The Competition Read online

  Here it had stood, this new incarnation of it, for not quite fifty years. Brunelleschi had submitted a design, only to have Cosimo instantly reject it for its ostentation; he had no desire to arouse envy among the citizens. Instead it had been Michelozzo di Bartolomeo who had blended the Tuscan Roman elements—the pietra forte and rustication—with the modern—the biforate windows and the massive cornice that capped it. The transition from the rustication of the ground floor to the delicate ashlar of the third only made it loom taller as one looked up, a physical representation of the intangible force that was the Medici, a force that impended ever higher, ever more powerful.

  Viviana’s knees quivered. She looked to Isabetta; the woman’s face was far paler than usual.

  “Come along, ladies,” Leonardo urged them both gently. “It is, after all and in truth, just a home.”

  “Just a home.” Isabetta sneered at him in derision. “Sometimes, maestro, you can be quite maddening.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Leonardo replied, not perturbed in the slightest. He rapped his knuckles quickly, twice, upon the carved wood door. Just as quickly, it opened for them, a man in the red and gold liveries of the house stepping aside as soon as he saw Leonardo upon the threshold.

  “Grazie, Paolo. His study?” Leonardo asked of the man.

  “Sì, signore.” The man dipped his head, pointed the way forward, though it was only a formality; Leonardo knew his way around this palazzo, had lived in it for a few years when the troubles were upon him.

  “This way, my dears,” Leonardo said softly.

  The eyes of those who had built the Medici dynasty locked upon Viviana from out of their frames. Each portrait hung on the polished mahogany of the entry hall. Piero the Gouty, Cosimo Pater Patriae, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, the last considered the founder of the family, of its power. Viviana walked stiffly past them, following their stares from the corner of her eye.

  “How lovely.” Isabetta’s worshipful whisper brought Viviana’s gaze forward, into the glorious courtyard awaiting them, situated just to the left of the palazzo’s center. It was lovely indeed, a vista with the power to overcome all anxiety.

  Four great stone columns anchored the quadrangle-shaped courtyard at each corner. Between each pair stood two more columns connected by graceful arches topped by a broad, horizontal band of sculptures. Pagan-themed medallions alternated with the centuries-old Medici crest, the six palle the family attested symbolized the dents upon Averado’s shield, a knight of Charlemagne, he whom myth held had defeated the giant Mugello, and a knight to whom the Medicis claimed relation. Looking upward, one saw the inner exterior of all three floors, the blue sky, and the sun shining down through a wisp of cloud.

  “How glorious it would be to paint here,” Viviana murmured.

  “You cannot imagine,” Leonardo affirmed. He led them to the left, through the columns, and into the roofed portion of the courtyard. “Wait here just a moment.”

  Viviana’s foreboding awaited her in the shadows. “Do not leave us…” But he was gone, through a door that closed quickly behind him.

  The two women inched closer to each other, shoulders rubbing, gaining strength from the touch.

  “We must be as emotionless as possible,” Viviana whispered, as much to herself as to Isabetta.

  “We are artists, we are about naught but conducting the business of art, the same as any man, any artist,” Isabetta championed, chin jutting, shoulders rising. Viviana’s jaw tightened, no longer with dread, but resolve.

  “Come along,” the call came, from Leonardo’s voice, from the door.

  United, the two women walked through it.

  The opulent room, walled with the same glistening mahogany as the foyer and bedecked with exquisite tapestries, overflowed with an array of objects d’art and artifacts that filled almost every nook and cranny. Viviana recognized two ancient marble busts of Augustus and Agrippa. Not far from them, she spied what could only be authentic Chinese vases. Jeweled daggers, coins, medallions, and antique cameos lay everywhere, as if tossed casually aside. The most dominant objects, though, were books. Like strewn petals, they were scattered everywhere with no rhyme or reason, some open, some closed, piled one atop the other. Among them lay books of another sort, journals, some with their ink barely dry.

  All were inconsequential in the face of their owner and the city’s ruler, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Viviana had only been this close to him once before, when he condemned her husband to death. She looked at him far more closely now than she had on that fateful day.

  How could it be that he was, in truth, so plain in appearance? He had swarthy skin beneath a cap of straight black hair that fell to his chin, dark eyes set deep and close, a long nose seemingly squashed upon his face. Only average in height, yet he seemed to fill the room with his broad shoulders. Those same dark eyes pierced as sharply as his daggers.

  “Magnifico, I present to you Madonna Viviana del Marrone and Isabetta Fioravanti,” Leonardo graciously introduced them, with little attempt at curtailing his possessive pride.

  As if rehearsed, they dipped into curtsies of the same depth at the same time.

  “Fair ladies.” The harsh voice brought them back up. Lorenzo stood and came round from behind his gilded desk to stand before them. His air of domination and preeminence expanded. At thirty-five his masculinity—the virility of him—was ageless.

  He studied them as he might one of his artifacts; Viviana felt as if he were undressing them, so intense was his scrutiny. She suddenly realized she had no notion what Leonardo had said of them or why they were there. Lorenzo quickly freed her of her ignorance.

  “My friend here tells me you have come with a request?”

  They answered him with silence. Viviana could have kicked herself; they were utterly unprepared. “We have, Magnifico.” She cleared the croak from her voice, fingers twining and twisting with each other. “I will tell you straight away, it is a request that you may find unique.”

  Lorenzo chuckled, with a quick glance at Leonardo. “Why does that fail to surprise me? Well, then, you have prepared me. Continue.”

  “We would—” Viviana began.

  “Before we tell you of our request,” Isabetta cut her off brusquely, taking a step closer to the powerful ruler, “we must tell you who we are, what we are.”

  Lorenzo’s dark brows shot up his short forehead. Just the hint of a grin, a smirk, appeared on his thin lips. “Are you not two citizens of Florence, both widows?” He jutted his protruding chin toward Isabetta in her widow’s weeds, yet made no mention of Viviana’s husband; there was no need.

  “We are that. But we are much more.” Isabetta unfurled her shoulders, fingers clinching doggedly.

  Lorenzo’s eyes slanted as they roved over her, down then up; his grin widened. “I am tantalized. Tell me then, who and what are you?”

  Isabetta looked sideways to Viviana, to Leonardo, finding strength in their steadfast gazes.

  “We are artists, Magnifico,” she began, softly respectful. “We are painters and sculptors who have studied our craft for many years, some for the majority of our lives. We have our own studio where we create masterpieces.” Her voice rose and ended with commanding conviction.

  Lorenzo blinked, glance darting between the two women before him. This man had experienced great power and blinding fear, war and death, pinnacled heights and hellish lows. Upon his face, Viviana swore she glimpsed surprise.

  “I have been tutoring them for over six years.” Leonardo saw it too, the man’s surprise, his incredulity.

  Lorenzo’s sharp stare targeted the artist. Leonardo shrugged his shoulders in response. Lorenzo rolled his eyes heavenward, then back to the women before him.

  “As you have no men to keep you appropriately occupied, I suppose there is nothing untoward in your activities,” Lorenzo ruminated dismissively.

  “We are not all widows,” Viviana said quickly, perhaps too quickly.

  “‘We?’ There are more of
you?”

  “Six in all, Magnifico,” Isabetta avowed. “Three widows, two married, and one as yet to marry.”

  Lorenzo de’ Medici, ruler of Florence and all its territories in fact if not in rank, took two steps back and leaned against his desk. “And the husbands of those married and the families of all, they approve of their womens’ activity?”

  Viviana tilted her head with a squint of her eyes, a thinning of her lips.

  “Possibly ‘approved’ is not the most accurate word.” She pictured Patrizio, Fiammetta’s husband. “Perchance ‘accepted’ is more precise.”

  Lorenzo chuckled darkly at that. “And what is it you want of me, artiste donne?”

  He called them women artists; it was a start.

  “I…we have learned,” Viviana began. This, their request, was hers to make. “That Antonio di Salvestro de ser Ristoro of the Serristori has purchased a chapel in Santo Spirito. He wishes to have the fresco repainted, with an entirely new design.”

  “It is typically done,” Lorenzo replied.

  “And we would like to bid on the commission.”

  Her words, their message, stopped Il Magnifico as abruptly as any army ever had.

  “Surely you jest.”

  “We do not, Magnifico, we are serious, deadly serious,” Isabetta said harshly with a look upon her face that begged defiance. Viviana nudged her with her elbow. Isabetta continued, this time more amiably. “We have the talent. We have the resources and the time. And the married women have their husbands’ permission.”

  “Dio mio.” The blaspheme slithered through Lorenzo’s straight rows of teeth. He rose up, walked to them, stopping only inches away. “I know women have little notion of politics, but…”

  “In that, I must disagree.” Viviana couldn’t catch the words as they flew from her mouth. “We are all very aware of the state of our Republic, of your efforts to bring it back to its former glory.” There was more she could say, more of their knowledge of Lorenzo’s tribulations, but she captured those thoughts before they became words. Most men seemed to trivialize women further the more intelligent they deemed the women to be, as if such intelligence threatened their own.

  Lorenzo’s dark eyes narrowed. “Then you know there could be reprisals for such permission, were I to give it. Reactions that may not further my cause.”

  He spoke to them plainly, as he would to men. It gave Viviana hope.

  “Or it could garner you greater power, such as that which you seek among the popolo.”

  The hard smirk appeared on his face once more, but Lorenzo did not speak. The next words belonged to Leonardo.

  “We know how life truly works; we men only believe we are in control. What goes on behind the closed doors of homes and bedrooms, the force of the women behind those doors, they are the true rulers.” Leonardo spoke with his quiet wisdom, which was often so very loud. “It will go well with the women, with many women. I feel certain of it.”

  Once more Lorenzo glared at the artist.

  He turned from them then, walking slowly back behind his desk to sit in the large wing-backed chair. Lorenzo steepled his hands together, long fingers touching at the tips as he tapped them against his lips. Viviana squirmed; each moment felt like the span of a lifetime.

  “Make your bid, madonnas,” Lorenzo returned his attention to the array of papers before them, dismissing them already from his mind as well as his chamber, “but I think I shall hear no more about it.”

  “How—” Isabetta stepped forward, a lunge, red splotches blooming on her face. Her beauty became a fearsome thing to behold. Lorenzo did not miss it.

  Leonardo and Viviana caught her by the arms.

  “Grazie, Magnifico,” Viviana said obediently. “Grazie tante.”

  “Many thanks, dear friend,” Leonardo added, receiving a scoff from Lorenzo that held a note of displeasure.

  Together they turned Isabetta away, Viviana reaching back to close the door behind her before Isabetta could say anything that would cause the man to change his mind, but not before she caught the gleam of Lorenzo’s gaze upon her friend, a blaze of attraction in his eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  “Once you have set your brush upon the canvas do not let fear create false strokes.”

  “It’s been announced!” Mattea burst into the studio, rubicund spots tinting her cheeks. “It has been posted!”

  Their words burst in the quiet room like fireworks in a black sky. Gone were the days when only one or two of the artists worked in the studiolo, when some came only once or twice a week, sometimes less. In the days that had followed Viviana and Isabetta’s visitation to Il Magnifico, since they had received his permission to bid—as dismissive as it was—more of them came more often, almost all and daily.

  Today only Fiammetta and Mattea had not attended.

  “You should have seen them crowding around,” Mattea huffed.

  “Please be quiet, everyone.” Viviana raised her voice; she had no choice. “Slowly now, dear Mattea.” Viviana led the animated girl to a stool and brought her a cup of watered wine. “Here. Sip, breathe,” Viviana coaxed her like an agitated child. “Now, tell your story, every bit, and slowly.”

  “Well.” Mattea let out another staccato breath as the other women gathered round her perch. “I was coming back from the mercato, but first I went to the Baldesi palazzo on the Via Caizaiuoli. I had to deliver a christening gown I had embroidered. It was really the loveliest work I had done in some time. I put in—”

  “Yes, cara, I’m sure it was,” Isabetta cooed, guiding the young woman’s focus back toward the target. “You can tell us all about it, after you tell us about—”

  “The commission, sì, sì. When I came back out of the Baldesis’, I noticed a crowd of men around the Arti del Medici e Speziali. Well, it could only mean one thing, no?”

  They all nodded. They all knew a crowd around the Guildhall of Doctors and Apothecaries, the guild to which painters belonged, always meant one thing and one thing only—a request for bids on a concorrenzi had been posted.

  “Though I never expected to see that commission, our commission.” Mattea spoke of the cappella fresco as if it already belonged to them. Viviana thought such resolve a powerful thing. “But then I heard the milling men speaking of Antonio di Salvestro, I saw his name at the top, and I knew. I knew what it was.”

  “You didn’t try to read it, did you?”

  Leonardo startled them with his harsh tone; it was a note he never sang.

  “N—no, I didn’t. There were too many men. I never could have gotten close enough.”

  Leonardo sighed, as did Viviana. They must tread this virgin path carefully. They must keep it a secret for as long as possible, until—or if, a brittle voice in Viviana’s head tried to correct her—they actually received the commission. Things would go much smoother if they could.

  “Good. Good,” Leonardo told Mattea, easing the look of worry on her sweet face. “I will take myself to the guildhall. I will find out the details and re—”

  “No need, maestro. I know everything we need to know.”

  Fiammetta flounced into the room. “I have spent the morning in the lovely company of one Antonio di Salvestro and his wife, Fabia.”

  “And?” Viviana prompted her.

  “And”—Fiammetta sauntered farther into the room—“it was as we expected. They couldn’t have been more thrilled to have a contessa in their home. They were effusive with their congeniality, serving me such wonderful biscotti, and something called barley wine. It was quite robust, I must say.”

  “And? The commission, Fiammetta,” Isabetta prompted harshly.

  “Ah, yes, well…it is to depict the Legend of the True Cross.”

  The pronouncement fell on the room with a loud thud.

  “It is an ambitious piece,” Leonardo said politely what they were all thinking.

  “It is an enormous undertaking,” Viviana said, stating the truth of it. She had seen such a fresco before, i
n the Basilica di San Francesco in Arezzo, done by the master Piero della Francesca and his studio. Francesca was an old man now, no longer painting, but his work, this particular work, many considered one of the great masterpieces of the era. And now they were to try to create another. A compendium of medieval legends that began in the time of Genesis, concluding to the seventh century, the Legend of the True Cross was a chronological sequence depicting the journey of the wood that would come to form the tool of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.

  “There are so many scenes to it,” Natasia burbled.

  Viviana swallowed. To depict the Legend of the True Cross was to create a series of murals, from the death of Adam to the Battle of Heraclius and Chosroes, all of which spoke to pieces and relics of the True Cross, depicting the scatter of it across the lands. She counted in her head.

  “Eight. There are eight depictions in all. Eight.” The last word squeaked out of her.

  “No, no.” Fiammetta shook her head.

  “Yes, Fiammetta, I have seen it my—”

  “Yes, I mean no, they do not want all eight. They only want three, one for each wall. For the lunettes he wants nothing but blue sky and wispy clouds and for the bottom tiers merely serene landscapes.”

  The women huddled around her sighed. Too soon.

  “But the scenes they do want are those with the most figures in them: Death of Adam, The Adoration of the Wood and the Queen of Sheba Meeting with Solomon, and Exaltation of the Cross.”

  “Oh, well, that’s much better,” Isabetta croaked. The Salvestros had chosen three of the most complicated of the eight scenes portraying the legend.

  “It is, cara,” Leonardo assured her, attempted to assure them all. “The omission of the battle scene is a great boon; it is by far the most complex and difficult of them all.”