The Poet Prince (32 page)

“All Colombina?” Maureen asked. When Destino nodded, Maureen asked, “Why is it that we never hear of her? Someone who inspired so much of Botticelli’s work? These paintings obviously depict the same model when you look closely at them.”

“Two reasons,” Destino replied. “The first is that everything about our Colombina was too controversial for history to record. The second is that Botticelli later discovered another, more famous muse who overshadowed all others.”

He moved them all to stand before one of the most iconic paintings in the history of art. In
The Birth of Venus,
a naked goddess of beauty arrives on earth, standing on a scallop shell as her golden hair floats over her body.

“My friends, allow me to introduce you to a sister from the past, Simonetta di Cattaneo Vespucci. But you may call her Bella, as we all did back then.”

Genoa
1468

I
N A FAMILY
renowned for the beauty of its women, the young Simonetta Cattaneo was the crowning glory. There had never been a girl so lovely, so exquisite of both feature and coloring. Her hair was the one element of her appearance that everyone remarked upon: by the age of ten, it hung to her waist in thick, apricot waves, a stunning golden peach color, not quite red, yet not blond in any traditional sense. Like all else about the young woman who was known by the nickname of la Bella, “the Beauty,” her eyes also complied with God’s command that everything about Simonetta be unequaled by any woman alive. They were a nearly translucent blue with coppery flecks, and they sparkled with the sweetness of her good humor.

Simonetta’s skin was uncommon for an Italian woman, even one of such storied lineage. It was the color of rich cream, dotted gracefully with soft freckles in strategic places on her body and face. Her family referred to these as “angel kisses,” for they were like sweet punctuation marks that highlighted the beauty bestowed upon her by the divine. She was tall, even as a child, lithe of limb and slender, moving with the grace of a willow tree in the first breezes of spring.

And yet for all her physical perfection, Simonetta was equally flawless of character. She was a gentle girl, and deeply sensitive. For many years into the future, her mother would tell the story of hearing her daughter crying on a spring afternoon, then searching for her with rising desperation as she heard Simonetta’s sobs increase. She found her daughter weeping uncontrollably in the rose garden, as she sat amid a sea of colorful blooms. Roses in sunset shades of reds and oranges blossomed all around her, set against a sea of smaller white blossoms. There were butterflies in the garden this day, large yellow wings with black patterns flitting over Simonetta’s head. The scene was idyllic and beautiful, and the lovely young woman with the gleaming apricot hair had her face lifted to the sun. She wept uncontrollably.

“What is wrong, my child?”

Madonna Cattaneo ran to her daughter, wrapping her arms around her as the girl’s body shook against her own. The girl fought through her tears to speak.

“Is . . . isn’t it so beautiful?” Simonetta cried, pulling away from her mother to gesture around the garden. “The flowers, the butterflies. All that God has created for us. Could anything be more beautiful than this? How blessed we must be for God to love us so much!”

The child Simonetta wept with the joy of God’s creation, and for the beauty of the world. She remained pure in her appreciation of the precious nature of life on earth, every day of her existence. That loveliness from her inner being radiated, shining forth as a beacon of light that would one day touch the world, influencing millions for centuries into the future. But on that day in the garden, Simonetta’s role as the future muse who would represent the Renaissance was being decided for her.

Her parents had just the night before been weighing their options for their daughter’s marriage. She was a Cattaneo, which was enough to command a strong match anywhere in Italy. But that she was exquisitely beautiful with it was a benefit beyond florins and jewels. Beauty was necessary for landing a marriage within one of the strategic Florentine families. Marrying into Florence was no easy task for a foreign family; it was a culture that demanded beauty, intelligence, and wit in their women, in addition to hefty dowries and family connections. It was easy enough to marry off a plain girl into Rome or the outer regions of Lombardy if the money and paternal influence were there. Not so in Florence.

The Cattaneo family was the royalty of the ancient city of Genoa. They were descended from a storied Roman dynasty, one in which the women played a secret yet powerful role. They were teachers and healers, prophetesses with a hidden legacy of prayer and traditions that harkened back to the earliest days of Christianity. The Cattaneo women wore a symbol woven into their clothes and etched into their jewelry to represent this legacy. It was a pattern of stars set in a circle, dancing around a central sun. It was the symbol of Mary Magdalene, called the
Magdalene’s seal, and it had been used by women in the Order of the Holy Sepulcher for almost fifteen hundred years.

The family were members of the Order descended from the legendary early Christian leaders, Saint Peter and his many granddaughters named Petronella. It was this element of their family lineage that influenced the Cattaneos’ decision. Simonetta’s husband must come from Tuscany, where the Order was strongest, but more specifically from Florence. The Master had been consulted, of course. And while they
had all considered marrying Simonetta into the Medici dynasty, Lorenzo was on the verge of a betrothal and Giuliano was being held in reserve for possible leadership within the Church. Thus it was
determined that Marco Vespucci, the soft-spoken son of a wealthy and noble Tuscan dynasty, would be the best match for Simonetta. He was gentle, as she was, and a scholar. His family fortune and properties would ensure that this unique Cattaneo treasure would be well cared for and protected. Any children from the pairing would be of the most noble combination of bloodlines and likely to be both beautiful and intelligent.

And so it was that on the day that Simonetta Cattaneo wept for the beauty of God’s creation, her parents made the decision to send her to Florence. She would study there with the Order and with the Mistress of the Hieros-Gamos, Ginevra Gianfigliazza, in preparation for her marriage to Marco Vespucci. The Cattaneo family were happy to discover that Simonetta would not be entirely alone during her preparation. A daughter of the Donati family, also renowned for her beauty of both body and spirit, would be waiting to greet their Simonetta as a “sister.” With the grace of the Father and Mother in heaven, the girls would become friends and the Cattaneos’ precious daughter would not be lonely so far away from the flowers and butterflies she loved so
much.

La Bella Simonetta.

Even her name is art, one that I whisper as I paint even all these years after she has left us.

Will I ever capture her as she deserved? Perfectly and totally as the pure, yet real, living example of beauty that she was?

I remember the first time I saw her, at the Antica Torre, in the celebration that the Order created to welcome her to Florence. I could neither breathe nor speak when I looked upon her for the first hours that I was in her presence. Surely such ethereal magic could not exist in flesh and blood. And make no mistake, this was not mere physical perfection, although she was all of that and more. It was her radiance, her divine sweetness, that I knew would haunt me until the end of time, until I captured it perfectly.

It is a quest without end. Capturing Simonetta is the goal I will never accomplish and will never cease to pursue.

And yet that night in the castle built by the Gianfigliazza family, I saw her not as singular perfection but as the completion of a trinity of the divine feminine essence that I had come to worship. On that magical evening I watched as Simonetta danced with Colombina and Ginevra. I sketched them as they moved together, more grateful than I had ever been in all my years to have my sketching tools with me.

I saw that these three women each represented an aspect of female divinity and then sketched them as such: Simonetta was purity, Colombina was beauty, and Ginevra was pleasure. Together, they were the three graces, dancing hand in hand as sisters, representing love in its earthly forms.

I would never forget that night for as long as I lived, and I vowed to paint the three of them together like that in some way that would capture the magic these women bestowed upon us. Lorenzo was in attendance, as was Giuliano, and both were equally entranced by the beauty that surrounded us. We were a family of spirit, immersed in the mission we were devoted to, while delirious with gratitude for the perfection of the world.

How fleeting such beauty is, how temporary. All the more reason for us to love it, revere it, and celebrate it in any way we can while it is with us.

I remain,
Alessandro di Filipepi, known as “Botticelli”

FROM THE SECRET MEMOIRS OF SANDRO BOTTICELLI

The Uffizi Gallery, Florence
present day

“N
O PRIMAVERA
.” Destino was firm. “Not today. Later.”

Maureen, Peter, Tammy, and Roland were rebellious. They were here, in the Botticelli salon, where one wall was dominated by the enormous, mural-like masterwork of Botticelli’s career known most commonly as
Primavera,
or
The Allegory of Spring
. It was a painting they all loved so much that Bérenger had a replica of the same enormous size installed in the château. To tell them that they were not even permitted to go and look at it up close seemed almost cruel, if not silly. How could it hurt?

“Find your spiritual discipline, my children. If this is the harshest task I ask of you on this path, you should all be grateful.”

There was humor in Destino’s voice, but the point was made. If their greatest spiritual trial was that they couldn’t get an up-close look at a painting, they needed to count their blessings.

“You do not yet have all the information you need to appreciate what
Primavera
truly is in its entirety. I assure you it will mean far more and have the lasting impact that it was meant to have if you will allow yourselves to wait. Some things are sweeter for the waiting, and this is one of them.

“But to take away the sting, let us look at the
Madonna of the Magnificat
.”

They followed Destino to the painting, which had been commissioned by Lucrezia Tornabuoni for her twentieth wedding anniversary with Piero de’ Medici. Destino pointed out the various angels and explained which of the Medici children had posed for each as they all listened intently. On Maureen’s left, a young woman was inching up, clearly trying to hear the commentary. She was young and striking,
with close-cropped dark hair and huge doe eyes. She was extremely thin, which was the fashion at the moment with younger people in Italy, and wore jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. Maureen also noticed that she wore black leather gloves and carried a notebook—or possibly a sketchpad—and a pen.
She must be an Italian art student,
Maureen thought, but paid little attention, as she was listening to Destino.

Destino was answering a question for Roland when the girl in the gloves tapped Maureen lightly on the shoulder. She surprised Maureen by speaking to her in excellent English, with a slight British accent.

“I have heard that some believe this is Mary Magdalene and not the Virgin Mary,” the girl said.

Maureen smiled and shrugged, noncommittal. “Well, she is the most beautiful Madonna I have ever seen, regardless of which one she is,” Maureen replied.

She was very careful in public not to become engaged in controversial conversation with strangers. This girl appeared harmless enough, and was very possibly one of her readers, given that Maureen was the author who had, in her first book on the subject, put forth the theory that this Madonna was, indeed, a representation of their Magdalena.

“The most beautiful Madonnas I have ever seen are Pontormo’s, from his deposition mural in the Church of Santa Felicita. Have you seen those?” The young woman gushed. “His Magdalene wears a pink veil, rather than a red one. She is stunning. And it is one of the few deposition paintings that contains Saint Veronica at the foot of the cross. You really should go see it if you have time. It is just across the river over the Ponte Vecchio, ten minutes’ walk from here.”

Maureen thanked the girl, always interested to discover some new and beautiful piece of artwork. No doubt Destino would know a few things about the Pontormo painting too. But the mention of Veronica was the most interesting to Maureen. Veronica was an important character in the legends of the Order, and yet she was often overlooked.

The young woman was ripping out a page of her notebook now, where she had written the address of the Church of Santa Felicita. She handed it to Maureen, who thanked her.

“My pleasure. Enjoy your stay in Florence,” she said sweetly, and with a wave of her gloved hand, she walked out of the Botticelli room without looking at one single piece of art.