will rule well, I think.”
“I do too.”
“And so it was that I came home to my birthright, and the palace that is rightfully mine. I redrafted the contracts with your father—but a change of name was all that was needed—and your mother seemed more than happy with what had come to pass.”
I shook my head, amazed. It was too much to take in, too much happiness. He turned me round to look at him, and the crowd of children melted respectfully away, well pleased with their bounty. I looked into the blue, blue eyes of my Lazarus-husband, back from the dead; come from the Cata-combs into the light—proof of the afterlife I had doubted and he had not. And we, we had come from darkness to light too—come from ignorance into knowledge; read the treasure map, solved the puzzle, and claimed the prize. But the treasure we had found was no jewel casket or trove of coins; it was beyond price. “What now?” I asked, not really caring, so long as we were together.
“A feast at the palace, and the . . . wedding night.” A shadow crossed his face. “Of course, it is usual for the bride to be a virgin on the wedding night.”
“I’ll be gentle with you,” I said, and kissed him in a manner that belied the words.
The field of miracles deserved its name that day. The sun set behind the leaning tower, the symbol of Guido’s city—and mine—into a beautiful red sky. And the day began.
It was going to be a beautiful summer.
11
1492
In 1492 three things happened.
Cosa Uno: I gave birth to a daughter whom we called Simonetta after the pearl of Genoa. Appropriately, the pearl in my navel, which had stayed determinedly put through all manner of adventures, popped out at Simonetta’s birth, making her name a certainty. I sent the pearl to Bonaccorso Nivola, who had been freed at my mother’s word and now lived peacefully with his family on Burano, while his grown sons fished the lagoon. I played with Simonetta constantly, told her I loved her every day. She was my weakness, the apple of my Eden. I was joined in this preference by my mother, who visited our palace much more after Simonetta was born, dandling the baby, feeding her comfits, bringing her toys and treasures from Venice to surprise and delight her. And the greatest gift of all: just being there and playing with her, reveling in the girl’s growing beauty as her own faded. She found joy in every stage of her granddaughter’s development, was there for her first steps and words. The child loved her too, and my mother had her second chance to be a Vero Madre. Sometimes they sit in the atrium of our palace, and I watch the old lady and the little girl play at marbles or skittles beneath the framed cartone, which hangs on the wall there. It is cracked and stiff with salt, all the vivid colors almost gone, bleached by the sea when I cast it into the Genoan tide. All the figures have dissolved away save one—my own. I don’t know whether the extra pigments used to paint her garden of flowers had fixed the paints to the paper more firmly, but at any rate, Flora now stands alone in her ruined bower.
Cosa Due: Lorenzo de’ Medici died after ruling Florence justly and well for nine last years of peace and profit. At the instant he died lightning struck the church of Santa Maria del Fiore and set the great dome aflame. Il Magnifico’s dreams of empire died with him. But:
Cosa Tre: a certain Signor Cristoforo Colombo of Genoa sailed to the world’s edge as he always said he would. There he discovered a new vision of imperium—the Americas, an empire destined to become the new Rome.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Italy was eventually unified in 1870. At the turn of the century, a modern monument called the Altar of the Nation was constructed in the heart of the new country’s capital, Rome.
It is a marble monstrosity, which neatly obscures the views of the Capitoline Hill.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Primavera by Sandro Botticelli enjoys more interpretations than perhaps any other picture in art history. A number of them are examined at differing depths in this story. I am indebted to Charles Dempsey’s scholarly interpretation of the painting in his work The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Mirella Levi D’Ancona’s incredibly detailed botanical reading of