Simonetta merely shook her head, unable to speak. I could feel her trembling.
Once more the flag flew up.
Once more the horses stormed toward each other.
Once more the heavy lances drew nearer and nearer and nearer to the riders’ armored but mortal bodies.
Had I blinked, I would have missed what happened next. Within a few feet of collision, Giuliano kicked his horse once with his inside heel and pressed hard with his leg against Orso’s ribs. Only a highly trained and trusting horse would understand what that meant, and then actually do it while running at such a breakneck speed. Orso took a sashay step outward, away from the fence. Then, within a stride, Giuliano pressed and kicked with his other, outside leg, to push Orso back into the center barrier. It was like an elegant dance move.
And it made the Pazzi miss.
Giuliano’s lance struck him full-force at an angle.
The Pazzi man went flying.
Simonetta sprung to her feet, and I followed. She laughed and wept at the same time as the crowd erupted in riotous cheers.
The applause went on and on. No one seemed to care that it took quite a while for the Pazzi rider to stagger to his feet or for several men to catch his destrier, which raced round the piazza in confusion and fury.
Finally, Lorenzo de’ Medici stepped out of the banner-bedecked dais and raised his hands to silence the crowd. Unlike his beautiful younger brother, Lorenzo was homely, with a jutting jaw and a long, crooked, flattened nose. But his richly embroidered clothes dazzled, and his words were honey. “Dear friends, good citizens of Florence! Giuliano de’ Medici, my beloved brother and”—he paused and pointed at the crowd, sweeping his arm along the piazza’s length—“your Prince of Youth . . .” On cue, the crowd interrupted him with cheers. “Your Prince of Youth has won the day over a field of virtuous and gallant men. We thank them all for braving the lists and displaying such mighty athleticism and chivalry.” The crowd cheered again. “All these riders—every single one—are champions. Champions worthy of Olympus!”
I smiled. Oh, Lorenzo was good. He had the crowd enthralled.
“Please, my friends, please. Toast them all tonight. Recount the story of today again and again. Remember the heroism displayed in their battles! Their undeniable demonstration of valor and skill! Today is legend!”
He held up a parchment containing the final scores. “And now to share the complete results, but first . . .” Lorenzo gestured for a page to step forward holding the tournament’s grand prize—a spectacular helmet, its crest adorned with Mars, the god of war. Lorenzo waited for the appreciative applause to die down before breaking the seal and unfurling the official tallies.
“Giuliano di Piero de’ Medici won this joust by twenty-one points! He broke a total of fifty-nine lances! Fifty-nine!” Lorenzo shouted. “Behold our winner and your hero!”
The crowd roared.
Lorenzo embraced his brother. Awash in triumph and smiles, Giuliano walked the length of the stands, holding aloft the exquisitely decorated helmet so everyone could admire it. The piazza reverberated with cheers that echoed along the walls of the church and the surrounding houses. As I clapped, I cast my eye around the scene, memorizing the jubilant faces, the sumptuous clothing, the heart-lifting laughter, and the colorful, rich brocade banners festooning the usually modest, sandy-colored buildings of the piazza. It was as if a rainbow of happiness had fallen from the sky and laid itself out along the square. Tomorrow the piazza would be stripped and back to the grittier business of bartering and selling, cloth weaving and dyeing, while penitent pilgrims climbed the stairs of the grim, brown-bricked church of Santa Croce to prostrate themselves before dark, candlelit altars.
Tomorrow my life would be ordinary again as well.
I let out a resigned sigh as I watched officials and dignitaries cluster into typical end-of-celebration good-byes. Ragged Florentine boys dashed onto the field, searching the sand for the pearls lost from Giuliano’s costume, knocked off by the joust’s collisions. One child jumped up and down clutching a jewel in his hand, knowing his life had just changed for the better.
I turned to say my good-byes to Simonetta and to look for my escort home. “Oh my! Forgive me, Your Grace.” I had almost walked straight into Lorenzo the Magnificent himself.
Though technically not a nobleman, Lorenzo honored me with a bow fit for a king’s court. I curtsied. As I rose, about to congratulate him on the wonders of the joust, I realized that the man Simonetta had pointed out to me stood behind Lorenzo. “Ginevra de’ Benci Niccolini, may I introduce you to the honorable ambassador from Venice, Bernardo Bembo?”
“My lady.” The diplomat bowed low, sweeping his hand down and then out across his outstretched foot. Holding the pose, he glanced up at me with startling bright-blue eyes and a decidedly mischievous grin. He was even more handsome up close, despite the gray peppering his hair.
I felt myself blush and stammer like a new postulant at the convent. “G-good even, my lord.”
“Ambassador Bembo is much praised for his oratory and knowledge of Petrarch and Dante,” Lorenzo continued. “He longs to meet Florentines who share his love of poetry. I plan a dinner in his honor at our palazzo and am inviting guests who share his devotion to literature and the ancients. I, of course, thought of you. Before he died, your dear father and I often discussed the meaning of Plato’s dialogues. I know you have inherited his interests. Abbess Scolastica has told me of your lovely verses. Perhaps you would share one of your poems with us that evening?”
I trembled at the honor of such a request. Lorenzo was lauded throughout Tuscany for his fostering of literature. He often invited artists, writers, and scholars to his country villas at Fiesole and Careggi to listen to music and poetry read aloud. They discussed the nature of man’s supreme good, his summum bonum, as explored within classical texts. He also sponsored a Platonic Academy within the city, led by the great philosopher Marsilio Ficino, who had been a friend to my father.
“Oh, sir, I would be delighted!” But then I realized that the invitation was not for me to accept. Trying to hide my annoyance with such societal rules, I demurred, “But first . . . first I must . . . I must ask . . .”
“Your husband?” Lorenzo smiled at me. “But of course, Luigi Niccolini will be a cherished guest as well. I know he will be thrilled to have his wife delight us with her poetry. The feminine voice is so moving. My mother writes fine devotional verses herself, as you know.”
“Indeed, she will be honored to come, as will Luigi,” spoke a deep baritone voice. My uncle Bartolomeo had approached our group. “We all are very proud of Ginevra’s womanly virtues, particularly the needlework she learned to sew at the convent.”
“You must attend as well, Bartolomeo,” Lorenzo added graciously. “Your presence makes any event more festive.” The twenty-six-year-old slapped my uncle on the back. Only Lorenzo was allowed such familiarity with men a decade older. Even more telling of how Florence’s rules did not apply to him, the all-powerful Medici was four years shy of being eligible to have his name put into Florence’s lottery for public office. Lorenzo turned to Bernardo Bembo. “Such tales I have to tell you about Bartolomeo. But they will wait until our dinner.”
My uncle bowed in thanks, putting his hand to his chest. He wore a scarlet, knee-length wool mantello, the standard over-cape wealthy Florence merchants donned in cold weather. But I noticed that underneath he wore blue hose to match the Medici costume.
I looked to Lorenzo and back to my uncle. The two of them had brokered my marriage to Luigi exactly one year before, when I was sixteen years old. And so the evening was agreed to, like so much of my life had been determined up until then—negotiated and sealed by men and their ambitions.
But this time, I was rather happy about it.
4
THE NEXT MORNING, I BUSIED MYSELF WITH CHORES WHILE I hoped Lorenzo’s invitation would truly come. I was on my way to check our granary supplies when I ran into my husband.
“Good morrow, wife.” Luigi bowed his head.
“Husband.” I curtsied.
“I trust you slept well after yesterday’s festivities?”
“I did, sir. And you?”
He nodded. “A wonderful display of the city’s cloth in all the banners and garments.”
“Indeed, yes. I hope the brotherhood was pleased?” My husband was an important member of the cloth merchant guild, the Arte di Calimala. During the joust, he’d been seated with other prominent guild officials and magistrates. We had yet to discuss our differing experiences at the spectacular event.
“Immensely,” he answered. “And you looked quite beautiful, my dear. I hope you received compliments on your garb?”
“Simonetta was very impressed with the roses and vines stitched into the mantle’s border.” It was delicate, artistic work, done by one of the female embroiderers populating the narrow streets that wrapped around Santa Croce. “She thought the blossoms particularly well executed.”
That pleased my husband. I was, after all, essentially a walking advertisement for his wool shop and fabric trading business. In a city where people judged wealth and reputation on fine textiles, clothes were recognized symbols of status, ennobling the wearer. My husband oft quoted the popular writer Leon Battista Alberti, saying, virtue ought to be dressed in seemly ornaments.
The opportunity to display his goods at the joust was sweetened by the fact that I would be sitting beside Simonetta, an honor I was granted because my aunt Caterina was her mother-in-law. All eyes would be on La Bella Simonetta—and if my clothing was resplendent enough, I would catch those gazes as well.
So Luigi had carefully directed my attire, sparing no expense. My cape was of the softest wool, colored a deep scarlet with the costliest of dyes made from ground-up shells of the kermes beetle imported from Arabia and Persia. Its gold border—the color created with a dye of crushed marigolds and poetically named “Apollo’s Hair”—matched the fabric of my dress underneath, which was embroidered with intricate flower blossoms of red and emerald threads.
I was both embarrassed and pleased when I had put on the ensemble and recognized how the combination of rose and yellow hues accentuated the gold and tawny brown color of my hair. I hadn’t realized Luigi noticed such things.
“Did you enjoy the jousting?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” I said. “The riders were all so valiant, the horses magnificent. Like something out of Boccaccio’s Teseida. And the painted banners were exquisite. Especially the one with the nymph and Cupid that Morelli gave to Giuliano de’ Medici when he conceded their match. Wasn’t that an amazing gesture of chivalry? To give up the match and such a work of art. That flag was so . . . so . . .” I couldn’t find the right word for the thrill that banner had sparked in my heart. “So . . . lovely.” I felt my face flush.
Blinking the way he did to focus his eyes on a piece of fabric he was assessing, my husband observed me for a moment before smiling patiently. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Yes, it was all that.” His tone was that a fond father might use with a spirited but slightly wayward child. “It was good for the popolo to enjoy such a celebration in the cold of winter and before the deprivation of Lent. Happy memories by which to stay warm, yes?”
Then he continued down the hallway to his study.
Yes, just so, I thought. I’d be holding mental images of the joust to me tight as just a few years earlier I cuddled a doll to my chest to soothe me as I slept. For I still slept alone, in a small antechamber to the house’s main bedroom, where Luigi snored and flopped through the night. After a few awkward encounters to consummate the legality of our nuptials, our marriage had become a polite business union. Luigi did not seem concerned with producing an heir, despite Florence’s emphasis on family fruitfulness. Mostly we passed our nights separately and peaceably enough. At meals, Luigi talked of cloth and politics. I listened. He had certainly never asked to read my verse. I’m not sure he even knew I wrote.
It was not the life I had envisioned or hoped for myself. I sighed and went about my business of running the household.
“Sancha!” I called.
A pretty, dark-haired servant girl scurried to me. She was the type of voluptuous, olive-skinned, Mediterranean beauty that some wives might fear could distract husbands. But Luigi seemed so unmoved by matters of the flesh, I had no such concerns. And even though they were a bit scandalous, Sancha’s gossipy stories did enliven the house. Her family worked the dye vats along the Arno River, and she’d grown up hearing rumors and bawdy retorts exchanged as readily as the nobles discussed the weather.
Sancha wiped her hands on her apron. “Ready?” she asked, reaching for the broom—her own lance of sorts. The first day I’d taken up my wifely chores in the granary, a mouse had darted across my foot and up my dress in terrified confusion. Sancha had knocked it off me, and I’d crumpled to the floor in tears—overwhelmed with the commonplace feel of my new life. “There, there,” Sancha had said stoutly, petting my head like a lapdog. “No rodent will dirty my lady’s chemise, not when I’m around.” She’d been the closest thing I had to a friend in my new home from that day forward.
“Were you able to see any of the joust yesterday, Sancha?” I knew she and the apprentices who slept in the Niccolini family workshop to guard Luigi’s wares had planned to elbow their way to a space along the fences.
Sancha beamed. “Oh yes! We had such a laugh over the one lord whose hose were so tight that he couldn’t grip the horse properly. Vanity!” She lowered her voice and winked. “But the tightness of his hose certainly showed off a comely leg.”
Knowing the rider she described, I giggled. “I think that had been his idea, Sancha. But to land face-first in horse manure probably not!”
As she and I checked the levels of our oil jars, I tried to feel grateful for what I did have. After all, I had had a front-row seat to an event that had awed the people of Florence and would be legendary for years to come. Plus, Luigi was not a bad man. He was old, of course. All husbands were, it seemed, in Florence’s arranged marriages—except Simonetta’s. Her spouse, Marco Vespucci, was a young man her age.
My marriage was more typical in terms of the age difference. When I had been married off the previous January, Luigi was thirty-two, twice my years. But he was also a widower of only five months, so our betrothal seemed unusually sudden. The negotiation process, with all its pomp and ceremony, was rushed. Most wedding days were saved for the spring and its warm weather, but mine took place in the chill of winter.
The other oddity about my marriage was that a bride’s dowry typically purchased her family something—nobility, prestige, or riches. I could still feel the pit-in-my-stomach shock when Uncle Bartolomeo announced that I was to marry Luigi. At first, I could not fathom any logical reason for it.
“But why a Niccolini, uncle?” I had blurted. “They rarely socialize with our circles. They have no noble blood.”
“Nor do we, girl. Time for you to shed that uppity nature of yours. Luigi is a fine man, an influential guildsman. A better man than you deserve, frankly, given your immodest pride and inability to contain your opinions.”
“Please, uncle, I will gladly serve my family in my marriage, but at least grant me someone I can discuss literature with, someone who has some connection with Florence’s philosophic circles. I grew up listening to my father read Petrarch’s sonnets about the beauteous Laura and Virgil’s stories of Aeneas’s escape from the plunder of Troy. I cannot survive on discussions about bolts of cloth! Please.”
Uncle Bartolomeo glared at me. “I always told Amerigo that he was a fool to turn the head of a daughter with reading.”
How I longed at that moment to slap him. How could God, or the Fates—damn them—let my good father die and leave me under the thumb of this man? Lord, how I missed my father.
Not long after his death in 1468, I had been sent away to Le Murate’s convent school, returning home over the years for visits and feast days
. By the time I left the convent permanently to receive suitors, our palazzo was crammed not only with my mother, two brothers, and four younger sisters, but also with my uncles, their wives, their children, plus my step-grandmother and great-aunt. To my dismay, Uncle Bartolomeo, with his virile sociability, had surfaced as the new head of our family. With men, he was convivial and popular. With me and the other women of my family, he was cold, calculating, and brutal.
It was foolishness to appeal to his pity. He had none. So I changed my argument to one better suited to him. “Uncle, there is no business advantage to a union with the Niccolini. The family’s cloth shop is respectable, to be sure, but modest. Not on a par with our family’s banking interests. My marrying a Niccolini will not tighten our bonds with the Medici. And surely there is no concern for that, given our long history with the Medici. After all, my grandfather and Lorenzo’s grandfather essentially grew up together, as apprentices at the Medici bank in Rome. As their fortunes grew, so did our family’s.”
My uncle was silent at that, so I had braved continuing. “Weren’t we once listed in Florence’s tax records as second only to the Medici in our riches? Thanks to my grandfather—your father—being general manager of all Medici banks, but also to my father running its Geneva branch?” I and my brother Giovanni had been very proud of our father’s rank and the cosmopolitan attitude it brought to our dinner table conversations. Medici banks stretched across Europe from Naples to Antwerp, London to Rhodes.
But referring to my father’s business success was a mistake. My uncle bristled. “Ah yes, your father, ‘Saint Amerigo.’” He smirked. “Well, your father is no longer with us, is he? And my little brother Francesco is a fool. Do you not understand the implications of your uncle Francesco stepping down recently from his post in the Medici bank in Avignon?” Uncle Bartolomeo snorted.
I frowned. So I was being used to soften my other uncle’s fall from grace. But I still did not see how a marriage to Luigi would accomplish that. “But why a Niccolini?”
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