The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,85
buildings, castles and churches, took on the sheen of fairyland, for the city was a very opal: a place without peer, for a race of princes.
My impressions were cemented by our arrival at the Castel Sant’Angelo, a huge, crenellated wedding cake built of terra-cotta brick, a red rook in our chess game. Perched on the banks of the sluggish river, the place was more a fortress than a palace of pleasure, yet our chambers were nonetheless sumptuous, our welcome warm. The wedding party was assigned the entire top tier of the castle, and we fed and watered in fine style in our own dining chamber. Brother Guido and I took the air after dinner, both, without speaking it, looking for a place to be alone. We had snatched some private conference along the road, but the ladies all roomed separately from their men along the way, and the only time Brother Guido and I shared together had been in the royal carriage under the eyes of the king and queen. Here we had shared the odd whispered conversation but had not dared to discuss the Primavera. And, for the last few days, when it had been revealed that the pope had invited us to his own castle, with a promise of an audience before we left for Florence, Brother Guido’s whisperings had been nothing but excitement at meeting the father of all the church. He prayed so much that I thought his tongue would fall out, and knelt at every roadside shrine till I felt he would wear his knees to the bone. I feared that Don Ferrente might become suspicious of him, for Niccolò della Torre did not, I am sure, have much of a reputation for religious devotion. Back in the carriage, I reminded my friend by my actions and stern looks to remember to act his part. I lolled against him like any doxy, pressing my tits in his face and whispering reprimands in his ear as if they were sweet nothings instead of sour somethings. (In this, I have to admit, I was pleasing my own sensations as much as considering our safety.) He corrected his outward behavior, but I knew by the time he reached the city, he was in a fever of religious ferment. My pent excitement matched his own, but I was differently charged: I was ravenous to talk more of the painting at last and to know where this great city fitted into our puzzle.
On our evening passeggiata we found the perfect place for our conference—the highest battlement of all, manned by two frightening-looking guards who paced the perimeter continuously. They did not challenge us or question our presence there, and I supposed they had been briefed of each guest’s identity and were well used to noble guests taking the evening air to admire the view. Now, though, I turned my back on the vista, as I had once before on Fiesole’s hill, and returned, at last, to business.
“Are we secret enough?”
Brother Guido looked around, the keen breeze riffling his curls. The moon was full that night, and his face had a pearly sheen of an angel once more. “I think so, for the guards are a good hundred paces away, and here we cannot be observed or overheard.”
“Get it out then.”
He knew that, for once, I was not being bawdy. He reached into his jerkin and pulled out the cartone. Together we flattened the painting on the balustrade and gazed at the central figure—Venus, as we had dubbed her, now identified as Rome. I asked the question that had burned my poor brain for a week. “How did you know?”
“That Venus is Rome? There are so many clues I hardly know where to begin.”
“Try.” My voice was icy—he was making me feel ignorant again, and after my recent triumphs I almost resented the fact that he had worked this figure out by himself.
“I first began to wonder when we fell down into Neapolis—Roman Naples. Rome, if you like, lay below San Lorenzo. Then I thought again of the cartone and realized that Venus is standing below a very definite ‘arch’ described by the leaves of the bower, almost a Romanesque arch.”
I curled my lip. “A bit far-fetched.”
He was undeterred. “Yes. But do you recognize the leaves? Green, glossy, and tear shaped. Not the leaves you would find in a rustic forest. The leaves of a cultivated garden shrub—you see them in every palazzo grounds in Florence.”