The Madonna of the Almonds (4 page)

Bernardino walked his beloved streets under the cowl of a cloak – he did not wish to meet his rival before he could safely quit the place. But on the way back to his lodgings he went to the places he loved well. He walked in step with the bawling bells that shivered his ribs with their sweet cacophony. Through the Florence he loved, the square where Savonarola had burned, and the vanities with him. Bernardino had little to do with the looking glass, so he could not know that as he said a tender farewell to the wrestling statuary that adorned the Piazza della Signoria, the carrera marble exactly matched the strange silver hue of his eyes. He leaned on the warm stone balustrades of the Arno and said goodbye to the perfect arches of the Ponte Vecchio. The late evening sun – his favourite light of all – turned their stones from amber to gold in her daily alchemy. But Bernardino knew not that his own skin had the same rosy hue. As he wandered through precincts of Santa Croce and bid
arrivederci
to the monks of the
Misericordia
, he was unaware that those Holy fathers wore cowls as black as his own hair. He was innocent of the fact that the pearly marble of the vast domed basilica was precisely the white of his teeth. Yes, whether he knew it or not, Bernardino was as handsome as the city itself. At the last, he took a drink from the fountain of the golden boar and rubbed the
Porcellino’
s nose to be
sure that, one day, he would return. Bernardino was not given to introspection. He would miss the place, to be sure, but his spirits were already bubbling to the surface. As he walked home he looked to the future, singing softly a ditty composed by Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Il Magnifico
himself: 

In the
studiolo
, Leonardo was still for a moment as he thought on Bernardino. It was well he was gone, for the boy was too beautiful to be under his eye every day. He thought of the lustrous black curls, the startling eyes that spoke of a heritage far from Lombardy; the black lashes that looked as if each had been painted individually by the finest sable of no more than three hairs. Bernardino even had all his teeth – and white ones at that. Leonardo sighed in valediction and turned back to his model.
She
was no beauty, however he may flatter the husband, but still she had something, if only an exquisite seriousness of countenance. He
assumed that her nickname
‘La Gioconda’
was given to her with ironic bent – a play on her name, and no indication of her general humour. But wait…something was different… round the corners of her mouth there played – almost, but not quite, a smile? Her gravity had dissolved in an instant to this enigmatic, this wholly inappropriate expression. Leonardo cursed Bernardino roundly. What had he said to her? He took up his brushes and worked over the mouth once more.
Damn
the boy.

When Bernardino swore that any woman he painted would have to be as beautiful as an angel, he did not know that he would have to wait more than twenty years to find her. When he painted his first commission for the Doge, her parents were just lately married. When he began his
Pietà
at Chiaravalle near Rogoredo, she was being born. When he painted one of his greatest works in 1522 – the magnificent ‘Coronation of Our Lord’, painted for the Confraternity of the Holy Crown in Milan – she was at that time being wed to another and choking on an almond nut at the feast. Bernardino’s mastery grew, but he never, in all his models, found a countenance he considered worth painting. Not until he accepted a commission in 1525 did he come to be in the very same room as the object of his aesthetic desires. This was because, at the behest of the Cardinal of Milan, he came to be in the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Saronno on the very morning that Simonetta di Saronno
came there to pray for a miracle.

‘Who is
that
?’

Father Anselmo turned to his visitor. He guessed the artist was much of an age with himself, somewhat in the middle years, but his voice betrayed very different sensibilities. While Anselmo thought of God and things heavenly, this handsome fellow seemed made to seek only earthly pleasures. He liked the man already; for all that they had only been acquainted perhaps the quarter of one hour. But the priest’s answer held a warning.

‘Signor Luini, that is Signora Simonetta di Saronno.’

‘
Really
.’ Luini’s voice was full of hungry fascination.

Anselmo looked the taller man full in the face. ‘Signore. She is a very great lady of these parts.’

‘Of any parts, I’ll warrant, padre.’

Anselmo tried again. ‘She is just lately a
vedova
, widowed by the war.’

‘Better and better.’

Now the priest was properly shocked. ‘Signore! How can you say such a thing? The war has ravaged the entire of the Lombard plain – not just this poor lady, but many others are suffering the loss of those they loved. Great families and humble ones suffer alike. This battle lately at Pavia took away that poor soul’s lord – and he such a man! Full of youth and vigour, and proper devotion.’

‘Sounds like you’re missing him yourself.’

Anselmo tried to quash such inappropriate attempts at humour. ‘These wars, as all wars do, bring nothing but evil.’

Luini, unaccountable fellow, merely shrugged. ‘War is not always such a bad thing. Hundreds of years of wars on this peninsula of ours have set the city states so much against each other that all try and outdo their neighbours in respect to the arts. We have the finest artists in the world; architects and men of letters too. How many Swiss artists can you name?’

‘Perhaps God loves better a country of peace.’

‘Peace! They may have no wars at home to promote their arts, but they are hardly a peace-loving nation. The Swiss boast the best mercenaries in the world,’ exclaimed Bernardino, his face lively with argument. ‘But at least they kill both sides if they are paid enough. Very even-handed. I’m sure God is very well pleased with them.’

Anselmo did not mind how many points he conceded in the debate so long as they had left the dangerous subject of the lady of Saronno. But Luini’s mind could not be distracted for long. ‘Lombardy is covered in blood and paint; the blood drains away, but the paint stays forever. Especially with such a subject.’ He looked back at the lady. ‘She is devout you say?’

‘Indeed. She attends mass here every week – I myself married her here. It is the nearest church to her home.’

‘Which is where?’

Anselmo shook his tonsured head. ‘I will not tell you that. You must leave her be.’

But Luini was already making his way down the nave to the Lady Chapel. He needed a closer look. Anselmo followed him and plucked at his sleeve. ‘Signore, you must not approach her now! When we pray, we are talking to God.’

Bernardino shook off the hand. ‘She can talk to him later.’

She was kneeling next to a woman whom he supposed to be her maid. The lady was clothed in black and wore a veil, but of such thin stuff that he could see the gleam of her red hair through the net. She prayed not with her head bowed but with her face raised to the votive statue of the Virgin. Her hands, pressed together closely, were long and white; but her face! He had been right – she had the countenance of an angel which far surpassed anything he had ever created even in his finest hours. His heart began to thump. He
must
paint her. Bernardino sat down in the pew in front of her and hissed urgently: ‘
Signora
!’

He saw the maid jump and cross herself, but the young mistress simply turned her eyes on him. They were as blue as the waters of Lake Maggiore, where the village of his childhood – Luino – was placed. Never had he loved the lake so well as now, when he could compare it with her eyes. Her face had no animation, her expression was numb, but the serenity of her countenance did nothing to dim her beauty. ‘Signore?’ she said. Her tones were low and musical, but her mien icy. She could not be more than, what,
seventeen? But such carriage, such composure! Making no attempt to lower his voice, Bernardino said, ‘Signora, I wish you to sit for me. I want to paint you.’

He now had all of her attention. Simonetta had come here for a miracle, and the Virgin had sent her this? A man, perhaps forty years old or more, repellently handsome, and making a request of her that she did not understand. Was this another test? What could the Queen of Heaven mean by it? ‘Paint…
me?
’

By this time, Anselmo had caught up to them, for his girth and robes had hampered his progress down the nave. ‘I apologise for this man, my Lady. He is an artist,’ (‘a Great Artist!’ put in Bernardino, to be ignored by everyone) ‘lately come to paint the walls of this church, and if I understand him rightly his impertinent request is that you should… model – for one of the figures.’

‘Not just
one
of the figures,’ put in Bernardino. ‘The
main
figure. The Virgin herself,’ and to give emphasis to his point, he slapped a nearby statue of that sacred Lady with a friendly pat on the rear.

Simonetta di Saronno had heard enough. She swept out of the church followed closely by Raffaella. She did not like the man’s tone, or his irreverence to the Virgin, but there was something more. She had made the mortifying discovery that she was, despite her grief, susceptible to his considerable physical charms. No remembrance of how long she had been without Lorenzo in her bed could absolve her
of this sin. She felt jolted and guilty and resolved to atone for long hours before her
prie-dieu
at home, where
he
was not. She did not hear the apologies of Father Anselmo, but she did hear the parting shot of her tormentor. He actually stood on the steps of the church and shouted at her retreating back: ‘I’ll pay you!’

Anselmo dragged Luini back from the doorway. ‘Don’t be foolish! She is one of the richest ladies in Lombardy! She does not need your money!’

‘Everybody needs money,’ said Bernardino, his eyes on the retreating figure. ‘Speaking of which…’ he let the priest lead him back into the interior and explain the terms of the commission.

‘For each single figure of the Saints you will receive twenty-two francs per day.’

‘Want plenty of Saints, eh?’ asked Bernardino, with a cynical curl of his lip. ‘Add a bit of drama, don’t they? Hearts and eyes and breasts torn from the pious body like so much canonised offal.’

‘Indeed,’ said the priest, unmoved. ‘Yet the faithful identify with their suffering, especially at this time. They pray to them for intercession, name their children after them, even invoke them when they curse. They are woven into the tapestry of our lives. In Lombardy, the Saints walk amongst us everyday.’

‘What does that actually
mean
?’

Anselmo sighed and turned away beginning to move down the aisle. ‘If you don’t know now, someday you will.’

Bernardino followed, his business not concluded. ‘How about room and board?’

The priest turned back. ‘I am instructed to say that wine and bread is included, and lodging here in the bell tower of the church.’ Anselmo’s voice warmed with pride. ‘You’ll be very comfortable. The campanile is fairly new, ’twas built from a benefice given in 1516, and is considered one of the finest in the area.’

Bernardino was not listening. ‘Good. For that money I’ll do you a free Nativity.’

Anselmo tried not to smile. He decided it would be pointless to show Bernardino his pride and joy, the fragment of the True Cross contained in a great ruby-paned reliquary in the apse. He too disliked Luini’s irreverent ways; but could not help liking his person. And the man could paint. Anselmo had seen Luini’s ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’ while at seminary in Milan – in fact he had first recognised Bernardino, as he entered the church this morning, because the artist had, with customary arrogance, painted Christ’s figure in his own image. Bernardino may look Godly, but Anselmo knew him by repute to be a man of little faith and low morals. It was apt that his friends and fellow artists had made a play on Luini’s name and birthplace of Luino to nickname him
lupino
– the wolf. Luini even signed himself with the Latin tag ‘
lovinus’
on occasion. Anselmo sighed inwardly and
hoped that Bernardino would not be trouble. He returned to his theme. ‘How long will so many frescoes take?’

Luini rubbed his chin. ‘I’m a quick worker. I did a ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’ for the
Collegio
in thirty-eight days, and that had one hundred and fourteen figures.’ He revolved around under the vaulted ceiling, admiring as he did so the architecture of the interior – it was a lovely confection of a church, all white plaster and delicate mouldings. A few attempts had been made by anonymous artists to paint the pilasters and panels with biblical scenes, but these would be nothing to the frescoes that he would now paint. He laid one hand on a cold white pillar. He always liked to think of his churches as living things. This one was definitely female, with its pretty white iced interior, delicate belltower and tree lined cloister. The stone of the pillar warmed under his hand in welcome and he began to strafe his palm up and down, as if stroking the thigh of one of his willing conquests. ‘Get ready,’ he said beneath his breath, as if to a woman. With a sudden association of ideas he looked to the great empty wall at the narthex of the church. ‘At this end,’ he declared, ‘shall be a great scene of the Adoration of the Magi. The scene shall centre on the Virgin, with Simonetta di Saronno as my model.’ He said the name he would never forget.

Anselmo shook his head at Luini’s persistence. ‘She’ll never agree to it.’

Bernardino smiled, white teeth flashing like the wolf of his nickname. ‘We’ll see.’