It was just such maneuvers, David reflected, that had made Cellini, in his own life, one of the most infuriating men in Europe. In the service of his art—and his ego—he was forever crossing swords with princes, popes, and noblemen. And when he wasn’t being celebrated for his achievements, he was being hauled into court, or hauled off to jail, on charges of everything from murder (he confessed to several, though claiming self-defense every time), to sodomy (not so uncommon a practice in those days), to failing to pay child support. (The Florentine courts were very progressive for their time.) Perhaps it was this selfsame transgressive nature—the willingness to act boldly, even in plain defiance of secular law and holy authority—that had first endeared him to David. As someone who lived his own life strictly by the rules—working hard, avoiding trouble, winning every academic prize within reach—David had been irresistibly drawn to this figure who took life by the reins and rode it anywhere he chose. Whose art, and writings (he had also authored treatises on goldsmithing and sculpture), revealed a mind that was always in quest of new knowledge, new techniques, new frontiers.
Judging from the Key to Life Eternal, he had even searched for a way to cross the line between life and death … and claimed to have found it. That was one aspect of his career which the Van Owen papers had revealed in a way that neither David, nor any other scholar, had ever known.
“And who can see the miracolo in the back?” the guide was now saying, crooking one finger at the students to draw them around to the rear of the statue. David, tagging along, knew what she was going to point out.
Nodding at David as if to give him permission to join the group, she was calling attention to the fantastically ornate helmet on Perseus’s head. Wings sprouted from either side of the visor, along with a crouching gargoyle on the top, but it was in back that Cellini had created his optical illusion. Hidden among the folds and curlicues of the helmet was a stern human face, with a long Roman nose, a lush moustache, and piercing eyes under arching brows. You could look at the back of the helmet and never see it there, but once it had been pointed out, you could never again miss it.
“There’s a face, looking out,” the girl with the twirling pen announced.
The guide clapped her hands together again. “That’s good. Very good. This, I think, is the face of Cellini himself.”
And David agreed. Not only was it just like Cellini to bring off such a stunt, the visage also bore a resemblance to the only known depiction of the artist, rendered by Vasari in later life. It was one further proof of his ingenuity, or, in the academic lingo that David had so come to detest, his “reverse iconography and intratextual complexity.”
Several of the students dutifully scribbled in their notebooks, and the guide, checking her watch, said, “Come, we must now look at the Palazzo Vecchio,” waving her hand at the massive and forbidding wall of the Medici palace that brooded over the square. With the students trudging after her, the guide, whose own enthusiasm never seemed to flag, cast a look back at David, who smiled and raised a hand in farewell. David mouthed the words, “Grazie mille,” and the guide tilted her pretty head and said, “Prego.”
An hour later, after completing his own tour of the piazza, David was sitting inside a nearby café, nursing a cup of cappuccino to stave off the jet lag and making some notes for the next day. The Biblioteca Laurenziana would open its doors at ten, and he planned to be the first one through them. There was a lot of work he wished to do in their archives, and he was drawing up a list of his priorities when, out of nowhere, a cyclone hit his table.
The opposite chair was yanked back, a body dropped into it, and a voice called out to a passing waiter, “Due ova fritte, il pane tostato, ed un espresso. Pronto!”
Glancing up, David saw the tour guide unbuttoning her overcoat and scanning the tabletop as if on the lookout for anything she could eat while waiting for her eggs and toast to get there.
“Buon giorno,” David said, surprised but amused.
“Buon giorno,” the guide replied. “Lei parla l’Italiano?”
“Sì,” David said, glad to start giving his rusty Italian a tryout. “Ma sono fuori di pratica.” But I’m out of practice.
The guide nodded quickly three times, and said, “Ciò e buono.” That’s okay.
The waiter put a cup of espresso in front of her, and the guide downed half of it in one gulp, snapping her fingers before the waiter could get away and saying, “Un altro.”
While the waiter went to get another, David introduced himself. “Mi chiamo David Franco.”
“Olivia Levi,” the guide replied, taking the band from her ponytail and shaking her hair loose. Olivia—it was the perfect name for her, David thought. Eyes as black as olives, and skin the color of the espresso foam. “And, if you do not mind, we will speak English.”
David felt vaguely insulted. Was his Italian so bad that she’d given up already?
“It is for me,” Olivia said. “I must use it so that the studenti don’t have any reason to laugh when I talk.”
“I thought you did an exceptional job.”
Olivia blew a sigh of disgust. “That is all it is—a job. I must do it for the money. Everything,” she said, lifting her hands from the table in resignation, “I must do for the money.”
She had all the theatricality of the Italians, too, David thought. “Leading tour groups must keep you pretty busy. Especially in a place like Florence.”
“But it keeps me from my work. My serious work. I am not a guide; I am a writer.”