The Miracles of Prato

by Laurie Albanese

  “Do you think the Bankers’ Guild runs on charity? We’ve been patient. You’re lucky we don’t break your arms.”

  As he writhed in pain, they took Lucrezia’s silks, and a rough hand grabbed her yellow cotta da parto and wrapped it in a long bolt of blue silk.

  “You filthy son of a begger, how dare you touch that dress!” Fra Filippo raged. There was a boot planted firmly on the small of his back but he arched himself up as high as he could, and swore as the man piled up all of the beautiful fabrics.

  “I’ll kill you,” he raged. The man pressed his foot deeper into his back, and the monk couldn’t move. The man in red bent down, his face as red as his clothing, and spat his words at the painter.

  “Finish it. Or I’ll kill you.”

  It was the last thing Filippo heard before the left side of his head exploded in pain and his mind went blank.

  Lucrezia waited until the men had retreated down the gravel path. When she was sure they’d gone, she stumbled across the rubble, locked the latch, and pushed the broken stool in front of the doorway. Then she sank down on the floor next to the motionless painter, and put her head on his breast to listen for a heartbeat. She touched Fra Filippo’s bloodied cheek, and she wept. But behind her tears there was anger, and despair.

  “You didn’t tell me there was another commission,” she cried into Fra Filippo’s expressionless face. She held his head in her hands. “You lied to me, Filippo. You lied to me.”

  Lucrezia stayed on the floor next to him, waiting for him to wake. She was tired. So very tired.

  She woke in the dark, with sharp pains in her belly.

  “Filippo, something’s wrong,” she cried, reaching out to shake his shoulder. “The baby, Filippo.” She called his name louder, and slapped at his cheek. He moved at last, slowly and with difficulty, and reached for her hand. It was freezing cold.

  “I’m bleeding.”

  Shaking the sleep and pain from his head, the painter groaned and rose to his knees. Lucrezia’s face was pale. She shifted her hips to the side, and he saw a small, dark stain on the floor.

  “The baby, Filippo. The baby’s coming.”

  The painter dragged himself to the kitchen hearth, where he moved aside the loose stone, and reached for his bag of florins. Thank God the bankers hadn’t found his gold.

  “Filippo.” Lucrezia’s voice was panicked. “Hurry.”

  The painter staggered to her side.

  “I’ll get someone,” he said. “I’ll send word to Signora de’ Valenti, she’ll send the midwife.”

  “No, there’s no time, Filippo. Please, take me to the convent. Sister Pureza will help me.”

  The color was leaching from her face, and the smell of blood frightened him. Struggling to think clearly, he rushed into the dark street until he reached the fencemaker’s bottega. Under the moonlight, he saw the craftsman’s wagon hitched to his shack and heard the braying of the donkey behind the house. The sound of his footsteps roused the fencemaker, who appeared bleary-eyed at the window.

  “For the love of God, let me have your cart and donkey tonight.”

  His battered ribs pulsing with pain, Fra Filippo quickly yoked the donkey and hitched the cart. He led the animal back to his bottega, wrapped a blanket around Lucrezia, and carried her outside. He placed her gently in the back of the cart, using blankets and torn silk to cushion the hard wood.

  Under the blanket, Lucrezia watched the stars over the rooftops and prayed. It was late July. She’d done what she’d wanted. She’d kept the child inside of her long enough to know that it belonged to Fra Filippo.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Last Day Before the Feast of the Magdalene, the Year of Our Lord 1457

  Prioress Bartolommea clutched the three gold florins in her hand and stared at the painter. There was just enough moonlight to see his battered face.

  “Remember, I’m waiting for my altarpiece, Fratello,” she said. “The one you promised me almost a year ago.”

  “Yes, the painting,” he answered warily. “After the child is born.”

  Across the dark courtyard Fra Filippo could see Spinetta and Sister Bernadetta leading Lucrezia under the stone archway into the cloister garden. A stooped figure hurried toward them, carrying a candle.

  “She’ll be safe here. Now go,” the prioress said. “The prior general has barred you from the grounds.”

  Sister Pureza put a palm on Lucrezia’s belly and reached between her legs. Lucrezia winced at the probing fingers.

  “You’re not ready,” the nun said, wiping her fingers on her apron. “Rest now. You’re going to need your strength.”

  Lucrezia touched the old woman’s hands. The nun’s familiar lavender scent, her quiet certainty, filled Lucrezia with gratitude. Her eyes welled with tears.

  “Thank you, Sister Pureza,” she managed to say. “Molte grazie.”

  She was surprised when Sister Pureza turned quickly away, reaching for a tray of herbs she kept in a cool shelf dug into the thick infirmary wall.

  “It’s too soon,” Sister Pureza said gruffly.

  “Too soon?” Her voice shook. “Too soon for the child?”

  “Too soon to thank me.”

  Lucrezia’s heart began to pound. “But he’s all right, isn’t he? The baby’s all right?”

  The old nun’s back stiffened.

  “Why do you say he, Sister Lucrezia?” She swung around, her hands empty. “What makes you think the child is a boy, and not a girl?”

  Lucrezia felt certain the child she carried was male. For months, she’d believed it was a boy. A son for Filippo. Stung by the nun’s sharp words, she only shook her head.

  “A girl will suffer, as all women suffer.” Sister Pureza’s voice was surprising in its strength. It seemed to echo off the walls. “Do you think the fates will be kind to a child you’ve carried in shame?”

  Lucrezia’s eyes filled, blurring the old woman’s angry features.

  “I don’t know,” she gasped.

  “Of course you don’t know.” Sister Pureza didn’t even try to tamp her anger. “You know nothing about suffering and pain. You’re a fool—a vain, foolish girl.”

  Lucrezia didn’t try to stop the woman’s words. She deserved whatever reproach the old nun gave her.

  “Please, Sister Pureza.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t blame the child for my sins. Don’t punish him.”

  “Boy or girl, it’s God who’ll do the punishing, not I.”

  Stunned at her own outburst, the old nun’s hands shook among the vials on the tray. She opened a cork stopper, smelled the bitter vervain and thistleroot, poured some into a cup of water, and stirred.

  “Drink this. It will help you rest,” she said sharply. She held it out, but Lucrezia didn’t take it.

  “Do as you wish.” The old nun shoved the small cup between Lucrezia’s clenched fists. And as she did, she saw the girl wore a band of gold, ornamented by a red jasper stone. Red jasper, for love.

  The prioress wrote the letter herself. She wrote it that very morning, while Sister Camilla and Sister Spinetta were in the church for Terce prayers. She didn’t need them snooping into her business; she was sure that what she did was good and righteous.

  In the name of the Lord, the twenty-first day of July, 1457

  Your Grace, the most Revered Prior General Saviano,

  Lucrezia Buti has returned to the convent this morning, in the pains of labor. I share your outrage at this shame, but have done as you wished, and allowed her to enter.

  The prioress looked at the three gold coins on the desk.

  She came with two gold florins, which will be added to the convent coffers. As you are aware, our funds grow ever smaller. May Christ keep you well, and in His favor.

  As Prioress Bartolommea folded and sealed the note, doubt flickered through her. She couldn’t fathom why the prior general wanted Lucrezia back in the convent; she’d certainly been no asset to Santa Margherita. But Saviano was a potent man, and she was
in no position to challenge him on the matter. Instead, she’d made up her mind to use Lucrezia’s presence to coax—even to force—the painter to deliver the altarpiece he’d promised her.

  Although the prioress tried to hide it, she’d grown frail over the winter, and her strength hadn’t returned with the summer warmth. She felt her time on earth coming to an end, and wanted to leave this world with all the assurances she could accumulate. Her image in the altarpiece with the Sacra Cintola was something she’d been counting on to weigh in her favor when God took her measure on the stairway to heaven.

  Prioress Bartolommea looked down again at the letter in her hands, and it seemed the words she’d penned only moments ago were nearly illegible. She held the parchment close to her eyes, but that only made her vision worse. She moved it away from her face, as far as she could reach, and was just barely able to make out the prior general’s name where she’d written it.

  “I must remember not to write so small,” she muttered to herself.

  After he’d returned the wagon and donkey to his neighbor, Fra Filippo bandaged his head and wrapped his chest with rags that were trampled with dirty footprints. Cautiously he felt his ribs, relieved that they hadn’t been broken. He tidied his bottega as well as he could, but there was little left that he could salvage. Most of his supplies were gone, and what hadn’t been taken was smashed on the ground.

  The monk found a splintered quill, and a pot of ink the men had missed, and wrote to Giovanni de’ Medici on a torn paper.

  My honorable Giovanni, I have worked like a slave to make the painting just as you wish—I will do everything I must to complete it to your liking.

  His hand shook. He’d been foolish, spending the money from the Bankers’ Guild as if there was no end to it.

  Please do not leave me without hope—without supplies or money I cannot continue.

  Fra Filippo knew he sounded desperate. But his reputation and honor were less important than replenishing the supply of pigments and other materials so that he could work.

  I vow the work will be finished by the twentieth day of August, and in good faith I am sending you the drawing of the frame so you can see how the woodworking must be done and what style the frame will be, and I beg you to pledge to me the one hundred florins I need for the design. It is a fair price, you can ask anyone you like, I only pray you see my labors are in good faith.

  It wasn’t too soon to ask for the frame to be ordered and started. If God wanted more than he could do in one lifetime, and if he was to please the Medici and the King of Naples, then Fra Filippo needed other men to be laboring along with him.

  I must leave Prato. I beg your reply for I am trapped, and also ask your forgiveness for writing to you in my desperation.

  The painter spent the rest of the day and evening drawing out the plans for the altarpiece’s ornate frame, with Gothic arches and gilded finials. He finished and sealed the letter as the moon rose. And he prayed that Giovanni de’ Medici would be understanding, and generous.

  But the elder Medici son was not so inclined. In two days’ time, the monk heard the news from Ser Francesco Cantansanti’s own imperious lips.

  “There will be nothing more until the work is finished,” the emissary said, standing in the monk’s doorway and surveying the empty studio. His eyes narrowed. “I pray to God those thugs didn’t take the altarpiece.”

  The monk’s eyes were red, as if he hadn’t slept in many days. Scabs had begun to form on his face, where he’d taken the worst of the beating.

  “No, it’s safe, thank God,” Fra Filippo said.

  “You’re lucky. You should have avoided those men, Filippo.” Ser Francesco planted his feet and looked around at the debris Fra Filippo had missed when he swept. “Where are the paintings for King Alfonso?”

  “At Santo Stefano, where they’ll be safe. I’m guarding them with my life, Francesco.” Fra Filippo addressed the emissary by his given name, and his voice cracked. “But I must have more gold to finish the Madonna’s robes. I must at least have that.”

  Cantansanti reached in his pocket and pulled out two gold pieces. The painter was trying his patience. But it would do him no good to see the monk fall into despair.

  “Buy only what you need. Show me when you’ve made progress, and I’ll help you if I can.”

  As he turned to leave, Cantansanti looked back into the studio, to a single sketch on the painter’s wall. It was the girl who’d modeled for the monk’s Madonna. The sketch showed her in the fullness of pregnancy, her face looking up as if beseeching the heavens.

  “I hear the girl’s gone back to the convent, Filippo. Is it true?”

  Fra Filippo nodded. “Only until the child comes,” he said.

  The emissary ground his boot in the doorway and shook his head.

  “And then?”

  “We’re still waiting for word from Rome. So much depends on that. On what my patron and his family can do for me.”

  “What they can do for you will depend on what you do for us, Filippo. I promise you’ll get nothing more if you fail us with the altarpiece.”

  News of the raid on Fra Filippo’s bottega, and of Lucrezia’s return to the convent, reached Fra Piero as he traveled along the road from Lucca.

  As soon as he reached Prato, he hurried to Santa Margherita and sat in the stifling convent study listening to Prioress Bartolommea run through a litany of complaints and demands. She seemed to squint when she spoke to him, and Fra Piero found himself growing impatient with her self-importance, her petty needs. He had no idea how Fra Filippo had tolerated his chaplain’s duties here for two years. In just a few months, the same duties had exasperated Fra Piero’s patience.

  “Sister Lucrezia has come back to us full with child and in need of our care,” Prioress Bartolommea said at last. “What are we to do, Fratello? The painter has brought his stain upon us but we’re bound by Christ’s teachings to offer safe harbor to all who ask forgiveness for their sins.”

  The procurator nodded thoughtfully. “I will speak with her myself,” he said. “I will hear her confession, and then hear the others’.”

  The procurator found Lucrezia lying on a pallet in the infirmary, her feet propped on a pillow, belly high and full, face puffy and pale.

  “Fra Piero.” Lucrezia smiled weakly when she saw him, and he was relieved at the strength in her grip when he took her hand.

  “You saw us exchange the vows.” Lucrezia spoke through dry lips. She saw Sister Pureza standing in the doorway and she pulled the procurator closer to her, dropping her voice to a whisper. “If I am dying you’ll give me Extreme Unction, won’t you? And will you promise not to let the child live as a bastard?”

  “You’ll be fine,” Fra Piero said, putting her hand back on the bed beside her body. “Pray and be brave, Lucrezia. You are in good hands with Sister Pureza.”

  He heard Lucrezia’s confession, granted her absolution, and made the sign of the cross on her forehead. Then he stopped to speak with Sister Pureza, who was clearly pained by the novitiate’s condition.

  “Sister Pureza, I beg you to remember that there are many secrets that can change the fate of a beautiful young woman,” he said. He was surprised when the nun’s features hardened at his words.

  “You forget I’m an old woman and I’ve lived a long time,” she said roughly.

  The procurator blanched, and she continued.

  “The world is full of suffering, Fratello,” she said. “If we show sympathy to the novitiate, she won’t be prepared for the pain that’s sure to come.”

  Fra Piero studied Sister Pureza’s face, certain she didn’t know what the prior general had done to Lucrezia or how much Fra Filippo truly loved the young woman. If he hadn’t been bound by the confidentiality of Lucrezia’s confession, he would have told the old nun all that he knew. Instead, he summoned Christ’s words, hoping to invoke at least a small bit of mercy.

  “Remember, the weak will enter God’s kingdom first, Sister Pureza,
” he said. “And the righteous will be last.”

  From Santa Margherita the procurator went directly to the painter’s bottega. It was empty, the lock on the door broken, the hearth cold. The studio was littered with debris, and there was a single parchment with a drawing of a pregnant Lucrezia, her face looking toward the skies, propped against the wall.

  Fra Piero found the painter up on the scaffolding at Santo Stefano, his arms a fury of movement, buckets of paint at his feet. It wasn’t even close to Vespers, but the painter had sent his assistants home, and was alone in the cappella maggiore.

  “Fra Filippo.” It took the procurator several tries before he caught the painter’s attention. When he did, the large man moved dangerously quickly down the scaffolding.

  “Do you have news?”

  “I’ve seen Lucrezia. The child will come soon, Filippo, you have to prepare yourself.”

  “I am preparing,” the painter said. “I delivered the altarpiece to those bastards at the Arte del Cambio yesterday—they refused to give me the rest of the money because it was late, God damn them—and you can see I’m working furiously.”

  The painter gestured wildly to a dark corner of the chapel, where he’d stored the Medici triptych.

  “I want to leave here, Piero, and take Lucrezia with me. As soon as the child is born, as soon as the frescoes are finished, as soon as I’ve been paid, I want to leave this city.”

  He spoke with such speed, the procurator was alarmed. He laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. A wasted look haunted his face.

  “Are you eating, Filippo?”

  “Eating? My God, Piero, look at the feast of King Herod, here on the wall.” He pulled his arm, and Fra Piero followed him to the right of the scaffolding. “Look at this banquet scene.”