The Marriage Portrait(27)

Her imminent betrothal, her marriage, the man designated to be her husband, the life in Ferrara that awaited her seemed to Lucrezia, during this time, so distant and abstract that it resembled something read in the pages of a book or heard in the lines of a song. She was to be betrothed: it remained a fact that she knew, had learnt by heart, like Latin poetry drummed into her by the tutor. The meaning of it, its significance, failed to touch her. Life at the palazzo went on as before. Isabella still dressed in her finery to walk from courtyard to salon, trailing peals of laughter behind her, like bright scarves; Pietro still had tantrums when he roared until red in the face, drumming his fists on the carpet; Sofia still ladled out their midday soup in the same bowls, at the same table; the sun still poured in on the far side of the schoolroom in the morning, then swung round to the bedroom windows by the evening. Maria’s chamber door remained shut. It seemed to Lucrezia some days that nothing would ever change, that she would spend her whole life in these rooms, with her brothers, dressed in stockings and smocks.

Shortly after her thirteenth birthday, Lucrezia rose from her bed and was crossing the room to peer out of the window, to see what weather was filling the sky, when she was startled by a cry. She turned to see her mother standing in the doorway, flanked by two of her women, and her face was lit, beaming.

“Look, look at Lucrè!” her mother was saying, clapping her hands. “Oh, what a momentous day!”

Lucrezia smiled uncertainly at Eleonora. Whatever could she have done to merit such praise, such attention?

Everyone in the room turned to her; the three nurses stopped dressing the boys. Their hands fell to their sides. Eleonora was pointing and Lucrezia looked down at herself. What about her had changed so much as to produce this reaction in her mother? She saw only the pale length of her camiciotto, her bare feet, the floorboards beneath.

“Look,” her mother exhorted again. Then she strode across the room and, taking Lucrezia by the upper arm, turned her so that she was facing the wall.

Behind her there was a chorus of cries: “Ooh,” cooed one of the ladies; “Ah,” sighed the other. “Congratulations.”

“Do you see?” Eleonora demanded, delighted, but she wasn’t talking to Lucrezia.

Lucrezia twisted one way, then the other, baffled, trying to see what they could see. What was it about her back that was so remarkable today?

Then she saw it. A patch on her shift, halfway down, dark red and the shape of a landform, a distant and unmapped island surrounded by a vast white sea. She realised there was a familiar heavy feeling in her abdomen, as if a fist was clenching and unclenching

Eleonora was talking about how someone must go down, now, to His Excellency; they will send word this very day to Ferrara and arrangements can be made for the wedding, for the Ferrarese to come to Florence. How terribly exciting it all was.

Lucrezia’s face felt hot, as if she was standing close to naked flames, but her hands and feet were stiff with cold. Her mother’s words fell about her, like ash descending from the sky. She gripped the folds of her shift and stared at the floorboards.

Her mother was back among her ladies. They were still talking about arrangements, about a seamstress for the alterations, about getting sight of the dress today. Lucrezia lifted her gaze and met that of Sofia, across the room. The old nurse was standing by the coffer, with Pietro on one side and Garzia on the other. The three of them stared back at her, her brothers confused by all the fuss. Sofia’s face was expressionless, unreadable. She seemed to clutch the boys’ hands ever tighter, and her lips moved, ever so slightly, as if in apology or perhaps in prayer.



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Eleonora’s ladies sent word to Vitelli, who selected the correct way to delicately communicate the news to Lucrezia’s father. Eleonora and Cosimo met in her apartment and clasped each other in joy. Cosimo authorised a letter to be written to the Ferrarese court, informing them of the welcome arrival of Lucrezia’s womanhood. The following week, a stamped and signed contract, with the wax seal of the Duke of Ferrara, was brought by messenger, carried overland via Bologna, and delivered to the desk of Cosimo. It was accompanied by a letter from the Duke himself: he looked forward with joy and anticipation to sanctification of the union between his son and the Lady Lucrezia; he sent his sincere felicitations to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and his family; he was including them in his prayers. He only regretted that his son, Alfonso, was shortly to go to France, to fight for the King. If the Grand Duke was in accord, the wedding could take place upon Alfonso’s return. He would, in the intervening time, look forward every moment to this happy occasion.

Cosimo read this letter through, leaning back in his chair. He let it drop to the desk and picked up the marriage contract. This he read four or five times, rubbing his thumb back and forth on the bearded underside of his chin. Then he took a quill from the array held out to him on a tray by a bowing clerk and put a line through several of Ferrara’s clauses. He wrote adjustments to certain sums and struck out a demand about inheritance of lands to the north. He then wrote a brief note explaining his amendments and asking for Ferrara’s agreement; he referred the Duke back to his earlier letter last spring, which requested these points be removed from the contract. He stated that the wedding could indeed take place on Alfonso’s return from fighting in France—which might, he commented to Vitelli, who stood behind him, be a year or more from now.