We had escaped the noise this summer, as we had in years past, by spending a couple months at the Medici villa at Careggi with Clarice, Lucrezia, and Giuliano. Lorenzo would join us from the city when he could spare the time, and we had spent many a pleasant summer day and evening there in the last few years.
This year, however, we had had to come home early, as I had taken ill. I had spent most of the last month in bed with a cough, and a fever that came and went. Despite the assurances, after I’d fallen ill after my wedding, that I simply had yet to adjust to the warm, dry Florentine climate, I continued to take sick fairly regularly. The first few years, whenever I became unwell, Marco would repeat his offer to return with me to Genoa, where the air seemed more conducive to my health. Each time I refused him, and so he no longer offered.
Florence was my home now, and nothing could persuade me to leave it. Despite such occasional bouts of illness, I had felt myself blossom within Florentine society, amidst the books and conversation and artwork and beauty. My life had become exactly what I’d always hoped and dreamed it would be, and if now and then some notes of discontent would slip in, well, was not the same true of everybody?
So, now that I was recovered, we were joining Lorenzo and Clarice for dinner. It would be a small affair; just their usual circle of friends. I found myself wondering, as I did every time we went to their home, if Sandro would be there.
More often than not I was disappointed. He had become ever busier in the years since he’d painted my portrait. He received some commissions from Lorenzo himself, and many others from other prominent Florentine men and families. When he did appear at one of the Medici dinners, the two of us would always converse, but never for long, and never in private. Never again like those long afternoons in his studio, or when we would go out for walks along the Arno during a break. I missed the unexpected intimacy we had found.
I had never stopped yearning for those days, though my yearning had cooled over time, more for my own sanity than anything else. If he so missed my company, would he not seek me out more often? Invite me to sit for him again, perhaps? Would he not have come to call on me, as a friend would do? Perhaps it was not quite appropriate for him to do so; even in republican Florence, the difference in our stations was considerable. But would he not do it anyway, if he truly wished to see me?
But perhaps he no longer needed me, I thought now, staring glumly at my reflection in the mirror. There was a rumor going about that Maestro Botticelli had painted a small portrait of Lucrezia Donati Ardenghelli at the behest of Lorenzo de’ Medici. It was said to be a most scandalous painting, one of the supposedly respectable matron as Eve—or, another tale said, as Salome, dancing naked before Herod—and one that il Magnifico kept in his private chambers and permitted no one else to set eyes upon. Where the rumors had come from if no one else had seen the painting I was not sure, and so most of the time I was able to dismiss it as yet another fabrication of Florentine society. Yet, whether it was true or not, I found it gave me another reason to quite dislike Donna Ardenghelli.
Perhaps our friendship had always meant more to me than to him. I was a fool for putting so much stock by it.
So while I always hoped to see Maestro Botticelli, I had long since stopped hoping for anything more.
*
Of course, he was there that evening.
Even as Lorenzo drew me into a conversation with some of his friends about another work of Plato’s—one recently translated by Lorenzo’s friend, Angelo Poliziano, and which I had read eagerly as soon as I could get my hands on it—I was constantly aware of where Sandro was in the room, of who he was speaking to. At times I fancied I could feel his eyes on me, but I always—though barely—resisted the temptation to turn and see if my suspicions were correct.
Almost as though he could sense my thoughts, Lorenzo soon waved Sandro over. “Sandro,” he called, and the painter made his excuses to Donna Ardenghelli, with whom he had been speaking—the very sight caused jealousy to prickle my skin like a nasty rash—and came to join our circle. “You must tell our friends here about the newest commission you have accepted. I do not believe they have heard.”
Sandro nodded briefly at those gathered around—did I imagine it, or did his eyes settle for just a moment too long on my hand where it was tucked into Marco’s arm?—before answering. “Indeed, it is a very great honor, and a commission I was most pleased and grateful to accept,” he said. “I am to paint a work for one of the chapels in Santa Maria Novella.”
There was a chorus of congratulations. “And what is to be the subject of the painting?” Marco asked. He seemed relieved by the change of topic, as he had not read the book we had all been discussing previously.
“It is to depict the adoration of the Magi,” Sandro replied. He inclined his head toward Lorenzo. “My most noble friend suggested it.”
“That I did,” Lorenzo said. “It is a favorite theme of mine, having grown up with the marvelous frescoes in our chapel here on the same theme.”
“Indeed,” Sandro said, a slight smile playing about his lips.
It occurred to me that the Three Kings were the only rich men in the Bible who entered into heaven, or were indeed spoken well of in the Good Book. No doubt that had more to do with the Medici family’s preference of the theme than anything else. I bent my head slightly to hide the sudden smile that spread across my face, yet when I looked up again Sandro caught my eye and flashed me a quick smile in return, as though he knew my thoughts.
“You have become quite successful, Maestro Botticelli,” said Tomaso Soderini, who had also bestowed a commission upon the painter not too long ago. “As we all knew you would. Why, no doubt you have a suitable income now to take a wife, and to settle down.”
The smile I had been fighting back drained from my face.
“I suppose that I do, signore,” Sandro said, his smile now looking a bit forced. “But I have no plans to take a wife anytime soon. My work is a jealous mistress, indeed.”
“But do not the Good Lord and his apostles tell us that marriage is a most desirable state?” Signor Soderini pressed. “Would it not be helpful for your work to have a woman to keep house for you?”
“Since you press me, signore,” Botticelli said, his smile widening as he spoke, “let me tell you what befell me one night. I dreamt that I did indeed have a wife, and my anguish and despair awoke me. I so feared dreaming such again that I spent the rest of the night roaming Florence like one possessed to stop myself from falling back into sleep!”