What Remains of the Fair Simonetta (13 page)

Chapter 23

I was so consumed by my impending death that I didn’t even take notice of the intense pain I must have endured during Antonella’s routine grooming. Even the throbbing of my forehead from the collision with Amerigo’s map could not distract me.

Why was I brought back from the dead just to die again?

Any minute sense I had made of my situation had vanished. Even though I’d been through this sort of grief before, I had no desire to experience it again. I knew my death was coming the first time around, but this hit harder. It was so senseless. I was fully embracing Simonetta’s life and yearned for a way to cheat the Grim Reaper this time around.

I was well versed in the stages of grieving. I skipped right over the denial stage, spent less than a minute in anger, then quickly moved on to bargaining.

Maybe I’m meant to save her.

It wasn’t that hard to avoid contracting tuberculosis. I didn’t even have to wear one of those 15
th
century hazmat suits with the weird beaked, plague doctor mask. One has to be within three feet of a person infected with consumption, and I hadn’t noticed any human carriers amongst the Florentine citizens I’d met so far. And, after all, it takes a while to kill you and I felt fine. Though, I suppose I was in a bit of denial after all, experiencing all the stages simultaneously.

I pressed my face against the window, awaiting Sandro’s arrival. When I saw him coming, I darted outside with Antonella before he could knock. Antonella parted from us without question the moment we reached Sandro’s house, and happily went off to enjoy another day of freedom, promising to pay a visit to the Miniato al Monte.

Once Sandro escorted me to the
studiolo
, I stood coyly in my coral jacquard dress, knowing that Sandro would want me to pose as I had the days prior. I still quivered, as he slowly approached me.

“What has happened to you?” Sandro asked upon seeing the lumpy bruise on my forehead.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” His very presence had caused me to forget about hitting Amerigo’s map. Even my impending death had slipped my mind for a moment. “I’m just clumsy.”

Instead of pressing the matter further, Sandro asked, “Have you heard of the painter Masaccio?” He moved around behind me, his fingers lightly dancing across my back as he unlaced my dress.

“Yes, of course.” It was the truth, as many of Masaccio’s works hung in the Uffizi in Hall Seven near the Botticelli Roo
m—
a place I frequented routinely in life.

“Did you know his given name was Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, but was shortened to Maso?

“Because no Florentine is called by his given name?” I quipped.

“Yes.” He grinned and continued. “When he became a painter, others wanted to distinguish him from an older Maso, his collaborator. The older Maso became “Masolino” as he was delicate and distinguished. The younger Maso was then called ‘Massacio,’ meaning he was a clumsy Maso!”

I laughed. “Really?”

As Sandro slowly slid the dress down my shoulders to the floor, I couldn’t help but notice how much easier the mass of fabric was to get off than to put on. And how much more fun it was to go in that direction.

“Though clumsy, Masaccio was an inspiration.” Sandro hung my dress on the nearby hook, and took his time removing the pins from my hair. “Contemporary painters, including myself, study his frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in the Santa Maria del Carmine. I was moved to tears the first time I saw them as a youth. Massacio
was one of the first to use linear perspective, vanishing point
,
and
chiaroscuro
—the stark contrast between light and dark.”

“Oh?” I said nervously, as I accidently knocked the hair brush from his hands to the floor. I had always loved Sandro’s paintings, but had never really considered the techniques he implemented to create them. Just hearing him speak of them now was the most powerful aphrodisiac I could imagine.

“I find clumsiness an endearing quality in a person.” He grinned broadly as he bent down to retrieve the hairbrush from the floor.

“You’re a very unique man.” My gaze met his as he resumed brushing my hair, pleasantly grazing his body against me on occasion.

“Masaccio died mysteriously in the year 1428, when he was just twenty-six years of age.”

“How tragic.” I sympathized with Massacio, but realized that Simonetta didn’t even make it that long.

“What makes you say that?” Sandro asked, now molding me into his proper position.

“Because he died in his prime.”

“But he left a cycle of frescos in the Brancacci Chapel that are in different stations of completion, giving all of today’s artists insight as to how his mind worked. It is possible that he supplied us with all that he was meant to contribute to the world. Perhaps he died happy, his work complete in its incompletion.” Sandro finally gave my pounding heart a rest by moving away from me to work on the banner.

“An interesting perspective.” I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by his view in an age where people frequently died young from the plague, tuberculosis, syphilis, war, poisoning, famine, and even childbirth.

“The tragedy would have been to have great works overshadowed by mediocre ones; to live to a ripe old age unhappy in obscurity. There are a few more things I would like to accomplish, but I consider my life to be complete as it is. I have been given many opportunities other men can only dream of. If it were my time, I would not fight death.”

I had always hoped that the yearning presence I felt in the Ognissanti was that of Sandro, but that speech made it seem unlikely. Though I myself had died content, and was still lurking around.

“What more would you like to accomplish?” I asked.

“I would like to finish this banner, for one!” he blurted with a smile. “I would also like to complete my illustrations of Dante Aligheri’s
Divinia Commmedia
. I am not merely attempting a commentary, as my father would have you believe, but rather I am creating illustrations. One for each canto. It will be an unprecedented accomplishment.”

What was Simonetta supposed to accomplish?

Men wrote to her, and about her; they mourned her death in grand Florentine fashion, but what did
she
want?  My personal wish was to live in her body forever spending my days and nights with Sandro. But history would prove that neither Sandro nor I would get what we desired.

Sandro wouldn’t die young and great, as he was to sadly outlive everyone: Mariano, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Poliziano and especially Simonetta—and he would never complete his illustrations of Dante. What he did complete would be spread all over the world, his vision scattered.

Chapter 24

“Where have you been,
idiota
?” Luciana challenged, while looking me up and down. Antonella and I tried to make our way around her at the top of the stairs after returning from Sandro’s, but she would not yield.

“I sat for Sandro so he could complete the banner,” I announced.

“What is it with you and lowly painters? There were two more calling for you this day.”

“Really? Who?” I asked.

“The first was more beast than man. A grungy child really, by the name of Piero di Cosimo. Said he wants to paint your likeness as Cleopatra. Fool thinks you are an Egyptian.”

“And the other?”

“A somewhat more cleanly dark haired lad from Vinci.”

“Leonardo?” I asked, with excitement. “Did he say where I can find him?”

“If he did, I did not care to listen.” Luciana apparently decided she was done with her mini-inquisition, trotting off with her nose in the air.

“I really don’t like her,” I said under my breath.

“Yes, I believe that has been established.” Antonella chuckled. “She is a horrible viper.”

Without thinking, I found myself bolting out the door.

“Where are you going now?” Antonella huffed as she obligingly followed.

              “I have to find Leonardo.”

              “Why? Are you enamored with him as well?” Antonella shook her head.

“No, nothing like that. I…was in the middle of a conversation with him the other night, and wish to complete it,” I asserted. I stood in the Via Nuova, but had no idea which way to go. “Where is the shop of Verrocchio?”

“You expect I should know this? Yesterday was my first day on my own in Florence,” Antonella replied.

We looked in both directions, and hadn’t even decided which way to turn when Leonardo magically appeared from the crevice of the Via Palazzuolo.

“
Signora
Vespucci!” he called out in a loud whisper and gestured for me to join him.

I took a few steps forward before Antonella intervened. “You cannot go into the alleyway with that painter in broad daylight! How will that appear?”

“Then where can I speak with him privately?”

“Invite him into the
palazzo
as a guest, and converse with him in your sitting room, so none will think ill of you.”

I knew Antonella was looking out for my best interest, but I found it amusing that she became such a different person once the sun went down.

“Leonardo! Come to the Palazzo Vespucci for some refreshments!”  I called.

“Very well, my lady.” Leonardo hesitantly crept out from the shadows and followed us silently into the
palazzo
, and up to the
piano nobile.
He sat with this hands folded in his lap.

“Could we please have some wine, Antonella?” I wondered if the “please” was out of sorts for a lady to address her attendant and threw in an awkward dismissive flick of the wrist.

She crinkled up her face, clearly not wanting to miss any intrigue that might transpire during our conversation, but she grudgingly left the room, nonetheless.

Leonardo cleared his throat. “I have pondered intently on your words of the prior night,
Monna
Simonetta.”

“And?”

“I fear I must make additional inquires of you before I am confident in the merit of your tale.”

“Okay, fire away, Leo.”

He briefly twisted his face in confusion, but then dove into his questioning. “Who were you before you came to inhabit our age and Republic?”

“Hmmm.” I found it difficult to summarize my entire life. “My name is…was…will be…Anastasia Uqualla. Stacia for short.” I was a nurse and an avid admirer of Botticelli’s paintings.”

“An enthusiast of Sandro? Very curious. He is well known in your time?” Leonardo seemed amused at the prospect.

“Yes, but he’s not a household name, like…uh…you are.” I could tell he wanted to divert the conversation to focus on himself, but he shook the urge off.

“By what means did you arrive here?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I’ve been dead for eleven years. My ashes were placed in a small urn that rested inside the Ognissanti. On top of Sandro’s grave to be precise. The daughter of a nun I had befriended in life cared for my urn. There was a moment when I became so distressed that I wanted to break free of my ghostly realm. And, well, that’s when I woke up here, in Simonetta’s body.”

Leonardo jotted down notes in a journal. “How would the dead become tormented if not in hell?”

“My boyfriend was with another girl.” I realized how silly it sounded even as the words spilled from my mouth, and I could tell he wasn’t convinced.

“Let us have discourse concerning your macrocosm of the future.”

“What?”

“Tell me about life in your world.”

“What can I say? People are…different. It’s a busy place. Premarital sex is a given. Women have equal rights...sort of. We have lots and lots of electronics. We drive in cars and fly in planes, and for the most part people don’t care about any of the things that folks here care about.”

“Humans take flight?” he gasped, astonished. “By what means?”

“I believe it was based on one of your designs.”

“Fascinating.” He rubbed his chin and continued to scribble furiously in his journal. “Are there others akin to you? Beings that are recreated from the deceased?”

“Not that I know of. They make movies about ghosts and spirits, but people don’t generally believe in them.”

“Movies?”

Oh god, we could be here forever.

I contemplated delving into my Native American ancestry—how I’d conversed with the dead before my demise, and had observed the living afterwards—but just as I carefully chose my words, Antonella returned with the wine and poured us each a goblet. I shot Leonardo a look; warning him to be silent as long as Antonella was in the room. It was then I realized she was headed for the gold velvet chair, presumably to sit and join our conversation.

“Antonella, we’re hungry. Could you fetch us something to eat?”

Antonella huffed, then reluctantly retreated once again to the other room.

“Your attendant is unaware of your origins?”

“Yes, and she’s been with Simonetta for years, but she doesn’t really seem to notice the difference.”

“That is curious.” He contemplated for a moment, then resumed his questioning. “In what location is the soul of Simonetta?”

“I have no idea. I’ve asked myself that same question. But I know where her
body
will be soon. I realized today that I’m not long for this world.”

“What is your meaning?”

“I’ve seen her grave in my dreams. Simonetta will die on April 26th.”

I could see the look of disbelief wash over his face, but he continued with his questioning. “And I presume you wish to avert this inevitable demise?”

“Yes, please.”

While Leonardo jotted more scribblings in his notebook, Antonella returned with cheese, bread, and fruit.

“I’m cold Antonella. Could you get my cloak?”

She ran to my bedchamber and returned before I could utter another private word to Leonardo. After roughly tossing the cloak at me, she rested her hands on her hips in aggravation. I was conjuring some complicated task for her to perform, but Leonardo chimed in, “Perhaps Antonella should be made abreast of our intentions.”

Antonella quickly plunked herself in the gold chair and sat at full attention. When I started to protest, Leonardo interrupted, “I wish you to pose for one of my paintings.”

“Me? Not the Flower of Florence over here?” Antonella questioned, perplexed, as she motioned towards me.

“You possess a certain temporal beauty that contrasts with Simonetta’s ethereal features. Your winsomeness appeals more to my faculties and shall synthesize exceptionally with my peculiarity in painting.”

“I have no idea what you said, but I will do it!” Antonella agreed.

“Marvelous! Antonella, would you don your finest apparel, so I may conceptualize by what virtue I might paint you?”

Antonella looked to me for Leonardo-speak translation. “He wants you to put on your best dress.”

“Oh, of course!” Antonella said, as she willingly left the room this time.

“Wow, you’re good.”

“I was raised by a woman who knew how to flatter to get her way.” Leonardo smiled. “I sympathize with your situation, and will consider what can be done, but first I must inquire about what you stated at the Palazzo Medici. You voiced words in regards to the world being aware of my accomplishments.”

“I was wondering when you were going to ask me about that.” I chuckled. I had so much I wanted to tell him. Also so much I needed to ask him about—like the weird time on the twenty-four hour Italian clock—but I froze at the changed expression on Leonardo’s face. When I turned to see where he was looking, I caught the eye of a very livid Marco, who had stealthily entered my sitting room.

“Ahh, so now it is the bastard boy from Vinci, is it, Simonetta?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Marco.” Husband or not, there was no way I was going to put up with his crap, or let him insult Leonardo. Even though I was worshipped on the streets, I was clearly not revered in my own house.

“I have heard you left the Palazzo Medici with the man Giuliano has hired to paint you.” Marco loomed over me as Leonardo slid back in his chair.

“Yeah, I left with him. I also arrived with him.
Signore
Botticelli took me to the Medici’s to have me pose with a halberd, but he also needed for me to stand outside in the wind for his drawing as well.”

Marco just huffed in reply. Still in interrogation mode, he pointed an accusatory finger Leonardo’s way. “What business does this boy have here?”

“We would like to use Antonella as a model in the
bottega
of Verrocchio,” Leonardo defended.

“We’re negotiating the terms,” I chimed in.

“Who is Antonella?” Marco scoffed.

“Seriously? She’s my attendant.”

Just then, Antonella emerged in her finest dress—which was actually one of my gowns—with her hair out of the skullcap and flowing in a sea of brown curls. She spotted Marco and immediately made a U-turn back into my bedchamber. She tripped slightly on the way, since my gown was a bit too long for her.

“Should it not be
I
who negotiates the terms of a servant in my own house?” Marco demanded.

“We were awaiting the advent of your presence,
Signor
Vespucci,” Leonardo interjected. “The convent of San Bartolomeo of Monte Oliveto is in need of an
Annunciation
as their altarpiece, and my master, Andrea Verrocchio, wished to give the Vespucci family the honor of commissioning it.”

“I was told Verrocchio refuses to continue with his craft.”

“It would be I, not Andrea, who would undertake this commission.”

“
You
are the reason he is afraid to paint?

“Andrea has no fear of painting,
Signor
. He has simply chosen to sculpt in its stead.”

“Oh, is that his tale?” Marco fixated intently on Leonardo. “I can envision no benefit from this commission for the Vespucci,” he scoffed.

“The Medici are much impressed with those who commission the arts,” Leonardo responded quickly.

Marco hesitated for a moment, before nodding curtly. “Very well, then. It is agreed. I will collect my father to notarize the contract. Your presence is no longer needed, Simonetta,” Marco grunted, and abruptly exited the room.

“I guess I’m excused,” I said sarcastically. “He’s such a bastard.”

“No, he is of legitimate birth, unlike myself.”

“Sorry, I meant he’s an asshole. Oh, never mind. How did you know that would work?”

“Marco is as transparent as the glass of your windows. He is aware that the Medici control who is appointed to official office. He offers you to Giuliano in the hopes of gaining a seat on the Council of the
Signoria
.”