Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

EPILOGUE

Lisa

JULY 1498

LXXI

I did not die, nor did Francesco. The blow I dealt Salvatore de’ Pazzi downed him, and as he lay bleeding, he was killed by another.

His mercenaries, who rode into the Piazza della Signoria at the chiming of the bells, were met by formidable opposition. Upon encountering Piero’s men-and upon learning that Salvatore would not arrive to incite the crowd against the Medici and lead the storming of the palazzo and the overthrow of the Signoria-the mercenaries disbanded and fled.

Messer Iacopo never was avenged.

It was not time, my husband explained, for the Medici to return to power in Florence; there was insufficient support in the Signoria. Piero had learned the wisdom of patience. But the time will come. The time will come.

I have learned, to my amusement, that Francesco has told everyone in Florence that I am still his wife, that I have merely gone to stay in the country with my child because of nerves caused by the fright I experienced in the Duomo. He used his wits and connections to escape the noose, but he is disgraced. He will never serve in the government again.

At last I am in Rome with Giuliano and Matteo. It is hotter here, with fewer clouds and less rain. Mists and fog are less common than in Florence; the sun reveals everything in sharp, crisp relief.

Leonardo has come to visit us now that I have regained some of my strength. I am sitting for him again-despite the bandage on my neck-and I am beginning to think he will never be satisfied with the painting. He alters it constantly, saying that my reunion with Giuliano will be reflected in my expression. He promises that he will not remain in Milan forever; when he fulfills his obligations to the Duke, he will come to Rome, with Giuliano as his patron.

Shortly after Leonardo’s arrival, when I first sat for him in Giuliano’s Roman palazzo, I asked him about my mother. The instant he had told me I was his child, I knew it was true. Because I had always looked for another man’s face in my reflection, I had never seen his. Yet I looked on his features, in feminine form, every time I smiled down at my image on the gessoed panel.

He had indeed been smitten with Giuliano-until, through Lorenzo, he met Anna Lucrezia. He never expressed his feelings to her because he had sworn never to take a wife, lest it interfere with his art or his studies. But the emotion became quite uncontrollable, and when he first realized my mother and Giuliano were lovers-that evening on the shadowy Via de’ Gori, when he had first yearned to paint her-he was overtaken by jealousy. He could, he confessed, have killed Giuliano himself at that moment.

And the following morning in the Duomo, that jealousy distracted him from sensing the tragedy about to occur.

That was why he had never told anyone about his discovery-shortly after coming to Santissima Annunziata as the Medici’s agent-that my father was the penitent in the Duomo. How could he arrest a man for yielding to jealousy, when he himself had been so tormented by it? It had made no sense; nor did it make sense to pain me unnecessarily with such news.

When the murder occurred, Leonardo had been devastated. And on the day of Giuliano’s funeral at San Lorenzo, he had left the sanctuary, overwhelmed, and gone out to the churchyard to silently vent his sorrow. There he found my weeping mother and confessed his guilt and his love to her. Shared grief bound them together, and beneath its sway they lost themselves.

“And see what misery my passion caused for your mother, and for you,” he said. “I could not let you make the same error. I would not risk telling you Giuliano was alive, for fear you would try to contact him and endanger him and yourself.”

I looked out the window at the relentless sunshine. “Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?” I pressed gently. “Why did you let me think I was Giuliano’s child?”

“Because I wanted you to have full rights as a Medici; they could care far better for you than a poor artist. It harmed no one and gave Lorenzo joy on his deathbed.” His expression grew sadly tender. “Most of all, I did not want to tarnish the memory of your mother. She was a woman of great virtue. She confessed to me that, in all the time she was with Giuliano, she would not bed him-though all the world believed she had. Such was her loyalty to her husband; and so her shame, when she lay with me, was all the greater.

“Why should I confess that she and I-a sodomite, no less-were lovers, and risk damaging the respect due her?”

“I respect her no less,” I said. “I love you both.”

He smiled brilliantly.

I will send the portrait back with Leonardo when he returns to Milan. And when he finishes it-if he ever does- neither I nor Giuliano will accept it. I want him to keep it.

For he has only Salai. But if he takes the painting, my mother and I will always be with him.

I, on the other hand, have Giuliano and Matteo. And each time I gaze into the looking glass, I will see my mother and father.

And I will smile.

A Conversation with Jeanne Kalogridis

Could you tell us a little bit about your background and when you decided that you wanted to lead a literary life?

I was a shy, scrawny, unpopular kid with frizzy hair and thick glasses; since I had no social life, I read. I adored dark fantasy and science fiction, and I was writing my own stories as soon as I could hold a pencil. My mom and sisters were always dragging me to the mall on weekends, so while they shopped, I hung in the local bookstore. I think the defining moment for me came when I picked up a copy of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man in a Waldenbooks. His writing was so beautiful, so lyrical… I decided then I wanted to write like that.

“Of course, I had heard of The Da Vinci Code-who hasn”t?’

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Philippa Gregory, Tracy Chevalier, and Chuck Palahniuk.

Is there a book that most influenced your life or inspired you to become a writer?