Read Online Da Vinci's Tiger by L. M. Elliott - Free Book Online Page B

bit of a heroine for me—her devotional verses moved many to tears. How did she choose her words, her images, to so affect her reader? Plus, her family clearly adored her. On the way to the chapel we passeda painted portrait and a sculpted bust of her. How had she achieved that level of respect and honor from the men in her family? I almost laughed to think what Uncle Bartolomeo might do to such portraits of me. Luigi would certainly decry such expenditure of florins as frivolous.
    â€œIll things from us expel, all good for us procure . . .”
    Kneeling on either side of Lucrezia, Clarice and Lisabetta harmonized, syllable by syllable in sync. Lisabetta’s chest rose and fell with that slumber-like bliss of innocents at prayer that I had envied in new novices at the convent. I tucked the folds of my dress under my knees to pad them better against the hard inlaid marble floor and, lowering my face over my clasped hands, squeezed them tight to concentrate.
    â€œO Lord we beseech thee, that all thy saints may everywhere help us . . .”
    A candle flickered, spat, and fizzed. I looked up, distracted by the spluttering light dancing along an ornate fresco of the Magi. Across the entire chapel, in sumptuous lacquers of red, ultramarine, and emerald, marched a parade of kings, pages, and penitents on the long trek to find the newborn Christ child. First came Melchior, the oldest of the holy kings; then Balthazar, in his manly prime, his ornate gold crown festooned with feathers; and finally the youth Gaspar, with yellow curls and a tunic that gleamed with gilded gold highlights. Even the kings’ attendants were resplendent. One had a cheetah in a jeweled collar, riding beside him on his horse’s rump.
    Following the three biblical kings was a closely packedcrowd of recognizable Medici faces. Lorenzo’s father, Piero, rode a white horse behind Gaspar. Next came Cosimo, sitting atop a donkey, as he always did in life, no matter the wealth he amassed. I spotted the teenage Lorenzo because of his crooked nose. To his left peeked a beautiful young face—Giuliano. Nearby was Luigi Pulci, with his saucy expression, and Marsilio Ficino, his hand held up as if preaching. The painter had captured exactly the personality of the Medici conclave and made them almost as important as the Magi themselves.
    I couldn’t help going back to Balthazar, seeing something of the Venetian ambassador echoed in the powerful and handsome king. My heart beat a little quicker remembering the feel of Bembo’s hand pressing mine, the melodious resonance of his whispered request to read my poem. He had called me La Bencina—delicate, pretty, little Benci. No man had ever talked to me like that before. My hands began to tremble and grow damp with nervous perspiration.
    Thanks be to God . . . Amen.
    We rose, they shaking out dust from their skirts, I trying to dry my hands on the fabric of mine.
    â€œShall we?” Lucrezia motioned for us to move next door to the main camera , Lorenzo and Clarice’s bedroom. Typically the most lavishly decorated rooms in Florence’s palazzos, bedrooms were the place friends were received. An enormous carved bed with a canopy of silk and fringed curtains dominated the room. We sat atop cassoni chests adjacent to it, and Lucrezia, stiff with arthritis, lowered herself intoa carved wooden chair, arranging pillows around herself. “Now, what shall we discuss?”
    She smiled in a warm, nurturing way I had always longed for from my own mother. Having birthed seven healthy babies and losing her husband immediately after the last child arrived, my mother always seemed so desperate to please her brothers-in-law. I knew widowhood placed her in that humiliating position, but I still resented her seeming so cowed. The only book she read was Alberti’s treatise on the family, I Libri della Famiglia , which pronounced that women were by nature destined to be timid, slow, and