The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence

by Alyssa Palombo

  I did my best not to blush. “I believe that it does, my good signore.”

  “Do not tell my brother that,” Lorenzo said in a stage whisper. “He has been most eager to see you pale and wasting, that he might steal you from your ungrateful husband.”

  “Alas!” Giuliano said, coming to greet us. “I shall never forgive my friend Marco for treating you so well!” He swept me a deep bow. “You break my heart again by being so happy in your marriage, mia bella Simonetta.”

  I laughed. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Signor Giuliano, for you are a most devoted chevalier,” I said. My newfound happiness with my life and my husband had given me a confidence I did not have before, a confidence that I could play this game. “But my lord and husband is a most worthy man, I find, and so you have a long, hard road before you, indeed, if you seek to steal me away from him.”

  The assembled company laughed, and I knew from the quick look of approval from Marco that I had done well, and was playing the game just as it was supposed to be played.

  “You perhaps remember my friend Tomaso Soderini?” Lorenzo said, indicating a slightly portly man who looked to be in his thirties, who bowed to me with his hand over his heart. “He was a guest at your wedding, and is another great lover of the arts.”

  I smiled at the man. “You’ll have to forgive me, signore. My wedding was a most overwhelming day.”

  “No apologies needed, Madonna Vespucci,” he said, taking my hand and kissing it. “I am merely delighted to renew our acquaintance.”

  Lorenzo nodded at the artist to whom Signor Soderini had been speaking. “And Signor Botticelli, of course.”

  I straightened immediately at the sight of the handsome blond painter. “Of course. A true pleasure to see you again, signore.”

  The painter bowed and kissed my hand, but before I could indulge in discourse with him as I longed to, Lorenzo had steered me away again.

  “Some dear friends of mine whom you perhaps do not know—may I present Niccolo Ardenghelli and his wife, the lovely Lucrezia Donati Ardenghelli. Amici, this is Signora Simonetta Vespucci, of whom you have heard me speak, and her husband, Marco.”

  “Why, Lucrezia Donati,” Marco said. “Excuse me, Signora Ardenghelli. It has been some time since I have seen you!”

  “It has, indeed,” murmured the dark-haired beauty in a low, throaty voice, extending her hand for Marco to kiss. “Both of us married and respectable now, I see.”

  My stomach curdled as I watched Marco converse animatedly with this Lucrezia and her husband. Who was this woman, with her flashing dark eyes and seductive voice, to speak in so familiar a manner to my husband?

  “Lucrezia has been a friend of my brother’s and mine since we were children,” Lorenzo explained for my benefit, as Marco continued speaking to the pair. “As such Marco has known her for some time as well.”

  “Indeed,” was all I could manage to say. I glared at this Lucrezia. She was beautiful, that much was certain. Did Marco prefer her darkness to my pale skin and blond hair? Did he think she was beautiful? As beautiful as me?

  Suddenly I realized what this feeling must be. Jealousy. I was jealous. Long had I been the target of such an emotion, but never before had I experienced it myself.

  It was dreadful.

  “Come,” Lorenzo said, steering me away from the trio. “I would introduce you to my esteemed father.”

  My surprise at these words erased my instant enmity for Lucrezia Ardenghelli. Lorenzo led me to a man seated in a chair beside a fountain at one end of the garden, no doubt placed there for its proximity to the cool mists in this August heat.

  Piero de’ Medici looked much older than he could have been—no doubt his long battles with illness accounted for that. His legs were swollen by gout, and his face—a somewhat weaker blend of his sons’ very different features—was twisted in a permanent grimace of pain. Lucrezia dei Tornabuoni hovered by his side in case he should need anything, the very picture of a dutiful wife.

  “Ah,” Piero said as I approached on Lorenzo’s arm. “This must be the famous Simonetta Vespucci.”

  “That I am, signore,” I said. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance.”

  “I am sorry that I was too ill to attend your wedding,” he said. “I am told it was a most lovely affair—though with my son and wife at the helm, I should expect nothing less.”

  “It was indeed, signore, and I must thank your family again for their kindness and generosity.”

  “Think nothing of it.” A smile split his face, and I could see that he had no doubt been handsome, once. “You are as beautiful as they say. That husband of yours is a lucky man.”

  “You are too kind,” I replied. “And I am most lucky in my husband.”

  “Beautiful and a loving wife,” Piero said. “Dear Marco is doubly blessed.”

  “Beg pardon, father-in-law, husband.” Just then, Clarice appeared at my side. “Might I beg your indulgence to steal my friend away for a time?”

  “Why, of course, my dear,” Piero said, smiling indulgently at his daughter-in-law. “You young ladies talk, enjoy yourselves, have some wine. Dinner will be served soon.”

  “An honor to meet you, signore,” I said again, over my shoulder this time, as Clarice dragged me away to an as-yet-unoccupied corner of the garden.

  “Whatever is the matter?” I asked. Now that I had a moment to study her, Clarice looked quite out of sorts, as though she could not decide whether to weep or fly into a rage. “Clarice?” I prompted, when she did not speak.

  She still did not answer; instead, she waved over a servant, who brought us two glasses of fine Tuscan red wine. She took a long, fortifying sip before speaking. “That woman,” she growled, her eyes narrowed at the cluster of party guests a few paces away. “I cannot believe he had the audacity to invite her here.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Lucrezia Donati,” she snapped. “Do not let her husband’s name fool you. That marriage is all a ruse of respectability, one my most revered husband helped arrange.”

  “Clarice, whatever do you mean?”

  Her eyes met mine, and this time I was shocked by the depth of the pain within them. “She is his mistress,” she whispered. “Lorenzo’s.”

  Relief flooded me, that I need not worry that this Lucrezia had any designs on my husband—with a husband and lover of her own already, she surely had no time to contend with one more man. This relief was quickly replaced by guilt, however—that my release should be my friend’s sorrow.

  “Oh, Clarice,” I said, reaching out to take her hand. “Are you certain?”

  “Of course I am certain,” she said harshly. “Lorenzo has been in love with her for years, before he ever met me. But he could not marry her because it was not politically expedient. I was the most advantageous match that could be found.” She took another long sip of wine. “Do you know,” she continued, “that he threw a joust here in Florence to celebrate our betrothal, back before I came from Rome? And at this very joust in celebration of our upcoming marriage, he named her,” she sneered in Lucrezia Donati’s direction, “the Queen of Love and Beauty.” She shook her head, as if bewildered. “And he has the gall to invite her here. To our house. To my home.”

  My guilt gave way to heartbreak and anger on my friend’s behalf. “Oh, Clarice,” I said again. In truth I could not think what else to say. I had long wondered about Clarice’s feelings toward her husband, this man brought to her by politics and family alliances. Yet it seemed that she must feel at least something for him, to be so enraged by this woman’s presence. “And that she should have the nerve to accept the invitation, and be presented to you as his wife.”

  “Why should she mind about that?” Clarice said. “They have been friends since childhood. She is friendly with his parents, with Giuliano. Lorenzo was hers first. In her eyes, it is I who am the interloper.”

  “It does not matter how you look in her eyes,” I said firmly. “You are Lorenzo’s wife, not she. And
they will need to answer for their sins someday.”

  She turned her gaze back to me. “Oh, Simonetta,” she said. “You beautiful, innocent fool. You are happy in your marriage now, but just you wait. Someday you will find that even Marco is not what he seems.” She closed her eyes and turned away. “Forgive me. I did not mean that.”

  “You did,” I said, feeling as though I had been slapped. “You did, or you would not have said it.” I began to move away from her, but Clarice quickly reached out to grasp my arm and prevent me.

  “I am sorry, Simonetta. Truly I am,” she said. “I am hurt and so all I can think to do is hurt those around me. I did not mean it, I swear.” She bit her lip. “You are my one true friend in all of Florence, I think. I should be lost without you.”

  I relaxed somewhat. “Of course I shall always be your friend,” I said.

  “Please forgive me.”

  I shook my head. “There is nothing to forgive. You are upset, as you say, and rightfully so.”

  She sighed. “Thank you. I do not know how I shall endure this evening, though. Watching her and her knowing smile. The pity in her eyes when she looks at me.”

  “We shall not give her the pleasure of our discourse,” I said.

  “Lorenzo would not be happy with me if I was rude—”

  “Oh, he would not?” I demanded, arching an eyebrow. “And does he expect his wife to make pleasant conversation with his mistress?”

  “I suppose he could not, in truth, expect such a thing,” she said, with a small smile.

  “No, indeed. And so you must make certain I am seated beside you at dinner, and we shall converse, and not pay any attention to her whatsoever.”

  Clarice leaned forward and hugged me around the shoulders. “Thank you, Simonetta,” she whispered in my ear. “You are indeed a good friend.”

  “As are you,” I replied. I gestured toward where Lorenzo stood, still talking with his father. “Now go. Claim your place beside your husband so that she might see it, and mark it well.”

  She smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said softly. She crossed the garden to Lorenzo, and I saw her smile, saw the coquettish tilt of her head as she slipped her arm through her husband’s, neatly inserting herself into his conversation.

  I was not alone in my corner for long, however. I was just about to rejoin the party—and keep an eye on my husband and Lucrezia Donati, just in case—when I heard a familiar voice. “Madonna Vespucci.” I looked around to find Sandro Botticelli standing there, the setting sunlight creating a golden halo of his blond hair. “I confess I hoped to have the chance to speak with you this evening. May I join you?”

  The smile on my face was genuine. “Why, of course,” I said. “I confess that I hoped we might be able to converse as well.”

  “You honor me, Madonna. And now we have both made our confessions for the week.”

  I laughed. “Indeed. And my confessions to my priest of late have not been much more interesting, I’m afraid. This business of adjusting to married life has left me very little time or opportunity to sin.”

  “Brava, Madonna. Spoken like a true debauched Florentine.”

  I smiled. “In truth, I was a bit shocked when I first arrived here, at what seemed to me then to be rather bawdy and impious speech. Yet I have come to see it is not that at all. The people of Florence—those I have met, anyway—simply wish to enjoy life, and this world God has fashioned and that mankind has fashioned with His help. And so I cannot imagine that He shall fault us for that.”

  “Well said,” Botticelli said, the natural intensity of his gaze seeming to focus on me more sharply. “You embody the spirit of this new age of ours well, I think.”

  “What new age might this be, signore?”

  “An age where there is room for all wisdom, not just that of the Church,” he said. “We have much to learn from the ancients, the great thinkers of Greece and Rome who, though they did not know Christ, still devoted themselves to enlightenment and learning.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “But does the Church not censure those who wish to partake of such wisdom?”

  “Holy Mother Church does indeed, though soon, we hope, she will not,” he said. “It is part of the work Lorenzo is doing here, in gathering so many scholars and writers and artists about him. Great men like him seek to change the world.”

  “And these Greek and Roman thinkers you speak of, signore,” I said. “If one wished to learn from their wisdom, where would one begin?”

  He smiled at me, and the expression transformed his face. “In the Medici library, of course.”

  “Indeed.” I considered this. What Signor Botticelli spoke of sounded dangerous, and yet exciting. “Perhaps I will soon have more exciting sins for the confessional, after all.”

  “And perhaps, as you say, God would not fault you for making use of the mind He has given you.”

  “I hope you are right, signore. Though if you are, it may be that we mistake the nature of sin altogether.”

  “It would not surprise me to learn that we do,” Botticelli said. “For must God and His ways, by His very nature, be beyond the comprehension of mere humans?”

  This was heresy, and I knew it, but I could not bring myself to pull away from these words, dancing like a beautiful flame before me, warming me even as it threatened to burn me. “A churchman would say that you are wrong; that God has revealed His ways to us through Holy Scripture, and there can be no mistaking them,” I said.

  “Certainly. But you are not a churchman, Madonna Vespucci,” he said. “So what do you say?”

  “And how can what I say possibly matter against the teachings of Holy Mother Church?”

  He met my eyes unflinchingly. “It matters to me.”

  I held his gaze, feeling another strange moment of understanding pass between us, just as I had on that evening when we were first introduced. “I agree with you, Signor Botticelli. Or at least, I hope that you are right.”

  He did not look away. “I have always thought that it is important for one to know one’s own heart,” he said quietly, leaning forward. “And not have it be simply what others would make it.”

  I found myself drawing closer, spellbound by his words. They were so contrary to everything I had ever been taught—that one should learn, yes, but accept the wisdom and teachings of those who had gone before, and especially that of the Church. Yet what Signor Botticelli advocated here was making up one’s own mind, deciding for oneself what to believe, taking what you had learned and thinking on it, rather than merely accepting it.

  I shivered slightly. “You must mind in what company you say such things, signore,” I said. “There are many who would take issue with such ideas.”

  “It is ever thus,” he said. “And that is why I say such things here, in the company of like-minded people.”

  I warmed at the thought that this man, who was clearly intelligent and learned in a way I was not, considered me to be “like-minded.”

  “Perhaps beauty is the only truth we need,” he went on. “And it is to be found everywhere: in nature, in learning, in the Church, and in the accomplishments of man: the written word, the painted canvas.”

  “Beauty means something very different to me, signore,” I said. “I have always been told that beauty is the means to an end, not the end in and of itself.”

  “But that is wrong,” he said earnestly. “The creation of beauty can be the end, the goal. For what other purpose did Dante write his verses?”

  I smiled. “There you have me. I fear I cannot mount a defense against such a point, though you will devalue my whole life.”

  “Never say that,” he said. “You add to the beauty of the world, Madonna Vespucci. And you can help me do the same.”

  “Oh, I can?” I said. “How?”

  “Pose for me.”

  “Aha,” I said, my smile hardening slightly. “I see what is happening here, signore. You have engaged with me and flattered me so as to obtain a commission.”

&nb
sp; “I am not so mercenary as that,” he said. “I engage with you because you have a clever and agile mind, and it pleases me to converse with you. And how have I flattered you?”

  “By—by doing just that,” I sputtered, beginning to feel off-balance. “By acting as though my intellect is worthy.”

  “It is worthy, and treating you as an intelligent woman is not flattery. I am merely stating facts.” He stepped closer to me. “It is a fact that your mind is as beautiful as your face, Madonna. I recall saying something similar to you when first we were introduced.”

  I was silent for a moment as I struggled beneath the onslaught of his words, beneath the torrent of feelings they unleashed in me. “Forgive me,” I said at last. “I am hardly used to such frank speech, I find.”

  “You are used to accepting statements of your beauty as fact, but not those of the worthiness of your mind,” he said. “It is what the world expects of you.”

  “You have quite flustered me, signore,” I said, startled even as I spoke the words that I would admit such a thing. “You have given me more to think about than I have had in some time.”

  “The basis of a good friendship, I think.”

  “Are we friends?”

  “I should very much like us to be.”

  I smiled, warming to the open, inviting look on his face. “I should like that as well. And I … I would be most happy to sit for you. You must seek my husband’s permission, of course.”

  “Per che? No disrespect to your husband, but it is not he whom I wish to paint.”

  The hint of mischief in his eyes made me laugh. “I will ensure that he is agreeable all the same,” I said.

  “I appreciate it.” He took my hand and kissed it. “Had Dante had you as his muse instead of Beatrice, he would have been an even greater poet,” he said. “And that, Madonna Simonetta, is both fact and flattery.”

  With that, he took his leave of me, leaving me to dwell on his words, and the way that his lips had shaped my given name.