Jeanne Kalogridis - Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

Lorenzo de’ Medici had lain dying, and I had asked him why he had been so kind to me.

I love you, child .

Had he believed himself to be my uncle? Or had Leonardo told him the truth?

I lifted my hand mirror and peered into it. I had lied to Leonardo when I once said that I did not often look at my reflection. When I had learned of my mother’s affair with Giuliano, I had diligently searched my face for hints of the smiling young man who had posed for Leonardo’s terra-cotta bust. And I had never seen him there.

Now as I looked into the mirror, Leonardo gazed back at me, haggard and owlish.

I woke late on the twenty-third of May, the day before Giuliano was to meet me in the Duomo. I had slept poorly the night before, awakened by Matteo’s muffled wails downstairs; I cried, too, until well after dawn, then fell into a heavy, sodden sleep.

When I rose, I went out to my balcony and squinted up at the sun, startled to find that it had passed directly overhead and strayed slightly to the west; it was already afternoon. The sky was exceptionally blue and cloudless-save for a long finger of dark smoke rising up in the east.

I stared at it, entranced, until Elena entered. I went back into the room just as she set a tray of bread and fruit on the table. She glanced up as she straightened, her expression grave. “You saw the smoke, then.”

“Yes,” I said slowly, still dazed from sleep. “Is it-”

“Savonarola,” she said.

“They burned him, then.” I had heard no news at all for the past few weeks, since learning Savonarola had been arrested. But I had known at once when I saw the smoke.

“Hung him first,” she replied unhappily. “In the piazza, in the very same spot as the Bonfire of the Vanities and the Trial by Fire. I went this morning. Ser Francesco encouraged us all to go.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Fra Girolamo? No, not a word. He was dressed only in his woolen undershirt. It was an ugly business. They built a round scaffold for the fire, filled it full of tinder, and raised a wooden beam in its center, so high that they had to build a long ladder to climb up to the top. The hangman carried him up and put the noose round his neck. He struggled a bit, didn’t die right away.

“Then they lit the fire. Some fool had put firecrackers in the tinder, terrifying everyone at first. They put chains around the monks so that when the nooses burned away the bodies wouldn’t drop down into the fire, but would roast slowly. The Signoria wanted a spectacle.” She shuddered. “The monks started turning black; and then a giovano struck one of them with a stone, and the bowels spilled out in a bloody rush… Finally, the flames got so hot and rose so high, the bodies cooked through, and the arms and legs started dropping off…”

I closed my eyes briefly. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.” I looked at Elena. “You said ‘the monks’… so he wasn’t the only one executed?”

“No. The heavy friar, the one who started the Trial by Fire… what was his name? Domenico. Fra Domenico died with him.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I will eat my breakfast now. I’ll call for you when I’m ready to dress.”

She left. I did not eat; instead, I went back out to the balcony to sit in the sun and watch the smoke rise to Heaven. I supposed that, with Savonarola gone, Fra Domenico had become a liability for Salvatore and Francesco.

Zalumma would have been pleased.

T he next morning, when Elena came to dress me, she carried a small velvet purse. When she opened it on the table, out spilled the sapphire necklace and the diamond-studded hairnet I had worn the day I married Francesco.

They had not been stored in my trunk. I had opened it on the second day of my imprisonment and discovered that all my jewels had been taken; I had looked for them with the intention of bribing Elena to flee with Matteo.

Francesco knew me well. But he did not know everything.

Elena went to my wardrobe and brought out the vivid blue velvet wedding gown and my finest chemise. “Ser Francesco says you are to look especially lovely today.” So; I was to be a fine lure.

I said nothing as she laced me into the gown; this time, I wore the brocade belt low so that I could easily reach it with a swift move of my hand.

I was silent, too, as Elena brushed out my hair. But when she began to arrange it with great care in the sparkling hairnet, I said, “You will not help with Matteo, then.”

I saw her face in the hand mirror; like her voice, it was stricken. “I dare not. You remember what happened to Zalumma…”

“Yes,” I said, my voice hard. “I remember what happened to Zalumma. Do you think the same will not happen to me and my son?”

She lowered her face, ashamed, and would not look at me or speak to me after that. When she was finished and I was ready, she moved to open the door.

“Stop,” I said, and she hesitated. “There is one very small thing you could do for me. I need a moment. Just a moment alone, to compose myself.”

Reluctantly, she faced me. “I am not to leave you alone, Madonna. Ser Francesco said specifically-”

“Then don’t leave me alone,” I said swiftly. “I left my shawl out on the balcony. Would you fetch it for me, please?”

She knew. She gave a little sigh and nodded, yielding, and walked slowly to the balcony, carefully keeping her back to me the entire while.

I moved faster, more quietly, than I had ever thought I could. I pulled my father’s dagger from the feathery insides of the mattress and slipped it into my belt.

Elena returned slowly from the balcony. “Your shawl is not there,” she said.

“Thank you for looking,” I said.

The soldier who had killed Zalumma-a hostile young man with scar-pitted cheeks-led me to the carriage, where Francesco and Salvatore de’ Pazzi sat waiting. Francesco was dressed in his best prior’s gown; for the first time since I had known him, he wore a long knife on his belt. Salvatore wore a lucco of muted dark green-the very sort of elegant but austere tunic that Lorenzo de’ Medici might have chosen. He, too, was armed with a fine sword at his hip.

“Beautiful, beautiful,” Salvatore murmured at the sight of me. He leaned forward, stooping in the carriage, and offered his hand to help me up; I refused, shaking off the hold of the soldier behind me. I grabbed the edge of the door and pulled myself and my heavy gown, with its long train, inside.

“She makes a pretty picture, doesn’t she?” Francesco remarked with pride, as if he had created me himself.

“Indeed.” Salvatore graced us with a haughty smile.

I sat beside the soldier. Claudio drove us; a second carriage followed, and I leaned out the window to try to see who was inside. I could only make out shadows.

“Sit back, Lisa,” Francesco said sharply, so that I turned back to look at him as we rumbled through the gate and onto the street. “You ought not be so curious. You’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know soon enough.” His eyes were bright from exhilaration and nerves. I stared at him, hard, and felt the weight of my father’s knife against my body.

It was a warm day-too warm for a heavy velvet gown-yet I felt cold and numb, and the air still carried a hint of smoke from the previous day’s fire. The light was too harsh, the colors too bright. The blue of my sleeve pained me so much that I squinted.

In the Piazza del Duomo, the crowds were few; I suspected they were even more spare at San Marco that morning. Flanked by Francesco and Salvatore and followed by my soldier, I walked past the octagonal Baptistery of San Giovanni, where I had been married and my son baptized. Francesco took my arm and steered me straight ahead so that I could not see those who emerged from the carriage behind us.