The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,5

or perhaps be murdered by those clients who liked their sex a little dangerous. Just one more dead tart, to be found floating and bloating in the Arno. I lifted my chin. Not me. I was on my way to Botticelli’s to be immortalized forever as the embodiment of youth. I flounced away.

“Pick up some borlotti beans for dinner?” wheedled Enna after me. (I forgot to say—my rival is also my house mate.)

Recovering my bravado, I raised my skirt and farted in her face. “Get them yourself!” I said. The polls snickered at Enna this time, and I left them cackling. Mentally removing myself from their low ways, I set off down the Via Cavalloti to the house of Signor Botticelli, and higher things.

4

Here are the three facts I knew about Botticelli.

Fatto Uno: he was actually called Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, but was nicknamed “Botticelli” after his corpulent brother Giovanni, a pawnbroker, who was known as Il Botticello, “the little barrel.”

Fatto Due: Botticelli was a Florentine by birth. He came from one of the poorest rioni of our city, Ognissanti. It’s so rough even I don’t go there.

Fatto Tre: he was totally in the pockets of the Medici. Even Signor Lorenzo de’ Medici, the father of our city, a man so great he is known as il Magnifico, thought the sun shone out of Botticelli’s arse. Apparently the Medici villa of Castello, which you can just see on the hill above Florence when the winter trees drop their leaves, is lousy with Botticelli’s frescoes.

A powerful artist then. But I was not nervous as I arrived at his studio. I merely told the acolyte who answered the bell that I was here to be painted. The boy was a negro, eyes and teeth bright in his face, and he gave me a look I was well accustomed to as I swept past. The studio itself was light and airy, with more glass in the windows than I had seen in all Florence. At the far end of the room stood a shadowy figure, but I hardly noticed him. There was something else there too. Huge, rectangular, and with color that captured the rainbow. I could see the panel was nearly finished, and it was wonderful. There were seven complete figures there, all larger than life, with a fat baby cupid flying above. All the figures, even the cupid, dwarfed their creator who stood before the panel. The vibrancy of their color made him almost a silhouette. I saw Bembo had been canny with me; the eighth figure—Flora—who was a mere faceless sketch at present, stood slightly to the side and to the fore of the picture. A Madonna of sorts was actually the central figure, already complete and beauteous. She looked exactly as I imagined Vero Madre in my head and in my dreams. The sward on which she stood was dotted and studded with amazing flowers that peeped from the grass like fallen jewels. She was flanked by three dancing maidens in white, and a couple of other figures—mythological?—whom I did not recognize. I was well pleased with the work, and must have made some sound of approval, for Botticelli turned and looked at me.

He was middle-aged, perhaps five-and-thirty, with black hair worn long to his shoulders. He was pretty well favored but quite short. And now, thinking about it, the figure on the far left of the painting, the fellow with the sword, looked exactly like the man who regarded me now.

Our eyes were on a level as he studied me. He took hold of my chin, and moved my head left and right, and forward again. Then he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Perfetto,” he said. His accent was heavy and a contrast to the beauty before us. But I understood him well enough. Perfect. I smiled back. This was the second time today I had had a man lay hands on me uninvited, and, as with the monk, I knew in an instant that Botticelli was not interested in me for sex. He wanted Flora, and I was here to give her to him.

He motioned to me to get ready and I followed his pointing finger behind a screen where a brocaded dress awaited me. The dress had numerous flowers painted onto the creamy white silk. And was beautiful and heavy. The screen told me that Botticelli did not know what kind of woman I was; he clearly thought I had some modesty. He did not