Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

corners marked by a church. Brunelleschi’s orange brick dome hovered on the skyline near the tower of the Signoria’s palace. Milling about were housewives and their servants, men in need of a shave. I was dressed in my plain dark gown, the topaz at my throat. Hidden in my bodice, for luck, were the gold medallions. I bore the basket Zalumma always carried over her arm-although on this day, I had lined it with a cloth.

There were the barbers, with their gleaming razors and bowls of leeches, the apothecaries with their powders and ointments, the greengrocers singing their luscious wares, the baker with his bins of warm, fragrant bread…

And, in the distance, there was the butcher’s stall, with skinned hares and plucked chickens hanging overhead by their feet.

Never did a place so familiar seem so utterly strange.

Before departing, I had mentioned to the driver that I would be visiting the butcher’s today, even though we had not been there in some weeks. Bones for soup, I said.

I told him to wait for me by the greengrocers’ stalls. The driver pulled the horses to a stop and did not even watch as I climbed out and headed for the butcher’s-which just happened to be out of his line of sight.

It was such a simple matter, really-so swift, so easy, so terrifying. The butcher was a good man, a godly man, but times were hard and uncertain. He had his price, even if he suspected the source of the bag of gold florins.

As I neared, he was laughing with a young woman I had often encountered on market day, though we had never formally met. She was sweet-faced and blushing as she raised a hand to her mouth in an effort to hide a missing front tooth.

At the sight of me, the butcher’s smile faded; he quickly wrapped a thick red oxtail in a cloth. “Buon appetito, Monna Beatrice; may this meat keep your husband in fine form. God keep you!” He turned to the other woman waiting. “Monna Cecelia, forgive me, I have urgent business, but Raffaele will attend to you…” As his son put down the cleaver and stepped forward to wait on the customer, the butcher said, far more loudly than needed, “Monna Lisa. I have in the back some excellent roasts from which you might choose. Come with me…”

He led me behind a makeshift curtain, stained with brown hand-prints, to the back of the stall. Fortunately, the light was dim so I could not see the carcasses hung there, but I could hear the clucking of the caged chickens; the smell of blood and offal was so strong I covered my nose.

It was a short walk to the exit. In the sunlight, the warm flagstones were slick with blood draining from the stall; the hem of my skirts was soaked. But my dismay was short-lived, for only steps away waited another carriage-this one black and carefully devoid of any family crest announcing its owner. Even so, I recognized the driver-who smiled at me again in greeting.

Those few strides-given the gravity and significance they bore-seemed impossible, interminable; I was certain I would lose my balance and fall. Yet I made it to the carriage. The door opened and through magic, through miracle, I found myself inside, sitting next to Giuliano, the basket by my feet on the floor.

The driver called out to the horses. The wheels creaked and we began to rumble along at a good pace, away from the butcher, away from the waiting driver, away from my father and my home.

Giuliano was glorious, as unreal and perfect as a painting. He wore a bridegroom’s farsetto of crimson voided velvet embroidered with gold thread, with a large ruby pinned to his throat. He stared at me with wide-eyed amazement-me, with my plain hair and translucent black veil, with my drab brown dress, the hem sodden with blood-as if I were exotic and startling.

I spoke in a swift, breathless rush; my voice shook uncontrollably. “I have the dress, of course. I will send for my slave when the thing is done. She is packing my belongings now…” All the while I was thinking: Lisa, you are mad. Your father will come and put a stop to all this. Piero will return and throw you from the palazzo.

I might have prattled on out of sheer nerves, but he seized my hands and kissed me.

A novel sensation took hold of me, melting warmth in the area of my navel. The topaz, at last put to the test, faltered. I returned his kiss with equal fervor, and by the time we arrived at the palazzo, our hair and clothing were in disarray.

XL

Had my life been like that of other girls, my marriage would have been arranged by a sensale, an intermediary, most likely Lorenzo himself. My father would have paid at least five thousand florins and had the amount recorded in the city ledger, else the union could not have taken place.

After the engagement was announced, my groom would have hosted a luncheon at which, before friends and family, he would have presented me with a ring.

On my wedding day, I would have worn a dazzling gown designed, as custom demanded, by Giuliano himself. Followed by my kinswomen on foot, I would have ridden a white horse across the Ponte Santa Trinita to the Via Larga and the home of the Medici. A garland of flowers would have been stretched across the street in front of my new home, which I would dare not cross until my future husband broke the chain.

From there, we would have gone to the church. After the ceremony, I would have returned on foot to my father’s house and slept alone. Only the next day, after a great feast, would the marriage be consummated.

But for me, there was no sensale; Lorenzo was dead, and I would never know his opinion concerning the man most suited to me. There was only Giuliano’s determination and yearning, and mine.

As for the dowry, Lorenzo, not my father, had paid it long ago-although Giuliano, through his government connections, had the amount recorded as coming from Antonio di Gherardini. I had no doubt that when my father learned of the deception, he would have the amount stricken from the ledger.

My dress was of my own design, worn by me three years earlier to the Palazzo Medici: a gown with skirts of deep blue-green voided velvet, with a pattern of satin vines, and a bodice of the same with insets of pale green damask. I had grown since then, and Zalumma and I had made frantic alterations in secret, lengthening the skirt and sleeves, letting out the bodice to accommodate a woman’s body, not a girl’s.

I rode no white horse, was accompanied by no kinswoman-not even Zalumma, who would have known best how to soothe my nerves. A house servant of Giuliano’s named Laura, a kind woman perhaps two years my senior, helped me dress in an unoccupied bedchamber-beneath the portrait of a sour-faced young Clarice de’ Medici, dressed in an apron and drab gown that made me look grand in comparison. I insisted on keeping Lorenzo’s gold medallions next to my heart.

As the servant was pulling my camicia through my sleeves, and examining it so that either side was equally puffed, I stared up at Clarice’s intimidating image. “Were these her rooms?”

Laura glanced up, with a glimmer of knowing humor, at the portrait. “Yes, Madonna. They belong to Madonna Alfonsina now. She has been at Poggio a Caiano for several days. I suspect Ser Giuliano will not share news of you with her until she returns.”

My stomach fluttered; I could imagine her reaction. “And the others?”

“You know that Ser Piero has gone to Sarzana…” When I nodded, she continued. “You need have no worry there; he is sympathetic. But there is His Holiness, Ser Giovanni, the Cardinal. He has gone to Mass and business meetings. He is not privy to anything; I do not think Ser Giuliano intends to tell him unless it is necessary.”

She lifted a fine hairbrush-one that I assumed belonged to my soon-to-be sister-in-law. “Shall we just brush it out, then?”

I nodded. Had I attempted any elaborate style that morning, my father or the servants would have noticed-and so I wore it as I always did, falling loose onto my shoulders, as befitted an unmarried girl. She then fastened in place the brocade cap I had brought. For a final touch, I donned my mother’s necklace of seed pearls, with a large aquamarine pendant.

It was difficult, touching it, not to think of my mother, of how she had married foolishly, how unhappily she had lived and died.

“Ah!” Laura put a gentle hand upon my elbow. “You should not be sad at such a time! Madonna, you are