The Miracles of Prato (18 page)

Fra Filippo lowered his voice, and nodded at the Virgin in his sketch.

“Do you see her face?”

Cantansanti nodded. “Breathtaking.”

“It's the novitiate, Lucrezia, recently arrived at Santa Margherita with her sister.”

Cantansanti's face darkened.

“The novitiate who's been coming and going at my bidding?” he asked tightly. “She's a nun, Filippo. Tell me the whisper in your bedroom isn't from her lips.”

“She's not a nun,” the painter quickly said, again pushing the wine in Cantansanti's direction. “She's only a novitiate, and that against her wishes.”

The painter paused. What could he barter that he had not yet traded against in his life? His soul and heart went into his work. His flesh went into his work. He'd lost sleep and meals, given whole years of his life to create art in the glory and praise of God and Cosimo de' Medici. He'd given almost everything he had. And yet there was more. At the bottom of the well, instead of despair, he'd found a new river of hope.

“This isn't a whim—believe me, I haven't known her, not as you
imagine,” Fra Filippo said. He fell to his knees in front of Ser Francesco, and the man, who'd seen all sorts of hubris from Fra Filippo and never expected anything but pride and audacity, was aghast.

“For God's sake, get off your knees,” Cantansanti said. He grabbed the jug of wine and drank. Fra Filippo shook his head.

“I won't get up until you've heard me, good Ser.”

“Then speak.” The emissary kept an eye on the monk, another on the sketch for the altarpiece, and wished he had a third to train on the doorway to the kitchen. If the novitiate appeared, he wanted to see her in the flesh.

“Don't drag it out anymore, Fratello, just tell me what you want—and don't ask for money, there are no more florins until the work is complete.”

“I want nothing as base as money,” the monk scoffed. “For this girl I would give away my money. I'd sell my flesh if I had to, to see her heart satisfied.”

“We don't want your flesh, either, Filippo. We want your masterpiece, and we want it in Naples. Now tell me why you're on your knees, or I'll leave.”

Fumbling in his pocket, Fra Filippo withdrew the letter he'd carefully written and sealed with his blue wax.

“I want to marry Lucrezia,” he said, holding out the note. “All is explained in this letter beseeching the aid and endorsement of my great patron. I beg of you to deliver it to Ser Cosimo by your own hand.”

Cantansanti took more wine. He drank until the jug was empty. He didn't reach for the letter.

“You've lost your senses.” His voice was cool. “You're a monk.”

“I'll give it up. I'll give up whatever is asked of me.”

“The Medici family is best served by your continued service
to Rome,” Cantansanti said. He put the jug down. “I'll make no promises.”

“All I ask is a petition in my name. You know that many exceptions have been made when the great Medici family has requested it.”

Cantansanti's eyes narrowed. The power of the Medici was to be respected, not invoked. He put a hand on the painter's elbow and pulled him up from his knees. Then he took the sealed note.

“I'll do what I can. And you, Fra Filippo, you'll do what you must.”

Cantansanti tucked the letter into his pocket and turned on his heels. Outside the
bottega,
he shook his head and almost laughed. The monk had even more audacity than he'd imagined.

 

I
n Florence, a very weary Prior General Saviano climbed two wide steps and entered the Barbadori Chapel of Santo Spirito, crossed himself, and knelt at the marble altar. This private chapel had long been the prior general's place of penitence, prayer, and worship. The light was dim but the scent was pleasing, as the prior general had the chapel rails polished with lemon oil each day, and the candles fragranced with frankincense each evening.

Clasping his hands, Prior General Saviano lifted his eyes to the predella beneath the altarpiece. It had been created by his nemesis, Fra Filippo Lippi, at the behest of the Barbadori family of Florence, and depicted an ecstatic Saint Augustine at the precise moment the Lord had pierced his heart with faith.

“My great sainted brother,” Saviano prayed. “You know I've long held my lust at bay, and you know how difficult this has been for me. Now this girl, this daughter of Eve, has led me astray. I beg you, show me what I must to do to cleanse myself of this sin.”

Eyes open, knees on the padded step, the cleric looked at the brown folds of the saint's robe, the books and inkwell on his desk, the fine golden light of Saint Augustine's study. Although he had little patience for its creator, Prior General Saviano had long loved this painting. Before, he'd been able to meditate solely upon Augustine when he gazed at the altarpiece. Now, try as he might, the cleric was unable to push the painter's name and face out of his mind. Each time he saw the monk's bulky frame, he saw the novitiate beside him; the monk's eyes filled with reproach, the novitiate's full of horror.

“She was surely put there to test me, and I failed,” Saviano said.

Closing his eyes, the prior general sickened at the memory of what he'd done. His nostrils seemed to fill with the foul scent in the small kitchen, the memory of her virgin blood. Quickly he opened his eyes and inhaled the cleansing scent of lemon oil and frankincense. He reminded himself, as he'd done so many times during his years in the clergy, that it was Saint Augustine who'd given the most generous and forgiving of all saintly commands: love the sinner, hate the sin.

“With all the strength of my faith, Lord, I detest my sin,” Prior General Saviano said, bringing his gaze to the arrows that pierced the saint's breast. “And I hate the man who brought me to the sin. I will not let Fra Filippo be the ruin of me.”

Anger filled the man's knotty limbs. He stood to his full height and eyed the self-image that Fra Filippo had painted into the altarpiece. In it, the painter's face was young, and he looked like one of the
ragazzi
of Florence, as surely he had been.

Prior General Saviano vowed that the painter would not make a mockery of his Order, nor of the blessed Convent Santa Margherita. If there was a sin that demanded recompense it was the sin of the man who'd brought the novitiate into his
bottega
and kept her there; it was the sin of temptation, the sin of Eve. Yes, yes, Saviano told himself:
Lippi was the snake, Lucrezia was Eve, and he, Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, was the victim of their devilish temptation.

Making up his mind, the man crossed himself and strode through the halls of Santo Spirito to his office chambers. There, he rang for his secretary.

“Bring me a pot of cheese and some wine,” Prior General Saviano said, remembering it had been many hours since he'd last eaten. When the refreshment came, he used a dull knife to cut large hunks of cheese, which he crammed into his mouth. When the cheese was gone, he dictated a missive to Provost Inghirami of Prato, to be announced by
il banditore
in the central piazza of Prato.

Fra Filippo Lippi is hereby dismissed of his duties as chaplain at the Convent Santa Margherita,
he wrote
. By decree of the Order of Saint Augustine on this tenth day of September in the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and fifty-six.

Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week After Pentecost, the Year of Our Lord 1456

“Perhaps you could go to Signora Valenti,” Spinetta said, her small hand reaching across the table, “and explain why you were delayed.”

“What explanation will I give?” Lucrezia asked. She was weary of this question, which she'd answered many times. “Will you have me tell her that I've been compromised and ruined?”

“You needn't tell everything, Lucrezia, only that you are afraid to go back to the convent.”

“No.” She bent closer to the needle she was threading through her
panni di gamba.
Soon they would be mended, although they would never be flawless, as they had been before. “I cannot face the terrible lies and rumors that are out there, especially if they come from Signora Valenti's lips.”

“Lucrezia, forgive me.” Spinetta had to force herself to speak gently. “But I think perhaps you simply
want
to stay, even if it means bringing our ruin.”

Lucrezia knotted the thread, and snapped it with her teeth. She could barely admit it to her sister, or even to herself. But it was true. She did not want to leave Fra Filippo. Not only because he would protect her, but because his love and his promise gave her the strength to rise each morning. If this was a sin, she prayed God would forgive her.

“Please, Spinetta, be patient. It will not be long until we have word from Ser Cantansanti, or from Rome. Have faith, I beg you.”

 

The days were quiet, and Fra Filippo spent them working on his altarpiece or studying Lucrezia's face. The bruise over her eye was fading, the place where she'd bitten her lip had healed to a dark red. But since the
Festa della Sacra Cintola,
something more had changed. Her smile came more slowly, and the expression in her eyes was heart-breakingly close to the Madonna he'd always sought. Although Lucrezia was young he could see that she understood what the Blessed Mother had known: the link between suffering and joy, death and birth, fragility and strength.

“Your beauty's even more compelling than before,” he said as he studied the shadow in her eyes.

“Is that why you love me?” Lucrezia asked quietly. She'd washed her hair that morning, and was dressed in a simple pale dress she'd found among the costumes the monk used for his paintings. Under the dress she wore her mended
panni di gamba.
“Do you love me because I'm beautiful?”

Fra Filippo had felt many things in the last week. He'd felt rage, regret, and a desire for revenge. But above all there was the need to protect and nurture Lucrezia. Yes, he loved her beauty. He'd made it his life's work to understand beauty and he knew, perhaps more than most, that beauty was always more than what met the eye. Just as his paintings were made luminous by layering colors one upon the other, he saw that Lucrezia's beauty came from a wellspring that could only be found in the depths of a complex soul.

“There are many beautiful women in the world, but none has ever moved me as you do,” he said gently. “Even before I saw
you, Lucrezia, I knew your face somewhere in my heart.”

For the first time in his life, the monk shared his private fears and pains. He told Lucrezia about the nights he'd dreamt of his mother's voice and awakened bereft on the narrow pallet in Santa Maria del Carmine; of the years he'd struggled to create with pencil and vellum the wonder and awe he felt.

“When I was a young man, painting was all I had,” he said quietly. “It was all I had, and so it had to become everything to me.”

She watched as his eyes clouded.

“In the monastery, it saved me from despair. In prison, when I feared for my life, I imagined all the paintings I'd create in God's honor, if He would let me live,” the monk said. “For years I've painted as I prayed; I've prayed as I painted. After a time there was no difference between one and the other.”

Lucrezia nodded silently.

“All my life I've been searching for something,” he said with deep conviction. “I don't love you because you're beautiful. I love you because you're the answer to everything I've looked for.”

He knelt before her.

“For me, to see beauty is to see God,” the monk said thoughtfully. “Beauty on Earth is a mirror of God's love in heaven.”

“A
speculum majus,
” she whispered.

“Yes, that's right. A
speculum majus.
” He put a hand on her cheek, and she didn't move away until she heard Spinetta's step in the doorway.

 

M
other Bartolommea was clear: she wanted the novitiates back in the convent before Santa Margherita became the subject of mockery and the target of the prior general's wrath. Already, she had to make do with Fra Piero acting as chaplain to her
nuns. Who was to say the prior general wouldn't remove her from the post as prioress, also, when he heard of this new scandal?

“I don't care how you do it,” she said to Sister Pureza. “I want you to bring them back here. You've spent more time with Sister Lucrezia than any of us. You're the one who insisted I send her out of the convent for her own protection. Now you must bring her back.”

The old woman left the convent alone the next day, just after Terse. Walking along Via Santa Margherita, Sister Pureza vowed to bind the novitiate to her even more tightly than before. She would offer Lucrezia her protection, and she would be firm in her resolve.

At the Piazza della Pieve, she asked a boy where the painter lived.

“Fra Filippo?” The boy pointed to a house with a thatched roof. “He is there.”

Sister Pureza squared her shoulders and marched up to the door.

“It is Sister Pureza.” She rattled the latch. “Let me in.”

Spinetta jumped up and ran into the bedroom, followed quickly by Lucrezia, who'd picked up the
cappello
she was embroidering, and dropped it over her bare head.

Fra Filippo waited until both young women were safely out of view before opening the door and looking down into the wrinkled face of Sister Pureza. Her anger was evident in her pinched mouth and the hard squint of her eyes.

“I know the novitiates are here, Chaplain.” She put a special emphasis on his title, spitting it through her lips. “Let me have them.”

“Sister Pureza,” he said calmly. “You know I am no longer chaplain of the convent.”

“Precisely,” she said. “The novitiates have no business here with you. Release them to me.”

“I am not holding them against their will.” Fra Filippo's body
blocked the doorway, his heavy hand held the door in place.

“They belong in the convent.”

“But you sent Lucrezia away.” The painter steadied himself, and spoke gently. He would get nowhere with the old nun unless he could settle her down and send her away without incident. “You sent her away for her own protection.”

“I sent her to the home of Ottavio de' Valenti, Fratello, I didn't send her into your hands to ruin her.”

Lucrezia listened from the bedroom. She put her lips to Spinetta's ear, and whispered, “Please remember your promise to stay here with me.”

“Sister Lucrezia is an angel,” Fra Filippo said quietly, in the doorway. “I have only the deepest reverence for her.”

“Then let her come with me,” Sister Pureza said. “Prioress Bartolommea will forgive her if she comes now. Both of the novitiates must return at once.”

“Lucrezia doesn't want to go back,” Fra Filippo said.

He slackened his stance and Sister Pureza, spry even in her advanced age, slipped under his arm and into the workshop. She moved quickly and found herself staring at a tangle of wool and silk cloth laid out on the floor in a series of cutting patterns.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Have you taken up the work of a seamstress as well as that of painter and monk?”

Sister Pureza leaned over and picked up the yellow silk of a sleeve Lucrezia had cut that very morning from an old piece of
strazze de seda filada
she'd found.

“I demand to know what's going on here.”

“The girl will not be safe at the prior general's convent,” the painter said. “She cannot go back now.”

Lucrezia moved toward the doorway. She didn't want to be found
hiding, and she was afraid the monk's anger might compel him to reveal her bitter secret. Straightening her spine, Lucrezia tucked her hair under the
cappello,
pulled on the needle until it snapped from the thread, and stepped into the workshop.

“Sister Pureza, I am here.”

The nun and the monk turned to stare at Lucrezia. In her pale
gamurra,
locks of hair spilling from under the cap, a blue shawl slung round her shoulders, she looked as if she'd stepped out of a painting.

“Lucrezia!” Sister Pureza gasped. “Why do you look this way? Where is your robe?”

Seeing the nun who'd given her only friendship and protection, Lucrezia's throat filled.

“Sister,” she cried. “Oh, Sister, forgive me.”

Lucrezia wrung her hands, and in this single motion Sister Pureza read far more than the young woman had intended. She stepped across the fabrics and seized Lucrezia by the arm.

“Are you hurt? Have you been harmed or soiled against your will?”

Lucrezia's eyes widened.

“No, Sister Pureza, you misunderstand,” she said, shaking her head. Wildly, her eyes sought the painter's, sending him a pleading glance. “Nothing's happened against my will.”

Sister Pureza's grip on Lucrezia's arm tightened.

“You and Spinetta will come back to the convent with me,” she said. “You can't stay here, and certainly not like this. You'll ruin your name and your father's name, and then you'll have nowhere to turn.”

“It's not true.” Fra Filippo spoke in his deepest baritone. “I can care for her.”

It was Sister Pureza's turn to drop open her mouth, and stare at the monk.

“Have you lost your mind, Fra Filippo? You are acting
senza ver
gogna,
without any shame at all! This is absurd. You mustn't ruin the girl with your devilish notions.”

Fra Filippo stared at Lucrezia and spoke to her directly.

“I'll marry you, Lucrezia, as I promised. I'll renounce the cloth and marry you.”

“It's the devil in her beauty,” Sister Pureza said angrily. “I told you, Lucrezia, to guard your beauty carefully.”

Lucrezia's hands flew to her face. “No,” she cried.

Fra Filippo stepped forward.

“Go away,” he said loudly, towering over Sister Pureza. “Go away, old woman.”

Sister Pureza glared at the monk, and looked beyond him, to Spinetta.

“Sister Spinetta,” she said. “Save yourself, at least.”

Spinetta's face crumpled. She very much wished to hurry into the old nun's arms, and tell her everything. Only her promise to Lucrezia kept her silent.

“I'm sorry, Sister,” Spinetta said weakly. “I cannot.”

Sister Pureza looked from one face to the other. Fra Lippi stepped toward her.

“You'd best be going, Sister Pureza,” he said firmly.

The old nun stood a moment more, looking from one to the other.

“Will you not change your mind?” she asked Lucrezia a final time. When the girl shook her head, the old woman turned and left the
bottega,
defeated. Lucrezia might believe the monk had the power, the will, and the worldly talents to look after her. But when the painter felt the wrath of Rome or the anger of his patrons, Sister Pureza doubted his resolve, or his lust, would be strong enough. And Lucrezia would suffer, just as she, Sister Pureza, had suffered so many years ago.