by Jodi Taylor
The best thing about being at the back is that you can blindly follow the people in front and spend your time usefully looking at the wonders all around. I was in Florence! Best of all, I was in Renaissance Florence. The city of the Medici. The city at the centre of the flowering of artistic culture and yes, currently in the grip of a disastrous religious fervour, but that was why we were here, after all. To rescue what we could. To redress the balance in some small way. There’s something very satisfying about outwitting religious fanaticism.
Ahead of us, the Ponte Vecchio, newly rebuilt in stone, gleamed wetly in the chilly February day. Each side was lined with modern goldsmiths’ and jewellers’ shops. Previously, this area had been occupied by butchers and fishmongers, all of whom were famous for dumping their rotting produce daily into the River Arno. Without thinking, I mentioned this.
‘That’s offal,’ said Sands, and was immediately forbidden to speak again during this assignment.
We picked our way cautiously across the bridge. Roberts was not always in complete control of his handcart, likening it to a supermarket trolley with a wobbly wheel and the central walkway was quite narrow. Normally, progress would be deliberately slow as pedestrians were tempted back and forth across the street by merchants displaying their wares. Today, wisely, the counters were bare and most of the shops were locked and shuttered. Only an idiot would display anything beautiful on today of all days.
Ahead of me, I could hear Peterson in his role as training officer, informing Roberts that this was the origin of the term bankruptcy. When a man could no longer pay his debts, the soldiers would seize the tabletop he would be using to display his wares (banco) and break it (rotta). Hence, bankruptcy. Mr Roberts, intent on not letting his cart sideswipe a group of soberly clad men discussing something or other in serious tones, nodded absently.
We emerged from the bridge into the main part of the city. Peterson guided us to a convenient doorway and we stopped to take it all in.
This was Florence and it was beautiful.
The skyline, dotted with towers and spires like broken teeth was dominated by Brunelleschi’s magnificent dome. I was quite surprised that piece of groundbreaking architecture hadn’t been one of the first things to go up in flames. Around us, steps led away in mysterious directions; beautifully carved wooden balconies overhung the lower stories; porticos and graceful archways abounded. Shallow roofs were mostly clad in clay roof tiles. Many buildings were of brick or stone, but some were rendered and painted in shades of terracotta, ochre, cream, a gentle yellow or, on this miserable winter’s day, a rather dingy white. Wooden shutters covered many windows.
It was a still day. A thick pall of Renaissance smog hung sullenly over the city with no wind to disperse it. Over there, quite nearby, a thick pillar of black smoke rose vertically, carrying the soul of beauty up to heaven. We’d found the Bonfire.
We set off towards it, passing wonderful buildings with perfect proportions. Churches, public buildings, palaces, all decorated with friezes full of life and movement. Some were badly hacked about as the Church unavailingly tried to quash the outpourings of new ideas and new thinking. To reduce beauty and splendour to its lowest common denominator. To ignorance. Dull, dingy, unimaginative, safe ignorance.
The pillar of smoke reminded me why we were here. I pulled myself together. It all happened a long time ago. Yes, Savonarola put the brakes on for a while, but in the end, there was no holding progress. The Renaissance was followed by the Age of Reason as slowly but surely, people emerged from the dark clutches of religious fanaticism.
I’ve never visited Florence, although I certainly will one day, so the size of the Piazza Della Signoria came as a bit of a shock. It was far bigger than I expected. This was the site of public feasts and tournaments. And bonfires, of course.
I could see it from where I stood behind my menfolk. My heart sank. This wasn’t just a pile of junk, haphazardly heaped up in the middle of the square and torched. They’d done this properly. A great tongue of wood, about three feet high and six feet wide, jutted some way out into the centre of the square, culminating in the giant Bonfire several times the size of a man. A heat haze shimmered around it, even on this cool February day. Red and orange flames were the only colour in this drab town and just in case anyone was in any doubt over who was responsible, an enormous crucifix presided over the scene.
All along the long, wooden platform, a team of ten or twelve pious-faced monks passed treasures from hand to hand until, at the end, a huge, sweating man, stripped to the waist, unceremoniously hurled them into the heart of the blaze. Such was the intense heat that they flared only briefly and then were gone forever.
Another group of monks, also clutching a crucifix, stood as close to the flames as they could safely get and alternately prayed and chanted, presumably to prevent pious citizens being contaminated by any fumes or smoke emanating from these soul-imperilling vanities.
Standing on tiptoe behind Sands, I could see framed canvases, small items of furniture, bolts of cloth, and many other unidentifiable objects making their sad way along the platform to the bonfire.
I looked around. It was heartbreaking. Who knew what was being destroyed. Pictures, literature, statues, all going up in smoke because some monk was going too far. And books. Beautiful books, full of knowledge and beauty and ideas. All lost, thanks to a mad monk who, in the end, became a little too mad even for the church he served.
Groups of people, all men, stood watching and talking in subdued tones. Soldiers stood sullenly outside the Palazzo Vecchio. Whether they disapproved of the goings on or whether it was just traditional soldier sullenness, I had no idea.
All the time, more and more treasures, some quite large, were being heaved into the square by sweating men, and passed on to the monks for destruction. I was conscious of a sudden need to hurry. Any one of those pictures might be a Botticelli. They could be burning now as I stood uselessly, condemning actions I could not prevent.
As discreetly as I could, I looked around for the man himself, Girolamo Savonarola. I could not believe he wouldn’t be here somewhere. Unless, of course, he was out directing operations elsewhere, urging his followers on to greater and greater efforts of destruction.
No, he was over there. I saw Peterson nudge Sands and nod over to the right. A black-clad figure stood close to the bonfire, but a little apart from everyone, his hands thrust into the sleeves of his robe. A large wooden cross hung around his neck. His nose was prominent and his fleshy lips contrasted with sharp cheekbones in a face made sallow by abstinence. The face of a fanatic. I suspected he stood alone not through choice but from fear. Those who passed by showed deference to him and hurried on as quickly as they could. With the cruel irony so beloved by Fate, I rather thought he was standing on the exact spot on which his own bonfire would burn. In just twelve months’ time, his own pillar of smoke would rise towards the heavens. I wondered what sort of reception he would get when he arrived.
However, I had a day’s pay to earn.
It was very obvious that anything that got as far as the chain of monks on the wooden tongue was doomed. There was no escaping the bonfire’s flames.
‘Right,’ I said, quietly. ‘The team from Number Five is to take the cart and try to intercept any artefacts before they make it as far as the square. Offer to relieve men of their burdens. Follow them for a few paces and then peel away. Do it quietly, discreetly, and above all, safely. Pay particular attention to any canvases or panels you come across. My team will head out and try to track down Botticelli himself, to see if we can’t acquire the paintings at source. We will stay in our teams and keep our coms open. There doesn’t seem to be any violence anywhere, but I’m sure we’ll encounter street gangs, looters, and fanatics as well as ordinary citizens. Good luck, everyone.’
We split up. Peterson’s team wheeled away and the rest of us left the square and headed towards the Duomo.
The rest of us had had to undergo one of Dr Dowson’s crash co
urses in linguistics, but Mr Sands already had beautiful Italian and very passable Latin and was able to make himself understood with little difficulty. He stopped two men, both hugging their warm russet cloaks tightly around themselves against the chill. I noticed a slightly darker area around the hems from where the fur trim had been removed. They wore plain, close-fitting hats, pulled down low over their foreheads. Mr Sands enquired, very civilly for the house of Sandro Botticelli or, giving him his real name, Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. With the type of luck rarely encountered at St Mary’s, both men instantly turned and gestured behind them. A torrent of Italian followed, but, as with most people, they unconsciously mimed their directions as they spoke, angling their arms right, left, and straight on in a way that even we could follow.
With even more luck, it wasn’t far. Botticelli lived in the maze of tiny streets between the Duomo and the massive building site that would one day be the Palazzo Strozzi, in the Street of the Five Fountains. I don’t know why it was called that. When we arrived, there wasn’t a fountain to be seen. It was probably named by an ancestor of those idiot town planners who strew the landscape with the ugliest urban housing estates conceivable, then name them Green Pastures or The Orchard or Cherry Blossom, and name all the roads after trees that will never grow there. If I ever retire, I’m going to buy a house in the centre of town somewhere and name it Sea View, just to give people something to worry about.
We picked our way around dirty puddles, following the directions we’d been given. Far from being the bustling centre of commerce I had expected, the streets were very quiet, with doors and shutters firmly closed. This could be the easiest salvage operation we’d ever undertaken.
I could smell wet plaster, wet stone, wet straw, woodsmoke, horse droppings, and wet clothes. A fine rain hung in the air, leaving glistening drops on our clothing. Somewhere to my right, I could hear the odd mournful drip as water trickled down into an old barrel.
The ground floor apartments were all given over to shops, but an anonymous green door opening off the street led into a small courtyard. We paused and looked around. This had once been a garden. Beautiful glazed pots stood against the walls but now were cracked, crumbling, and contained only dead bushes and weeds. A broken wooden bench had been overturned and lay forlornly on its side. Perhaps even gardens were considered sinful.
Sands indicated upwards, so we turned left and climbed a flight of outside steps, walked around a narrow gallery, and there it was. We stopped at the end of the gallery. A pair of double doors confronted us. Sands thumped on the door with his gloved fist, but there was no reply. He banged again. The sound was very loud in this quiet place. No one flung open a door or window and demanded to know what was going on. We checked around. Nothing and no one.
Sands took a deep breath and banged at the door again. ‘Master Botticelli? Sir, could you open the door, please?’
There was a long silence. I was about to suggest pushing on this door too, on the off chance it might be open, when we heard the sound of slow footsteps, dragging their way across a wooden floor.
A thick voice, barely audible informed us that yes, yes, he was coming and to hold our water, for the Lord’s sake.
Clerk and Sands exchanged a glance. ‘Bet you anything you like he’s as pissed as a newt,’ whispered Sands.
‘Surely not,’ said Clerk. ‘That’s the sort of thing that would really lead to trouble with the Church. Especially today of all days.’
I said nothing. He was an artist and today he was surrendering his work for destruction and no matter how much he was under the spell of Girolamo Savonarola, parting with his paintings, his own creations, couldn’t possibly be easy for him. I could imagine him needing something from a bottle to help him on the way.
On the other side of the door, a metal bolt was drawn back, and eventually, the door opened.
And there he was.
Chapter Fourteen
We all have our illusions. Whether consciously or not, we all have pictures in our heads. People, places, events, we see these things in our mind’s eye and carry these images with us throughout our lives.
I don’t know why, but given the ethereal nature of his paintings, somehow I’d expected an aesthetic, modestly dressed man with penetrating eyes that looked at the world and saw what others could not, and whose long, slender fingers would translate that vision into the wonderful, luminous paintings for which he was so famous.
The dishevelled figure leaning against the doorframe and breathing great gusts of wine fumes all over us was about as far from my imagined picture as it was possible to get.
For a start, he wasn’t tall and slender. He wasn’t even stocky. Leon was stocky. Botticelli was, in fact, built like a barrel, with a deep, wide chest and broad shoulders. Perhaps that must be how he earned his nickname, ‘Botticelli’. Little Barrels. He wasn’t much taller than me and I’m definitely not tall.
His heavily lidded hazel eyes were made even heavier by the enormous amount of alcohol he’d obviously consumed. Empty flagons rolled around the wooden floor and the smell of stale wine was almost pungent enough to overcome the ever-present odours of linseed oil, turpentine, walnut oil, fresh wood, paint, old food, and the world’s worst body odour.
Nobody recoiled. I was proud of them.
We stared at him. I don’t think anyone could think of anything to say. The silence rolled on.
‘Well,’ he said eventually, slurring his words so badly that I could hardly make them out. ‘What are you waiting for? They’re over there.’
For a moment, none of us moved. I couldn’t believe it. He was going to give them to us. He was going to give us his paintings. We didn’t have to lie, or club him over the head, or trick him – or even ask him. He was actually going to give us his paintings!
He gestured backwards with his head, which was a bit of a mistake because he overbalanced and started to topple. It was like watching a tree fall. He didn’t bend at all. Sands and Peterson leaped forwards, steadied him, and walked him backwards into his studio. I followed them in and closed the door behind us.
‘Over here,’ grunted Clerk, and they deposited him in the nearest chair, an ornate wooden affair with arms, currently serving as a model’s throne. A bolt of dark red satin frothed at his feet, making him look like the Demon King.
I left them to minister to him, stepped behind him where he couldn’t see me, and activated my recorder. I wanted to get all of this. I paint – a little – when I can, and I would never, ever again have an opportunity to study the studio and working methods of one of the greatest painters of all time.
We were standing in a big, square room. The only windows looked north out over the courtyard. A number of ornate wooden easels stood nearby. Disappointingly, all were empty.
On the opposite wall, a long, paint-stained table was covered in paint-making equipment, dry pigments, mortars and pestles, palettes, brushes, odd pieces of panel, paint-covered rags, plates of stale food, and even more empty flagons. Yes, an artist definitely lived here.
Two doors led off this room. One appeared to be a storeroom of some kind and through the other door, half open, I could see a couch with blankets. Clothes littered the floor. One boot was propping the door open.
Over in the corner, four comfortable chairs stood on an exquisite carpet. Small tables were within easy reach. This would be where he entertained his clients, to discuss commissions, or possibly for them to watch the progress of his latest work.
This place would normally be full of people with apprentices and assistants scurrying around preparing panels and paint. Tempera doesn’t keep overnight, and Botticelli’s technique was to apply layer after layer of luminescent paint. He would need a small army of apprentices to keep up with him. Friends would drop in and out on an hourly basis. Fellow artists would do the same, come to snoop, to criticise, to pinch ideas, to drink … The room would be noisy and lively, and in the middle of it all, like a king in his court, the artist himself, holding fort
h, demonstrating his skills.
Never again. Those days were done for this man. For him, nothing would ever be the same after today. He would produce a little more work, but the glory days were gone. When they burned his paintings, even though they did it with his blessing, a large part of him would go with them.
Speaking of paintings …
I panned discreetly around the room. He’d said they were ready for collection and they were, propped against the fourth wall, three of them, covered in old cloths.
Heart beating, I handed the recorder to Mr Sands, stepped over, and twitched the first cover aside.
I stared and stared. I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Given his fascination with the Madonna and the number of paintings on that subject, I suppose I’d thought it would be something along those lines. Or maybe another ‘Portrait of a Young Lady’ which was Botticelli-speak for another portrait of Simonetta Vespucci, his lost love, dead these many years. But no, of course it wouldn’t be. There would be no reason for those to be destroyed. He’d painted his other passion – Greek and Roman mythology.
I gazed at the first painting, drinking it in. The subject was easily recognisable. The Judgement of Paris. The moment when Paris awards the golden apple to Aphrodite and supposedly kick-starts the Trojan Wars.
Three goddesses, naked apart from the usual useless wisp of material draped over one arm, parade themselves before him. Athena, remote and reluctant, stares vaguely out of the picture, her mind obviously elsewhere. Hera stands in the middle, a little older than the others and possibly trying too hard because of it. And there, off to one side, carefully framed by arching trees, stands Aphrodite, effortless, glorious, with translucent skin and long, light hair. She is smiling at Paris and that smile will secure the fall of Troy.
Paris is dark and muscular. He too is naked, but for some reason, even though he’s depicted as a shepherd, he’s wearing a metal helmet with a red horsehair crest. He is holding the golden apple high. The moment of judgement is seconds away. In the background stand a couple of very bored-looking sheep, who, not surprisingly, have no idea of the significance of the occasion.
