The Creation of Eve

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

The First Notebook

The Second Notebook

The Third Notebook

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Artworks Mentioned in The Creation of Eve

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Copyright © 2010 by Lynn Cullen

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cullen, Lynn.

The creation of Eve / Lynn Cullen.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18608-4

1. Anguissola, Sofonisba, ca. 1532/33-1625—Fiction. 2. Women painters—

Italy—Fiction. 3. Élisabeth de Valois, Queen, consort of Philip II, King of Spain,

1544 -1568—Fiction. 4. Philip II, King of Spain, 1527-1598—Fiction.

5. Spain—History—Philip II, 1556-1598—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3553.U2955C

813’.54—dc22

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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For Bill Doughty’s daughters, Margaret, Jeanne, Carolyn, and Arlene

The First Notebook

In which I shall gather my impressions and observations as a painter, as well as any letters or sundry items of information that may prove useful to me and my work, as have done the great maestros Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, and Michelangelo Buonarroti, also known as Il Divino.

ITEM: Women are lustful, imperfect creatures. Nature seeks perfection in all her creatures, and would, if she could, produce nothing but men.

—COUNT BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier

ITEM: In painting, three things must be considered—the position of the viewer, the position of the object viewed, and the position of the light that illuminates the object.

ITEM: Rosemary, when its scent is inhaled, concentrates the mind.

7 MAY 1559

Macel de’ Corvi, Rome

In the time it takes to pluck a hen, I have ruined myself. I have ruined my sisters, my little brother. Papà—I have ruined Papà. My gentle, good papà, who had encouraged me to paint, when everyone in Cremona laughed. A girl taking up a man’s craft, and such a dirty one at that! Who is going to marry her now? Not that Amilcare could have scraped together a decent dowry—God knows he has already got his problems, if you know what I mean.

Oh, I had heard people whisper. I heard them in Papà’s bookshop, when they thought the groan of the printing press covered their voices. I heard them over the splashing of the fountain in the piazza outside our house, when they were strolling in the evening air, or as I waited on the church steps for Mamma to finish her prayers, always longer than everyone else ’s. Papà must have heard them, too, but that never stopped him from encouraging my painting. He had begun the day I’d come pattering home from Mass in my little girl’s slippers, and inspired by the picture of the Madonna and Child newly hung in the Lady Chapel, borrowed his quill and paper to draw my own Nativity scene. Francesca, nursing the most recent of Mamma’s babies, had been my captive model.

Hunched over the suckling infant, Francesca had glared at me under brows as thick and mobile as a man’s thumbs. You go! she scolded in her peasant’s Italian. What you want with picture of this?

By the time baby Minerva drained a breast, I had finished my little sketch. I ran with the results to Papà, who put aside the book he had been reading in the courtyard and held the drawing up to the afternoon sunlight. "It’s Minerva and Francesca, isn’t it? You even caught Francesca’s frown. Eccellente, Sofonisba!"

My chest had swelled with pride. I was all of seven. Now I, the wondrous painting virgin from Cremona, am seven-and-twenty—and ill with fear. For my good papà, I beg the saints and martyrs to not let maestro Michelangelo talk.

Perhaps the Maestro did not see so much. It had been dark in his studio. The Angelus bell marking dusk had been ringing from the church of Santa Maria di Loreto across the piazza when Tiberio and I had run up the stairs. How could I have been so foolish as to go up to the studio alone with Tiberio? I must have been drunk, though I had had only a cup of watered wine at cena. But I was drunk—on being maestro Michelangelo’s chosen one. On Tiberio’s choosing me, too. On the feel of Tiberio’s thick fingers, rough from sculpting, around mine. I had to be drunk to do what I did.

But Tiberio said he loved me then, and he meant it, I know. His kiss did not lie. Oh, what kind of wicked she-cat am I? Even now, as black tendrils of shame seep through my heart like ink in water, I dream of his lips. I never knew a man’s lips could be so soft in the flesh yet so thrillingly hard when pressed against one’s own. Was it the pressure of his lips, or just the musk of his skin, that drove me to animal madness? I have never imagined such pleasure. Since the age of fourteen, my thoughts have been consumed by studying with different maestros, pleasing patrons, and painting, painting, always painting. Now thoughts of his body dance through my dazzled brain, beckoning to me like players in a lascivious masque.

It is not as if Francesca did not try to keep Tiberio and me apart. She has approached her role as a lady’s companion with ferocious vigor since my first trip to visit Rome, three years ago, at maestro Michelangelo’s request. Proud, then, of her recent elevation from nurse, she had at all times positioned her stocky black-clad body between me and Tiberio, who was even then Michelangelo’s favorite student. No matter if Tiberio and I were tramping over the vine-covered ruins of the Palatine Hill, making sketches of the broken ancient pillars on which cows scratched their bony rumps, or watching men cart stone from the empty hulk of the Colosseum to use in the new dome of the Basilica that the Maestro was building, or just pausing in the quiet church of San Pietro in Vincoli to admire the Maestro’s magnificent statue of a stern and powerful Moses—Francesca had bent every scrap of her considerable will toward creating a barrier between us. This visit had been no different. She would have prevented all but one brief touch had she not been seized with a choking cough.

I blame the weather for her fit. It has been hot here, too hot, for May. The sun beats down from morning until night, baking the scent of the roses, now blooming from every wall, into air thick with the stench of the Tiber, wood smoke, and dung. This afternoon, as our little group made its way through the crooked streets of the old quarter in which Michelangelo lives, the filmy veil sticking to my cheeks, my tight sleeves and corset, and the lace ruff scratching my neck were but minor torments compared with Francesca’s suffering in her heavy lady’s-companion black. Thickly veiled and buttoned up to her chin in wool, she mopped her sweating face with a corner of her veil as she struggled to keep up with Tiberio and me. Even in her misery, had she felt the invisible threads drawing Tiberio and me together? Sweetest Holy Mary, had Michelangelo?

Perhaps the Maestro noticed nothing. He walked ahead of us, hands behind his back and head pointed down, as if searching the cobblestones for scudi. I tried to act properly detached toward Tiberio, coolly discussing perspective and composition and critiquing other artists’ work in response to the gruff comments Michelangelo tossed over his shoulder. The Maestro was particularly harsh on the Venetian, Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian, as he is sometimes called, claiming the Venetian needed to learn how to draw, and Tiberio, echoing the Maestro in all things, cited Tiziano’s painting of the myth of Danaë as a glaring example of sacrificing precision for prettiness. I did not agree. But though I wished to argue that Tiziano’s failure to depict each muscle of the naked woman was more than made up for by the warmth afforded by his open brushwork and use of color, at that moment the discussion of painted flesh was too much for me, with the very real flesh of Tiberio so near. Instead I calmly (or so I thought) defended the realism in Tiziano’s portrait of Pope Paul III and his two nephews, with the Venetian going so far with his honest brush as to portray the subjects as a trio of connivers.

No wonder Tiziano abandoned the project, I said.

Michelangelo responded with a grunt.

It’s a poor artist who cannot finish a simple portrait, said Tiberio.

It’s a poor artist who would ever start one, muttered the Maestro.

But there have been some very worthy portraits, I said. I think of maestro Leonardo’s portrait of madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

The Maestro glanced at me over his shoulder. "He overdid the sfumato. All his lines are too blurry, or is the picture just sprouting mold?"

I smiled at Tiberio’s chuckle. Surely, Maestro, I said, you see merit in Raffaello’s portrait of Count Baldassare Castiglione? They say it’s so lifelike his dog mistook the picture for his master.

He was full of himself, the Maestro pronounced.

Who, Maestro? said Tiberio. Raffaello or Castiglione?

Both.

Tiberio laughed. Raffaello did your portrait, Maestro. Are you not pleased?

The Maestro growled.

It’s a good likeness, Tiberio told me, "the only portrait anyone has done of him. You’ve seen it, haven’t you, in The School of Athens in the Vatican? Raffaello had to do it on the sly."

Waste of time, said the Maestro.

We continued in this vein, I arguing for portraiture, the Maestro and Tiberio arguing against it. But perhaps my bold talk fooled no one. Perhaps all knew my every sense was trained upon Tiberio.

I could almost smile now at how Francesca had bustled between Tiberio and me when we arrived at the Pope’s chapel in the Basilica, the chapel they call the Sistine. We had stood with our heads tipped back, all of us, silent. On the vaulted ceiling above us, over an area as large as Papà’s apple orchard, hundreds of brawny, mostly naked figures writhed, bringing the stories from the Scriptures vividly to life. Their flesh, though painted, seemed as real as that of Tiberio’s hands, which he placed atop his head in wonder; their painted muscles as palpable as those I could see in my side vision of Tiberio’s sinuous wrists. Even Francesca, sweat rolling down her broad face as she wedged herself between Tiberio and me, gaped up at the colorful grid of scenes above us.

I’ve seen this dozens of times, Maestro, said Tiberio, and I never know what to say.

Still appraising the ceiling with a frown, the Maestro folded his arms over his barrel chest. Not bad for a sculptor. He jerked his thumb at the mural covering the wall above the altar. "The Last Judgment is better. Ceilings are hell."

I stole a look at him. The maestro of maestros had a head like a cannonball, the thick, high cheekbones of a Slav, and a squashed nose. His sharp eyes were so deeply set it was impossible to determine their color. For a man of four-and-eighty, his arms were unusually muscular, contrasting oddly with his old man’s white beard, and his hands were so calloused they looked to be made of the stone in which he worked. Other than his arms, and a disproportionately long torso, he was a small man. The greasy thigh-high boots of dog-skin that he wore only accentuated the shortness of his bowed legs. I smiled to myself as I returned my sights to the ceiling. The greatest living artist in the world, the creator of beauty so heavenly that he was called the Divine One, must have been quite the brawler in his youth.

Maestro, how old were you when you finished this? asked Tiberio.

The ceiling? Thirty-seven. Old, I thought then. By God, I felt it, too, all that damned painting. Ha! I didn’t know what old was. Old is bad bowels and trouble pissing. Makes me wonder why we fight so hard to live.

The scrape of our shoes on the marble mosaic floor was lost in the hush of the chamber. It smelled of damp and stone and incense. Outside, church bells began to clang, marking the hour.

I wish I could paint like this, I said.

The Maestro turned on me, the folds of his coarse face deepening in a scowl. Who says you can’t? That picture you brought with you of your sisters playing chess—you’re in it, too, aren’t you, old lady? he said to Francesca.

Francesca glared at the mosaics at her feet, pride and offense warring on her brow.

It’s a good start, he said to me. I saw their souls, especially the sister turned toward the viewer.

Lucia, I murmured, with a pang of homesickness.

Musculature is your problem. I got no sense of it. From the neck down, your people were mannequins stuffed into clothes.

I pressed together my lips. It is difficult to improve one’s understanding of muscle and the structure of the human form when, as a woman, one is not allowed to study a naked body, be it dead or alive. In truth, the only form of painting I have attempted thus far is that kind so maligned by the Maestro: portraiture. As long as I cannot learn by drawing from the nude or from the dissection of a cadaver, I will never be able to paint more than heads, hands, and gowns. I will never be able to depict scenes from the Bible or history or legend and myth, the mark of the greatest painters, and until I do, I have no chance of being considered a maestra by Michelangelo or anyone else.

The Maestro seemed to hear my thoughts. Be glad you can’t do dissections. He brushed a bread crumb from his beard. There’s nothing more foul in the world. No one enjoys doing them—though maybe that braggart Leonardo da Vinci did. Who’d ever guess that old peacock could cut into a dead woman’s body like it was a sausage?

Francesca rapped at my arm, signaling her demand that we leave.

Fine talk, Maestro, Tiberio murmured.

The Maestro tipped back his head to gaze at the ceiling. Sofonisba works in a man’s world. She can take it.

Tiberio lifted his brows at me in apology, then joined the Maestro in his study of the ceiling. My face hot, I did the same. The cooing of the pigeons outside filled the awkward silence.

Maestro, Tiberio said after a moment, this scene of the creation of Adam—out of the dozens of other magnificent scenes to look at, the viewer’s eye always goes back to this one. How did you do it?

"It is in the center," the Maestro said sardonically.

Tiberio frowned at the ceiling.

What have I taught you? said the Maestro.

Is it the white background? There is no greater use of white space on the entire ceiling.

The Maestro looked down to scowl at Tiberio. What have I told you about contrasts?

Tiberio seemed unaware of the Maestro’s gaze upon him as he recited, ‘ In every painting, the painter must choose what he wishes the viewer to see first. Then he must put the greatest contrast between dark and light in that spot.’

I peered at The Creation of Adam. Not only was there much white background in the scene, as Tiberio had said, but the white of God’s robe was the brightest white on the entire ceiling. It stood out starkly against the dark band of angels swirling around Him. Once captured by this contrast, one’s gaze naturally trailed from His luminescent robe to His outstretched arm, then down to the handsome, languidly awaiting Adam. From there, one could hardly move one’s eyes. Never has a human been so lovingly rendered, with such sympathy and truth. How perfectly the Maestro revealed the humble spirit of the man waiting within this earthly shell.

So, Tiberio murmured to himself, in each of these scenes we should look for the greatest contrast if we are to know what you thought the viewer should see first.

Testing this theory, I looked from scene to scene. Starting in the direction of the door through which we’d entered, I let contrast lead my eye, from the cloak being laid over the drunken Noah by his sons, to the black cape of a fleeing mother against the lightning-lit sky in The Flood, to the bright yellow scales of the serpent against the dark Tree of Knowledge in The Temptation of Eve. In each case the drama of the scene was heightened by the eye’s being sent immediately to the most important element—Noah degrading himself, the hopelessness in the fleeing mother’s face, the alluring yet repulsive beauty of the serpent tempting Eve.

I stopped at The Creation of Eve. There, the darkest dark met the brightest light where Eve’s plump pale thigh contrasted against the dark shrub below which Adam slept. My gaze slipped directly to the sweetly sleeping Adam, where it lingered on his innocent smile, his tousled reddish hair, his muscular body sprawled on the grass. Only begrudgingly did my eye move to reconsider Eve’s crouching form being raised out of Adam by God. Painted against a light blue background, her pale figure was lumpen and static, the expression on her face unreadable. The scene felt disturbingly empty.

I bumped into Tiberio. He brought down his gaze.

Mi scusi, I whispered. My elbow tingled where it had touched the hard muscles of his belly. I could feel his gaze remain upon me as I looked back up at the ceiling. All thoughts of art fled from my mind.

We left soon after. Tiberio and I did not address each other on the walk home through the crowded neighborhoods, nor throughout an early dinner at a tavern on the Macel de’ Corvi, near maestro Michelangelo’s house. I picked at my stewed eel, trying my best to keep my gaze from lingering on Tiberio’s lively gray-green eyes, on his hair curling over his ears in wiry wisps of gold, on his thick, veined wrists. And Sweetest Holy Mary! Was he trying not to look at me?

Too soon, cena was finished. We strolled back with Michelangelo to his house to pick up the drawing supplies I had left there earlier, as I was to leave for Cremona in the morning, ending my visit to Rome. At his door, the Maestro bade us good-bye, stating that he wished to continue on through the streets, as he usually does of an evening.

He had hardly stumped away, a furious bow-legged figure in dog-skin boots, when Tiberio said, Signorina Sofonisba, before you go, would you do me the favor of looking at some drawings? They are studies for a statue I’m finishing for the Maestro.

He gave you such a project? I plucked at the gauzy silk of my veil, which a heated evening breeze had blown across my face. What a compliment.

It is a great responsibility. I have been working on it for two years now.

Mi scusi, signorina, Francesca said. We go now.

I would like to see these drawings. Just for a few minutes, as you gather my supplies. Then, before Francesca could respond—and shocking myself—I pushed in the heavy carved door.

Tiberio followed with a surprised grin. How do you like my house? Pretending to be the host, he spread his arm toward the fresco over the main stairway. Nothing proclaims ‘Welcome’ like a corpse.

I pursed my lips so as not to laugh at the fresco of a coffin with a leering skeleton rising from it. "Truly inviting, signore," I said.

The old man’s humor. Typical. It is getting dark. Let me get some light.

Francesca placed herself between me and the stairs as he strode up, two at a time. "Signorina, it no good for a maiden to be alone."

My light tone betrayed my happiness. I am not alone. Maestro Michelangelo will be back soon, and I’ve got you, signore Tiberio, and who knows what other servants are around. Hello? I called into the growing dimness. No one answered. In any case, at my age I am hardly a dewy-eyed maiden.

What I say about the dew eyes? I say it no good to be alone with a man.

Tiberio jogged back down the stairs with rolled-up drawings tucked under one arm. He held up a smoking lamp. Let there be light.

Just like in the Maestro’s scene of the creation of the sun and the stars in the chapel, I said.

He laughed. Am I convincing in the role of God?

Oh, yes.

He bowed. "Grazie, signorina. But I do not believe you."

Francesca cleared her throat.

He glanced at her, then put the drawings on the table before us, his expression growing serious. I keep thinking about the Maestro’s painting of the creation of Adam. How did he ever think to portray God bringing Adam to life through a touch of fingers? You can feel the very life force being passed from Creator to creation.

Something that had bothered me came back to mind. It must be my failing and not the Maestro’s, but I did not get that feeling in the scene of Eve’s creation. It seems, almost, that the Maestro took little care in her depiction.

Of course. That is by design. Eve is not as important as Adam.

I looked at him, wondering why this should be so.

Trust me, the Maestro knows what he is about. That is why he is famous and we are not.

At least not yet, I said.

His eyes warmed. I like the way you think, Sofonisba Anguissola.

Francesca started coughing. When she did not stop, Tiberio pulled his smile from me. Old woman, are you well?

Sì, sì. Francesca waved him off, still coughing.

Francesca, are you choking?

She shook her head, whipping her shoulders with her veil. Her coughs tightened into a breathless bark.

Go to the piazza and get yourself a drink, Tiberio ordered. The water in that fountain comes straight from the aqueduct—good mountain water. Signorina Sofonisba won’t be alone, he added when she would not budge in spite of not being able to draw breath. I’ll watch over her.

That, she squeaked, what give me fear.

I frowned in apology as she bent into her coughing. I had heard Tiberio’s people, the Calcagnis, were a rich and powerful Florentine family. Tiberio was the one in danger of being tainted, not I. The Anguissolas may have had riches once, but our branch has been withering for generations. Papà’s title as count has little land and no power behind it.

Signorina, choked Francesca, go . . . with me.

I could stand her discomfort no longer. Come! I started for the door.

You insult me, Francesca, Tiberio said quickly, by not trusting me with your lady.

I stopped. Tiberio wished me to stay. Sweetest Holy Mary! But Francesca’s cough would not stop. For the love of God, Francesca, please! Go get yourself some water!

Francesca, doubled over, threw me a last, desperate look, then fled.

Tiberio set the lamp on a table. She should be fine, he said when he saw my worried expression. The water is very soothing.

She may need a dram of coltsfoot tea.

You have a knowledge of herbs?

A woman can know too much. I lowered my eyes. Just a little.

I should not be surprised. He rolled out the papers.

I drew in a breath. So this is the statue?

Yes. The Maestro’s preliminary drawings of it, at least. Once you get into removing stone from the block, plans can change.

As in a painting.

Similar, yes, though sculpture is the harder art to master. This is why the Maestro calls himself a sculptor, not a painter—why I chose this same path, too.

So you think painting is not difficult to master?

I didn’t mean to offend you—of course it is. I like to paint. The Maestro does, too, sometimes. But the Maestro says it takes a real man to endure the punishment of working in stone. You have to be brave—one mistake and you’re done. Painting is much more forgiving and simple, better suited for the temperament of a woman. There is no pressure to perform.

I see. I shall try to remember that the next time I must paint a man as a good and benevolent family man when all of Italy knows he has just poisoned his brother. I held my breath. Must I always speak my mind?

But Tiberio only grimaced and said, Point taken. He pushed back the curling edges of the red chalk drawing. Anyway, these are the plans. The Maestro was trying to do something here that no one else has done with success—sculpting four freestanding figures from a single block. Do you know how hard that is to do? Coaxing one body from stone is difficult enough. Four bodies—it’s nearly impossible. All those arms and legs.

I see the dying Christ. I pointed to the dominant figure, holding the sinking body. Who is this? Joseph of Arimathea, taking him from the cross?

There is no cross here. This scene is later, when Christ was being prepared for the tomb. The hooded man is Nicodemus, the rich old man who wished to know Our Lord. As you remember, Nicodemus helped with the burial. He gestured to the other figures. Here ’s the Virgin Mary, supporting her son, and Mary Magdalene to His other side, readying His winding cloth. If the Maestro seems preoccupied with death in this piece, it is because it is meant for his own tomb.

I gazed at the drawing, my every pore taut with arousal, but not from the rendering: Tiberio’s arm was nearly touching mine.

All had been going well with the work on the piece, he said. Over the course of eight years, the Maestro had roughed in the Nicodemus and much of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene. Then one day, while shaping the Christ, he hit a fault in the marble.

A fault?

One of the worst kinds, a vein of emery. It’s so hard that sparks fly when your chisel hits it. Very difficult to shape, if you can do it at all. Tiberio shook his head. I was in the studio at the time, though I didn’t see the sparks. All I knew was, suddenly the Maestro was shouting and smashing the statue with his hammer. The three of us who were there, I, Antonio the servant, and the painter Daniele da Volterra, dropped everything and tried to hold him back.

Did he do much damage?

Broke off two arms and the Christ ’s leg. We had to hold the old man until he cooled down and dropped the hammer. ‘If you like it so much,’ he shouted at me, along with a few choice Florentine curses, ‘you finish it!’ It turned out he was serious—he didn’t care if I worked on it, as long as it was kept out of his sight. He patted the edge of the drawing. Well, I was not letting this go. It’s too beautiful, even with the missing limbs. And all that work—eight years of his hammer to the chisel, dust flying up his nose and in his eyes, chips raining down his back—for nothing. No. It took ten men to inch the unfinished block out of his studio and down the arcade to the little room the Maestro said I could use as a studio, but I was keeping it. He looked at me over his shoulder. Would you like to see it?

I glanced at the door.

I will have you back downstairs before Francesca returns. No one will be the wiser.

As the Angelus bells began to clang, our eyes met.

He picked up a lamp. I do not know what possessed me: grinning like two naughty children, we ran up the stairs.

Even as he showed me into a small, dim room, its air thick with stone dust, I began to regret my actions. It was wrong for a lady, even of lowest nobility, to be alone with a gentleman. But it was for Art, I argued with myself. To learn about Art.

My thudding heart deafened me as I followed him to a hulk in the shadows. He raised his lamp, revealing the rock towering above us. From it emerged four figures, the top one, the Nicodemus, a pale hooded monster raked with the mark of chisels.

Can you tell who the model is? Tiberio brought the lamp closer, illuminating the full beard of the Nicodemus and its heavy scowling brow.

The Maestro.

Good eye. It was his idea. In the flickering yellow light, I could see Tiberio’s dimples when he smiled. Sweetest Holy Mary.

It ’s beautiful, I breathed.

He lowered the lamp, casting a glow upon the face of the dying Christ. "I started my work on it on my birthday two years ago. I hope to finish it by next year, when I am twenty-eight, though I am already behind schedule if I am to make as great a mark on the world as the Maestro with a piece that is completely my own. The old man was twenty-nine when he finished his David. I have only two years to create my own work of genius if I’m to keep up with him."

I reached for a paper on a nearby table to hide my agitation. I held it up to the dim light.

An emblem?

I think he might have blushed, though it was too dark to be certain. "I was working out a way to sign my work. A T and C combined with an A for artista—or architetto, as I become famous for my buildings. I do those, too. He grinned in his self-effacing way. Do you think it’s too much?"

Could he hear my heart beating? Grasping at a diversion, I picked up a chalk on the table. "Not unless you go so far as to call yourself a king and add the letter R for re." I did just so with the chalk.

I could hear him breathing next to me. What a fool he must think me, playing a child’s game. But the closeness of his person, with his warm scent of earth, leather, and flesh, undid me. Should there be any doubt, I heard myself say, "we might add an arm and a leg to your T, to form a K, for the English word ‘King.’ "

You are an extraordinary girl, knowing English. Is there nothing you do not know? I am almost afraid of you. He took the chalk, sending a bolt of heat through my fingers. "What if that R is not for re but is truly for ritrattista, in honor of my friend, the brilliant lady portraitist?"

I took back the chalk just to feel his touch again—madness. "Then you must add a little leg to the R for the letter L, as in ‘Lady,’ as the English call their noblewomen."

He put his hand over mine before I could finish. "Lady, do not the two letters wish to be as one? Here is an arm, joining them." A current flowed between us as we moved the chalk in unison.

They look good together, he said, his breath on my ear, see?

I could bear his closeness no longer. I turned to the statue and, trembling, touched the chill marble of the Christ’s arm, draped lifelessly in the foreground. How do you do this? How do you turn a drawing into something with three dimensions?

I don’t. Not exactly. I felt the warmth of his body as he leaned over me to touch the statue. Even if I have a drawing, I still must be willing to listen to the stone and change my plans if need be. The being hidden inside the block reveals itself only by degrees, like a wax figure being lifted from water. I will show you.

He put my hand to the Christ’s face. My skin felt on fire as he traced my fingers over the cool polished stone. I am removing stone, chip by chip. Something emerges: a nose. Do you feel it?

I nodded, the back of my veil brushing against his chest.

Yes, he said, good. Good. And here. Here another rounding comes forth: an eye. It demands to be carved just so—the being in the stone insists. Can you feel it, Sofonisba?

I was deafened by the roaring of my blood. Yes, I whispered.

He slid our fingers down the ridge of the nose to the curve below, his breath caressing my ear. And now. What is this?

My mouth formed the word. Lips.

They speak, he whispered, if you listen. Can you hear them?

My skirt raked the floor as he turned me toward him, my fingers still on the statue. We faced each other, the flame of the lamp licking at the silence.

Sofonisba, you cannot deny the being within.

Slowly, he touched his lips to my exposed wrist.

I dropped my hand. Francesca.

He went over and, softly, closed the door. Only Michelangelo has the key.

He came back, set the lamp on the floor, then stood before me. In the golden shimmering light, he laid back my trembling veil.

I am afraid.

Don’t be. He bent toward my mouth.

I closed my eyes as flesh met flesh, searing me wherever he kissed—lips, neck, shoulder. Our lips reunited, grateful pilgrims at journey’s end, and then our kisses became urgent, desperate, until my body raged against my clothing and moans issued from the pleading creature within me.

Tiberio stopped, causing me to gasp. Gently he set me on the edge of the table and, with shaking hands, lifted my skirt.

I don’t know how long the Maestro had been standing in the doorway, four thin flames wavering above his head from the pressboard cap of candles he wears when he works into the night. I don’t know how I became aware of his presence. How did he get in so quietly? Or was he not so very quiet, I was just so very loud? All I know is, he was in the doorway, the candles flickering in his pressboard crown.

Tiberio straightened from the table against which we leaned, holding me loosely as my skirts slid down. He kept his back to the Maestro, shielding me from exposure as he snatched at the laces to his codpiece.

Maestro, he said, it is not as it seems.

The Maestro paused, his crown of candles dripping. Signorina Sofonisba’s woman is downstairs looking for her.

The shuffle of dog-skin boots receded down the hallway.

Tiberio covered his eyes with the crook of his arm, then ran it over his