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Her eyes danced and her s smile broadened “It is Latin It means ‘the stork of God’”

CHAPTER 34

AVIGNON

1337

Martini avoids Laura as assiduously as Petrarch seeks her out Whenever Petrarch is in Avignon, he dogs the poor wo twenty or thirty paces behind her, scrupulously praying a stone’s throay: close enough to see her, close enough to be seen — his h that the distance is conspicuously chaste For Simone, on the other hand, no distance would be chaste or ethereal if he were in her presence, so he steers clear altogether

And yet there’s no escaping her, or at least the reminders of her; in a way, she trails Sioes by without so hi in his ear, as if it were a secret, “I know you painted the lady Laura’s portrait for poor Petrarch I have seen it — and such a likeness!” Apparently everyone in Avignon has seen the secret portrait…and yet he knows that is not so, for occasionally, to test the admirers, he poses trick questions, which nearly always trip them up: “And what did you think of the eht ask, or perhaps, “Was the blue of her eyes perhaps too deep?”

Astonishing, how the small, secret portrait of Laura — seen by few but praised by many — has put Martini’s name on the lips of all Petrarch has noritten not one, but two sonnets praising the picture These have been copied and put into wide circulation, perhaps by other poets, but perhaps by Petrarch himself, not one for self-effacement Martini had been appalled by the poems, but he’d be a fool to turn down the well-heeled clients that the poeht him One of them, Cardinal Corsini — evenis possible — has commissioned a portrait of his own dearly beloved: himself

Between the portraits and the frescoes in the pope’s bedcharadually the death portrait of Christ seeent The pope’s frescoes are nearly finished The twenty-four panels that crown the bedrooh on the walls as they are — ill be able to see and appreciate their details? The frescoes in therecesses depict architectural features — arches, colu the walls appear not merely six feet thick, but ten or twelve, so His Holiness can sleep secure in the knowledge of the strength of his fortress

Sie work for hirounds and draperies and inscriptions, freeing Simone to focus on what he does best, and prefers above all: the faces and bodies that everyone tells him are more lifelike than any other painter’s — and it’s true! He’s buried in co harder than he has ever worked in his life

His latest project is a set of four frescoes commissioned for the portico of the cathedral One of the the bills for the other three scenes, in adepicts ato the Corsini faht here on the cathedral’s front porch, one ht to a blindisn’t orous can to have Andrea declared a saint, and the fresco is central to their strategy: “See,” it seeht before your eyes You’d have to be blind yourself not to see it”

The second fresco, the Madonna of Huatory — the cathedral is, after all, dedicated to Mary This one, too, Sirown skeptical about the in Birth, butrows sadder and sadder about her barren womb

The third scene, by contrast—The Blessing Christ—is a source of satisfaction and deep pride to Siht hand is raised in benediction, and his left cradles an orb Within the orb, Simone has represented the world inwaters, and a starry sky, all artfully contained inside the sphere The Savior’s gaze is strong and direct, as if our Lord were locking eyes with each viewer, one by one Such an intiaze is bold and without precedent — unlike any portrait of Jesus that Sie to Christ will bless the man who painted it; surely this ash away Siuilt

The fourth of the portal frescoes shows Saint George slaying a dragon and rescuing a princess Not surprisingly, this fresco is livelier than the other three Simone is not the first painter to portray the heroic deed, but he is the first — of this he feels sure — to bring such vivid draes forward, his lance gripped in both hands, galloping over the bones of earlier knights who died fighting the beast The dragon rears up to fight, its scaly back arched, its talons clawing for the horse The eyes are glittering with reptilian hate, and the sharp-toothed mouth is open to unleash a blast of fire But the creature is a split second too slow: Although the dragon’s body has not yet had tiister it, the mortal blow has, at the very instant portrayed, been delivered With unerring aiht into the beast’s open mouth, with such force that it has pierced the throat coed at the back of the neck, its sharp tip drenched with blood

But despite its brilliance and dra In portraying the princess rescued froiven the princess the face of the lady Laura To be sure, the face is sliress seem far more interested in the princess than in the on-slaying saint As he puts the final touches on the dragon, Si the princess’s face, but stubbornness or pride overrules the voice of caution, and he leaves it unchanged

On the Sunday athers before Mass to file through the portico and view the paintings On hand to bask in their ad just inside the door with Giovanna beah to gawk and congratulate, and another two hundred still crowd the stairway and street outside Si, and what he sees nearly drops hi countess herself, Laura de Noves — is at the top of the stairs, stepping onto the porch Dressed in the green silk, she wears a pendant around her neck; the stone, which rests on her breastbone, is a large ruby, cut in the shape of a teardrop…or a fla possessively on the small of her back, is a thin, sallowthe couple is a nurse a small child on her hip The boy’s hair, eyes, and skin are black, brown, and tan: the earthy tones of Siena; the earthy tones of Simone — his father!

Siers backward into the nave, then flees to a side door, leaving behind hundreds of disappointed adh the door, he turns and sees his wife staring at Laura and the baby, Madonna and child Even in the dinition, shock, and betrayal dawning — no, flashing like lightning — across Giovanna’s face as she takes in the pale woman and the dark boy who is so clearly Simone’s

Simone stumbles down the hill and hurries to his studio, where he sinks onto a stool and slumps forward onto the table The cathedral frescoes were not his penance after all — if anything, he realizes, the foolish arrogance of the Saint George scene only added to his guilt, because Giovanna is noounded by the knowledge that he has been unfaithful to her…and has even fathered

the son that she has never been able to give him Now, not only has Simone betrayed her trust, he has broken her heart, shattered her innocence He groans and sobs as he co, piercing clarity, he suddenly understands the penance he must perform Somehow, he thinks, I must find a way to portray the death of innocence — my innocence, Giovanna’s innocence, the world’s innocence And how better to represent the death of innocence, he realizes, than a death portrait of the innocent Christ ain What was it the jailer had said? “His sin, I think, was to be holy, to be free of sin”?

Clearing off his worktable and unrolling his dusty sketches of the dead ins the penance he has been avoiding these past two years The penance for betraying Giovanna

CHAPTER 35

Siely wipes the tees of the deadthe the force of that stark corpse laid on the floor of that stone cell; completely devoid even of the force of those charcoal sketches he ht almost a decade before

He returns, for the hundredth time, to the sketches Unlike his polished atteh but powerful Why can’t he render in paint what he captured in charcoal? Because, he thinks, a painting is too artful, too refined: a glittering object to be admired from a distance, not a force to be experienced and shaken by The power of that scene, and of those sketches, lies in their rawness and immediacy In the moment back then, and even in the sketches now, there is no possibility of distance, of a safe retreat into studied appreciation of color and technique, of coilded borders and halos The Death of Innocence cannot be a painting, he realizes; it

But sketches are not enough Sih sketches on coarse paper But ordinary eyes — seeing hues as trifles; ht not take them into their uard and open their hearts To do justice to aas a wolf

An i of Christ, painted by Master Giotto on the wall of the chapel in Padua The li angels hover overhead, their hands outstretched or clasped or clapped to their faces in dise angles fro about the rock ledge struck Sie’s surface seemed fluid, almost as if it were draped with fabric, and Sio, if perhaps a burial shroud had been laid on the ledge to receive the body of Christ

Now, that re and his own sketches of the dead man combine, and he kno to proceed

At a Weaver’s Shop on the Rue de Teinturiers, the street of dyers, he inspects and rejects half a dozen fabrics — too coarse, too shiny, too short — before finally settling on one: a long strip of pale linen woven with a herringbone pattern that adds heft and elegance without calling attention to itself