I had received only a rudimentary education: reading and writing, and simple figures. Yet I had often persuaded my tutor—an old and kindly priest—to let me read the histories of such figures as Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. And from there we went, naturally, to poetry.
Yet when I’d reached the age of thirteen, my parents had sent Padre Valerio away, saying it was an unnecessary expense to continue to pay him. I had already learned as much and more as was needed to be a lady and a wife. “No man wants a wife as well learned as he is,” my father had said, with my mother nodding emphatically beside him. “And a girl as beautiful as you has no need of books.”
They would not let me continue my lessons, no matter how I begged. So I began to read on my own, my father’s volumes and those I asked him to purchase for me. The copy of Dante that had caught Signor Vespucci’s attention, however, had been a gift to me from Padre Valerio—one of several such gifts, bless him.
“Indeed. I wonder at your surprise, signore. Because so many noblewomen are uneducated, did you assume that I was among their number?”
My father frowned at me in warning, but I paid no heed.
“Why, no,” Signor Vespucci said, recovering. “It is just that it is quite the tome, and one does not always expect a young lady—”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I quoted, “‘Good Leader, I but keep concealed/From thee my heart, that I may speak the less/Nor only now has thou thereto disposed me.’”
My mother laughed nervously. “Simonetta…”
Yet Signor Vespucci ignored her, and again met my eyes. “‘So I beheld more than a thousand splendors/Drawing towards us, and in each was heard: “Lo, this is she who shall increase our love.”’”
Neither of us looked away for a long moment, longer than was appropriate. I felt a strange skip in my heart. It was nothing like the tormented passion Dante described, and yet still I felt my skin flush and my breath quicken.
This time it was I who looked away first.
“You would be in high favor among the Medici circle, Madonna Simonetta,” Signor Vespucci said after a moment of heavy silence, a faint huskiness in his tone. “You have in abundance the two things most prized there: beauty and poetry.”
“Indeed?” I asked, struggling to compose myself.
“Si. Lorenzo de’ Medici is following in the tradition of his grandfather, the great Cosimo, and is gathering about him the brightest and most gifted minds he can find: poets, scholars, artists. Nowhere in Italy—in the world, no doubt—are the arts held in such high esteem.”
I allowed myself to imagine it. Brilliant men, artists, all in attendance on the Medici, discussing their ideas and their art. Would they welcome a woman in their midst? Perhaps, for even here in Genoa we had heard of the formidable Lucrezia dei Tornabuoni, mother to the Medici brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano, an intelligent and well-read woman in her own right.
“I should like to see it,” I said, smiling at my suitor.
I did not realize it then, but in the weeks that followed I would look back on that moment as the one in which I had made my decision.
2
Of course, it was not as simple as that. Signor Vespucci dined with us again after that, at which time—once my mother and I had retired for the evening—he made his intentions known to my father. Before he could make a formal offer, however, he had to return to Florence—he was almost finished with his studies, in any case—and receive the permission of his family. Apparently he foresaw no difficulty, once he told them of my virtue, my goodness, and my beauty. Especially my beauty.
And so I waited, as was, I supposed, the lot of women.
In those first days after Signor Vespucci’s departure from Genoa, I found myself missing him. Our discussion of Dante had left me with a fondness toward him, and I appreciated that my cleverness in such things was not off-putting to my suitor—quite the reverse, in fact.
And so I missed him and perhaps, more so, I missed the conversations we had not yet had. I knew that we would have nothing but time for such things once we were married, but even so.
And yet, as the days wore on, and we did not hear back from him, that very idea of marriage began to grow ever fainter and more alien to me, like the page of a book one has pored over so often that the ink begins to fade. Perhaps it would be for the best if I heard no more from him, for what did I know of marriage, or of men? Or, more specifically, of this particular man? Knowledge of poetry, a fine mind, and a handsome person did not a good marriage make. Or did it? What more was there, really? I knew I was lucky to have such a young and handsome suitor. Most girls my age were married to men much older than they.
And every so often I would remember what he had said about Florence, about the society there, and about what I could expect to find. I did want that: to meet those wise and learned men that Signor Vespucci had spoken of. I did not want to remain in Genoa with my parents all my life, seeing and learning nothing more of the world than my own town.
Yet who knew if Signor Vespucci had spoken in earnest about taking me to Florence, and presenting me to the Medici’s circle? Why should men like Lorenzo de’ Medici care about a simple nobleman’s daughter from Genoa? Signor Vespucci had spoken no more than a few words on the subject, and I was ready to tumble right into the marriage bed. As far as wooing went, he had not needed to try very hard. And perhaps that’s all his words had been—weightless words meant to woo a na?ve maid.
Just over a week after Signor Vespucci’s departure, my friend Elisabetta came to visit me. Quite the gossip, she was a year older than me and still unmarried, which perhaps accounted for our friendship more than anything else: we were the only noble girls of age who had yet to be married or confined to a cloister. Elisabetta was nice enough to talk to, and to visit the merchants with, but often I could only spend so much time in her company before the spite that worked its way into her gossip began to wear on me.
We sat outside in the courtyard, wearing wide-brimmed hats to shield our faces from the sun, yet with the crowns cut out so that our hair could be pulled through and left to fall down our backs, that it might lighten to a dazzling shade of gold. That was what the Venetian ladies did, anyway, and it was said Venetian women were the most beautiful in the world.
“Any word from your handsome suitor?” she inquired as soon as we were seated.
“No,” I answered. “And what of you? Does your father still have his heart set on Count Ricci?”
Elisabetta made a face, and I saw that my words had stung her in a manner I had not intended. The latest gossip about town (for I had Chiara to keep me informed when too much time had passed since Elisabetta’s last visit) was that Elisabetta’s father, after failing to broker her a marriage between any of the younger scions of the local families, had offered her to Count Ricci, a childless widower nearing fifty. I had not thought there was any truth to the tale, but the look on Elisabetta’s face told me otherwise.