The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany

by Linda Lafferty

  Giorgio wondered how the nobili could abide the cold in their palazzi. At least in his father’s stables, the horses’ bodies provided warmth during the Tuscan winter and radiated heat to the house above. But as Cesare Brunelli had told his son, “They are different than we are, figlio. They are cold-blooded creatures. Watch them walk, move. They are awkward with inbreeding, their foreheads long and narrow, their skin dry as parchment, their rib cages not wide enough for a sparrow to roost, their lips thin and brittle. They are simply not put together properly, these bluebloods. Unless they have some good bastard blood. A new stud or dam to enrich the stock, make them hearty. Inbreeding withers strength and conformation, even in humans.”

  Giorgio smiled. With a horseman’s eye, his father judged everything and everyone by spirit, conformation, and heart.

  The farrier’s son cupped his stiff brushes between his hands, forming a cave with his fingers and blowing warm breath to soften the bristles.

  His easel was close to the windows that looked out over the Piazza del Campo. The thick panes of crystal warped the view of the marketplace. He gazed at the vendors’ stalls, their cabbages and carrots, carved chairs, and baskets twisted into strange proportions by the crystal—the Chianina cattle’s creamy white buttocks misshapen as a twisted hunchback’s, the farmer’s head three times bigger than his torso.

  Giorgio thought of Michelangelo’s David, the enormous hands. How would he portray a Chianina’s ass, he wondered.

  His breath fogged the window glass. He ran his sleeve over the pane, wiping away the vapor. His chest expanded with pride as he surveyed the most glorious public space in all Christendom, the fanned panels of red brick paving the piazza below and the Torre del Mangia rising into the sky, its crenellated white tower majestic above the brickwork.

  Siena might have surrendered its gates to Florence. It might have swallowed bitter bile as the conquerors tore down the city’s magnificent towers. But the city had never lost its pride. And never its spirit as an independent republic.

  But then his eyes fell on the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena’s city hall. There, next to the windows crowned with the black-and-white emblem of Siena, was the huge granite shield of the de’ Medici: five balls—le cinque palle—and a metal crown glinting with the first rays of the morning sunlight.

  Giorgio wiped his mouth in disgust.

  Branding our Palazzo Pubblico with their coat of arms—the final insult.

  Gradually he became aware of the sounds around him in the hall, the rasp and creak as other students set up their easels, unpacking their pens and paints.

  A gray-haired man entered the hall, two attendants following him with an easel and a velvet-draped painting.

  “Buongiorno,” Maestro Lungo greeted the class. “We have a special treat this morning. A painting by the great master Domenico Beccafumi, whose artwork is so admired in the marble floors and ceilings of the Duomo.”

  The maestro gestured to the draped painting. “I have procured this from an anonymous patron,” he said. Then he nodded to Giorgio. “Especially for Brunelli.” He winked his creased eyelid like a napping lizard.

  Giorgio started. He felt the eyes of his fellow art students. His pale eyelashes blinked, his freckled face reddening.

  “No doubt a plow horse,” sniffed a bearded young man in an ermine cloak and polished boots.

  A few of the Florentines laughed.

  Giorgio flexed the bristles of his brush aggressively against the heel of his hand. He hated Giacomo di Torreforte. He and his clutch of Florentine nobili scorned Giorgio as a peasant.

  Maestro Lungo whisked off the velvet drape, exposing the painting as he announced, “Beccafumi’s Flight of Clelia and the Roman Virgins.”

  Fifteen pairs of eyes studied the painting. The students fell silent, knowing that their first impressions would be the most powerful when they interpreted the work onto their own canvases.

  The story of Clelia was popular with Renaissance painters. The Roman women were led out of their captors’ camp by Clelia, who stole horses from the Etruscan corrals while the soldiers lay sleeping. She and the women rode the horses to the Tiber and, still mounted, swam across to the safety of Roman shores.

  Giorgio squinted hard at the painting. The vivid colors of Beccafumi, a signature flourish, brought light and life into the cold studio. Clelia, in a red and black tunic, rode an ivory-colored horse, galloping into the waters of the Tiber. The bright greens, reds, and yellows of the togas glowed eerily in the winter light. The voluptuous flesh of a half-naked virgin shone, the contours of her breasts and stomach alive on the oil-painted panel.

  “Garish,” pronounced di Torreforte, breaking the silence. He raised his chin from his white ruffled collar.

  The word echoed in the palazzo hall.

  “Positively garish! So typical of the Senese School. Maestro! Why do you choose a dead Senese when we could study Leonardo . . . or even Michelangelo?”

  A Senese student, Riccardo De’ Luca from Contrada del Drago, leaned over to Giorgio. His blue eyes glittered. “Michelangelo escaped the claws of the de’ Medici, fleeing to Rome,” he whispered. “Would that Siena had been so blessed as to escape Cosimo!”

  “Beccafumi is a great master, true to his art and his theme, Signor di Torreforte,” retorted the maestro. “You would be wise to appreciate his skill and learn from it.”

  Giacomo di Torreforte’s bearded face twitched.

  “His theme? Ha!” said di Torreforte, gesturing with his palms open. “What would that be, maestro mio? Prostitutes on horseback?”

  The maestro swallowed his rage with difficulty. He, too, resented the Florentine’s insolence. Yet the di Torreforte family was deeply allied with—and distantly related to—the de’ Medici. He would have to endure the young artist’s insults.

  “Virgins, Signor di Torreforte. Not prostitutes,” he said. “The escape of the Roman virgins from King Porsena and the Etruscan camp. Clelia’s honor, her bravery—”

  “Honor! Everyone knows that only a prostitute rides astride! Look how he portrays her.”

  Riccardo felt Giorgio stiffen next to him.

  “Tranquillo,” he said, reaching for his arm. “Do not listen—”

  Giorgio shook off his friend’s hand.

  “That is a lie!” he snapped.

  The maestro gave him a wary eye. The other Senese students leaned away from their easels.

  “Whether women ride astride or sidesaddle is a question of choice, not honor,” said Giorgio. “Only a fool would turn a rider sidewise to her horse.”

  Di Torreforte smiled slowly, relishing the challenge.

  “Oh, really, villano—you country peasant! Have you ever seen a reputable painting of the Virgin Mary astride her donkey? The great masters show her dignity—and virtue—by painting her seated properly. Sideways.”

  He smirked at Brunelli, and the Florentine artists chuckled.

  Giorgio thrust out his lower jaw, debating whether to answer. He looked at his colleagues around him, then to the maestro. At last, he could not resist.

  “I have seen a painting of the great Lorenzo de’ Medici’s sisters astride their horses,” he said. “Benozzo Gozzoli, The Journey of the Magi.” He raised his red eyebrows. “The de’ Medici women seem quite at ease astride. Comfortable, even. As if they were . . . born to it.”

  The Senese students snickered. Di Torreforte whirled around. If he could identify the culprits, he would deal with them.

  “Your words smack of treason, Senese!” di Torreforte said, shaking a finger in Giorgio’s face. “Peasants like you should not cast aspersions on the de’ Medici family!”

  “Merely an observation of art,” said Giorgio. “Hardly treason.”

  The maestro took a long step forward between the two students.

  “I will remind the signori that this is an art class, not a public forum. I want no more discussion. Nessuna parola—not another word, do you hear me? Or I shall dismiss you from the accademia!”

&n
bsp; The murmuring stopped. The students stepped back behind their easels. Di Torreforte still scowled at Giorgio.

  “You will copy this great masterwork,” the maestro emphasized. “Begin your preliminary drawings now.”

  An intense silence fell over the studio. The students began to sketch their outlines in pen. As they started, their muscles tensed and their tendons stood out from their necks. Then gradually—ever so gradually—their tension eased as art cast its spell, demanding their focus.

  “Bravo!” whispered Riccardo to Giorgio.

  The maestro’s footsteps echoed in the long marble hall as he walked behind each student’s drawing.

  Giorgio kept his eye pinned on the painting. He dipped his pen in his inkpot, making deft lines, sketching Beccafumi’s composition.

  “Bello forzo, Brunelli,” the maestro said, tapping Giorgio on the shoulder.

  Good effort.

  Giorgio wondered if the maestro was referring to his preliminary sketch or something else.

  CHAPTER 9

  Siena, Pugna Hills

  JANUARY 1573

  My flock of mud-flecked ewes, whose muzzles ripped ferociously at the dry grass, paused for a moment and lifted their heads at the sound of baying hounds. I pinched the end of my braid, listening.

  Deh! The hounds must have cornered their prey in the depths of the wooded ravine.

  I let out a shrill whistle through the gap in my front teeth. Dog, my Maremma shepherd, yelped and sprang at the ewes. He nipped at their heels, herding them away from the blood call of the hounds. The sheep maaa-ed and sprinkled the ground with black pellets of manure.

  “Virginia!” called my uncle from his work castrating rams in the pens beyond the shepherd’s hut. His hands and arms were slick with blood. “Lead the ewes away from the hunt!”

  “Sì, Zio Giovanni!”

  I shook my staff at the ewes, shouting at them. When they did not react, I charged at them with the ferocity of the dog, shrieking obscenities in Tuscan dialect.

  The riders had returned. They stood at the top of the hill. The woman—it was her! She made agitated gestures toward a man in a black riding cloak. Her horse reared as she wheeled it around, plunging down the embankment.

  I stood transfixed, clutching the crooked staff in midair.

  The rider’s skirts blew behind her like wings. Her skin was white as a newborn lamb’s wool, and her cheeks glowed wine red with the cold wind. Her hands moved in rhythm with the horse, pulsing in time with the thoroughbred blood that coursed through his veins. The gelding’s neck and shoulders were lathered in sweat, despite the cold. I could hear his throaty breath as he punctuated each downbeat of his gallop with a snort.

  My mouth fell open in awe. I felt something drop deep in my chest, like a heavy stone into a well.

  This union, a woman and horse, was powerful like thunder and lightning in the same instant. The fine hairs on the back of my neck bristled with excitement.

  Please jump it again!

  The rider guided her horse toward the fallen olive tree. The muscles of his hindquarters bunched and exploded as the rider’s hands glided up his neck, giving him rein.

  For one instant, the two flew together through the air, a surging pulse—a heartbeat—unbound from the earth.

  The howls of the hounds echoed beyond. The rider reined her horse toward the sound deep in the hollow.

  No!

  I dropped my staff and ran. The banks of the ravine were dangerously steep and rocky.

  “No, signora!” I cried.

  But the rider never hesitated. Even from afar, I could see her flinty determination, her set jaw. Never had I witnessed such fierce spirit in a woman.

  Never had I imagined it: the freedom of horse and rider, loosed just moments ago from the bounds of Earth and man as they soared above the fallen tree. Now plunging into the rocky ravine.

  I never forgot that steely vision. Never.

  Now this pazza—mad!—noblewoman careened again across the sheep pastures, jumping over dead trees and plunging into the ravine.

  I raced down the steep embankment, stumbling on the rocks and breaking through vines and brambles. I could hear my two dogs behind me, barking at the flock. I heard my uncle call, his voice hoarse with shouting. From the corrals where he stood, he could not see the rider’s descent. He could only see me racing away from the sheep, leaving them milling about with the dogs nipping at their heels.

  I saw the riderless horse scramble up the opposite bank of the streambed, the stirrup irons clanking wildly. He stopped at the rim, nickering loudly, calling to the rest of the horses from the hunting party.

  Below me, I heard a groan and saw a white hand stretched over a birch limb.

  “Are you hurt?” I called.

  “Grazie a Dio,” said a voice accented with musical Florentine tones. “Please help me!”

  I fought my way through the brush and low-hanging limbs to the rider.

  “Are you hurt?” I repeated. As I approached, I saw the fineness of her clothes, the silks and velvets filigreed with rich embroidery. Her boots, polished with oil, shone like a looking glass.

  She moaned softly, then opened her dark eyes.

  “You are only a child,” she said, her voice betraying disappointment. She tried to sit up. Her gloved hand dug into the rotting leaves and soft dirt.

  “Help me,” she said, extending her hand. “I cannot bear to let my brother see me like this.”

  I helped her sit up. She was very tall but not heavy. She winced and drew in a quick breath.

  “Madonna! You are hurt! Let me run and get my uncle. He will carry you to our lambing sheds. We can send for a doctor.”

  “Yes,” said Isabella. “Call your uncle, but do not tell my brother the granduca that I am hurt.”

  As I turned to go, I heard her mutter, “It would only cheer him.”

  She lay back in the bed of moldering brown leaves as I scrambled up the bank, running for help.

  By the time I climbed out of the ravine, Zio Giovanni and Cousin Franco were running toward me.

  “What happened?” shouted Zio. “You left the ewes!”

  “It is the de’ Medici princess,” I said between gasps of breath. “She has fallen off her horse and is hurt.”

  Zio stared at me, slack-jawed. He whirled around, his eyes squinting in the morning sun.

  “The hunting party must be close—”

  “Has she no attendants?” asked Franco. “Where are the hounds, the huntsmen?”

  “No, she made me promise not to involve the granduca—”

  “What? The granduca is here?”

  “She does not want him to see her hurt and dirty from her fall.”

  “Diavol! Where is she?”

  “Just there.” I pointed to where I had emerged from the ravine.

  My uncle and Franco raced down the steep slope, grabbing at exposed roots and vines as handholds.

  “Your Highness,” shouted Zio, “we are coming!”

  As they reached Isabella, she was trying to struggle to her feet. She set off a cascade of rock and dirt tumbling toward the stream below.

  “Let us help you,” said Zio, drawing off his cap as he approached. He lowered his eyes in respect.

  Isabella looked in horror at their bloodstained arms and hands. Their woolen shirts were smeared with urine and manure.

  Franco followed her stare. He backed away.

  “Forgive us, Duchessa. We have been castrating rams. This is no sight for a princess—”

  “Let us find the hunting party and the granduca,” said Zio.

  “No!” she commanded. “I would rather you help me. I can stand the sight of blood. I hunt and watch the kill.” Her teeth were clenched in pain. “It makes no difference.”

  The two men bowed their heads.

  Isabella de’ Medici straightened her back, lifting her chin with dignity.

  Then she winced. Her face puckered as she took in their scent, the sheep’s blood on their hand
s.

  “I shall lean on the girl,” she said, reaching for my shoulder. “Wash your hands in the stream. Then take the hem of my skirts so they do not drag or catch on the thorns.”

  I helped the de’ Medici princess to her feet, then up the embankment. The two men trailed behind, holding the edge of her silk and velvet skirt above the muddy ground.

  The mad bleating of rams greeted us as we approached the pens. Two of the shepherd boys looked up from a ram’s arched back; a leather strap tethered his hindquarters. They wiped the sweat from their eyes, blinking at the sight of the noblewoman approaching.

  “Madonna!” muttered one. He wiped his hands on his leggings. Then he rubbed his face hard with the hem of his linen tunic.

  He remained speckled with sheep manure, blood, and mud, despite his efforts.

  “Take her into the shed. Get her a stool,” ordered Zio. “And a jug of wine.”

  Inside the shed, it was warm from the heat of the animals’ bodies. The ewes made way for us, a parting sea of white wool.

  The weight of the de’ Medici princess shifted from my shoulders as she moved onto the stool. She held up her hand to ward away the shepherds.

  “Just let me compose myself. Leave me alone with the girl.” She looked at me. “Shepherdess, what is your name?”

  “Virginia. Virginia Tacci.”

  “I thank you, Virginia Tacci, for finding me. I fear I might have spent quite some time trying to climb the embankment without your help.”

  Isabella swiveled her lovely head toward Zio Giovanni. Two lines creased her porcelain brow.

  “Look for the hunting party,” she commanded. “We were on the far hill there to the north. Beyond the dead olive tree—”

  “I saw you jump it!” I said. “You flew!”

  “Virginia!” admonished Zio. “Do not interrupt! Forgive her, Duchessa. She is mad for horses.”

  Isabella managed a weak smile.

  “I can understand that. Now go. Look for the hunt party.”