Signora Gallerani had appeared unannounced at the Verme Palace, Fazio at her side. Behind them, an old mule had pulled a cart loaded with a dowry box, a chest full of hastily stitched table and bed linens, an old mantle that once belonged to her grandfather, and a favorite blanket from her childhood bed.
Cecilia had stood, jaw open, but her mother offered little in the way of explanation. Instead, she quickly scooped up Cesare in her abundant arms, smothering him with kisses and whispered promises. Cecilia was left speechless, her hand on the door latch, watching her mother stride into her life after so many months of silence. Fazio could only shrug.
And now, from the window, Cecilia watched her mother berate the young man who was packing the carriage that would carry her to her new life, her new husband.
“My daughter is a countess!” her mother kept repeating. “You must treat her things with greater care.” Cecilia stifled a laugh with her fist.
A countess. Wife of a count. Another Ludovico.
In a tidy, elegant villa in the countryside, Count Ludovico Carminati de Brambilla was waiting for Cecilia. A box holding all her land deeds—heavy with seals of metal and wax—had been couriered to Count Brambilla’s home at San Giovanni in Croce, securing Cecilia’s place. In addition, there were inventories of her sheep, cattle herds, and a stable of horses. Now, all that was left were her personal belongings, herself, and her little Cesare. She wondered if Count Brambilla was prepared for her mother, too.
He had seemed kind enough. The count had bowed to her and spoke to her quietly, with soft blue eyes. He wasn’t much to look at, much older than she, with graying hair and a lined forehead. Cecilia had leaned on Master Leonardo to fill in the details. Count Brambilla was an upstanding landowner with a long family heritage in the wool trade, he had said. His young wife had suffered a string of failed pregnancies before the last attempt to deliver a live child took her life, too. For nearly ten years, he had lived alone in the large house, with no heirs to his estate. Cecilia saw it for herself: rows of manicured gardens with lazily buzzing insects; perfectly ordered, empty rooms; a large ground-floor kitchen where the cook mostly napped at the wooden table.
Count Brambilla was an active patron of poetry, painting, and music, Leonardo had told her. He had once held well-attended gatherings of guests, but now, the life had gone out of the house. He enjoyed the company of painters and musicians, but he longed to bring his court back again and he was unable to do it alone. Cecilia knew that this role would be easy for her, a new chance to sing, to write poetry, to spend time in the company of learned people. She knew in her heart that she could bring the place back to life.
Quickly, it became clear that the count wanted her as his wife. It only took days for him to dispatch his notary with a marriage contract to her brother. And to Cecilia’s surprise, her position as Ludovico il Moro’s mistress—and even the mother of his bastard son—was no barrier. In fact, instead of being treated as a filthy whore, she suddenly enjoyed esteemed status. In his most base desire for Cecilia, Ludovico Sforza had conferred upon her a higher social rank. Even the nuns were eager to have Cecilia join them, sending their confessor to petition her brother. But there was no convincing Cecilia, for she had had only one desire. One condition. And one doubt.
It was only when the notary returned with the marriage contract, in which the count promised to care for Cesare just the same as he would care for Cecilia, that she finally exhaled. She did not hold on to the illusion that a man, little more than a stranger, might accept the boy as his own child, but she would go nowhere without her son. The thought of a life behind the convent walls, without Cesare in her arms, was unbearable. She nodded in assent for Fazio to sign the marriage contract to Count Ludovico Carminati de Brambilla on behalf of the Gallerani family. On the news that her daughter was to be a countess instead of a high-ranking concubine, Cecilia’s mother had rushed to Verme Palace with a mule and a dowry chest now cleaned of its cobwebs and dust.
And now, Cecilia walked from the Verme Palace for the last time, and out of Ludovico il Moro’s life. She waded into the cool, sunlit courtyard before the palace. There were only two things she wanted: her baby and her portrait.
Inside the carriage, Cesare, content in his grandmother’s arms, did not make a move toward Cecilia. And seeing his smile, and her own mother’s, made Cecilia smile with them.
“Where is the portrait?” she asked the manservant.
“It’s here, Signora Contessa,” he said, lifting the portrait that Leonardo da Vinci had carefully wrapped for her into the passenger compartment. Then, he lent Cecilia a hand as she climbed in beside it.
The carriage driver signaled the horses to go. The smell of wet earth rose as the horses’ hooves tore into it, and the wheels creaked forward until they picked up speed and made their way through the gates.
85
Leonardo
Milan, Italy
October 1494
I WATCH TWO BOYS ROLL WHAT IS LEFT OF THE FLYING machine through the great double doors of the stable inside the Corte Vecchia. Little more than a skeleton of splintered wood and ripped silk. This time, it drew hundreds in the square before the cathedral façade. Another spectacle. Another laughingstock. I might try a different approach next time, that is, if I can put the embarrassment behind me and find the energy to start again.
I may as well start again, I think, for Ludovico il Moro is occupied with other matters and pays little attention to me now. He is the Duke of Milan, at last, and he has more serious matters to consider. The new title changes little, I think, for Ludovico il Moro has been the acting duke for many years now, even if he has only been regent.
Anyone might have predicted the demise of poor Gian Galeazzo, the little duke who used to haunt the hallways of this very house as a boy, finally grown old enough to pose a credible threat. Poisoned in broad daylight, Marco the harpist whispered to me in the palace corridor. Sitting at the head of the table, too. The servants are saying that His Lordship’s own physician mixed the concoction, Marco had said. But there will be no consequences other than the passing of the title to Ludovico il Moro, for who holds the power to challenge his authority, after all?
Cecilia Gallerani left the ducal palace in good time, I think. I cannot help but smile to think of Cecilia, now a countess in her own right just a day’s carriage ride from here. I must go and visit her, I think. I would like to see where she has hung my portrait, to know if her husband, the other Ludovico, appreciates my likeness of his bride.
Besides, there is so much to tell. Cecilia might approve of Beatrice’s evening gatherings, filled with new sonnets, new entertainments, new dice games. I had my doubts, but the duchess has become a fine and skilled consort for Ludovico il Moro, in spite of her youth.
Still, Beatrice has not been completely successful in distracting His Lordship. In the corridors, the servants whisper that Lucrezia Crivelli is with child, and that Ludovico has set aside orchards and a tower near Lake Como in her name.
But as much as I might enjoy a trip to see Cecilia Gallerani in her estate far beyond the walls of Milan, I wonder if she will welcome me and my tales from the ducal palace. Perhaps I should not fill her mind with such fodder. It is all for the better that she has left it behind.
86
Dominic