The Miracles of Prato

by Laurie Albanese

  Sister Pureza turned and looked at Lucrezia. Even after a harrowing night, the girl’s physical perfection was unmistakable.

  “To have such beauty cannot be easy,” Sister Pureza said gently.

  Lucrezia was silent. At home there had only been a single circle of polished silver, and Signora Buti had let the girls look at their reflection only on Saturdays when they washed their hair and bathed in preparation for the Lord’s day. Other young ladies of Florence primped before their reflections daily and some, Lucrezia knew, sat outside in the sun to bring the yellow and gold colors out in their hair. But the Buti sisters had never been permitted or encouraged in even harmless vanities such as pinching their cheeks or biting their lips for a touch of color.

  “I don’t know.” Lucrezia’s voice quivered. “No one has ever said such a thing to me. But I’ve often wished to hide my face because of the way men look at me.”

  Lucrezia had never admitted this to anyone. She thought of Fra Filippo, and the pleasure his gaze gave her.

  “There’s no shame in your beauty, dear child, nor is it your only virtue. It couldn’t have been your face alone that soothed Signora de’ Valenti tonight.”

  Lucrezia was close enough to feel the warmth of Sister Pureza’s small body. She was grateful for the darkness.

  “Like the flowers in our garden, your beauty has a purpose,” Sister Pureza went on. “I’ve been thinking about this since I learned that Fra Filippo would paint your likeness. If your face can become the face of the Madonna, and it can keep a woman such as Signora de’ Valenti from being claimed by the evil spirits that gripped her, then I believe there is much goodness in it.”

  Sister Pureza turned in her seat as much as her old body allowed, to look Lucrezia full in the face.

  “Treasure your beauty, Sister Lucrezia, but guard against its corruption.”

  Lucrezia nodded. She was reminded again of the words Fra Filippo had spoken to her in the confessional, when he’d said beauty in the world is a mirror of God’s kingdom. A speculum majus.

  “The chaplain said the holiest of men believe beauty in this world pleases God because it brings our world closer to His. But if this is so, then what about Christ’s suffering, and the Virgin’s?” Lucrezia asked.

  The carriage crossed a mound of stones in the road, and Lucrezia’s body bumped against Sister Pureza’s. She felt the old woman steady herself.

  “If suffering brings us closer to God, then how can beauty do the same?” she tried again. “Surely something comes from Satan, Sister Pureza. Is it suffering, or is it beauty?”

  Sister Pureza was tired. She wished only to close her eyes, but sensed there was something important behind the novitiate’s questions, something that made the young woman terribly unhappy.

  “Beauty is from God, vanity is the Devil’s work. And as for Christ’s blood, Sister Lucrezia, you were at the birth tonight, you know the suffering that Eve’s curse brings to women. There’s always blood.” Hearing the harshness of her words, Sister Pureza tried to soften them. “But remember, child, that while the Virgin paid in innocence for the sins of others, She was crowned queen in heaven.”

  Lucrezia couldn’t begin to untangle her tongue or her prayers fast enough to ask any more questions.

  “Your beauty and goodness are a gift,” Sister Pureza said gently, her voice growing dim as Lucrezia closed her eyes. “But beauty fades. The soul must grow stronger and wiser.”

  When Lucrezia opened her eyes the carriage was pulling through the convent gates. It left them in the courtyard, and the nuns hurried to the low dormitories, the gray stones glowing eerily in the moonlight.

  “You did well tonight, mia cara,” Sister Pureza said. “Now sleep.”

  But once she was alone, Lucrezia’s head began to buzz again with the talk of blood and beauty, the recollection of the signora’s screams, and the portrait of herself as the Virgin, painted by Fra Filippo’s hand.

  Lucrezia paced her narrow cell for a few moments—the room was too small, too airless. Slipping her boots back on, she lit a candle and slid down the dormitory hall to the night stair. Descending into the narrow passage, she moved quickly past the spiders, which she’d learned to ignore, and didn’t even look down at the tiny mice that scampered out of her way.

  Reaching the church steps, Lucrezia blew out her candle to save the wick. Hearing a footfall in the landing above, she thought one of the nuns was up to say Lauds before daybreak, and Lucrezia prepared to greet her with a somber nod.

  “Well.” Prior General Saviano stepped in front of Lucrezia. The door to the night stair closed behind her. She and the prior general were alone in the narrow corridor that led to the apse.

  He moved the candle between them and looked at her from head to toe.

  The prior general had slept poorly, and his eyelids burned. The girl’s beauty, brilliant even at this hour, seemed to mock him—just as the painter’s disrespect had mocked him, and Prioress Bartolommea had angered him.

  “General.” Lucrezia bowed and hesitated, unsure of the proper way to address him. “Fratello Saviano.”

  “Fratello?” Prior General Saviano was certain the girl meant to ridicule him. He had been belittled all day—slighted and humiliated at every turn. The fine garments in the painter’s room and the sketch showing the girl’s bare collarbones flashed through his mind.

  “I am Prior General Ludovico Pietro di Saviano.” The man recited his full name and title in his deepest baritone. As he spoke, Lucrezia saw the hem of his black robes move and sway. She saw the candle he held throw strange shadows across the bricks on the floor. “Surely you’re not confusing me with your good friend, the painter? He is a frate, a mere frate, despite what you may have been led to believe.”

  Lucrezia’s mouth grew dry. She was afraid of this man. Recalling Sister Pureza’s words in the carriage, Lucrezia tugged her wimple down and tried to turn away. But the prior general put his hand on her arm.

  “Why do you hide from me, Lucrezia?”

  She could smell the long night in the odor of his body.

  “I’m tired, Prior General Saviano. I’ve come only to say a prayer before I sleep.”

  “Lucrezia.” Saviano spoke her given name, and it felt sublime and sensuous on his lips. “You are not yet of the veil, you haven’t taken the vows. They call you Sister Lucrezia, but that is not true yet, is it?”

  Lucrezia stiffened. The prior general didn’t let go of her arm. As she twisted away, he stepped closer. His thighs, firm under his robe, pressed against her hip.

  “Prior General,” Lucrezia stammered. “Please, sir, let me pass.”

  “I’ve been to the workshop of your friend Frate Filippo. I know that you took off this robe.” The prior general pinched the fabric of her gown. “I know you disrobed for him, you put on the fine clothes of a Florentine donna.”

  Pressing his face against hers, he gripped her arm higher, near her bosom. Years of denial raged in his loins.

  “Lucrezia. Are you Fra Filippo’s lover?”

  “I’m not.” Terrified, she tried to wrench away.

  “He’s had many, you know. Many lovers.” Prior General Saviano tightened his grip. “You’re nothing special to him.” He pursed his lips. “But you could be special to me.”

  “No!” Lucrezia twisted away and kicked at his legs. His candle fell to the ground and sparked at the edge of his robe. As he looked down at the candle she rushed past him.

  “Come back,” the prior general called, but she only shrieked again, stifling a sob. He heard revulsion in her cry, and it stung him.

  “You’ve made your lot, now,” he called, his voice rising. “Nothing good will come of it, you’ll see. This is my convent—my convent. Remember that.”

  Lucrezia burst through the church door and stumbled into the cloister garden. The prior general knew she’d taken her clothes off in Fra Filippo’s bottega, he knew about the fine silk cotta. She yanked open the first door she came to, and ran through the latr
ine to the dark hallway in the nuns’ dormitory.

  Hearing the girl’s sobs, Sister Pureza opened her cell door. She’d already removed her wimple, and her long gray hair was loose. She put out an arm and grabbed Lucrezia as she passed.

  “What is it?”

  “The prior general,” Lucrezia sobbed. She pulled up her sleeve and showed Sister Pureza the angry marks the man had left there.

  Sister Pureza waited until the cock crowed three times, and then walked across the courtyard. The old midwife didn’t try to deny what had happened, or make excuses for the prior general. Men took advantage of women; she knew this was the way of the world outside the church walls. But inside the convent a woman, even a beautiful woman, should be able to find sanctuary.

  Assuming the prioress was still sleeping, Sister Pureza knocked softly on her door and then pushed it open. But Prioress Bartolommea was already awake. She was kneeling at the foot of her bed with the Bible open on her cot. By the dim light of a single candle, Sister Pureza saw the stout figure bolt and rise. Around her waist was a green and gold belt of such finely woven wool that even in the candlelight, it glowed and sparkled.

  “Sister!” The prioress raised her hands to block Sister Pureza’s approach. “I am in prayer, you have interrupted me. Please leave at once.”

  Sister Pureza stepped forward. She did not take her eyes off the belt.

  “Is that the Sacra Cintola?” she asked as Mother Bartolommea tried to hide the sash with her elbows.

  The prioress shook her head vigorously.

  “That’s the Virgin’s Holy Belt, isn’t it?” Sister Pureza knew the belt was kept behind a locked gate in Santo Stefano, and that papal orders forbade its removal from the sanctity of the chapel. “The Holy Belt, here, in your cell. How can it be?”

  The prioress, who had not yet put on her wimple, brushed a clump of gray hair away from her eyes and flashed an angry glance meant to intimidate the old nun.

  “This doesn’t concern you, Sister Pureza. As I have said repeatedly, all that goes on in the convent is not known to you. I have plans that will enrich our coffers with the blessing of the Holy Mother.”

  “Plans?” Sister Pureza stood her ground, neither backing up nor moving forward. She was old, but she was not weak. “Plans that include the Holy Girdle of the Virgin Mary?”

  “And myself,” the prioress sputtered.

  “And yourself.” Sister Pureza thought for only a moment more. “And the novitiates, I presume? Perhaps in exchange for compromising their welfare, you are now in possession of the city’s most precious relic.”

  “That’s enough, Sister Pureza.” The prioress advanced toward the midwife. “I will not hear any more. You must leave at once, so that I might return the Holy Belt to its secured storage place. And you must not tell anyone that the belt is here. By the time the sun is up it will be gone, and any appearance of impropriety concerning the Sacra Cintola would be a travesty our convent might not survive.”

  “My good Mother.” Sister Pureza looked from the prioress’s bare feet on the stone floor, to the robe she’d slung sloppily over her plump shoulders. “The convent’s sanctity has already been compromised. This is what I have come to tell you.”

  “I shall not hear it,” the prioress said. “You have been behaving very strangely.”

  “You must hear me.” The old woman shook with anger. “The prior general does not respect the sanctity of these walls. On this night he has forcefully and improperly approached the novitiate Lucrezia, with unspeakable intentions.”

  The prioress stood, paralyzed. She had her hands on the Holy Belt, and blasphemy was being uttered in her own cell. She turned her back on Sister Pureza.

  “You must leave,” she said in a low voice, as she began to open the long golden ties that secured the belt on her waist. “You must not allow your good sense to run away with you. You must think very carefully. The prior general is an important man, and you cannot make slanderous charges against him. There are hands more powerful than his directing what happens here in Santa Margherita.”

  She removed the belt, and turned.

  “Leave my chambers.” The prioress raised her voice. “I am your superior and I order you to leave my room at once.”

  Sister Pureza passed the dawn praying outside the door of Lucrezia’s cell while the girl paced inside. When she heard braying on the road and the convent gates open before the bells rang for Prime, the old nun hurried to the window at the end of the hallway and saw a fine Medici steed in the courtyard, tamping a circle of dirt outside the prioress’s study. She watched the prioress meet the messenger and hand him a velvet pouch. The relic, Sister Pureza imagined.

  Lucrezia stayed in her cell while the nuns filed into the church for Prime, but Sister Pureza stationed herself stiffly next to Prioress Bartolommea and kept her eyes open at all times, even when the prioress closed her own. The prior general left the church as soon as the last note of the morning chants ended, and when Sister Pureza reached the convent refectory she found him sitting alone, calmly eating a boiled egg. He eyed her coolly as she approached, bowed, and met the man’s gaze.

  “Here in the cloister, Your Grace, women come and go in the service of God.” Sister Pureza chose her words carefully. “We must feel we may move freely, unmolested, and without fear of a fellow clergy interrupting our task.”

  She paused, waiting.

  “And what has this to do with me?” Prior General Saviano asked dully.

  “Everything,” she said. She began to formulate a narrative of the scene in the church corridor. “I returned before Lauds this morning, after the novitiate Lucrezia and I delivered a child at the home of the merchant Ottavio de’ Valenti.”

  She saw the prior general’s mouth stiffen, and continued hastily.

  “You know what happened, as well as I do,” she said. “I will not—”

  At the hard touch of a hand on her shoulder, Sister Pureza turned to see the pasty face of Prioress Bartolommea.

  “Do not trouble the prior general,” the prioress said, stepping between the two of them.

  “Excuse me, Mother.” Sister Pureza put out her arm and tried to move the prioress from the place where she had planted herself. “I am in the middle of speaking with him.”

  The prioress pivoted, and stared at Sister Pureza’s elbow, which was pressing roughly into her side.

  “Excuse me, Sister,” said the prioress in a clipped tone. “But you are hurting me.”

  Sister Pureza became aware of the other nuns watching the three of them. She stepped close to the prioress, so her voice would fall on her ears only. The two women had come to the convent at the same time, some fifty years earlier. They had known each other as novitiates, called each other by girlish names. Sister Pureza used one of those names now, to remind the prioress of what they’d once shared.

  “Bartolinni, my friend. You must ask him to leave.”

  “Really, Sister.” The mother spoke as if their intimacy had been erased decades ago. “You must stop telling me what I must do.”

  The prioress had a moment of regret when she saw the hurt in her old friend’s face. But then she thought again of the Holy Belt. She imagined her own likeness in a painting glorifying the Virgin Mother. She thought of the glory this could bring to the convent, and of the many hours she’d spent on her knees praying for just such good fortune to reach her here, on the long road outside of Florence. And she was silent as her friend blinked and turned away.

  Within the hour, Sister Pureza settled on a plan of action. She sent a hurried note to Ottavio de’ Valenti, advising him that Lucrezia was available to help care for his wife and child, and suggesting it was of some importance that he extend an invitation to the novitiate as soon as possible. She hoped and prayed that de’ Valenti would welcome their virgin with open arms, and she was right. A message came that same afternoon, with the request from Ottavio de’ Valenti sent directly to Mother Bartolommea. Along with the note, he sent four gold florins. />
  Prioress Bartolommea clapped her hands when she opened the pouch. Then she called Sister Pureza to her chambers, and said to her in a hurried whisper, “You see, the Sacred Belt is doing its job. The miracles are happening already. Look, Sister Pureza. I know what I am doing.”

  Sister Pureza nodded as if the prioress had indeed been responsible for the content of the note, the gold florins, even the miracle of the birth itself. The prioress summoned Lucrezia at once, and while the tear-streaked face of the young woman hovered before her, ghost-like, Prioress Bartolommea congratulated herself on the good fortune of the Lord’s ways.

  “You will return to the home of Signora de’ Valenti and help care for her,” Prioress Bartolommea said. “She believes you have a gift for healing, but you must not let this go to your head. Any gift you have is from God, as all blessings come from Heaven.”

  Lucrezia was distraught. So much had happened so quickly, and all of it seemed to turn on what people saw in her face and what they imagined they knew of her. She did not know about the gold florins, but she had seen the splendor of the de’ Valenti home, she had heard wondrous praise from everyone in the birth chamber. Beauty and gold were as much a part of fate and fortune as were prayer and piety, Lucrezia realized. Perhaps they were even more important than God’s will. If, as Sister Pureza had said, beauty was a gift from God and there was no shame in it, then she had nothing to fear. And yet, she was afraid.

  Hands clasped, Lucrezia fought against tears. She felt in some way the prior general’s rough attentions were a warning, but whether they were from Satan or from the Lord, she couldn’t decide.

  “You have been summoned,” Sister Pureza said quietly. She stood between Lucrezia and the prioress, showing allegiance to neither. “Is there anything you wish to say to Prioress Bartolommea?”

  “I will go where I am needed, Mother,” Lucrezia said, willing humility and calm to come to her.

  The prioress nodded. “Go pack your things,” she said, thinking of the sour faces of the other nuns, who were beginning to grumble about the many privileges given the beautiful novitiate. “You will leave quietly tomorrow, so there won’t be jealousy among the others.”