What Remains of the Fair Simonetta

by Laura T. Emery

  Sandro suddenly darted off again, this time down the stairs, taking two at a time. I went to follow him, but Antonella moved in front of me, blocking my way.

  “My lady! You are still in your shift!”

  “Oh, right.” I shrugged, as Antonella threw her arms up in exasperation.

  She quickly placed a red robe over my shoulders before allowing me to pursue the mad painter. I followed her down the stairs, nipping at her heels, anxious to see what Sandro was up to. As we reached the bottom of the flight, we veered to the left and entered a courtyard where a table full of men were eating breakfast. A few of the gents I recognized from Ghirlandaio’s Madonna della Misericordia which hung in the Vespucci Chapel in the Ognissanti. The painting contains portraits of the Vespucci family members in the twelve faces of those kneeling before Mary. I coexisted with the painting for eleven years, and wished at that moment I’d paid more attention, as Mariano had described its members in detail—my new family.

  “Buongiorno.” I greeted them collectively with a nod as I followed Antonella through the courtyard.

  “Buongiorno, La Bella!” One young man replied, flashing a large smile. I was distracted by my mission for a moment by his particular familiarity. He was more than just a face in a painting, but I wasn’t sure why. He appeared too young to have been Marco; Renaissance women tended to marry much older men. I prayed that my alleged husband was not amongst the table’s occupants, as I was not prepared to make his acquaintance just yet. Glad that the conversation and laughter at the table continued, seemingly unaffected by our brief presence, as Antonella and I continued to pursue Sandro through the courtyard.

  Beyond the Vespucci clan was a dark-skinned woman standing under a tree with a tray in hand, as if waiting for any of the jovial men to have a need. The young woman wore a brown and white dress identical to Antonella’s, with her ebony hair pulled under a white cloth. She was exceptionally beautiful; her sable skin was silky smooth and accentuated her high cheekbones and huge chocolate eyes. But as we approached her, anger oozed from each one of her tightly-knit pores. Her hateful glare burned through me. Apparently, we were not friends.

  “Have you seen the painter?” Antonella asked the dark-skinned servant.

  “Can you not even keep the attention of the man who is paid to paint you, Simonetta?” The apparently Moorish woman spat.

  “You best mind your manners while your protector is not amongst us, Luciana,” Antonella shot back, as she raised her chin and grabbed my hand. The heat from Luciana’s smoldering rage engulfed me as we steered a wide birth around her.

  What on Earth could I have done to this woman to have earned such wrath?

  Simonetta Vespucci was renowned for her sweet, kindly nature, but apparently she evoked the cat-clawing fury of Luciana.

  When we reached the far end of the courtyard, Antonella called, “Signore Botticelli!”

  As if lying in wait, Sandro suddenly emerged from a closet. His face bore a wide smile as he held up a broom.

  “Are you planning to assist Luciana with the housework?” Antonella queried.

  Sandro chuckled. “The Pallas Athene was not only the goddess of wisdom, but was also invincible in battle. I shall paint Monna Simonetta holding a halberd to reflect this.”

  “Is that a halberd?” I asked, picturing the goddess beating her enemies with a floor sweeper. I felt safe in asking, since Antonella wore equal confusion on her face.

  “That is a broom, idiota,” Luciana replied nastily, having followed us across the courtyard. “Although La Bella Simonetta has probably never laid eyes on one before,” she directed at Sandro.

  “You have a severe tongue for a servant. You will do well to remember it is a lady of this house you are insulting,” Sandro scolded.

  Antonella shot Luciana a smug nah nah look which lacked only a protruding tongue, inspiring Luciana to storm off.

  “A halberd, my lady, is a beautiful pole weapon with an axe blade on one side and a spike on the other. Since I am sure you have no reason to possess such a weapon, I thought you could hold the broom in its stead.”

  “Aaahh.” Antonella and I spoke and nodded in unison.

  “If you like, we could sup at the Palazzo Medici tonight. There you will find an exquisite example of a halberd. I am certain Lorenzo would be honored to show it off.”

  “I’d love to!” I squealed in delight.

  Antonella whispered her protestations, as we made our way back to the sitting room and I once again disrobed. Her negative words passed through one ear and out my other. I was barely getting used to the idea that I’d woken to find myself in the midst of the Renaissance being painted by the great Sandro Botticelli. But if I remained, I would meet Lorenzo di Medici, otherwise known as Il Magnifico, to complete the fantasy.

  Sandro finished his sketch while I clung to the broom. He carefully guarded his future masterpiece from my view, even when I playfully attempted to sneak a peek. Then, as seemed to be his impulsive nature, he packed up his things, stating that he needed to go to his studiolo to complete some details. On his way out, he announced that he’d be back to fetch me at suppertime.

  I held my breath as he left my sitting room, restraining myself from grabbing him and holding him in an inappropriate embrace.

  It has to be enough.

  My time in his world was an unexpected gift, and I shouldn’t wish for more. Making it to dinner would be another wondrous miracle. So I inched away from him slowly, taking an extra moment to study his face, before he went down the stairs and out onto the cobblestones of the Via Nuova.

  Chapter 10

  It was not out of the realm of possibilities that this day, or even this moment, would be the last I was allowed to live in my alternate world. I had spent the prior few hours entranced by Sandro’s charm, forgetting for a time that I had to find a way to help Mariano and his son to see eye to eye. Fast. Mariano’s afterlife depended on it.

  “Antonella!” I called, “I know you helped me get dressed and undressed, but could you help me get dressed again? There’s something I have to do.”

  “As you wish, my lady,” she answered with a crooked smile and a mocking curtsey. But even as she complied, she began to gripe. “That painter! Requesting to see you in your shift! He is so uncivilized!”

  “I find him fascinating,” I sighed, dreamy eyed.

  “Of course you do. You find everyone fascinating.”

  “Do I?”

  “Except for those you should fancy.”

  I assumed Antonella was referring to Giuliano, the mirror giving, flattering, patron of Botticelli. I was thoroughly annoyed with him, without even having met him. Then again, she could’ve been speaking of Marco, my conveniently absent husband—who, ironically, I also had yet to meet. I didn’t know what to think of him.

  I ignored Antonella’s comment as I sifted through my new wardrobe to choose a less strangulating dress. I settled on an elegant gown made of emerald colored velvet with delicately embroidered sleeves. Rather than removing the shift, Antonella put the dress over it, tucking my breasts under all the layers of material in her usual vigorous manner. Instead of the intricate updo she had executed earlier, Antonella agreed to allow me to wear my hair down, but tucked under a fine cloth that rested on my back. Once my primping was complete, I headed for the front door.

  “Where ever do you think you are going unattended?”

  “Seriously? I’m just going around the corner.”

  “Not unless I accompany you.”

  “I think it’d be better if I go by myself,” I insisted.

  “It is not proper for you to be left alone with the painter, if that is whose company you seek.”

  “As it happens, I’m going to see his father,” I said, refusing to take no for an answer. I marched straight out the front door, quickly shutting it behind me, then ran around the corner and tucked myself into a nook before Antonella had time to open the door and follow. To my pleasant surprise, she surrendered easily and soo
n retreated back into the palazzo.

  I was so focused on Sandro during our earlier walk; I hadn’t really bothered to take in much of my surroundings. When I emerged onto the narrow Via Nuova on which we lived, I became aware that it was the same street as the modern day Via del Porcellana. Although there were yet to be any multi-story apartments, quaint bed and breakfasts, or eateries such as the Trattoria Sostanza, with its succulent steak, I knew exactly where I was—only a stone’s throw from the Ognissanti, where I’d spent so many nights of my life and death. And yet I had no urge to go there. The draw for me had always been Sandro—his painting and his grave. The living, breathing version of him was tangible and accessible, and even closer than the Ognissanti—and so was Mariano.

  I stole quickly around the two corners and down the street to Mariano’s house. I noticed a cart stacked with hides stationed just outside the door as I knocked, hopeful that Sandro was still in his studiolo, madly finishing his sketch. After a few moments, Mariano answered the door with pieces of cured cow hide draped over his left shoulder, which he promptly set on top of the stack.

  “Buongiorno, Signor Filipepi,” I enthused, enthusiastically, but received no verbal or even gestural response. He merely stood there, poker faced. “You’re a tanner, I see.”

  As if I didn’t know.

  “Yes. And you are Simonetta Vespucci,” he replied with a curious look, and not the indignation I’d expected, as he continued past me out the door, and pushed the cart down the Via della Vigna Nuova.

  “I’m sorry,” I confessed, running to catch up with him, “That I tried to deceive you earlier.”

  “It is forgiven. I am quite aware that Sandro put you up to it. Everything is in jest to him,” Mariano scoffed. “Did you know he accused his own friend of blasphemy to the vicar—as a joke? He told the vicar that the man held the opinion of the Epicureans—that the soul dies with the body.”

  “What happened to the man?” I wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the audacity or fear for his friend.

  “Not a thing. The joke was turned on Sandro. The man demanded to see his accuser. And when Sandro appeared, snickering, his friend stated to the vicar that Sandro was a brute and a blockhead, and that he was the heretic, for although Sandro has barely a grain of learning, he claims to compose a commentary on Dante.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said, chuckling on the inside.

  Sandro Botticelli was a prankster. How could I not have known?

  It became obvious to me that Sandro must have been sure nothing of consequence would happen to his friend.

  “But at last, you will have to excuse me. I must go to the river,” Mariano continued. “I am afraid the odor of my hides offends my wife.”

  Smeralda.

  Mariano had spoken so lovingly of her over the years. He adored her sweet smell, her silky black hair, and her nurturing attention to all around her.

  “I’ll go with you.” I insisted, having no idea what I was going to accomplish.

  “To the river? Have you not come for Sandro?”

  “No. I want to speak with you.”

  “Surely you jest. You cannot go to the waterfront in that dress. You will stand out like a whore in church.”

  “Oh. Well, that won’t do,” I replied, trying not to react to the bold nature of his statement.

  That was not the mouth of the Mariano I knew.

  I was also certain it was an extremely uncool way to address a lady. But I decided to ignore the statement. “Could you wait just a minute, Signor Filipepi? I’ll be right back.”

  Before he could reply, I dashed back to my palazzo. “Antonella!” I cried, as I raced up the stairs.

  “What is it?” Antonella snapped, as she met me at the top of the flight.

  “I know you already dressed me, and undressed me, and dressed me again, but I have to go to the waterfront with Mariano. Will you trade gowns with me?” I cried, breathlessly.

  “First you ignore me and go out unattended. And now you would like Luciana to catch me in your dress, so she can report me to Marco?”

  “Oh no, I suppose that wouldn’t be good.”

  “Why do you not wear your own servant’s dress?”

  I have a servant’s dress?

  “Of course. Whatever was I thinking?”

  Fearing that Mariano would leave without me, I decided not to ask more questions, and instead ran for the wardrobe, rifling once again through its contents. There was no brown and white frock to be found.

  Antonella looked at me sideways, then forced me out of her way, as she felt around the bottom of the wardrobe and soon lifted a board, revealing a hidden compartment. She stepped back so I could help myself.

  From my vantage point, I couldn’t see a brown and white servant’s dress, but instead a gray and white nun’s habit. I hesitantly approached the secret compartment and lifted the folded habit—complete with veil—out and set it aside. Underneath was the servant’s dress, identical to Antonella’s.

  Sensing my urgency, she quickly helped me out of the green velvet ensemble, and into the frumpy brown and white dress, then shoved my ample hair under a skull cap—the twin of her own. Since there was no need for a corset or petticoat or any other article of torture, I was instantly quite fond of the frumpy dress.

  Before Antonella had time to chastise me again, I flew back down the stairs and out the door, where I discovered Mariano already walking without me.

  “Mariano!” I called, as I spotted him strolling down the Borgo Ognissanti. He stopped and turned with a look of disgust, presumably at the casual manner in which I addressed him. “I’m sorry. I mean Signor Filipepi.”

  “What is it you require of me? Surely you have enough attention from all the other men of our great city-state.”

  “I want to talk to you about Botticelli…I mean Sandro.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know I’ve just met Sandro, but I’m very fond of him. He’s so intelligent and talented. I couldn’t help but notice you have something of a strained relationship with each other. It’s obvious the two of you care for one another, but aren’t able to show it.” He stared at me quizzically, as I continued. “It’s been my experience that the people we love aren’t always around long enough for us to tell them how we feel.”

  And yes, I’m being a total buttinsky.

  “Your parents are alive and well in Genoa, are they not?”

  Shit.

  “Yes, but I’m here. Unable to see them.”

  I hope.

  I wasn’t referring to Simonetta’s relatives. In my own mind, I was speaking of my actual mother who got sick and died when I was so young, and my father, whom I didn’t even meet until I was thirty-eight. I appreciated both my parents because I was aware of their, and by extension, my own mortality. Sandro and Mariano clearly were not focused on theirs. Sandro would soon be called to paint the walls of the great Sistine Chapel, during which time Mariano would die in his absence.

  “Imagine if something happened to one of you,” I continued, “And today’s conversation was the last you ever had. I can’t explain it, but I feel it is my duty to put things right between the two of you.” I felt how stupid and contrived the words sounded, even as they fell out of my mouth.

  Mariano paused and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you are correct,” he conceded.

  Okay. That was far too easy.

  I felt a rush of relief and a shudder of panic at the same time. If I was able to get Mariano to see the light and turn his relationship with Sandro around, then my mission was complete. No more reason for me to reside in this world. But I wasn’t quite ready to depart; nor was I sure I ever would be.

  I continued to walk down the Borgo Ognissanti with Mariano; the street in which Mariano, his son, and I—and even the real Simonetta—would reside in our marble and metal graves six centuries in the future. As we crossed in front of the Church of Ognissanti, I resisted the strong pull to enter.

  The façade of the church was different during this period�
��ugly, and gothic, and much plainer than the one to which I had grown accustomed—but it still had the Medici coat of arms prominently displayed. The concrete piazza of the future was now just a meadow of wild grass. I cringed a bit when I saw children playing “knucklebones” in the grass with actual bones. Mariano didn’t seem to take notice.

  “All Saints is your family church now, is it not?” Mariano motioned over to my future home.

  I could intuit that it was not a matter of whether or not I went to church, only a matter of which one. “Yes, and yours as well,” I replied softly. This much I knew for sure.

  I had almost forgotten the meaning of the word Ognissanti. The church was unusual in the respect that it wasn’t dedicated to any particular saint. Since I hadn’t been a Catholic, or even a religious person in the traditional sense, the Ognissanti to me had always been more about the company than the faith. I was content to spend eternity cozied up with greatness. Since the moment I had first entered the church in life, I felt I had a strong connection with the Ognissanti and its inhabitants, even stronger than the bond I shared with my own Native American tribe.

  A nun suddenly emerged from the wooden door, propping it open for those who may wish to enter. I could’ve sworn, even from our distance, that she was wearing a Miraculous Medal around her neck similar to mine.

  How was it possible?

  The concept of the Medal of the Immaculate Conception wasn’t even conceived until the 1800s by Saint Catherine Labouré after her vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sister Constance, a nun at the Ognissanti in the twenty-first century, had given the medal to me and explained that it represented the Virgin Mary’s intercession on my behalf at the moment of death. A story I now believed had some merit.

  But the nun’s face.

  She resembled my Sister Constance of the future in so many ways. She shared the same shriveled appearance of wisdom, and gray look of age.

  The nun beckoned me with a wave, and when she smiled, I could clearly see her toothless resemblance.