Marina Fiorato: The Botticelli Secret

I felt tears prick again. Madonna. “You’d know all about that,” I rejoined. As I looked at her face, lined beneath the paint, and saw her sagging dugs peeping out of the top of her dress, I felt a sudden chill. The monk was right. We would all get old one day. Enna was twice my age, maybe five-and-thirty, and coming to the end of her use as a whore. She would earn less and less, and finally starve, or perhaps be murdered by those clients who liked their sex a little dangerous. Just one more dead tart, to be found floating and bloating in the Arno. I lifted my chin. Not me. I was on my way to Botticelli’s to be immortalized forever as the embodiment of youth. I flounced away.

“Pick up some borlotti beans for dinner?” wheedled Enna after me. (I forgot to say—my rival is also my house mate.)

Recovering my bravado, I raised my skirt and farted in her face. “Get them yourself!” I said. The polls snickered at Enna this time, and I left them cackling. Mentally removing myself from their low ways, I set off down the Via Cavalloti to the house of Signor Botticelli, and higher things.

4

Here are the three facts I knew about Botticelli.

Fatto Uno: he was actually called Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, but was nicknamed “Botticelli” after his corpulent brother Giovanni, a pawnbroker, who was known as Il Botticello, “the little barrel.”

Fatto Due: Botticelli was a Florentine by birth. He came from one of the poorest rioni of our city, Ognissanti. It’s so rough even I don’t go there.

Fatto Tre: he was totally in the pockets of the Medici. Even Signor Lorenzo de’ Medici, the father of our city, a man so great he is known as il Magnifico, thought the sun shone out of Botticelli’s arse. Apparently the Medici villa of Castello, which you can just see on the hill above Florence when the winter trees drop their leaves, is lousy with Botticelli’s frescoes.

A powerful artist then. But I was not nervous as I arrived at his studio. I merely told the acolyte who answered the bell that I was here to be painted. The boy was a negro, eyes and teeth bright in his face, and he gave me a look I was well accustomed to as I swept past. The studio itself was light and airy, with more glass in the windows than I had seen in all Florence. At the far end of the room stood a shadowy figure, but I hardly noticed him. There was something else there too. Huge, rectangular, and with color that captured the rainbow. I could see the panel was nearly finished, and it was wonderful. There were seven complete figures there, all larger than life, with a fat baby cupid flying above. All the figures, even the cupid, dwarfed their creator who stood before the panel. The vibrancy of their color made him almost a silhouette. I saw Bembo had been canny with me; the eighth figure—Flora—who was a mere faceless sketch at present, stood slightly to the side and to the fore of the picture. A Madonna of sorts was actually the central figure, already complete and beauteous. She looked exactly as I imagined Vero Madre in my head and in my dreams. The sward on which she stood was dotted and studded with amazing flowers that peeped from the grass like fallen jewels. She was flanked by three dancing maidens in white, and a couple of other figures—mythological?—whom I did not recognize. I was well pleased with the work, and must have made some sound of approval, for Botticelli turned and looked at me.

He was middle-aged, perhaps five-and-thirty, with black hair worn long to his shoulders. He was pretty well favored but quite short. And now, thinking about it, the figure on the far left of the painting, the fellow with the sword, looked exactly like the man who regarded me now.

Our eyes were on a level as he studied me. He took hold of my chin, and moved my head left and right, and forward again. Then he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Perfetto,” he said. His accent was heavy and a contrast to the beauty before us. But I understood him well enough. Perfect . I smiled back. This was the second time today I had had a man lay hands on me uninvited, and, as with the monk, I knew in an instant that Botticelli was not interested in me for sex. He wanted Flora, and I was here to give her to him.

He motioned to me to get ready and I followed his pointing finger behind a screen where a brocaded dress awaited me. The dress had numerous flowers painted onto the creamy white silk. And was beautiful and heavy. The screen told me that Botticelli did not know what kind of woman I was; he clearly thought I had some modesty. He did not know that I would have stripped in the middle of the room in a heartbeat. I put the dress on, shook my hair loose at his bidding, and came forth: Flora personified.

I could tell that he was pleased, though he said little. I knew I was in the presence of greatness as he circled me, arranging my pose. There was a silver ewer of coral roses by the window and he filled my skirt with them, counting them in—twenty, thirty, more—pulling the heads forth so every bloom may be seen. He showed me how to hold the skirtful of roses, my left hand beneath with the thumb tucked away for grace, and the right hand dipping into the blooms as if I was to scatter petals on the sward. I stayed still as a puppet, exactly as he had placed me, and he seemed pleased. Finally, he twisted my hair behind my shoulders. “No need to hide such a face,” he said, and I began to like him.

“As to your expression,” he said in his coarse Florentine, “I want you to give a tiny smile, as if you have just enjoyed yourself in bed.” Perhaps he did know what kind of girl I was. I thought about the night before, for I had trained Bembo well enough to please me. He had a little trick with his tongue . . . I thought of the monk doing it to me and my face heated and my lips curled. “Esatto,” said Botticelli. Exactly . And began to paint.

He painted all day. He said little and I said less. He let me take breaks and walk around, but then was exacting about my return to my pose. I watched the golden motes of light from the windows revolve like the gnomon of a sundial as the shadows lengthened and the room heated with low sun. At last he laid his brushes down and his palette too. I looked at the work and had to put my hands to my face to check it still rode atop my neck, so perfectly was it reproduced on the panel. My expression was replete, comely, and . . . well . . . cheeky all at the same time. No painted Madonna I. Bembo was right. I was a beating heart, a wet sex, a warm bed.

Flora.

The dress was still a sketch, though my hands were complete. “Will you not need me again?” I said, for despite my aching limbs I had enjoyed the day, enjoyed being a part of history.

He shook his head. “No. For I can paint the dress anytime. Such things are commonplace. You are a rare Florentine treasure. Bembo was right.”

I shook my head in turn. “A Venetian treasure,” I corrected him.

He raised a brow. “Truly? I have never been to the place, but I have heard of its beauty.”

Now I am always a great advocate for my home city, although in truth I know no more of it than the artist does, for I was a mere babe when I was bottled and shipped to Florence. So now I nodded proudly. “Indeed. A city of great beauty, and great trade too. Much greater than Pisa or Naples or Genoa, her seafaring rivals.” (Three more cities I had never seen.) Something about Botticelli made me want to seem intelligent, more than just a cheap pair of tits, so I trotted out, verbatim, this slice of travel-ogue that I had once heard Bembo say. But I had said something very wrong, for Botticelli went white and began to shake.

“What did you say?” It was little more than a whisper, from lips turned tight and blue. His face was ghost-pale, he looked as if he might faint.