Leonardo's Swans (23 page)

Isabella did not think it wise to point out to Beatrice that Uriel bore the face of Cecilia. Not at this time, when she did not want to enforce any connection in her sister’s mind between her husband’s former mistress and the Magistro. She had come to suggest another connection and she was waiting for the right time. But truly, there was Cecilia—ethereal and angelic, the most divine part of herself revealed by the great man once again. Isabella was almost sick with wanting the same honor. Did the most glorious, highest part of her—her very soul—not cry out for expression? Was Leonardo not the only artist on earth who could accomplish such a thing? Only Leonardo could capture that part of Isabella that she wanted to announce to generations to come that she had been on this earth; she had lived, she had reigned, she had loved, she had
mattered
.

Beatrice was on her knees in prayer. Isabella waited for her to look up. She did not want to disturb her sister’s communion with God. Finally Beatrice raised her face and stared straight ahead at the painting. She cocked her head to the side as if to ask a question. Isabella knelt quietly by her sister and touched her arm. Her sister looked positively saintly, skin gleaming in the cold light of the chapel.

“The Virgin looks as if she is still a child. A beautiful child,” Isabella said. But Beatrice was not about to make conversation in the house of the Lord.

Beatrice made the sign of the cross and stood. Isabella followed her sister’s cue, but got the distinct feeling that Beatrice was saying goodbye to God, while Isabella was saying goodbye to Leonardo’s work. Beatrice dug several silver coins out of her purse and presented them to the monk waiting for them at the church’s entrance. He took his craggy fingers out of his coarse wool pockets and accepted the money silently, bowing to the royal ladies, opening the door, and letting them out into the autumn sunlight. Beatrice raised her face up to the sun. Isabella stretched her arms out in front of her as if to embrace the fresh air; the church had been very cold, and she was happy to once again be outside.

Beatrice took Isabella’s arm as they walked to their carriage. “The Virgin is exquisite, is she not? They say the Magistro used the face of Lucrezia Crivelli when she was only thirteen. Have you seen her? She is one of the ladies in my service. She’s twenty-two now, and an awesome beauty. She is not warm, though. She keeps her distance from me as if she fears me. Though why would anyone fear me?” Beatrice asked.

“I don’t know,” Isabella answered. “You are too sweet to be feared, Beatrice. Perhaps she is shy.”

“I don’t think so. She is newly married. Perhaps she is preoccupied with her husband, though he is old and, I fear, unsuited for her. He is rich, though.”

“Can you not dismiss her?”

“No, that would insult her family, and Ludovico says that they are of some consequence or another. I told Ludovico that she made me uncomfortable, and he said, ‘Oh, think of her as ornament.’ ”

“It doesn’t seem fair that she, a lady in your service, and not you, has had the honor of her beauty being celebrated in a painting by the Magistro.” Isabella let her statement hang in the air between them.

Beatrice unlinked her arm from her sister’s. “Why do you think that it is necessary for me to be celebrated by the Magistro?” she asked. An uncharacteristic tone of sarcasm tinged her pleasant way of speaking.

“Beatrice, I said something to you that I regret. I told you that being painted by him would put you on par with Ludovico’s mistress, but I was wrong. It was a cruel thing to say. The Magistro paints all manner of women, including, as we have just seen, the Blessed Virgin. My words were foolish. I want to retract them, so that if you wished to be immortalized by the brush of the Magistro, you should not be denied the honor.”

Beatrice stepped into her chariot, taking the reins from the attendant who would ride behind the royal sisters on his horse. She waited for the man to help Isabella onto the seat beside her. She clicked the reins, slowly guiding the horse into the street.

“Isabella, there is something you do not understand about me. For you, immortality is at the end of a paintbrush. For me, it is at the end of my husband’s cock.”

Isabella was stunned to hear such words coming from her sister.

“I will achieve immortality through the births of my sons.” She flicked her whip at her horse, signaling to Isabella that the conversation was over.

FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:

Drawn by great curiosity and eager desire, wishing to see the various and strange shapes made by nature, I wandered some distance among gloomy, overhanging rocks, coming to the entrance of a large cave. I stood in front if it for some time, kneeling and shading my eyes, stupefied and amazed, for I did not have prior knowledge of its existence. Suddenly, two things arose in me—fear and desire. Fear of the menacing darkness of the cave, and desire to see if there was any marvelous thing inside it.

JUNE 1493; IN THE TERRITORY OF MANTUA

I
SABELLA
wakes from her nap on the boat, soft summer light warming her cheek. She must have been asleep for some time. The sun has moved enough so that the canvas tent over her head is no longer keeping her shaded. The afternoon sun is high in the air, the breeze is still, and she has been waiting for Beatrice, she estimates, for several hours. The nap has taken the edge off of her moodiness and her stomach has settled. When Beatrice arrives, Isabella will not be tempted to be belligerent about having to take a boat into the river in the middle of a summer day just to see her illustrious sister.

The sketch of her nephew, which she promised to return to Beatrice, sits on her lap. She picks it up and holds it in the sunshine to take in for one last time its extraordinary details. The hand of the Magistro is unmistakable. Though Beatrice’s letters had assured her that the baby boy, named Ercole after their father, had been sketched quickly, the details were remarkable. A thousand strokes of shading highlight the child’s features. Wisps of dark hair crown his high brow like a Roman Caesar. His round, open mouth and bright eyes give the impression that he is surprised to have been born; to have found himself on this earth, framed in a golden cradle adorned with the Sforza and Visconti and Este crests, and wearing an embroidered robe and a tiny pearl-studded cap. Isabella has seen several renderings of the Christ child by the Magistro, who emphasized his mortality, whereas the son of Ludovico and Beatrice he rendered as positively heavenly.

A beautiful boy, though he probably no longer looks like the sketch, which was done five months ago. Isabella thinks she could reach through the painting and cover him with kisses. Her whole body yearns when she looks at the picture of the child. She feels doubly envious—both the boy and the drawing done by the Magistro belong to her sister. She knows that she has to return the sketch to Beatrice. It will be hard to give it up, but she does not want to bring a curse upon her own pregnancy by coveting either the son or the sketch of the son of her sister.

Beatrice is on her way back from a diplomatic mission to Venice, the city Isabella has herself just visited. Isabella had been thrilled when the elderly doge, Agostino Barbarigo, had personally invited her to visit the city during the festival of the Marriage with the Sea—a great honor to both herself and Francesco. Every year, in a solemn ceremony, the doge would mount a grand ship and throw a ring into the sea, to give thanks for the primary source of Venice’s prosperity. Some version of this rite had been going on since ancient times. The ritual was always followed by an enormous banquet. To be feted by the doge at this event was an honor of the highest sort.

Isabella’s joy was instantly thwarted when she received word that Beatrice was planning to be in Venice at the same time. Isabella almost canceled her trip; she was mortified at the prospect of appearing in Venice with her sister. Since her marriage, Beatrice had had more than three hundred gowns made—an amount that had disgusted Duchess Leonora, who complained to Isabella that Beatrice could stock the town’s shops with her personal wardrobe. Her jewels, selected from Milan’s Treasure Tower at will, were beyond compare. Isabel of Aragon had been grousing to anyone who would listen that she was sick of Il Moro going into Milan’s treasury and decorating his wife “like a shrine.” When Beatrice traveled now, it was with a retinue of hundreds. She went nowhere without her choir of singers, her Milanese courtiers, her poets and musicians, her dressmakers, her dozens of ladies-in-waiting all costumed and bejeweled like royalty, and her finest horses, the saddlery alone of which was studded with more gems than the crowns of the kings and queens of most small nations. No—Isabella was not about to appear in Venice at what should be her finest hour, looking shabby in comparison to her sister. Isabella’s dress and retinue rivaled all but the great queens of the world. It’s just that now, her sister was fitting into that category.

Francesco had counseled Isabella to proceed with her plans; he had correspondence from Ludovico indicating that Beatrice would postpone her trip for a few weeks while Ludovico finessed some finer points of negotiations he was making with France. Luckily, his information turned out to be accurate, and Isabella had a splendid trip to Venice, during which every honor was bestowed upon her. The doge himself received her into the city at Santa Croce, along with the entire signory, and ambassadors from Naples, Milan, and Ferrara. After kissing the hand of His Most Serene Highness, Isabella was invited onto his barge, where one hundred of Venice’s dignitaries—eyes, smiles, and jewels glittering—awaited her. The prince insisted that she sit next to him as they wandered up the Canal Grande. Bells chimed from every major church and cathedral, and an arsenal of guns and trumpets announced her arrival. It seemed that the whole city had come out to see the marchesa, wife of the army’s captain general. Isabella felt as if the very stones of Venice were rejoicing over her presence. She spent a week being liberally entertained at the expense of the signory, and endured countless ceremonies with a cheery smile, even when the heat was extreme and the food lousy, thinking all the while of the honor she was bringing to Francesco and to the state of Mantua.

Everyone who was anyone seemed to have a palazzo on one of the canals, and Isabella visited queens, dukes, and other royalty from around the world. She learned astonishing things: that the Genoan explorer Columbus had found new trade routes in the west, returning with gold, spices, sandalwood, exotic birds, and a dozen copper-colored natives who were said to be strange but very beautiful. The Venetians were terribly worried over this new discovery because they controlled all the trade routes to the east. This Columbus had sailed west to reach India. The Venetians wondered if the astronomer Paolo Toscanelli had been right after all. Was the earth really round? At any rate, in true covert Venetian style, they had sent secret agents to Columbus to purchase a copy of his report to his benefactors, the King and Queen of Spain. Isabella adored hearing this kind of information that she could repeat all over the courts of Italy. She ended her stay with a tour of the city’s great art, and made the acquaintance of the Bellini brothers, Gentile and Giovanni, who were painting frescoes in the Council Hall. She spent an afternoon with them—their sister was the wife of Mantua’s court painter, Andrea Mantegna—and left with a promise from Gentile of a portrait of the doge by the year’s end for her studiolo.

After leaving Venice, Isabella went to Padua, where she prayed with all her heart at the Basilica of Il Santo that she was carrying a boy, and then on to Vicenza and Verona, where the signory had arranged for her to be entertained by the local nobility. Finally, at the end of May, since Francesco was traveling, she went to visit her dearest friend, her sister-in-law Elisabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino. The two of them spent glorious weeks together, reading poems and singing, and enjoying the fresh air. As a surprise, Ludovico sent her the viol player Jacopo di San Second, who serenaded her with a special song about a swan whose mate has gone. He misses her so much that he wants to die. Isabella could see the suspicious look on Elisabetta’s face as the viol player sang this mournful love song sent from her brother-in-law. It shocked Isabella too. Could it be that she still had Ludovico’s heart? Was that what he meant when he said that they had to be patient? She reveled in the idea—not that Ludovico’s affection carried the weight it had in the past. Now, outside of the flattery, it hardly mattered. She was carrying her husband’s child. She had brought glory to Francesco by the impression she had made in Venice. His letters to her reflected the heaps of praise he heard about her from every important personage she encountered on her trip, and he made no secret of how grateful he was to have a wife who could enhance not only his position with the Most Serene Republic, but the position of the city-state he governed as well. Ludovico’s affection at this point was like the diamond clasp on a pearl necklace—nice, but not so essential.