The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence: A Story of Botticelli
Alyssa Palombo
For my dad, Tony Palombo, for traipsing through the palazzi and museums of Florence with me while I researched this book; for giving me my love of history; for loving Italy as much as I do; for spicy pizza, and gelato, and French fries at Beer and Vinyl
PROLOGUE
Florence, 1484
It was a large canvas, big enough that it had taken two men to carry it into Il Magnifico’s chambers. The artist himself had supervised, concern etched across his face while he watched, as though they carried the sum of all his life’s work in their hands—and perhaps they did.
The men set it down carefully, leaning it against the wall in its rough-hewn, linen-draped frame. The artist waved them away impatiently and they took their leave, shutting the door behind them.
“So this is it, is it?” Lorenzo de’ Medici asked the artist. His eyes were alight with curiosity.
“It is, Magnifico,” he replied reverently.
Lorenzo chuckled. “Enough with the flattery, Sandro, I pray you. You already know I will help you in whatever ways lie within my power, no matter what.”
“Why, then I might ask of you anything on God’s earth, I think,” the artist said. This time his words were teasing, those of an old companion to his friend who has risen high, but the artist’s face remained somber. For him, this was the most serious of occasions.
Lorenzo felt his face tighten into a similarly somber expression. He had an inkling—more than an inkling, truth be told—as to what was on the canvas. “Do not keep me in suspense, amico.” He motioned imperiously at the canvas—a man not used to being kept waiting, even by a friend. “Let me see.”
The artist closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the frame in a brief moment of silence before he pulled back and finally nodded. Slowly, he slipped the cloth from the face of the painting. In that instant, Lorenzo de’ Medici was struck speechless—a sight no man could claim having witnessed before.
There were the colors; pale blues and greens and pinks and yellows, subtle yet somehow vibrant. And the extraordinary way the maestro had somehow managed to capture motion, of all things, on a canvas: the flowers tumbling to the ground, the wind lifting and tangling locks of hair, the folds of a skirt, the cloth of a robe.
But it was the center figure, the focus of the painting, which struck him most. She stood in a seashell upon the waves: with unblemished, alabaster nude flesh; soft, rounded, inviting curves; clothed only in what seemed to be miles of reddish golden hair.
And her face. It was a face Lorenzo knew well: the tilt of her chin when she laughed; the crease in her brow when she was thinking; her smile. Yet he was not, he had long suspected, as familiar with her as the artist.
Lorenzo knew, without a doubt, that what he was looking at was the artist’s finest work thus far, an outstanding piece in a distinguished career that had seen commissions from the wealthy, the noble, and even from the Holy Father himself.
But he also knew that he must—for the foreseeable future, at least—remain one of the only ones to see it. He understood, now, what the artist had come here to ask of him. Yet still, he let his old friend speak first.
“It has been years in the making,” the artist said at last.
Lorenzo turned to face him. “Yes,” he said. “At least eight years in the making, I think.” He focused again on the painting, on the woman in the center, a woman he had seen at his dinner table and in his garden and in his library. He smiled. Yes, she could usually be found in his library. “It is her,” he said. “I almost expect her to step from the canvas. You have captured her, Sandro, as no one else living could have.”
“It was never my intention to capture her,” the artist said, his voice rough. Lorenzo was surprised to see tears in his friend’s eyes as he studied the woman he had rendered in paint. “But rather, to set her free. To let her live again.”
“And so you have,” Lorenzo said, his voice catching. Damn it, but Sandro will have me weeping in a moment as well. He sighed. “I would ask why you have brought it—her—here, but I believe I already know.”
“Yes.” The artist’s eyes were earnest as he faced Lorenzo. “I cannot keep it. Even if I could bear it, the Church…”
“Indeed,” Lorenzo said. “Holy Mother Church would find much here to censure you for, even if you did just paint His Holiness’s little chapel.”
“Yes,” the artist said. “But you can keep her safe. I could not bear to have this work confiscated, or…”
Lorenzo put a hand on his shoulder. “Worry not, old friend. I shall put it in one of the country houses, out of the way, where no one goes except by invitation. And if people talk, well…” He shrugged. “I have been accused of keeping far more scandalous secrets.”
The artist embraced him. “Thank you, Magnifico.”
“As I said, none of that,” Lorenzo said, returning the embrace. Both men stepped back to contemplate the painting again. After a moment, Lorenzo added, “After all, by now I can tell when you are trying to get into my good graces. You are wanting me to pay for a better frame for your masterpiece, are you not?”
The artist smiled. “You know me too well. But look at her!” He gestured. “Does not Venus deserve the most splendid frame Medici money can buy?”
Lorenzo smiled. “That she does. Well, I shall choose such a frame for Venus, then. For Venus and for Simonetta.”
PART I
LA BELLA SIMONETTA
Genoa and Florence, April–December 1469
1
Genoa, 1469
“Simonetta!”
I heard my mother’s voice drift down the hall as she drew nearer. Not too loud—a lady never shouted, after all—but the urgency in her tone was more than enough to convey the importance of this day, this moment.
I met the gaze of my maid, Chiara, in the Venetian glass mirror. She smiled encouragingly from where she stood behind me, sliding the final pins into my hair. “Nearly finished, Madonna Simonetta,” she said. “And if he wants you that badly, he will wait.”
I smiled back, but my own smile was less sure.
My mother, however, had a different idea. “Make haste,” she said as she appeared in the room. “Chiara, we want to show off that magnificent hair, not pin it up as though she is some common matron.”
“Si, Donna Cattaneo,” Chiara responded. Dutifully, she stepped back from the dressing table and my mother motioned for me to rise from my seat.