The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,112

a little straighter. “Violet is the flower that crowns Flora’s headdress—it sits full in the center, at the forehead!”

“Perhaps the poet, and thus the painting, is saying that we must not use our heads to find the secret, but our—”

“Our what? Our stomachs?” I began to laugh at the downcast faces of the monks, as their theory fell flat.

“Wait, though—isn’t Flora with child? Did not Signor Benvolio say as much to you when he urged you to model for his friend?” Brother Guido demanded of me. “That she bears the fruits of the coming season?”

“That’s true!” I confirmed eagerly. “I was supposed to be up the stick.” The elderly monk winced a little at my indelicacy but I didn’t care—we were on to something. “Maybe the ‘secret’ has something to do with a baby or a child? Perhaps someone is with child? Perhaps Semiramide Appiani is pregnant, and the brat will be heir to the Medici fortune when Lorenzo the Magnificent is dead!”

“Signorina!” thundered Brother Nicodemus. “I will grant you that the Medici family are not without sin, but Signorina Appiani is reputed to be a virtuous maid, chaste as the first snow.”

“All right.” I sat back on the bench with a skeptical look. “But you must admit, it would suit Don Ferrente to have his niece the mother of the Medici heir. And Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco too—that’s two of the Seven happy.”

“And it is true that roses have many connections to Venus,” added Brother Guido in my defense. “It is her own flower, and she wore a chaplet of roses at the Judgment of Paris—according to the rhetor Libanis—the very contest that is represented in the Primavera by the appearance of the three Graces.”

“And Greek legend dictates that the rose originated at the birth of Venus, according to Anacreon,” agreed the herbalist. “ ‘A tender rosebush sprang up from the earth when Venus rose from the sea, and a sprinkling of nectar from the gods made the bush burst into flower.’ ”

“I think we have strayed from the theme somewhat,” asserted Brother Guido gently.

I agreed—all the fucking poetry was holding things up, is how I’d express it.

“After all, in the Primavera it is Flora not Venus who holds the secret. Flora who is pregnant, not Venus.” Shyly he looked askance at me.

I answered his unasked question. “Not likely.” I was too smart to be caught that way; for a working girl it could be the end of your career—a baby was worse than the pox. I thought of the waxed cotton squares where they sat snug and useless at the neck of my womb, replaced after each monthly bleeding. As for the last month—chance would be a fine thing, for I had not had a jump since Bembo. Venus, though—Miss Appiani—was a different matter. Many a Florentine maid had been tumbled by her betrothed—and if a baby was born a few months early, where’s the harm? “Look at her dress,” I urged. “You could easily hide your bump under there if you were graveled with a brat.”

“Hmmm. I think that is the, er . . . Romanesque style,” suggested Brother Guido. I snorted through my nose for I knew more of the world than these two, that’s for damn sure. “It’s a thought,” he conceded “and this theorem would certainly be given credence by the fact that tomorrow’s wedding date—July 19—is the eve of the feast of Saint Margaret, patron saint of pregnant women; but perhaps we are missing something more obvious.”

This I agreed with. “All this cant about Venus and yet you’re missing the main point—it’s a as clear as the cock on the David. The obvious to me is that roses are given to women by men who want to fuck them,” I blurted, irritated by the whole debate and not caring if I shocked the old booby. But he surprised me.

“She is right, ‘tis true,” said the herbalist calmly. “They are gifts of love. And the poet Boiardo said that roses were scattered to celebrate joy in love.”

Datime a piena mano rose e zigli

spargete intorno a me viole e fiori . . .

Di mia leticia meco il frutto pigli!

“Flora is scattering roses in this picture—in Roman times roses were scattered at feasts of Flora and Hymen, in the paths of victors, or beneath their chariot wheels, or adorned the prows of their war vessels.”

Brother Guido’s attention was caught on a baited hook. “In the paths of victors,” he repeated. “This must be relevant. For this whole