The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  “He was my pupil in Padova, the most brilliant I ever had. I taught him to read and write Hebrew in the space of eight months, if you can believe it. And when he — somewhat rashly I thought — concocted his sixty-eight propositions for the papal Curia, he called upon me to assist him — me . . . Leone the Jew.”

  “And did you assist him, even though you thought him rash?” I asked.

  The reply I got was roundabout. “Pico della Mirandola has a touchingly innocent belief in the power of cabala, which I do not share.”

  “Then he would get on with Jehiel, for Jehiel is always babbling about mystic numbers and seraphim and the like.” Judah’s countenance clouded over, as it often did at the mention of my brother.

  “Surely you are not comparing Count Pico of Mirandola, famed in all countries where scholarship is valued, to your mischief-making brother,” he retorted.

  “It was an ill-placed remark, honored husband,” I replied as coldly as he. “But I fear I still do not understand just what it is about this Pico that caused you to give up five consecutive nights of sleep for him and risk your own health.”

  “He is my benefactor, my colleague, and my friend,” Judah answered. “When Lorenzo the Magnificent was alive Pico introduced me into his circle. Since then he has never ceased to bring me fortune and favor. Without his intercession we would not be living here now in this great city in this fine house as pensioners of Piero dei Medici.”

  “And would that be such a tragedy?” I queried, as much to myself as to him.

  “Are you not enjoying your life here in Firenze?” he asked quietly, then quickly added, “We must talk, Grazia. I have had a letter at Fiesole from Ser Bonaventura. Some reckless escapade in the marketplace.”

  What was I to say?

  “I am on my way back to Fiesole now. But I will return before vespers. Let us meet then in my studiolo. A proper setting for a serious conversation, do you not agree?”

  I nodded my head but said nothing.

  “Good. And tell Orlando to put out a tray of sweetmeats for us. And some spiced wine. A talk can be serious without being bitter, you know.”

  As vespers approached I found myself digging furiously into a little bronze cask that Dorotea had given me on the eve of my marriage and that I had never yet opened. One by one I drew out the tools of the trade, assembled for a woman who felt herself no better than a wanton.

  First the ambergris, which I slathered on my bosom with such abandon that the entire room smelled like a whorehouse. Then the white paste for the face. Then the kohl around the eyes. Then the rouge. Never forget the rouge. “They do not like us pale.” Dorotea’s words came back to me. “It is not the most . . . what shall I say . . . stimulating color.”

  That night I went to meet Judah in his studiolo painted and rouged and smelling like a harlot. The sight so unnerved him that for several moments he was unable to utter a word. Instead, he poured himself a draft from a bottle he kept beside his lectern and swallowed it in one gulp. Even then he seemed not to know how to go on, but cleared his throat several times and lapsed into silence.

  “Put him at his ease,” I heard Dorotea whisper in my ear. “Remove his shoes and let the blood flow through his limbs.”

  I knelt down at his feet and began to pull off his boot.

  To my astonishment he jerked his foot back.

  “Why are you groveling down there, Grazia? Is this some jest?”

  “Oh no, sir.” I bobbed up as quickly as I could.

  “And why is your face so white today? Are you constipated? Come closer.” I edged toward him. “Surely it cannot be that damned pumice?” He rubbed at my cheek harshly. “Aha! Dye!”

  “Does it displease you?” I asked.

  “Displease me? Indeed it does. This stuff is poisonous. Next thing we will have you breaking out in little red spots. What possessed you to put it on?”

  “I was told that by such means I could entice you to look favorably upon me,” I admitted.

  “Do I not look favorably on you?” he asked, softer now.

  “You rarely look on me at all, honored husband,” I replied truthfully.

  “I see.” He paused. “Come here, little wife.” He indicated a small stool that I was to pull up at his side. “Here by me.” He leaned down and turned my face toward him. “Now then,” he began. “Perhaps you have forgotten that I am a physician trained to see not only what lies on the surface of the skin but also what lies under it. I am proof against your poor efforts at illusionism, child. What my eyes see is the true Grazia, the Grazia you have taken such pains to hide under the layers of powder and pigment. And I am distressed, because I love that little Grazia dearly. You need never poison yourself or whiten your face to seem beautiful to me. I find you beautiful just as you are.” He stroked my cheek gently. “Besides, if you begin now with paint and powder, you will be a crone by the time you are thirty. Look at the way your stepmother has ruined herself with her potions.”

  “It was she who gave me the powder and the scent,” I admitted.

  “You must be more discriminating in your choice of tutors. For the present I would suggest you make do with me, since I am at hand and willing. What say you to that?”

  “Oh, I would be grateful, sir. For everyone knows you are the wisest of counselors. But I never knew you dealt in beauty remedies.”

  “It is time you found out what I deal in, wife. I have kept you too far from my affairs, leaving you on your own here to while away your hours with potions and peeking. Oh yes, I know where you have been spending your afternoons.”

  I hung my head.

  “Now then, look up and let us agree on a new regimen. What is done is done. We have both been in error: you for acting like a fool, which you are not, and me for treating you like a settled old matron, which you also are not. On your feet, wife. Smile. Let us both thank God that there is time to make a fresh start.”

  The next morning changes were begun that altered the pattern of my life. A dancing master was engaged and a new pair of slippers ordered. Judah himself conducted me up the street to the cobbler’s shop to be fitted for them and allowed me to pick the leather.

  All my life I had wished for shiny black slippers with a red leather trim such as I had seen on the feet of Madonna Isabella at the Este wedding. But when I was told to make a choice, did I ask for them? No. With a deep sigh I pointed to a pebbled black leather made from the skin of a buffalo — heavy, mottled, serviceable.

  “Those will last a good while,” I commented.

  “But will they put wings on your feet, Grazia?” Judah asked.

  “Wings?” I shook my head sadly. Those boots would not put wings on my feet.

  “Then they will not do at all for dancing slippers. I expect to see you flying about the room like a beautiful bird.” He turned to the cobbler. “Have you something finer in a dancing slipper for my wife?”

  “Shiny?” I added, encouraged now to voice my true sentiments. “And trimmed all around the ankle with a red leather ruffle.”

  “Anything for a price,” the cobbler replied equably. “But the red will cost you something extra. And a ruffled trim . . . on shiny leather . . .” He shook his head dolefully in contemplation of the astronomical cost of such a creation.

  “How much?” Judah demanded.

  “Two gold forms,” the man answered.

  “Sold!”

  The new regimen did not stop with boots and dancing lessons. Just after dinner Orlando announced that a visitor was waiting in the sala. The only visitors we ever had were the friends and relations of sick people come to beg Judah to call on their ailing loved ones, only to be disappointed — for he had refused consistently to see patients since we came to Firenze. Excepting for Count Pico of Mirandola.

  I naturally assumed that this caller was simply another suppliant whom Judah would end up turning away,
and since I saw no purpose in remaining, excused myself. But Judah urged me to stay. “There is someone I want you to meet,” he whispered, as he conducted me into the sala.

  My first sight of the young man who stood waiting for us told me that he was one of the mysterious people who lived at the bottom of our street near the river. His sallow skin and embroidered black cloak identified him unmistakably.

  “Honored wife, meet my new apprentice, Medina de Cases. Medina, your mistress, Madonna Grazia.”

  The boy was clad from head to toe in black with only the white of his linen for contrast. How different from the style of our Italian boys, who deck themselves out in four-colored hose and crimson jackets and plumes of all colors, their berrettas fastened, when the wearer can afford it, by jeweled plaquettes.

  In response to the boy’s gallant bow I knelt low in my most graceful curtsy, wondering as I executed the movement what he was doing there. Judah had never expressed a need for an apprentice before. Why now? And why this wan exotic?

  “How does he strike you, wife? Do you think he will make a good student?”

  A strange question. I stepped closer, the better to probe the eyes, those mirrors of the soul. Deep-set and rimmed with dark circles, they seemed to me to reflect some inner anguish. As for intelligence, I could not make a guess. Whatever lay behind that impassive gaze was hidden from me.

  “As you see, Medina, my wife is a serious young woman not quick to make decisions.” Judah put his arm around the boy in a fatherly manner. “Run along now, but make sure to be on hand tomorrow morning before the bell tolls matins.” And with a gentle pat from his new master the boy was gone, leaving me full of questions.

  I did not have to wait for an answer. Judah was only too eager to tell me the story of the de Cases family, and took it up the moment the boy had left us.

  These unfortunate people were a remnant of that horde of Jews exiled from Spain the previous year by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, he told me.

  “A group of these refugees has settled at the bottom of our street in one of those tiny houses on the riverbank,” he explained. “Many of them had risen high in the Spanish realm not only as physicians but as tax-farmers and advisers and familiars of the court itself. They were caught completely unprepared when the order came to expel the Jews.”

  I found it difficult to believe that these refugees had no notion of their impending disaster — particularly if they had been so close to the court — and said so.

  “No doubt they fell into the trap of believing that such a thing could not happen to them. To other Jews, perhaps. But not to them,” he responded. “The tide of Jew-hating rises and falls like the sea itself. When it floods we Jews ask ourselves, Why me? Why here? Why now? Whereas the real question is how can any Jew who makes his home upon a Christian promontory ever believe himself beyond reach of the tides?”

  “I have never seen a Spanish Jew before,” I remarked. “Are they all so sallow? And do they all wear black and smell of garlic?”

  “They are Spaniards, my dear,” Judah answered with a smile. “Garlic is like mother’s milk to them. But out of deference to you I will give Medina some powerful mint to chew when he is in your presence. Will that suffice to raise him to your standard?”

  “My remark was not intended as a criticism, honored husband,” I lied. In truth there was a smell about the young Spaniard much more subtle than garlic that went against me.

  “I am delighted that you find him pleasing . . .” (I had never said I found him pleasing.) “For you and he have much to offer one another.”

  “Is he to teach me to eat garlic and look solemn?” I asked.

  “It is you who are to teach him,” Judah answered, as pleased as if he had presented me with a bauble. “He is to be your pupil. The boy is all but unemployable here from his lack of training in vernacular Italian and I cannot imagine a better tutor for him than your learned self, my little wife. You are to teach him Italian.”

  Until that moment, I had gobbled up whatever texts came my way like a starving man who fears he may never get another meal. But the true scholar consumes a text the way a deer ruminates her food, chewing it slowly, regurgitating it, reflecting upon it, and only then consuming it. That done, he takes the process one step farther, and after he has analyzed his food for thought, finds ways to manifest its essence to others. This I would try to do for Medina de Cases.

  Now as you know, there are but two masters of the vernacular language: Dante Alighieri and Boccaccio. I leaned toward Dante, the loftier poet. But Judah persuaded me that Boccaccio’s more earthy tales might have a greater appeal to Medina than Dante’s terza rima. And his judgment proved doubly apt. Not only did Medina take to Boccaccio at once but the first text we chose, Boccaccio’s tale of the merchant Landolfo who is taken by pirates en route to Amalfi, described almost precisely the ordeal that the de Cases family endured during their flight from Spain.

  As the boy explained to me, his family too had set sail on a fragile craft — a mother, father, and three brothers forced aboard at sword point by Spanish soldiers with neither food nor water enough to feed them. En route to the Amalfi coast, they, like Landolfo, ran into a great storm which made the waves run mountains high. Forced into a tiny cove, they too were taken over by the Genoese, “a race by nature rapacious and greedy of gain,” according to Boccaccio. By then the de Cases family was reduced to a father and two sons, one brother having died of drowning and the mother of a fever at sea. Now these three survivors were robbed of the last of their ducats and every other small thing that they possessed by the Genoese pirates. They themselves were locked into the hold of the pirate carrack to be sold as slaves when the ship reached the slave market at Constantinople.

  In Boccaccio’s tale, there comes a violent spasm of the sea which, he tells us, smites the carrack with great force against a shoal, cracking her apart at midships. And after a long night clinging to a plank in the raging sea, the merchant Landolfo is rescued by the old women of Corfu.

  “But that is what happened to us,” Medina gasped. “We too were captured by the Genoese, then a great storm cracked their ship in two, just as the poet tells it. And the Corfu women rescued us from the sea. That poet is a great seer.” Either that or, what seemed likely to me, the rough waters off the coast of Amalfi attracted pirates in Boccaccio’s time as they do now. And the old women of Corfu are not unaccustomed to finding human flotsam on the beach when they go out to gather firewood in the morning. Still, the eerie similarity between the tale I had selected and the true tale of the de Cases’ escape from Spain did promise a comradeship I had not anticipated when I first met Medina. In that spirit I presumed to ask after his brother, Bartolomeo. “Where is he now?” I inquired.

  “Dead,” he answered. “Killed here in Firenze last year at Passover for desecrating a statue of the Virgin. The doctor told us that he was out of his head when he smeared the Virgin with shit. The seawater had infected his mind. But the bargello said that Christ could forgive anything except an insult to His Mother. They brought my brother to the bargello’s jail and hung him out the window by his feet. My father took me to see him hanging. He had no ears, no hands, only holes with blood dripping out of them onto the stones.”

  This horrific tale he related to me as if giving street directions or enumerating an inventory, without a tear or a break in his voice. Thus died my hopes of camaraderie with Medina de Cases.

  Happily, Judah’s next effort to provide me with companionship proved much more successful. From the first day we settled in Firenze, invitations had arrived constantly for us to dine with this one or to attend the bar mitzvah of that one’s son or the wedding of the other’s daughter. All these Judah refused without consulting me. Now, in an abrupt shift, he announced that we would be going to the country villa of the Bonaventura family to celebrate the feast of Purim, a feast often referred to as the Jewish carnevale. What I discover
ed at the Bonaventura celebration was that in Firenze, Jews who follow the humanist way have added their own pagan coloration to the feast of Purim, making it as much a celebration of Bacchus as of Queen Esther.

  Much as he loathes strange beds, Judah agreed to depart for the Bonaventura villa in the afternoon before the feast and remain through the following night, a huge concession for him. In addition, he had himself fitted for a mask. When Medina saw his master put the thing up against his face I thought the boy would faint from astonishment. Apparently Spanish Jews do not indulge themselves in the carnevale revels that Italian Jews enjoy. Judah says it is because we are so much closer to the pagan culture that spawned these rites. I say it is because the Spaniards are a low, doleful people who dress in black, never smile (even when smiled at), and glory in pain rather than in delight, and that like us the Spanish Jews emulate their Christian hosts. So it is, I say, that our Purim resembles carnevale and theirs an auto-da-fé.

  The Bonaventura family kept their farm — the Florentines all call their country villas “farms” — in the Mugello district about half an hour’s brisk ride from the city. As we rode, Judah kept up a running commentary on the sights as we passed them.

  “The villa on the crest of the next hill is the Strozzis’ place.” He indicated a rambling group of low buildings ahead. “Look to the right. See the little shrine. It marks the beginning of Pala Strozzi’s farm.”

  “But it is no farm. It is a vast holding. It is a grand estate,” I protested.

  “The Florentines prefer to call their estates farms. They find it less ostentatious. Besides, these villas are genuine agricultural enterprises. This place of Strozzi’s is no idle hunting fief like those delizie you see in Lombardia. A place like this yields more than enough wine and oil to supply all the family’s needs, with plenty left over to sell for profit.”

  Indeed, the land on both sides of the road stretched out as far as I could see in straight, rows of espaliered grapevines and even the groves proved to be of olive wood. Very neat. Doubtless very profitable. But I preferred the dense hemlock growths of the Mantovana, whose only profit was to give shade and shelter, and the bosky perfume of the deep forests of Lombardia. Where were the birds and snakes and rabbits and all the other creatures who find refuge in the wild? And where were the secret springs, once sacred to the gods?