“Do you remember how eager my grandfather was to have the translation finished?” Lorenzo said to his tutor.
“‘Eager,’” Ficino began with a gentle smile, “would never begin to measure Cosimo’s desire for the completed manuscript. He was
rabid
.”
Botticelli, Lorenzo, and Lucrezia chuckled at the memory.
Piero nodded more solemnly. “He was determined to read the entire
Corpus Hermeticum
before he died, and you, Silio, realized that dream for him.”
The
Corpus Hermeticum
? By its title I knew this to be a Hermetic text, but it was one my father had told me nothing about. I wondered if he knew of it himself.
“How long did it take you to translate the Greek into Italian vulgate?” Lorenzo asked with a wry smile. “Six months?”
“Four,” Ficino answered, then became more serious. “We all knew he was dying. How could I disappoint him?”
“Forgive my ignorance,” I said, “but I am unaware of the
Corpus Hermeticum.
” All eyes turned in my direction.
Lorenzo spoke up, addressing the group. “Cato has read the
Asclepius
. . . in Greek.”
Ficino nodded at me, pleased. I felt heat rise in my neck. I hoped it would not rise further, causing me to blush like a girl.
“It is not yet published,” he told me. “But if you know the
Asclepius
, then you know the words of its author, Hermes Trismegistus. The
Corpus
is a before-now-uncovered text of that same great Egyptian sage.”
The astonishment must have been apparent on my face.
“Like the
Asclepius
, it illuminates the magical religion of the Egyptians,” Ficino explained.
“Though it goes more than a little further into it,” Lorenzo added.
I had to work to keep my mouth from hanging agape. It shocked me that these high men so openly discoursed on a subject the church insisted was heretical.
Sandro Botticelli interjected with great animation, “Hermes goes into quite some detail about the use of magical images and talismans for spiritual development. He talks about statues that can be made to
speak
.”
Clarice cleared her throat so loudly she might have been choking. When we turned to her she was flushed with indignation.
“Well?” Lorenzo demanded. “What is it you wish to say, wife?” I did not sense much affection in his voice.
“Only that . . . all this talk of magic and astrology and talking statues . . . ,” Clarice began.
I realized that these conversations must be commonplace around this table.
“. . . is
blasphemy
!” Lorenzo’s wife looked to her mother-in-law for help. “Is it not?”
“Clarice is quite right,” Lucrezia said with a stern edge, but I sensed a patronizing note as well. The mother of this family was famous for her religious piety, but first and foremost she was an indulgent mother. It was proving difficult for her not to smile when she said to her boys, “You all do have a whiff of sulfur about you.”
There was laughter at that.
“All we wish for is intuition of the Divine without the aid of a savior,” Ficino insisted.
“That is more than a touch heretical, don’t you think, Silio?” Lucrezia said with great affection.
“Drawing the influence of the stars down into statues by astral magic, as our master Ficino does, is even more so,” Lorenzo added. Now I was certain he meant to annoy his young wife. Lorenzo continued his argument. “These are legitimate practices of philosophers, Mama.”
Lucrezia considered the statement as Clarice steamed.
“You must remember, my dear,” said Marsilio Ficino, “that the most Christian Augustine was himself
reading
Hermes. Taking him seriously. Even if he disagreed on certain points, he could not have thought the man too much of a heretic.”
“He’s right,” Lorenzo added. “The wisdom tradition Hermes speaks of can be traced in an unbroken line to Plato himself. And who can deny Plato’s wisdom?”
“In fact”—Ficino turned to me again—“we now believe that Hermes was a contemporary of Moses himself.”
“Really?” I was truly startled at this revelation and could not wait to write my father of it.
“Really,” Lorenzo agreed. “We have even begun to discuss the question of whether Hermes
was
Moses.”
“I’m going to bed.” It was Piero. He had heard enough of high philosophy for one evening, it seemed. Or perhaps the pain had simply overtaken him. His hands were flat on the table and he attempted to push himself to standing.
“Wait, Papa!” Botticelli cried, standing in his place. “Please, I have something to show you.”
Piero’s face softened, and a pleasant expectation crinkled his mouth. He relaxed back in his chair.
Sandro stood. “Don’t anyone move,” he said and dashed from the table, “except you, Giuliano. Come help me!” The younger brother followed Botticelli, and they moved toward a closed door that appeared to lead into the palazzo from the loggia.
A moment later, to the sound of crunching on the marble floor, they returned, rolling on a wheeled contraption a huge, paint-smeared sheet covering a rectangle that looked to be six feet high and twelve feet across.
Facing us all, the artist beamed. He carefully removed the cloth and stood aside. Every jaw in the room loosened and fell. Then there was silence as a dozen eyes drank in the splendor.
“I call it
Birth of Venus
,” Botticelli said.
The first sight of it was simply startling. It was blatantly pagan and openly erotic, and an unquestionable statement of its maker’s genius.
A woman, magnificent in her nakedness, was stepping lightly from a half shell at the edge of a placid sea onto a fecund shore. Her features were delicate and proportioned as if by the hand of the Creator. The color of her skin was pale, tinged with roses, but so fine in texture that one could almost see through her body. Venus’s hair was glorious—red gold and so thick and long and flowing it draped the whole length of her torso, where, holding it with one hand, she modestly covered her pudenda.
So deeply drawn was I to her image that it was only by virtue of a hank of that lovely hair blown sideways from her head that I became aware of other figures in the painting. On the left in the air, amidst a storm of flowers, hovered two winged wind gods—one male, one female—entwined in each other’s arms and with puffed cheeks, creating the breeze around the goddess of Love.
To the right of Venus was another figure, a woman—perhaps Spring—who in her pretty floral dress held aloft a posy-embroidered cloak with which she seemed to be urging the newborn goddess to cover her nakedness.
But my eyes could not long stray from Venus herself. She was slender, and the one breast not covered by her right hand was small, but her belly and thighs were prettily plump and rounded. Only her left arm seemed oddly shaped—too long, and almost disconnected from her shoulder. But nothing diminished the overall beauty of face and form, and her expression of unutterable sweetness.
I think Botticelli had not expected from the viewers this profundity of emotion, this stunned hush.
“Do you see what I have done, Marsilio?” he said to Ficino, breaking the silence. “How the image holds a reflection of Idea? How I have used the greens for Jupiter, the blues for Venus, gold for the sun. Is she not a perfect talisman to draw down the power of the planet Venus, the very life force of Heaven, and store that echo . . . that taste . . . that substance of the divine Idea of Love, for our use?” His hand was clutching his own heart, and his eyes were limpid with tender emotion.
But the boys’ tutor was quite speechless. His lips moved as though he was still trying to put his thoughts into words.
“My darling boy,” Lucrezia finally said, “you have done far more than paint a magical talisman. This is a masterpiece for all time.”
“I would venture that she is the most beautiful woman ever painted,” Lorenzo offered, “ever in the history of the world.”
“What incantations are needed to bring her to life?” Giuliano asked in a hushed whisper. “I want to make love to her. Instantly.”
Everyone laughed at that, and the spell seemed all but broken . . . except that I caught, out of the corner of my eye, Lorenzo staring at me. He was, I think, unaware I had seen him.
“Come here, Sandro,” Piero said to the young man whom he and his own father had raised from a boy. His voice was stern and serious. Botticelli went to the patriarch’s side and knelt at his feet, laying his head on one swollen knee. The older man’s gaze fell on Ficino.
“This is your influence, Marsilio. I see it. I hear it. All your lessons of spirits and occult forces, magi controlling the influences of the stars . . .” Everyone was still. Afraid to breathe. Piero looked up at Botticelli’s panel.
“This painting . . .” His voice was choked with emotion. “. . . it makes me want to live another day.”
A sob escaped Lucrezia’s throat, and she clutched her husband’s arm. There was a general outcry of relief and celebration. Sandro began kissing Piero’s hands in gratitude. The rest of us stood from our chairs and edged closer to the painting to study its perfection.
Clarice was clucking with quiet indignation to her mother-in-law over the total nakedness of Venus on her clamshell. I overheard Ficino and the Medici sons’ conversation.
“I’ve always told you,” the boys’ tutor said, “that images can be used as medicine.”
“Perhaps as strong as an apothecary’s,” Lorenzo suggested.
“Indeed,” their teacher murmured appreciatively. “Indeed.”
CHAPTER 11
“Uncle Cato!”
I looked up to see my son standing just inside the apothecary door, in exactly the same spot where Lorenzo had surprised me several weeks before.
Of course the bell we had put up together jingled, but I had been so engrossed in consulting with my new customers—Benito and his grandmother, Signora Anna Russo—that I failed to hear it. My surprise and delight must have been instantly apparent in my expression, for Anna turned expectantly to meet my “nephew.” I just prayed that my confusion at being addressed as uncle, and not “Mama,” was less obvious.
“Leonardo,” I called cheerfully to him, my husky masculine voice already becoming second nature to me. My shop had been an instant success, what with the very real need for a neighborhood herbalist, as well as profuse gossip about my talents spread all around by my young friend, Benito. The moment I had opened my doors—even without a sign—I had been overrun with customers with every sort of ailment from warts to agues to infections to female maladjustments. A preponderance of my patients were women who confided to me that they had never felt so comfortable talking of “personal matters” with any man before. In no time, ladies and girls were coming from different Florentine neighborhoods, even some from across the Arno.
With all that business and counseling, my new speaking voice and persona had developed. But more than anything, the friendship of Lorenzo and the acceptance by his family—though I did not confide this to my neighbors or customers—did more for my confidence in this new life than anything else.
The potion I had mixed for Piero de’ Medici’s gout had, of course, not cured him, but thankfully it had relieved the worst of his discomforts. For this Lucrezia had been eternally grateful. After that she had sent for a veritable stream of everyday remedies and cosmetics, with the occasional request for Sandro Botticelli’s pigments. I hardly dared to think it, but the Medici matriarch was becoming my patroness.
Leonardo was gazing around at the shop, his eyes fixed on the lofty ceilings. “I like your shop, Uncle.”
Benito had gone directly to Leonardo’s side, a wide grin plastered on his face. He’d been nagging me about meeting my nephew, who was just a little older than him.
“It’s not really Cato’s shop,” he told Leonardo. “Or so says our new apothecary. But I can tell you that when the old man arrives he’ll have a hard time wresting customers away from your uncle.”
“My great-uncle Umberto would have a hard time wresting a worm from the mouth of a dove,” Leonardo said in a half-jocular, half-serious tone. “He’s already sixty-eight and quite feeble.”
Bless this child of mine,
I thought
. He is helping me set the stage for “my uncle’s” demise.
I came out from behind the counter to give Leonardo a manly hug, then formally introduced Benito and Signora Russo. They were equally charmed by him, Anna remarking quietly to me that such a handsome boy was going to make some nice girl very happy one day.
“Come outside and see your sign,” Leonardo said.
“My sign,” I said rather stupidly, having forgotten my secondary excuse for having barged in unannounced at Verrocchio’s studio three weeks before. “Of course. My sign.”
All of us piled out the door and Leonardo began unwrapping from heavy canvas a long narrow sign that read, simply, APOTHECARY, in shades of green and gold. The lettering itself was bold and elegant, and a border surrounded it—a chain of flowers and plants, each of which I recognized as the herbs and medicines I used in my pharmacy. The leaves of yellow chamomile flower were interwoven with the stem of sage and some of its petals encircled the slender stem of basil and parsley, and on and on, never the same plant twice. I was moved deeply by Leonardo’s work and forced myself to stay dry-eyed as Leonardo threw up a ladder and he and Benito manhandled the sign up the ladder, installing it above the window.
A crowd of neighbors gathered. There was much good-natured chatting and laughter, and many compliments to the artist, which Leonardo accepted with grace and not a little pleasure. Benito told everyone who arrived that the artist was, in fact, my nephew.
Once the sign was up it looked wonderful. As the ladder was taken down everyone applauded and Leonardo took a bow. I could see how pleased he was with his artistic effort, and also with the public approval of my neighbors.