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“Agreed,” said Miranda “Too bad, though Seereat theory Stefan, what do you think?”

“I think you are chasing so now I have a stupidwith a petty bureaucrat”

Miranda laughed “But how do you really feel about him? And who is this charmer?”

“Pfft” His , he said, ith the city official who had jurisdiction over the palace “I tell him I need to move the bones, and he says no, and no, and no,” he fu to steal them, and then you will be sorry,’ but he won’t listen He is even too cheap to pay for the motion detector — I had to buy it with ust “Allons-y Let’s go”

He led us out by way of a different door, which — like every door in the palace, seely — yielded to his master key This door opened onto a cavernous banquet hall, which was filled with display cases andat the tourists, Stefan pointed us toward the far end of the hall, where a doorway led to the main exit

Miranda ducked through the doorway, and I was just about to, when I stopped dead in my tracks There on the wall at the end of the banquet hall — on plaster the color of old linen — was the face of Jesus, larger than life The eyes were piercing; the nose was long and slightly crooked, as if it ers of the right hand, uplifted in a gesture of blessing, were long and thin

“Miranda — wait! Come back!” She wheeled and hurried toward me, her face full of concern I pointed; when she saw the picture, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped

I read the plaque on the wall The picture was a preliminary study for a fresco, it explained, like the sketch I’d seen upstairs But this wasn’t a crude outline in charcoal; this was a finely detailed work of art, rendered in the same reddish-brown hue — and the same sure, powerful style — as the face on the Shroud of Turin

The portrait was the handiwork of another Italian artist, one who — unlike the stylistically pronon at the time of the popes He was known by three names

Simone Martini

Simone of Siena

Master Simone

CHAPTER 19

AVIGNON

1328

“Master Siht, this will happen to us” The nervous jailer leans backward slowly, easing his head through the doorway of the cell just far enough into the hallway to look and listen He sees and hears nothing, but when he straightens and turns his attention into the cell, he pleads again, “Hurry”

His eagerness to leave is inspired by more than just fear of detection The scene set before hihtht, it will becoht seven years of his life

Six oil la at odd, startling intervals as they’re struck by droplets fro All around the small cell, the lahtens, shifts his feet, moves his ar a macabre dance around the dead man stretched at the center of the cell

Despite the jailer’s entreaties, Simone cannot, will not be rushed; such a remarkable subject demands his full attention and best work The corpse — an older ed, ruined version of robust — lies faceup on the stone floor He is nude, but Sienitals The artist is fascinated and horrified by the wounds, the very stiged by ragged flesh and crusty blood; the knife wound in the side is sharply edged, but the blood and seru A crude wooden cross leans against the back wall of the cell and it, too, bears bloody stigmata

Simone never expected such an opportunity when he arrived in Avignon He cae waters at the papal court — to see if French clerics s for an Italian painter But a painter can kiss the hands of prospective patrons only so row chafed Once that happens, he needs to work, whether there’s non’s splendor, Si the rounds of its prisons, hospitals, and ce a florin discreetly into the welcoer

It’s not that Simone is morbid; far from it — no one loves life ood idea to study and sketch a corpse or two, if opportunity presents itself In a religious painter’s line of work, the quick outnuht suppose There’s a steady s, of course, but the realChrists: A painter who’s quick with his brush and sue can feed a fas It’s crucial, therefore, toars, who’ll pose for a pittance or a porridge — are far easier to coh: the living wheedle and whine and fidget, while the dead demand no fee or food Corpses hold stock-still, nolasts On the other hand, if the sitting stretches too long, the stench beco, especially in summer Ripeness is a virtue in fruits, women, and opportunities, Sih — freshly dead, laid out on a cold stone floor in late fall — this corpse is a godsend

The trip to Avignon came up unexpectedly in the midst of a chapel co the sinopia studies on the rough walls; finally every scene was sketched, and all that was needed was the duke’s final approval That would surely be a mere formality — after all, each scene featured at least one faht The Virgin Mary bore a striking resemblance to milady the duchess; Joseph, to the duke hi brat and heir; John the Baptist, to the duke’s younger brother; and so on and so on, down to the final feebleminded cousin, portrayed as a siments, made new brushes, set up his worktable, and asked permission to mix plaster and proceed But fate had intervened: His honor the duke had galloped off into the night, narrowly escaping an assassination, and was now ru in Rome, or perhaps Naples, or possibly Venice by now The chapel project had ground to a halt for god kno long

So when the invitation canon, which Master Giotto claimed would be the new promised land for artists — only a fool would have refused, and Simone was no fool He and the h the Susa Valley, paying a larcenous toll at the Savoy Gate, theaccess to the Alps They’d followed, in reverse, the tortuous route taken by Charlene’s troops five centuries before, and by Hannibal’s lu war elephants ten centuries before that

The ancient alpine route ell traveled but not easy Winding along foalaciers, the road was often blocked by rock or ice, occasionally cut by landslides; the June weather alternated between mild sunshine, fierce rainstorms, and occasional brief blizzards If not for the help of a band offroht never have co But complete it they did, and as they followed the Rhône down to the arches of the beautiful bridge and the bustling papal city on the hill, Provence had wrapped her warnon to be quite fetching

Also quite chaotic If ever a

non The official language of the church was Latin, but with French cardinals and courtiers, Roians, airees of drunkenness, and the Provençal natives jabbering in their own ancestral dialect, it was not uncoes within the space of a block, and to understand none of thees was also bri with translators, so Simone found ways to communicate

He spent his first few days sketching faces and buildings in the city’s main squares and churches, but then — inspired by the chance sighting of a cart bearing a body to a graveyard — he decided to cast his net in different waters: the waters of the Styx, river of death Siainst the current, and he se of scripture he was deliberately turning on its head The day of Christ’s Resurrection, when His grieving folloent to visit His to the dead?” Here in bustling, boo the living

His initial inquiries, at charnel houses and hospitals and apothecaries, were ly After all, ould any artist in his right mind want to draw corpses when he could paint pretty woins or, better yet, lovely radually, as he persisted in his rounds and deployed his charan to trust and like the crazy painter Fortune snon: A stone his neck when he hit the floor The sketches of his corpse would surely be useful references for so of the death of Lazarus or the murder of Abel Two days after the mason’s fall, a child was traled little body, yet still potentially helpful if Si Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents

But this latest find — a robust man killed by crucifixion! — this, for a fresco painter, was manna from heaven Simone had profusely thanked both God and the jailer for this unique opportunity To God, he expressed his thanks in prayers; to the jailer, in florins

Now, studying the corpse in the war lamps, he marvels at how poorly the crucified Christ is always portrayed In every representation Simone has ever seen — and ever done — the wounds look contrived, even silly, with their spurting fountains of blood, and the flesh and bone lack any semblance of sinew or substance For the first tiation and duty — not to the sacred subjectpaid to paint, but to the hu hiaze of the artist “This is , “which is broken for you Feast your eyes upon it” And so Sis, belly, chest, face, and ignoring the jailer’s panicked pleas for haste

Sis of the corpse are quick and crude — a flurry of fast, flowing lines hehis eyes off the body to inspect his work Despite their swiftness and spareness, the sketches capture the essence of the lifeless forone slack; the tangibility and carnality of the corpse Next he ers, feet, nose, eyes, ears — craes full of body parts, like hly disotten to know the dead reat care Except that what he draws is not, in fact, the body; what he draws is light and shadow — but no, he draws even less than that His charcoal pencils cannot draw light, they can only sketch darkness: shades of shadows, ranging froray of dawn to the soft, utter blackness of velvet And sucha shadow around an oval of blank white, he can create the illusion of roundness and of highlight: the illusion of an egg, or a forehead, or a breast And from two simple elements — shadow and not-shadow — he now conjures flesh, blood, hair, fingernails, even ic unfold, the jailer is bewitched, finally forgets his fears, and watches in rapt silence