messer Zonico, the boys’ tutor, talking with Father. So the lessons must be over—the boys are gone, and Father is there. It’s odd that Father’s home this early.

  I step closer and listen.

  “Piero, at twenty years old,” says Messer Zonico, “is the most persistent at his afternoon studies, though Vincenzo is the most brilliant.”

  He doesn’t mention Francesco. That’s not surprising. Francesco recently refused to study anymore with this tutor. He’s too busy having fun.

  But Messer Zonico doesn’t mention Antonio, either. Antonio is seventeen—two years older than Vincenzo. If the tutor is talking about Piero and Vincenzo, he should mention my sweetest brother Antonio, as well.

  Messer Zonico bids farewell. He’ll come out the door any moment now.

  I run to the map room and duck inside. The afternoon light hangs heavy. Maps are mounted on the top half of every wall, reaching practically to the ceiling. I see large land masses with mountain ranges, and lots of seas, and one vast ocean. Where in all this is the Venetian Empire?

  My uncles could tell me. They have been almost everywhere.

  Our only uncle who stays home with us is Mother’s brother Umberto—because he is blind and never travels. I’m glad that he’s always around, though of course I wish for his sake that he hadn’t gone blind. He’s my favorite uncle because he’s always been the most patient. And he knows a lot, because, as he likes to say, he was adventurous before he went blind, so he had all sorts of experiences, even though he was but Francesco’s age at the time. When I was small and everyone else would get annoyed at my incessant questions, Uncle Umberto would pull me onto his lap and answer question after question, until I was satisfied—at least for the moment.

  But I have four other uncles. My father’s brothers. When they are in town, they live in rooms on this floor. They like living close to one another, and they gather often in this map room. The whole world matters to them. That’s where they are now, off in that wide world. Uncle Leonardo is on a trade mission to Constantinople, undoubtedly buying barrels and barrels of pepper. Uncle Giacomo is on a peace mission to the Sforza palace in Milan. And, most important, Uncle Girolamo is finally governor of Cyprus, after three separate times of being ambassador, and Uncle Giambattista is ambassador to no less than His Holiness, the Pope.

  I can say the place names easily. But I don’t know where Cyprus is on these maps. I don’t know where Milan is. Or even the Vatican.

  One wall has smaller maps. In a sense, they aren’t maps at all, but pictures of campi with churches. I find Piazza San Marco. It’s the only one I recognize. Though I was but a little girl, the facade of that basilica is painted in my memory permanently from my one festival there, as are the bell tower and all the arches—arches and arches and arches.

  I remember standing on a long balcony with Andriana and Laura. Mother sat beside us on a stool. And so many other women and girls lined the balcony. Mother was pregnant and not feeling well. Carolina was inside her—Carolina, one of our three sisters who later died.

  Father talks about the census figures, how many people live in each area of town, how many babies die, how many women in childbirth die—so I know that our family is far from alone in these sad matters. Indeed, while Mother’s and Father’s childhood families had more losses than most, the family they have built together has made up for it by being exceptionally lucky. Mother has lost only three babies to illness, and all of them girls.

  It was a dreadful time. A lethal fever swept through Venice, bringing the stink of rot, which hung in the air for months. Loud, raspy coughs racked all the girls younger than Laura and I. Mother quickly quarantined them. Iole and Daria, the other set of twins, died, as did the new baby, Carolina. Only Paolina lived through it, though she was pale and skinny. Mother has made up for it by feeding Paolina the fattiest pieces of meat ever since. She’s now on the plump side, to be sure. Everyone knows the fattiest meat is the juiciest and the most delicious. But we don’t begrudge it to Paolina. She is everyone’s darling.

  A rush of love for Paolina warms me. I’m so glad she didn’t succumb to the fever.

  I remember everything about the day of the great festival. Mother felt so poorly, she almost changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t let us go. But Andriana cried and swore to hold Laura by one hand and me by the other, so that Mother wouldn’t have to do anything at all—just be there. Mother finally relented, though she sat silent the whole time.

  The woman to my left explained what was going on to her daughter, and, naturally, I listened closely. She pointed out who was who in the procession in th
e piazza below. She knew which officials wore the gold and white, which wore the crimson. She knew who the standard-bearers were. Her daughters ate candied nuts from a silk purse on a cord around her wrist and laughed at the rising slope on the rear of the Doge’s hat. None of us could see the jewels from where we sat, but the woman described them in detail, as though she had actually seen them herself instead of just hearing about them from her husband. And she said, “Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist.” She said it three times.

  When we got home, I taught that saying to Andriana and Laura. And later we dressed up and played procession in our bedchamber, chanting those words as we marched around the room. I felt important—as though I were a soldier or even a senator, marching for everything good and holy, unflinching no matter what assailed me. Invincible. We played procession often. Then one day Andriana decided she was too old—and that was the end of it. Just like that.

  I walk around the map room slowly now, but there’s no aerial view of Venice. Nothing I can study to learn about this world I live in.

  On the table by the window lies a picture which must be waiting to be mounted. I stand over it. It shows a ducal procession in Piazza San Marco. I smile; it’s as though my memory a moment ago has come alive and materialized on the table, just for me. The men in the procession are talking to one another or playing instruments or marching fiercely ahead. One of them looks remarkably like Father, and I am sure now that the artist has tried to make the likeness of members of the Senate, for these men wear red gowns with fur trim. Why, there’s Uncle Girolamo. It’s uncanny the way the artist has captured his smile.

  Along one side of the piazza women gaze down at the procession from a long balcony. That must be where we sat years ago. Beneath the balcony are arches. I remember the arches on the Basilica—but I didn’t realize there were arches under where I sat, as well. I count them now. One hundred. Precisely one hundred arches. How perfect.

  And now I look at the women on the balcony. I go from face to face. I don’t recognize anyone, but perhaps these aren’t noblewomen. Wait, this woman looks a lot like another one. Yes, it’s the same face, the same dress, the same pose. Twins, like Laura and me. But, oh, the woman next to her is like the woman next to her twin. Two sets of twins? It can’t be.

  I scan the whole balcony. The women are repeated every twelve panels. They were done from a pattern.

  But each man in the procession is unique—even though there must be over a hundred of them.

  “Donata? Is that you?” Antonio comes in, carrying Nicola on his back.

  I step away from the table. “I could be Laura.” Of our seven brothers and three sisters, none can tell Laura and me apart. Unless we’re undressed, that is; I have a blue-black birthmark on the bottom of my right foot and another on my back.

  Antonio lifts his eyebrows in doubt. “If you were, you wouldn’t be here.”

  That’s true. But it doesn’t matter, because I know Antonio won’t get mad at me. He’s the one who showed me how to crab, after all. He never gets mad.

  Nicola smiles at me. “Antonio is my horse. I’m going to race him in Campo San Polo.”

  “I’ve never been to Campo San Polo,” I say.

  “I’m going,” says Nicola.

  I bet that’s true. I bet little Nicola will go to Campo San Polo and I never will. He’ll watch the horse races and I never will. Maybe he’ll even ride a horse in a race some day, though Campo San Polo is not in our section of Venice.

  Antonio gallops around the table with an exaggeratedly high gait, so that Nicola bumps wildly, letting out shrieks of glee. He halts in front of me and prances in place. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Do you know who made this wood engraving?”

  “Matteo Pagan. He has a shop on the Merceria.”

  “The Merceria,” I say. It’s the biggest commercial street in Venice.

  “When Father and Piero and Vincenzo and I go out in the morning, we take the gondola to the point on the Canal Grande near where the old Rialto bridge stood before it burned down. You know that spot, right?”

  I nod. Mother comments on the site of the old bridge every time we pass it.

  “The Merceria runs from there to the Piazza San Marco. The four of us walk the full length, listening to trade news. Then Father continues on through the piazza to his work in the Senate, while we boys wander back slowly.” He smiles. “Getting our fill of current events.”

  “And going into shops is current events?”

  “In a way. We have to know what Venice produces, after all. And it’s fun.” Antonio grins now. “That’s a fine xilografia, don’t you think?”

  “The men are real,” I say. “The women aren’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A thickness forms in my throat. I feel unreal myself, like the women in the xilografia, as though everything I am, everything I think, is merely an idea, a dream—and a flimsy dream, at that. I know nothing. “Have you ever seen a map of Venice that shows all the palazzi and the canals and the alleys—all from above?”

  “Jacopo de’ Barbari made such a map.” Antonio stops prancing. “Why?”

  “I wish we had one.”

  Antonio frowns. “I could get a copy, I’m sure. But what’s on your mind, Donata?”

  “Venice,” I say. “Simply Venice.”

  “Keep going, horsie!” Nicola shouts. He squeezes Antonio’s nose playfully. “Go go go.”

  They gallop out of the map room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MIDDAY MEAL

  Mother’s in the kitchen with Cook. So is Aunt Angela. Even Cara, the wet nurse and laundress, is in the kitchen.

  Andriana and Laura and Paolina and I have spent the morning playing with the little ones in Laura’s and my bedchamber. Or, rather, Paolina and I played with the little ones, while Laura and Andriana worked on the girls’ hair. I’m used to putting my hair in braids, naturally, but the bun Andriana has fashioned on me is not a twist of braids over one another. Instead, it’s a clever smoothing into a large puffy ball. And it’s not in the ordinary place, on top of the head. No, the new style, according to Andriana, who somehow manages to learn these things, has the bun at the back of the head.

  Aunt Angela comes into the room. “Don’t you look nice. And just in time. Come along, everyone.” The boys run past her toward the dining hall. Little Maria takes her hand.

  Andriana looks Laura and Paolina and me over with a discerning eye. “Oh, I forgot something. The most important thing. We’ll be there in a few moments, Aunt Angela. I promise.”

  “Hurry. Your father has announcements to make. He won’t tolerate delay.” Aunt Angela leaves with Maria.

  Andriana picks up her hairbrush, and with quick, deft moves, she loosens a few strands of curls on both sides of Laura’s face, so they hang down beside her cheeks. “Isn’t that perfect?” she says happily.

  And it is—the curls are of exactly the same thickness and length. I smile in admiration.

  “Now, Laura, you do that to Paolina. I’ll do myself and Donata.” Andriana goes to the mirror and primps.

  I stand beside her feeling foolish. After all, if Laura can arrange Paolina’s hair, then I should be able to arrange my own. I reach for a lock of hair at my temple.

  “Don’t, Donata.” Andriana speaks gently. “You heard what Aunt Angela said. Father’s got important announcements to make. That’s why everyone’s cooking so much. It will be like a party. You want to look your best, don’t you?”

  Andriana’s right; I’ll look better if she does my hair. It’s not that I’m clumsy. It’s more that I’m impatient about certain kinds of things—and hair is among them. I hold my hands behind my back to keep them from acting against my better judgment.

  Andriana kisses me on the cheek and fixes my hair. I stare at the mirror transfixed. I look just like Laura—perfect.

  We hold hands and walk to the eating hall. Giovanni plays on the floor with a carved wooden tiger that Francesco brought him f
rom the Chinese market—Francesco is liberal with gifts; he loves the markets. But everyone else is seated. Even little Maria. Andriana and Laura and Paolina and I take our seats.

  The table is strewn with delicate pea flowers. Our dining table always has flowers, but not in this much profusion unless we have guests. Cook has scattered rose water on the tablecloth. I feel pampered and happy.

  Giò Giò, Cook’s primary helper, serves. An antipasto of folpeti consi—boiled octopus with parsley. Then a first course of rice with snails and raisins. And, finally, lamb, bitter chicory, bread with honey. It is, most definitely, a feast.

  The boys talk together. The girls talk together. Mother instructs Nicola and Bortolo on their eating habits, as she does every meal. Maria looks from face to face silently. When she sees me looking at her, she waves. I wave back. Father waves at us both. Maria giggles. The air feels like a festival.

  Cook comes in carrying a plate piled high with cookies of every type—zaeti and amareti and baicoi and busolai. He puts them in the center of the table, as always. And, as always, I immediately push them directly in front of Uncle Umberto, who loves cookies almost more than the small boys do.

  I don’t know how I came to earn the privilege to be the one to push the cookies in front of Uncle Umberto. I’m sure that any one of my brothers or sisters would like to do it. But somehow everyone looks to me—and it has been this way as long as I can remember.

  “Thank you, Donata.” Uncle Umberto’s blind fingers lightly tap until they find the biggest zaeto, his favorite. The rest of us wait, out of custom, full of happy expectation at the pleasure we know will cross his face as he takes a bite, and I realize that this is the right atmosphere for asking for gifts.

  “Father,” I say. Everyone hushes. When Father speaks or when Father is addressed, everyone pays attention. “Do you know the mapmaker Jacopo de’ Barbari?”

  “Indeed I do.” Father looks at Mother, then back at me. “Have you met one of his daughters?”