What Remains of the Fair Simonetta

by Laura T. Emery

  A wrinkled old man walked over to me, and slurred into my grimy face, “Well, yer a tall drinka’ ale. How mush fer you? I got a gold florin waitn’ fer ya.” The drunkard searched his pockets. I must’ve still had it going on for him to choose dirt-face-me over the other willing girls.

  “Stacia is not for sale, Paolo!” someone barked from behind me. “She is just another field worker trying to have a drink like the rest of us.”

  Stacia? I was shocked to hear someone utter my actual name, and even more surprised when I realized it came from the mouth of Mariano Filipepi.

  “Antonella!” I whispered, trying to get her attention, while Mariano exchanged a few more hostile words with the wrinkled drunkard.

  “I am Giovanna here, remember,” she whispered back through clenched teeth.

  “Right,” I responded, more confused than ever. “That’s Mariano. Sandro’s father.”

  “Ahh! Now you should have even more to converse with him about. Make certain he does not open his mouth about us.”

  Antonella then skittered away to join Amerigo, who was mingling with the crowd of ruffians, clearly a regular in this less-than-fine establishment. It reminded me of the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. The only things missing were slot machines and vocal impersonators, and they were definitely down a few Elvises. The place was well-stocked with dirt covered, toothless drunkards, fresh from the fields or streams.

  It took me a moment to embrace the situation for what it was. Amerigo and Simonetta could abandon their noble societal roles, and just be teenagers for a while. And as Amerigo, or “Guido” as they called him in the tavern, wrapped his arm around Antonella, I realized that it was also an opportunity for them to act as though they were a genuine couple, because in the real world, the two of them could never be. I was left to be the awkward solo at the tavern. Not quite sure what to do, I sat down at the bar next to Mariano, with the intention of making a little light conversation.

  “So, Stacia is short for Anastasia, is it?” Mariano asked.

  “What did you say?”

  “I did not put it together until we were at the river,” Mariano replied. “That all these nights at the tavern, I have been bearing my soul to La Bella Simonetta. You are quite good at the charade.”

  I couldn’t utter a word. I figured I’d let him keep talking, so I could find out what else he’d put together that I hadn’t. I studied his face for a moment, trying to read him. As I did, I realized Mariano was a handsome older man. He had sort of a Sean Connery thing going on, with the same curvaceous lips as his son.

  “Nice dress.” Mariano continued sarcastically. “You look like a true tanner. You have not washed off the tannin stains from yesterday.”

  “I suppose the charade is more convincing that way,” I replied.

  “So the bastard husband you are always referring to is none other than Marco Vespucci?”

  “And the disappointing son is Sandro Botticelli?” I played along; drawing from the many postmortem conversations I’d had with Mariano.

  “I hate when he is called that!”

  “I know.” I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to throw my arms around him and cry.

  “The usual,” the barkeep grunted, as he slid a crusty-looking mug of burgundy wine in front of me.

  I suppose a Kahlua and cream would be out of the question?

  Mariano and I drank and chatted, and it became apparent that we did this on a somewhat regular basis. I also learned that Mariano’s dislike of the arts stemmed from the Medici’s use of it as a visual means of propaganda. Mariano spoke of the Adoration of the Magi which Sandro had painted for Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama, a banker who was kissing up to the Medici by having Sandro paint the faces of Lorenzo, Giuliano, Piero, Giovanni, and Cosimo de’ Medici as the faces of the Magi.

  “And you know Sandro put himself into the painting as well, right?” I queried.

  “That is because he is forbidden from signing any of his own work! It belongs wholly to his ungodly patron. Lorenzo would have us believe that his commissions are all about his love of art, and for the people, but they are meant to manipulate us so that we quietly obey him,” Mariano scoffed. “And cheer for this ridiculous joust!”

  “Did you know that I’m Giuliano’s prize if he wins?” I asked, starting to understand Mariano’s point of view.

  “All of Florence is aware,” Mariano retorted, with a twisted what-are-you-stupid? face.

  “I hope he loses,” I chided, just before realizing that would most likely make me the prize of an unknown alternative winner.

  “You could wish in one hand La Bella, and defecate in the other, and see which one becomes filled first. The joust is engineered so that Giuliano will be the winner, just as the last one was fixed so Lorenzo would be champion. You are already his prize.” I was again surprised that Mariano would talk to a lady that way, but I suppose in the tavern, I was no such thing.

  Just then, Antonella raced over and whispered into my ear. “Tommaso Soderini is here looking for his stable boy!” she whispered. “We must go before Amerigo is recognized!”

  “I’ve met him as well at the Palazzo Medici,” I said, quickly turning my face from the noble Medici relative.

  Antonella signaled Amerigo across the bar, causing him to throw some denari coins on the counter, and rush over to us.

  “We have to be off to work early in the morn, Stacia,” Amerigo chirped in a high pitched voice.

  “Yes, Guido. I suppose we do.”

  I turned back to Mariano. “I have to leave, but my guess is that I’ll see you very soon.”

  “Yes, I am certain you will. But, before you go, I would like to know something.”

  “Yes?”

  Oh God, what?

  “Why did you choose the name Anastasia?”

  I hesitated for a moment, because the truth was that my earthly Russian father had chosen the name for me. I had always disliked it, feeling the name was inappropriate for a dark-skinned, half Native American. But then the perfect answer came to me. “I’m not sure if we ever discussed it, but I believe that there’s life after death, Mariano. Something different than Christian teachings would have us believe. I chose the name because Anastasia means ‘resurrection.’” And with that, I ran out of the tavern behind Amerigo and Antonella.

  I’d done little to nothing to help with the Mariano versus Sandro situation, but I suppose I had no choice but to leave when I did. Morning would soon come, and I wanted to make sure we were up and out the door before Marco would arise.

  Antonella and Amerigo held hands until we reached the other side of the river, while I trailed behind them. We were equals out here, Antonella, Amerigo, and I. But when the sun would next rise back at the Palazzo Vespucci, everything would be different. At least I understood their reasoning for going to the tavern. It was one answered question. But I had a more pressing question on my mind.

  Why would Simonetta have chosen the name Stacia?

  I couldn’t even fathom an answer to that.

  Chapter 21

  Back in the narrow staircase, Antonella waved goodnight to me with her unencumbered hand as Amerigo caressed the other. He lured her up the stairs, past the door leading to her small chamber and up another flight, presumably to his much more luxurious digs. There I was, the virgin beauty, left to my own devices.

  I washed the dirt from my face and used the fireplace to heat up the water left in the bucket, so I could lather my long hair. I just couldn’t go along with the once a month hair washing thing. I took my time brushing my tangled locks and braiding them, anticipating the pain that would result if I waited for Antonella to do it in the morning. I couldn’t help but worry a bit for Amerigo’s safety if Antonella’s lovemaking was anything like her coiffuring.

  I decided to try to sleep and tucked myself into the hard bed again, taking in the frescoes and the magnificent ceiling above, before blowing out the candle and plunging the room into darkness. I needed my beauty rest so that S
andro could capture my image without dark circles under my eyes for all eternity. Gone was the fear that I may not wake here, but back in my realm.

  Within moments of closing my weary eyes; however, I was back in the Ognissanti once again, but only as a guest, not as a resident. I wasn’t surprised to have returned there in my dream. When I was alive the first time around, my dreamtime was generally spent in Havasupai, the home of my Native American people, or with my relatives who had passed on before me—some of whom I’d never known in the flesh. I always had some connection to that otherworldly plane, although I didn’t always recognize it for what it was. Even when I had understood that there were messages and guidance on the other side, I usually didn’t know how to interpret them. Even after my death, I continued to visit the places and people of my heritage for a while, but one day it stopped. I hadn’t really even noticed that I’d been fully taken into the realm of the Ognissanti until Wilbur’s visit with his new girlfriend broke me out of my oblivion.

  My lucid dream took me back to the nave of the Ognissanti. I’d given up searching for or calling out to Mariano. I knew he wouldn’t be there. This time I sought clues; minute details that I’d never noticed, nor had a need to consider before. I came across the ornate Medici coat of arms imbedded in the marble floor. The symbol had five red circles and one blue circle representing the “palle” or “balls” of the illustrious family. The concrete Medici coat of arms that decorate almost every building in Florence have five three-dimensional spheres attached to them. Mariano had told me that an enraged contemporary of Lorenzo’s and Giuliano’s grandfather, Cosimo I, claimed, “That he had even emblazoned the privies of the monks of San Marco with his balls.” The Medici were laying claim to Simonetta even in her final resting place.

  I made my way to Sandro’s great painting, the Saint Augustine in His Study, with the face of Mariano, wrinkled and wise, with his gray eyes furrowed in frescoed contemplation. Augustine was in his tiny cell, surrounded by many objects: an ornate Cardinal’s mitre, leather-bound books on unknown subjects, a twenty-four hour Italian clock, and a detailed armillary sphere—the latter of which angered me, thinking about the legend that the fools of the 1400s thought the Earth was flat until Christopher Columbus set them straight. But what caught my eye was the small red Vespucci coat of arms on the ceiling cornice above the fresco, clearly indicating it was commissioned by a member of my new household.

  There was an open book on a lectern in front of the Saint, and another in his hand, which he held, while also grasping his quill and ink. But there was also an open book on the shelf behind Saint Augustine’s head.

  Why would he need a book open on the shelf?

  I had never noticed the strangeness of it before. There was scribbling on the pages of the book on the shelf made to look like words, along with some geometric drawings. The book was clearly representing the Saint’s intense scholarly study. But when I looked closely upon the nonsensical scribbling, I deciphered some actual words amongst the garble:

  Where is Brother Martino?

  He fled.

  And where did he go?

  He is outside the Porta al Prato.

  These words had nothing to do with what I’d learned about Saint Augustine from Mariano, who had taught me that Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo Regius in Africa in the early centuries after Christ, nowhere near the Porta al Prato. In fact, the Florentine gate did not yet exist during the time of the patron saint of printers and theologians. Augustine had a close relationship with his fellow philosopher, Neo-Platonist, and master of rhetoric, Saint Jerome, but I was not aware of any history regarding a Brother Martino.

  I made my way past the choir, around to the chapels, where I sought out the circular, blue and white gravestone of Sandro where I’d spent so many years of my life and death. The rail protecting the art and tomb markers had letters from Botticelli admirers stacked on top, as was usual. I recalled sitting with him for hours next to that rail, contemplating what it would’ve been like to meet him, and never imagining I’d actually get the chance. Here he rested quietly at the feet of Simonetta, my body and soul mate from another era. I had no personal experiences in my life that would help me relate to her, but amazingly I didn’t find it difficult to be her, to live in her world. And of course, it felt good to be back on the other side of the rail.

  Chapter 22

  When my eyes opened once again, I noticed a clock similar to the one in Sandro’s Saint Augustine perched on the nightstand next to my bed. The twenty-four silver Roman numerals of the clock surrounded a red center, with gears exposed in the back. The time shown was exactly twelve hours later than that displayed in the painting, with the only hand pointing to the Roman numeral thirteen, which made no sense to me since the sun was just beginning to rise.

  I leapt out of bed, eager to get out the door before Marco had something to say about it. Not only had he mentioned that we would speak in the morning about my modeling for Sandro on a daily basis, but I was surely already in trouble for the awkward encounter with he and Luciana’s naked bodies the night before.

  I quickly pulled a coral colored jacquard gown from the wardrobe and attempted to put it on over my shift. Without Antonella, I only managed to get my left arm through its corresponding sleeve. The stiff fabric wouldn’t allow my right arm all the way through, nor could I pull it off so I could choose another dress. I had my right arm suspended over my head, with the wicked gown partially covering my face and the back still open. Even if I could put it on by myself, I couldn’t possibly leave the palazzo

  without Antonella. I used my free hand to feel my way to her rusty door handle, my other arm still flapping in the air. As I shuffled sideways into her small chamber—my vision still impaired by the dress that was half covering my face—I found nothing but a sparse, uninhabited room.

  Antonella was still with Amerigo.

  I was confident that the two of them found snuggled up together was a scene that would not go over well with any of the palazzo’s other residents.

  I felt my way to the painting that disguised the small door, then foolishly leaned against it while pulling out the slide lock, causing me to topple ass-over-teakettle onto the landing of the hidden staircase. Fortunately, I managed to right myself before accidently falling down the flight of stairs or breaking a limb. I contemplated abandoning my quest, but needed to find Antonella for her sake and mine.

  I crab-walked sideways up the dark stairs, using the wall to steady myself with my upraised hand, when I reached the next landing. I felt around for a while, searching for whatever crevice Amerigo and Antonella disappeared into. I fumbled upon a doorjamb, and worked my fingers down to a latch. I prayed as the door creaked ajar that the room on the other side belonged to Amerigo. As my left fingers clasped the gown to pull it down slightly from in front of my eyes, I could see enough to conclude it was certainly Amerigo’s chamber. The walls were lined with framed maps and the desk littered with compasses, a sextant, and other tools of cartography. He was never going to be the merchant his father wanted him to be.

  “Antonella,” I whispered, though all I could perceive was a motionless lump in the bed. No one moved.

  “Antonella!” I said a bit louder. When I again received no response, I shook the bed a bit, hoping to rouse her.

  Suddenly, the face of Amerigo sprang up from under the covers and when his eyes fell upon me with my one arm raised over my head, he yelled and lunged, clearly not recognizing The Fair Simonetta in my disheveled guise. Instinct dictated that I should immediately run in the opposite direction, but the dress was once again blinding me and I fled, full speed, directly into one of his maps on the wall. My forehead smashed into the sturdy frame and my body crumpled to the floor.

  When I tried to sit up, I was no longer attached to Simonetta’s body. Rather, I was a floating mass hovering weightlessly above her; again a spirit, helplessly watching as Amerigo came to the aide of the limp body on the floor.

  I tried to climb back in t
o my borrowed shell, but it was no use. I was drawn through the walls and out of the palazzo into the Renaissance dawn, caught between this world and mine. Then I found myself confronting the façade of the Ognissanti, only this time it was the 1400s version—Gothic, dark and grim with the field spanning off to the right. Had I inhabited a body at that moment, my fight or flight instinct would’ve kicked in, the adrenaline helping me race away from my realm, but I had no molecules with which to fight. Instead, I hovered over the field, which served as a graveyard to the residents of the Ognissanti district. Men, women and even children were lying serenely, buried in the ground under the morning rays.

  As I absorbed the peaceful scene, it morphed before me into something darker, as the coyote appeared once again, this time strolling casually across the soil that covered the forgotten souls. I floated over a mass of graves: Giovanni Veneziano-master goldsmith-1468, Fra Giorgio Donato-faithful Umiliati monk-1459, Fiametta Rosso-devoted mother-1472. Then I saw what the coyote intended for me to see: Simonetta Vespucci-The Flower of Florence-26 April, 1476.

  How could I have forgotten such an important detail?

  The endorphins that had possessed my brain since awakening must have blocked out the painful truth. Even though I’d been granted a second chance on earth in the form of Simonetta, I was doomed to die again, this time as a very young woman. It had eluded my memory that she was cut short in her prime by the ravages of tuberculosis, essentially drowning in her own blood, causing all of Florence to mourn La Bella Simonetta.

  But why is she buried out here?

  The graveyard no longer exists in the modern era, the city having encroached and swallowed it up long ago, replacing it with shops and apartments. In the twenty-first century Simonetta lies inside the Ognissanti with Sandro situated humbly at her feet. Is it possible that only the members of families important to history were moved inside the Ognissanti, and Florence just expanded over the rest? That Sandro landed at Simonetta’s feet as a matter of convenience, not from his longing desire to spend all eternity with her as the legend goes?