Leonardo's Swans (7 page)
Everyone in Italy knew that Ludovico Sforza had a mistress, Cecilia Gallerani, a beautiful and accomplished woman whom he held up as a wife, and who was pregnant with his child. Cecilia presided over Ludovico’s fabulous court of diplomats, philosophers, royals, intellectuals, and artists. They admired her without qualification. She owned palaces given to her by Il Moro. She wrote heart-wrenching poetry, which, when sung in her own lovely voice, brought tears to the eyes of knights and ladies alike. She was known for her fluent command of Latin, a language in which she read and sang to Ludovico’s many visitors.
All of this was common knowledge, information on the tip of every Italian tongue. Everyone knew that Beatrice’s betrothed prized this woman
so
dearly that he had cajoled Leonardo the Florentine, who
never
finished a painting, into completing a spectacular portrait of her. They say it was displayed in his apartments, and people came to pay homage to it as if it were an altarpiece in a church, and Cecilia, the Madonna herself. And yet she, Beatrice, a princess of the House of Este, favorite of the feared and terrible King Ferrante of Naples, was being forced to be a player in this colossal farce of a wedding.
Beatrice was aware that love was an accident in a marriage arranged for political purposes. But a man had an obligation to behave nobly and pay his betrothed some attention prior to the wedding. Her father had done this, and her parents had made a successful marriage because of it. Francesco had courted Isabella as if she were truly his beloved, and so she had become such. Ludovico, on the other hand, never made an appearance or wrote a kind letter. He had canceled two dates for their wedding, offering vague excuses about his schedule. Beatrice might have had a lovely wedding this past July, when travel through Italy’s northern countryside would have been delightful. As summer approached, however, Ludovico sent his ambassador yet again to Ferrara, with the excuse that urgent business would preclude a summer wedding. Worse, Beatrice had to suffer this embarrassment in front of Isabella, who had come to Ferrara to visit her family flushed with marital bliss and the news that Francesco had been appointed captain general of the Venetian army, the youngest man in the Republic’s history named to that post.
With the wedding date also came news of fresh corruption in Milan, which sounded like a complete mess to Beatrice, a snake pit of connivances. Young Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan in name only, remained a constant source of scandal. His wife, Duchess Isabel of Aragon, with whom Beatrice had played as a child in Naples, was forever writing to her family, begging to be taken back to their court. The young duke paraded his boy-lovers in front of Isabel, leaving her bed cold. Tongues wagged all over Europe that Ludovico kept the young duke busy with sodomites so that he, as regent, would not have to compete with any legitimate heirs. Only when King Ferrante informed Ludovico that he would not pay the final (and enormous) installation of Isabel of Aragon’s dowry did Ludovico see to the consummation of the marriage. And then, if rumors were correct, all sorts of bribes, potions, and illusions in the dark had to be used in order to get Gian Galeazzo to impregnate poor, lonely Isabel. Now the rumor was that she was pregnant, and Ludovico had another legitimate heir to worry about.
Oh, there seemed to be more intrigue in the court of Milan than in a Venetian assassination plot. The cast of characters was sinister indeed. She had heard that Isabel of Aragon was terribly threatened by the idea of Beatrice’s marriage to Ludovico. Already he had too much power. The last thing Isabel, the rightful Duchess of Milan, wished to see was Ludovico’s legitimate sons competing with her husband and her own offspring, should she be fortunate enough to bear this one to fruition. In Isabel of Aragon was Beatrice to find not a long-lost childhood playmate but a formidable and dangerous rival?
At the same time, Beatrice had read a letter that Messer Trotti had sent to her father from Milan, expressing concern over Ludovico’s ability to hold power, due to the amount of maneuvering he would have to continue to do against his enemies. “The Duke of Bari is already the great man that he fully intends to be. At the moment, he is everything. But who knows? In a short time, he may be nobody at all.”
Duke Ercole had assured Beatrice that the ambassador was merely trying to console them on the occasion of another of Ludovico’s postponements of the marriage. That was possible. But she wished that she could remain in Ferrara forever, under her father’s protection. Such as it was. She was fully aware that girls were often the sacrificial lambs to their father’s political ambitions.
Lying on her back now under the covers as the barge jerked over rocky waters, with a wet-nosed puppy on either side, Beatrice contrasted her circumstances with those of her sister. Here she was, floating on this funereal barge toward the dreaded Ludovico, while a year earlier, Isabella had made a grand entrance into Mantua as its new marchesa on a gold-draped chariot, with Francesco on one side and the Duke of Urbino on the other. Royals and nobles had come from all over Italy, and Isabella had basked in their attentions.
The entire year prior to Isabella’s wedding, the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara had employed hundreds of artists, jewelry and furniture makers, weavers, ceramicists, glassblowers, and goldsmiths and silversmiths to prepare for this great union. Leonora sent to Naples for exquisite tapestries that were part of the Neapolitan treasury, which, it was said, had taken Flemish weavers one hundred years to make. Wedding trunks decorated by Italian masters, a luxurious carved marital bed that looked most promising for beginning intimate relations, and a chariot draped with gold were all made in a frenzy of activity, with Isabella and her mother supervising and approving each singular detail. The two were entirely overbearing the year long, acting like generals preparing for the most important confrontation in history. Beatrice was made to observe Isabella’s constant joy while she experienced only heartache and humiliation over her canceled marriage dates.
Why was it that Isabella was getting everything, especially a man who looked at her as if she were Eve before the fall? Who couldn’t wait to see her, to give her the slightest little kiss or touch, which seemed to thrill the both of them? Just standing between Isabella and Francesco was to feel a current of intolerable heat, particularly if all that you were receiving from your own betrothed was one cold stab of disappointment after another. Beatrice had to admit, her sister was the essence of beauty and graciousness on her wedding day. She bore no jealousy toward Isabella. Except that she and not Beatrice would have constant access to those famous Gonzaga steeds. But gallant Francesco saw Beatrice’s lust for the animals and promised her that he would make her a gift of one very special horse every year, if that were her pleasure.
No, Beatrice knew that she and Isabella had very different ambitions. Achievement and recognition were everything to Isabella. She wanted to rule a kingdom and have all the interesting and powerful and artistic men in Italy at her feet, whereas Beatrice was not fed by the good or bad opinion of others.
Beatrice thought it had everything to do with the difference in their childhood years. Isabella grew up in Ferrara having to perform and be perfect for her exacting parents. Beatrice grew up in Naples with a bunch of indifferent nurses looking after her with one eye closed while they took yet more lovers among the king’s staff. The rules and standards of the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara were almost the death of Beatrice when she returned to their home. She longed powerfully for the days when she was set free to ride along the coast at Naples Bay, making picnics with the other unwatched children of the court, sneaking wine from the tables, and spying on the lascivious adults late into the night. Ferrara was a cold and damp prison of rigorous intellectual standards and artistic disciplines compared to wild and sunny Naples.
Isabella grew up behind the tall walls of that daunting castle and had prepared for a life of one public triumph after the next. Beatrice simply wanted to be happy, which did not include throwing her young life away on a man with a long reputation for dishonesty and intrigue, whose heart already belonged to another. With every breath, she felt as if the air was freezing her heart into a solid, lifeless thing. Perhaps she could keep it this way through the long years to come in an undoubtedly loveless marriage.
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:
The heart: A marvelous instrument, invented by the Supreme Creator.
“Il Moro! Il Moro!”
Hundreds of people shouted his name as Beatrice rode next to her fiancé on the wide Strada Nova at the head of the royal pageant. It seemed to her that the entire population of Pavia, this city of one hundred towers, this ancient home of the Lombard kings, had turned out to meet her. Even the busts of the great rulers of the past that lined the street and the characters in the frescoes on the walls of the palaces seemed to be looking in her direction, welcoming her to her new home. The muted winter light was soft on the grand palazzos on one side of the boulevard, and on the marble colonnades of Pavia University on the other, one of the oldest and best of all European institutions of learning. Today it was Isabella’s turn to ride behind Beatrice, which she did graciously, while Beatrice rode proudly next to her powerful bridegroom. Looking at him now, she was embarrassed by the fears that had gripped her on the journey toward this remarkable city and this remarkable man.
“My ancestors, the Viscontis, moved the capital to Milan long ago, but I still have tremendous love for Pavia,” Ludovico said to her as he waved to the multitude who had ventured from their homes wrapped in their warmest winter wools to get a glimpse of Il Moro and his bride.
Though it snowed lightly, it was warmer today, and the sun peeked out occasionally from the clouds, making a miraculous difference in the weather and in Beatrice’s temperament. The snowflakes fell so slowly and delicately upon her face that she felt as if the Lord Himself was dropping each and every one of them into place just for her as a gift for arriving into her new life.
She had heard so much damaging information about her future husband that she imagined him disliked by the people of Lombardy. She was stunned at this enormous public display of approval. In fact, she wondered if all the information she had collected over the years was wrong. Ludovico was not old. Oh, he was almost forty, which sounded almost elderly compared to her fifteen, but he was tall and formidable. He had shiny, straight black hair, which showed no signs of thinning, like so many men his age who lost the little round patch on the back of their heads so that they could be mistaken for monks. Ludovico’s thick mane hugged the outline of his face almost as if it was painted on. He had strong features that must bespeak of a sound personality. His nose was broad and straight, as the nose of a man should be. He had good, sharp cheekbones, whose peaks had been softened by love of food. His only physical defect, which Beatrice found ironic in that she believed she shared it, was a weak chin. Because he was older, she would be able to, if she cared to once they had gotten to know one another, and if he allowed it, playfully pinch a good bit of flab under his chin.
His manners were the finest. He had personally escorted herself, her mother, and Isabella off the royal bucentaur and courteously welcomed them to Pavia. He had paid particular attention to Beatrice, sizing her up with his eyes as he took her small, gloved hand. If he was displeased with the sight of her, he did not demonstrate it. He apologized for the cold as if he might have done something about it but did not have the time.
Her pessimism melted with each stride of this beautiful cinnamon-colored horse that Ludovico had presented to her as his first gift. She blushed, feeling foolish, indeed, when she reflected on the childish behavior she had exhibited yesterday, and as recently as this morning. The wedding party had stopped the day before at Piacenza at the palazzo of Count Scotti, where they ate roasted meats and plates of cooked vegetables at his long dining table, which sat between two fireplaces. The count laughed that the women attacked the food like a pack of starved chickens. Beatrice took advantage of the opportunity to bathe in a tub of warm water, in which she thawed inside and out, and then slept so soundly that she had to be threatened like a child with no breakfast by her mother to get out of bed. Her undergarments were dry, but cold and stiff from hanging before a fire that had long burned out. She did not want to leave, was determined, even, to find a way to remain behind. Clutching her mug of milk, she had taken the count aside and asked him if he wouldn’t provide her with the last vestige of a father’s protection by allowing her to remain with him and be his daughter. He called to her mother, asking if she had not done her maternal duty to dispel the little virgin’s fear of marriage. Leonora pinched Beatrice by the ear. “You are marrying the most powerful prince in Italy in the very city where Charlemagne was crowned. Pull yourself together or I will pull this ear right out of your head,” she whispered angrily, all the while yanking Beatrice toward her future.