Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

died at all, that Fra Domenico had not killed her. During one dream I was wakened not by emotion, but by the sound of stirring in the room. I lifted my head and made out Zalumma’s tall, familiar form in the darkness. She was moving toward the mattress on the floor, where she had always slept beside my mother. At last she realized I was awake, staring at her.

“I am your slave now,” she said, and with that she took her place on the floor by my side and settled down to sleep.

XXI

Ours was an unhappy home. While Zalumma and I became inseparable, our time was taken up with domestic chores, empty of meaning. I continued my routine: going to market on gray winter days in my mother’s stead, buying meat from the butcher, and doing other errands necessary to maintain the smooth running of the household, accompanied always by Zalumma and the driver. But this time, I had no one to instruct me; the decisions were now mine.

I avoided my father as much as possible. We ate uncomfortably when we supped together; many nights he lingered late in the city under the pretense of work, and so I dined alone. Despite my desire to be loving and forgiving, like my mother, I could not hide my resentment; I could not be kind. Not once did it occur to me to ask forgiveness for my vicious remark, for it remained the truth.

In his misery, he clutched at the teachings of Savonarola: He often repeated the friar’s contention that the end of the world was nigh, for only this-or death-would bring him closer to his beloved Lucrezia. I suppose he had no choice but to believe that God had taken his wife in order to spare her suffering; otherwise, he would have to accept a large measure of guilt for her death. Otherwise, he would have to deem Savonarola and the dullard Domenico murderers. Twice a day, he attended Mass at San Marco, with Giovanni Pico always at his side.

Pico became a frequent visitor to our home. My father and he began to dress alike-in simple black clothing which could have been taken for priestly garb were it not for the fine tailoring and the exquisiteness of the cloth. Although my father treated the Count with the greatest hospitality-making sure he received the finest morsels from our kitchen and the very best wine-there was a reticence in him, a coolness toward Pico that had not been there before my mother’s death.

At supper, my father would repeat what Fra Girolamo had said. He yearned to find the right turn of phrase, to evoke the precise emotion that would procure my forgiveness and inspire me to go to San Marco with him. I never responded to his assertions, but addressed myself strictly to the food before me.

I walked with Zalumma twice a day, in sun and rain, to our nearby church of Santo Spirito. I did so not because I wished to be pious-I still possessed a good deal of rancor toward God-but because I wanted to be close to my mother. Santo Spirito had been her favorite refuge. I knelt in the cold church and stared at the graceful wooden carving of Christ, expired upon the cross. On His face was a look not of suffering, but of deep repose. I hoped my mother shared a similar peace.

Three miserable weeks passed in this fashion. Then, one evening, after I had supped alone because my father was late, a knock came at my chamber door.

I had been reading my mother’s precious copy of Dante, trying to decide in which circle of Heaven Fra Girolamo might place himself; trying to decide to which circle of Hell I would confine him.

Zalumma was with me. She had grieved in private as best she could, hiding her tears, but she had known my mother far longer than I had. I would wake at night after disturbing dreams to find her sitting up, motionless in the dark. During the day, she devoted herself to me with a passion. When the knock came that evening, she was squinting next to the oil lamp we shared, decorating one of the handkerchiefs for my cassone, my wedding chest, with fine embroidery.

“Come,” I said reluctantly. I recognized the knock and had no desire for conversation.

My father opened the door halfway. He still wore his heavy black mantle and his cap. He slumped against the jamb and said, in a tired voice:

“There is cloth downstairs, in the great chamber. I had the servants spread it out for you. There was too much to bring up here.” He moved as if those words alone were explanation enough.

“Cloth?”

My question made him pause. “Choose what you wish, and I will bring a tailor for you. You are to have a new gown. Have no concern regarding the expense: It must be as becoming as possible.”

Beside me, Zalumma-who had also done her best to ignore my father since my mother’s death-glanced up sharply from her sewing.

“Why?” I could not imagine what had prompted this in him, other than a sudden desire to win back my affections. But such behavior was at total odds with the teachings of Savonarola: The friar frowned on sartorial display.

He sighed. The question vexed him; he answered grudgingly. “You are to attend a function at the house of Lorenzo de’ Medici.”

Il Magnifico-the very target of Savonarola’s preaching against wealth and excess. I was too stunned for an instant to reply.

He turned and left then, heading quickly down the stairs, and none of my calls after him would bring him back.

Zalumma and I went down that night, but in order to better see my father’s gift, we returned in the morning so that we had the light.

In the reception chamber, measures of Florence’s most breathtaking fabrics-in my father’s puzzling defiance of the city’s sumptuary laws-had been neatly folded and arranged in a dazzling display. These were not the somber colors suitable for a child of one of Savonarola’s piagnoni. There were peacock blues, turquoise, blue-violets and bright saffron, vivid greens and roses; there were delicate shades known as “peach blossom,” “Apollo’s hair,” and “pink sapphire.” For the camicia, there were fine white silks, as light as air and embroidered in silver thread, others in gold; there was a dish set nearby of seed pearls, which could be added to the finished product. There were shiny damasks, rich brocades, voided velvets, multiple- pile velvets, and thinner silk velvets threaded with gold and silver. What caught my eye was the cangiante, shot silk with a stiff taffeta weave. When held to the light, it reflected at first a deep scarlet; yet when the fabric was slowly moved, the color changed to emerald.

Zalumma and I were like children presented with a plate of sweets: We indulged ourselves, unwinding the fabrics, placing some together to better imagine the finished product. I draped them over my shoulder, across my body, then stared into my mother’s hand mirror to see which color most suited me; Zalumma gave her blunt opinion on each. For the first time in weeks, we laughed softly.

And then a thought struck me, abruptly darkening my mood. I had not been able to fathom why my pious father would permit me to attend a party at the Medici palazzo. First, it was too soon after my mother’s death for me to be seen dressed in a party gown; second, he was, by virtue of his devotion to Savonarola, an enemy of the Medici now (business matters, of course, had nothing to do with those of the soul, and so he continued to sell his wares to them). There was only one explanation for his desire to send his daughter in magnificent attire to see il Magnifico: Lorenzo was the unofficial marriage broker for all of moneyed Florence. No child of the upper classes dared wed without his approval, and most families preferred that Lorenzo choose the spouse. I was to be scrutinized, judged like a calf before slaughter. But almost every bride had seen fifteen summers.

My presence in the household was a reproach to my father, a constant reminder of how he had ruined my mother’s life. “I am not quite thirteen,” I said, carelessly dropping the bewitching cangiante into a pile on my lap. “Yet he cannot wait to be rid of me.”

Zalumma set down a fine measure of voided velvet and smoothed it with her hand, then gazed steadily at me. “You are too young,” she said. “But Ser Lorenzo has been very ill. Perhaps your father merely wishes to have his counsel while he is still among us.”

“Why would my father consult him at all, unless he saw a way to marry me off quickly now?” I countered. “Why else take the advice of a Medici? Why not wait and see me married off to one of the