Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

piagnoni?”

Zalumma moved to a sumptuous piece of celery-colored damask and lifted it. Sunlight reflected off its shiny, polished surface, revealing a pattern of garlands woven into the cloth. “You could refuse,” she said. “And, as you say, wait a few more years and then be married off to one of Savonarola’s weepers. Or…” She tilted her lovely face to study me. “You could let il Magnifico make the choice. Were I the bride, I would certainly prefer the latter.”

I considered this, then set the cangiante aside. While the interplay of hues was intriguing, the fabric was too stiff, the red and green too intense for my coloring. I rose, took the celery damask from Zalumma’s hand, and set it down beside a deep blue-green voided velvet, a pattern of satin vines running through the thick plush. “This,” I said, resting a finger on the velvet, “for the bodice and skirt, edged with the damask. And the brocade with greens and violets, for the sleeves.”

The dress was assembled within a week, after which I was called upon to wait. Il Magnifico’s health had been steadily declining, and it was uncertain when or even whether the affair would take place. I was strangely relieved. Though I did not relish living under my father’s roof, I relished even less the thought of going to live so soon under a stranger’s. And while taking up residence in my mother’s quarters brought painful memories, it also brought an odd comfort.

A second week passed; then, at supper, my father was uncharacteristically silent. Though he often repeated the friar’s assertion that God had taken my mother to Heaven out of kindness, his eyes betrayed uncertainty and guilt, as they did that night.

I could not bear to look at him for long; I finished my meal swiftly. When I excused myself from the table, he interrupted.

“Il Magnifico has summoned you.” His tone was curt. “Tomorrow, in the late afternoon, I am to take you to the palazzo on the Via Larga.”

XXII

I was not, my father iterated firmly, to speak of this with any of the servants save Zalumma. Not even our driver was to know; my father would take me himself, in the carriage he reserved for business.

The next day found me overcome by anxiety. I was to be on display, my good attributes and bad noted and used to determine my future. I would be studied and critiqued by Lorenzo and, I expected, a group of carefully chosen highborn women. My nerves were further undermined by the revelation that Zalumma would not be allowed to accompany me.

The gown, cunningly fitted to suggest a woman’s shape where there was none, was far grander than anything I had worn. The full skirts, with a short train, were of the deep blue-green velvet with its pattern of satin vines; the bodice was of the same velvet with insets of Zalumma’s pale green damask. At the high waist was a belt of delicately wrought silver. The sleeves were slashed and fitted, made from a brocade woven from turquoise, green, and purple threads interlaced with those of pure silver. Zalumma pulled my camicia through the slits, and puffed it according to the fashion; I had chosen the gossamer white silk, shot through with silver thread.

With my hair there was nothing but frustration. I wore a cap made from the brocade, trimmed with seed pearls, and since I was an unmarried girl, my hair was allowed to fall free onto my shoulders. But the coarse waves were irregular, in need of taming; Zalumma struggled with a hot poker to create fetching ringlets. But my locks would not hold them, and the effort created only more chaos.

As it was late February, I put on the sleeveless overdress-the brocade, trimmed with a thick stripe of the damask, then by white ermine. It was open at the center to reveal the full glory of the gown. Round my neck I wore my mother’s necklace of seed pearls, with a large pendant of aquamarine; it had been sized to fall just above the bodice, so that it rested cold against my skin.

At the last, Zalumma drew me to stand before a full-length mirror. I drew in a breath. I had never seen myself look so comely; I had never looked so much like my mother.

When she led me down to my waiting father, I thought that he would weep.

I sat beside my father in the carriage, as I often had when I used to accompany him on business to homes of the nobility. I wore a dark blue wool cape to hide my finery, in compliance with the sumptuary laws.

As he drove, my father was gloomy and reticent; he stared at the late winter landscape, his eyes haggard, squinting at the bright afternoon sun. He wore his usual attire of a plain black wool tunic and worn leggings with a black mantle-not at all appropriate for the function we were about to attend.

The afternoon air was pleasantly brisk, scented with the smoke from countless hearths. We rode alongside the Arno, then crossed the Ponte Vecchio, where most of the shops were still open. I remembered my exuberance the last time I had crossed the old bridge with Zalumma and my mother, how I had taken delight in the magnificent fabrications of the artists and goldsmiths; now, sitting beside my father, I was unable to summon a scrap of joy.

When we crossed the bridge onto the broad Via Larga, I realized that, should I want to voice the question that had been gnawing at me, I had to do so quickly, as we would soon be at our destination.

“Fra Girolamo does not approve of the Medici,” I said. “Why do you take me to Lorenzo?”

My father gazed out at the landscape and rubbed his beard. “Because of a promise. One that I made long ago.”

So, perhaps Zalumma had been right. Perhaps my mother had asked that her daughter’s husband be chosen by the wisest marriage broker in town, and my father, when he was still besotted with his wife instead of Savonarola, had agreed. And knowing that Lorenzo’s health was failing, my father was being cautious and choosing the groom well ahead of time.

Shortly thereafter, my father pulled the carriage up to the gated entry of Lorenzo’s palazzo. An armed man opened the iron gate and we rolled inside, near the stables. I waited for my father to rise and help me down, then escort me on his arm into the palazzo. For the first time in years, I was grateful for his presence.

But he surprised me. “Wait,” he said, extending a warning arm when I moved to rise. “Just wait.”

I sat in a torment of anticipation until, minutes later, the side doors to the palazzo swung open, and a man- followed by a pair of guards-walked out slowly, gingerly, with the help of an exquisitely carved wood-and-gold cane.

In the months since I had seen him, Lorenzo had aged; though he was only a few years past forty, he looked decades older. His skin was sagging, jaundiced. Only one thing pointed to his relative youth: his hair, pure black without a single lock of gray.

But even leaning on the cane, he walked with grace and dignity, and the self-possessed air of a man who had never once questioned his own importance. He glanced over his shoulder at one of the guards and gave a nod; the summoned man hurried forward and offered me his arm. I took it and let him help me down.

My father followed and bowed to our approaching host.

“God be with you, Ser Antonio,” il Magnifico said as he stepped up to us.

“And with you, Ser Lorenzo,” my father replied.

“So this is our Lisa?”

“This is she.”

“Madonna Lisa.” Lorenzo bowed stiffly, cautiously, from the shoulders. “Forgive me if I cannot make proper genuflection to such a beautiful young woman.”

“Ser Lorenzo.” I made a full proper curtsy, though I was undone.

“Lisa.” My father spoke softly, swiftly. “I leave you to Ser Lorenzo’s care. I will be in the chapel here, attending vespers. When you are ready, I will fetch you.”

“But Father-” I began; before I could say more, he had bowed again to Ser Lorenzo, then followed one of the guards into the palazzo.