Portrait Of A Conspiracy (Da Vinci's Disciples Book 1) - Donna Russo Morin

Historical Fiction Set In 15th Century Florence

Portrait Of A Conspiracy (Da Vinci's Disciples Book 1) by Donna Russo Morin

Book excerpt

Viviana climbed out of the rented carriage without help of a footman, a treacherous act in her voluminous gown. Keeping her veiled head dipped downward, she dropped the coins into the driver’s hands and watched as he rerouted the vehicle and clattered away.

Once out of sight, Viviana scampered along on the toes of her worn, beribboned slippers, around the far corner and up the hill along the Via de’ Marsili. She slipped through two narrow and deserted streets; every door she passed had been closed tightly—shutters too. It was as if the city itself had died two days ago. If not in mourning, many hid in fear, frightened of the vengeful fist of Il Magnifico pounding anyone remotely culpable.

She clambered uphill in the lofty and wealthy Oltrarno quarter and quickly made her way to the base of the great church. Services marking Terce were soon to begin, though with hardly a congregant to be found.

As she made her way to the middle door, the largest of the three, Viviana crossed into the strangely shaped shadow of Brunelleschi’s architecture, the curved Byzantine silhouette. She spared a quick glance up to the single round window many feet above, and the small modest cross atop the barely pointed steeple. Its creamy plaster façade, accented in dark gray pietra serena stonework, spoke of simplicity and serenity.

Inside, however, its truth lay revealed. Almost forty side chapels bespoke its depth, each with its own altarpiece. The long, wide center aisle, lined with columns topped by scrolled capitals, led the eye, and the penitent, to the altar and the simple Baldacchino, under which the priest offered Mass.

Viviana rarely ventured into this part of Santo Spirito, but on this day, more than in many, she felt the need to light a candle; she would light them all if she could. She had come to find her spirit in the classical faiths, rather than those of Catholicism, much like Lorenzo de’ Medici. But there was a shadow of it on her soul.

Viviana stepped through the small back door in the corner of the north transept, then lightly through the petite square garden, past the lush green sprouts poking up and out of the dark earth. The postern swung loose in the tooth-like gate.

As always, she found the outside door of the baptistery open. Ignoring the first inner door just inside the darkly paneled interior—a locked room, the true guardroom for the church’s sacred reliquaries—she turned left, grabbed a lit lantern from a sideboard with one hand, lifted her skirts with the other, and made her way along a dark corridor. It narrowed as she went, slippers shuffling on dusty stone, powdery sand lifting to dance in the pale rays of light. The lantern held aloft revealed the small simple door ahead, a portal to another world.

Here was the moment she relished like the anticipation of a lover’s lips. She drew the chain out from between her breasts and grasped the key in her hand. Leaning down, she entered the elaborately scrolled piece of metal in its port and sighed with contentment when she heard the click of release.

Only seven keys to this room existed; each woman of the fellowship wore theirs about their neck, strung upon a finely wrought chain. They wore these keys day and night, sometimes hidden beneath their clothes and nightshifts, sometimes as a part of a jangle of jewels adorning resplendent gowns. They wore them as the knight wears his armor, as the warrior wields his sword, for it was both their protection and their weapon.

The seventh key belonged to the man who gave them their home; the parish priest of Santo Spirito, Father Raffaello, brother to Natasia, one of the younger members. As much a devotee of art as the group itself, he was truly a man of God’s graciousness, for he cared not a whit by whose hand art was created. Creation itself was by the hand of God, mortal beings were merely the conduit.

Social order deemed there were only two places women were to be, at home or church. A church, then, was the perfect place for this secret art society to call home and no great cajolery had been required for them to gain access to Santo Spirito’s secret chamber. For not only was Father Raffaello Natasia’s brother, he was a doting one at that.

To be a male artist was to find a banquet of support and sponsorships—the sculptors were members of the Guild of Masons, while the painters belonged to a branch of the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries. Such affiliation came after years of apprenticeship, some starting as small children as young as nine years old.

For women, there was nowhere to start, nowhere to go. Viviana hoped this assemblage, secret though it may be, would be the beginning of the end of such exclusion. It was a ridiculously lofty notion, but she had no other way to think. She was a woman passionate about her craft, and all the more tortured for it.

Viviana’s presence was the first to break the sacred stillness of the room. For a moment she did nothing more than stare at the chamber and its contents in wonder.

The six roughly hewn workbenches of dark wood lined the room with precision, three to a side, facing each other and the open area in the middle. The easels stood tall and proud beside them, some boasting finished works, others in progress, and some with blank, stretched canvasses, their vacant paleness begging for attention. She picked up brush and palette from her own bench, one a bit cluttered, a bit splotched—signs of her zeal, not untidiness. Though not ready to work, she needed the feel of her tools in her hands.

Her loving gaze circled about the room. Each workbench told its owner’s story: the hammer and chisel upon Isabetta’s—her dearest friend—told of her inner darkness; the exquisite, fine line sketches spoke of the loving Mattea’s attention to detail; upon Lapaccia’s bench were her tools, far more perfectly organized than any others; Fiammetta’s held the most expensive of tools, of course; and Natasia’s was nearly empty, the young girl had been too obsessed of late with the coming of her nuptials.

The latter three she knew not well, did not speak with them over much, and yet they were an intrinsic part of her world. What they were doing together was as vital as who she was as a solitary being, secret though their connection may be.

They need not share all, as long as they shared this. The thought flashed as she gripped the handle of her brush a pulse tighter, as she looked down and saw the myriad of colors on her palette…there they were, the women of the art league.

Along the base of the three stonewalls, wet canvasses stood in a row, propped away to dry. On the walls themselves, frescoes hid beneath other frescoes. Boxes and chests jutted out like boulders on a cliff side. So much storage was required in an artist’s studiolo. The aromas of spices and tinctures used to create the paints enveloped all with pungency and bite.

The rising sun found its way in through the southern wall of windows, diffused by thin tracing paper tacked over the thick glass. It afforded the artists light for most of the day. How proud they had been when they first created this place, the hours spent in merry camaraderie, in deep study, and in experimental work with Caterina’s books and journals and sketches before them.

Viviana came full circle, stopping again before her work, analyzing it with a harsh eye. She knew what it said of her, or what the lack of popular subjects revealed. There were no religious symbols, nor those of love, nothing except barren wastelands, landscapes bereft of people, abounding with roads and paths leading off and away. At least she created them with the new technique, with the lifelike dimensionality Giotto and Masaccio had brought to the craft, open windows on a fully rounded world, not the flat depictions of previous eras.

“What was once the most vital has become the very essence of the trivial.” Fiammetta’s booming voice broke Viviana’s reverie as the stout countess lumbered in.

“The world has changed for us all,” Viviana lamented. “Are you rec—”

The question remained unasked and unanswered.

“Oh, you are here!” The trill announced Natasia’s arrival…and her relief. “After yesterday, I did not dare to hope we would ever meet again. I thought it was the end of the world and we would never see each other, save for in the hereafter.”

“It may still be.” Fiammetta took the young woman in her hefty arms, the strands of their necklaces clinking together with delicate notes.

“Such a sight to behold, one I thought I may never see again.” Isabetta had crept up on them in her stealthy way.

Viviana embraced her, arms quivering. “I was so very worried about you.”

The tall woman scoffed. “I reside with the poor folk. This mayhem belongs to those hungry for power and glory.” A hint of her northern accent remained, and all her bluntness, as stark as her pale hair.

They were harsh words, not fully uninformed; none dared deny them. Viviana would say nothing of Lapaccia until the last member arrived, though she would make their number only five. Viviana had no expectations to see the sixth appear, though her heart thudded with hope.

“Your husband, Isabetta, how is—”

“The same.” The woman rushed past the topic as she always did when any tried to ask after her husband and his health. Her pale eyes met theirs without a blink.

The silence in the wake of her rebuttal grew and grew heavy. Each woman took the opportunity to make for their workstation, though there were few thoughts of actual work. Isabetta brushed unseen stone chips from her crude wood table, the dust clinging to her pale tresses. Fiammetta fiddled with her brushes as she always did upon arrival—cleaning them meticulously, arranging them by size. Natasia stood before the finished works at the base of the wall by her table, pointing a finger at each one—an introduction heartily made on every arrival.

Light, quick footfalls pattered along the corridor, metal grated upon metal as key merged with keyhole and twisted.

With Mattea’s arrival, they came together again. It was as if the very air about them had somehow changed; haphazard streaks forming a painting with the last and final stroke applied. It happened whenever they were together. They gathered themselves together in grateful silence, forming a circle of joined arms, hearts beating with the same rhythm of relief. For a moment, they wallowed in it. It gave the group—and the women in it—their power.

Viviana knew the moment had come; the stalling grew unbearable.

“I called us together to—”

“Stop.” Isabetta held her. “Will you not wait for Lapaccia?”

Viviana’s stomach flopped. Her body quivered on a deep, indrawn breath.

“She…she won’t be coming.” Viviana leaned against a table, hands clasped tightly. A dispassionate telling was the prescription for this tale. “She won’t be coming, for she is missing.”

A collective gasp arose, a burst of outrage and horror.

“Tell us, Viviana,” Fiammetta ordered. “Tell us all…now.”

Viviana squared her shoulders and did.

“Dear Lapaccia.” Natasia sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands as Isabetta held her shaking shoulders.

“Poor Andreano,” Mattea whispered, tears of her own unshed, staring out into nothing.

“The Pazzi have broken us.” The words escaped. Viviana bit her full bottom lip; she knew they were the wrong ones to say the moment they were out of her mouth.

The reaction, when it came, as quick as it came, was no surprise.

Thrusting her hands on her wide hips, Fiammetta turned on her, faced puckered sourly.

“The Medici asked too much, took too much.” The woman’s ire splotched her bulbous cheeks, as always when she and Viviana talked of the two most powerful families of the land and their divergent loyalties. They tried, with every effort, to simply not discuss it. There were cracks in the bonds of every family. But avoidance may not be possible anymore. “If they had only—”

“If they had—” Viviana’s face contorted in shock. She pointed a sharp finger. “You were in the cathedral, Fiammetta. You saw what the Pazzi did.”

“They may have felt they had good reason to—”

“There is never a good reason for such carnage…for cold-blooded murder!” Viviana shouted. Fiammetta’s face turned a vivid purple to match her brocade gown.

“Please, my friends, please,” Mattea stepped between them. “We must not talk of this now. We must talk of Lapaccia.”

Viviana turned, fuming. But Mattea was right; she had called them together to decide how they could help Lapaccia, for no woman of such a rank went missing for this long without a troublesome reason at the heart of it.

“Yes, Lapaccia,” Fiammetta said. “She was not closely aligned with either family. The Cavalcanti need secure themselves to no one.”

They all nodded; there were few more noble families in the entire region.

“I cannot believe she would venture out on her own,” Isabetta said with flat disbelief.

“I have no doubt she was looking for Andreano,” Viviana added.

“You do not think…” Natasia’s tremulous cheep withered away.

“Think what?”

“You do not think they found out about us, about the group? And they took Lapaccia for her involvement in it. Perhaps they shall come for us all?”

“Listen to me, Natasia.” Isabetta’s tone was soft, yet her words carried sharp edges. “What we do here is deemed unlawful, but do you really suppose in this moment, with two great families—the greatest men of our city—setting out to destroy one another, that anyone, anyone, would care about an association of women who liked to draw?”

Silence met her supposition, but only for a moment. Viviana cracked first. It was a small snicker loosening the floodgates. Soon even Natasia chuckled at the ridiculous notion she had suggested. Leave it to Isabetta to find the amusing reality amidst the maelstrom.

“But if not because of this group, then what?” Mattea asked the better question.

Not a one had a chance to answer.

Heavy and arrhythmic footfalls clod outside the door and the women turned in fright. Mattea had left the door unlocked. Isabetta reached out and grabbed her heavy metal, pointed chisel, brandishing it like a sword as she stepped in front of them, a human shield of righteousness if not of might.

Father Raffaello opened the door with a whoosh, swooping backward at the sight of the armed Isabetta. He threw his hands up yet remained in the threshold.

“Madonne, mi scuse,” his deep baritone squeaked. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.”

Isabetta lowered her artist’s weapon. The priest entered the room, slapping his forehead.

“I should have thought, should have known, in these days, how easily we are all scared.”

Natasia rushed to her brother’s side. Of similar coloring and stature, big-boned and tall, his made all the more corpulent by the voluminous robes, there could be no denying their kinship.

“What brings you, Tomaso?” Her brother had been a priest for many a year, but he had been her brother first, a wild young man saved when he had heard God’s calling, as his priestly name implied.

“There is word of your friend, Lapaccia.” He put a hand upon his sister’s, one holding his arm so very tightly. “The city is rife with talk of her, Lapaccia and a painting.”

“A painting?” Viviana’s voice cracked as it rose. The group gathered closer to the cleric.

“Yes, a painting, one gone missing from the Palazzo della Signoria and…and they accuse her of its theft.”

***

“And so we have left the insane to enter the absurd.” Isabetta’s sarcasm broke the appalled silence.

“A…a painting, from the palazzo…” Fiammetta repeated the words to make sense of them. “Do you know how many paintings there are in that palace?”

“It is one of the newer paintings, or so the scuttlebutt proclaims. The one hung just after Christmas, the mysterious group portrait no artist ever claimed.” The priest shut the door as he entered fully and took a step closer to the circle of women in the center of the room. “For some reason, its absence has become quite noticeable. It is now considered part of the investigation.”

“A part of…,” Viviana’s voice trailed off; there were too many thoughts bumping against each other in her mind. “Let us take this a step at a time. A painting is missing, it is certain?”

Father Raffaello nodded. “Most definitely.”

“Whatever could make them think it has something to do with the atrocity?” Isabetta asked.

“It seems, as the painting was of a gathering,” the priest explained, “it is believed to be a portrait of the conspirators themselves.”

“Good Lord!” Isabetta spat. “My apologies, Father.”

Father Raffaello patted her slim hand with his chubby one.

“I am sorry, but I am not surprised. The ego of men, of powerful men, it is the work of your devil, yes?”

The priest nodded, slow and pensive.

“The adoration of their own brilliance impelled them to have such a painting rendered,” Viviana added. “But it would have taken time.”

“I remember this painting,” Mattea raised a thin finger. “We went to sketch it, all of us, I think. Or perhaps just Viviana, Isabetta, and myself. It was quite the talk at the time. How could it be of the killers?”

“Quite easily, I think,” Natasia declared. “I heard Giovanna degli Albizzi tell Papa. Word is spreading that the plan was more than two years in the making, plenty of time for such a painting to be rendered, no?”

Fiammetta swatted the air. “It is all bruited nonsense.”

“Is it?” Isabetta insisted. “And yet a conspiracy there was. An assassination there was. This is not rumor, but fact. It is in the realm of possibility, as surely as anything that has happened these past few days.”

Viviana tutted, “A plan of such magnitude would take much time in the making. Acts of such a heinous nature are rarely done on spur of the moment thoughts.”

“Ah-ha!” Mattea crowed. With a large parchment in hand, she wormed her way into the center of the group, holding the paper up and out, displaying the work.

Two weeks after Christmas this painting had appeared, an anonymous donation to the growing collection at the Palazzo della Signoria, and now, four months later, its master was still unknown…four months and still its notoriety clung to it like the last layer of varnish. It was a mammoth work, a group portrait mimicking one of the great moments in Christianity. There had to be more than thirty men within the large and elaborate room depicted, not to mention servants and furniture. Yet the dimensionality, the new trend breathing true life into the art of painting, was employed with brilliance.

“I do remember that painting!” Fiammetta exclaimed.

“As do I,” Viviana agreed. “I went more than once. I was quite enraptured with the technique of perspective rendering such a large group in a confined space. Typically, so many would be captured among nature, without confinement, easier to replicate the proper dimensions.”

Mattea made the connection. “It is the Feast of Herod.”

The Feast of Herod was currently one of the most favored topics; an ideal scene in which to capture many faces, a technique and trend of the age, where the rich sponsor paying the artist’s commission demanded their faces, and those of family and friends, be made part of the portrait.

“We all have sketches of it then,” Isabetta scrunched her eyes. “I am remembering it. It was not Filippo Lippi’s, though it was in the style of his famous one. The mimicry brought the painting its notoriety, I think.”

“It was not signed, was it?” Fiammetta asked, searching her mind as she cudgeled her memory. “I cannot seem to recall a signature.”

“I think you’re right, Fiammetta.” Mattea bobbed her head. “I don’t show any sign of it here, though I have more sketches at home.”

Viviana paced. “Well, there is no question of the painting’s existence. But what could possibly connect Lapaccia to its disappearance?”

“Those who speak of it say she and the painting went missing at the same time,” Father Raffaello spoke up. “The last anyone saw of her was at the Palazzo della Signoria, that day. It is also the last day the painting was seen.”

Mattea scoffed, “Preposterous. She would never.”

“It doesn’t matter, dear women.” The priest brought them to silence. “It only matters that they think she took it.”

To this, they said nothing.

With a kiss upon his sister’s cheek and a respectful bow to all the women, Father Raffaello took himself away.

“We have many sketches, yes?” Viviana broke the silence in his wake.

Every woman nodded.

“Then there are two things we must do.”

“Two?” Isabetta tilted her head.

“Sì, two. First, we must recreate the painting and return it as soon as possible.”

“Are you mad?” Natasia barked.

“If it is returned, perhaps the government, perhaps Il Magnifico, will stop looking for Lapaccia.”

“Ah, yes, but it is only half our battle,” Isabetta said with dawning clarity.

“Not the easy half,” Fiammetta sniped.

“No, it is the easy half, for we are all masters, are we not?” There was such righteous pride in Viviana’s words, not a one would, or could, naysay her. “Though I admit, it would be far easier were our ‘studio’ to have a true maestro, one with a true talent for the modern techniques.”

“We will find no such woman,” Isabetta muttered.

“Not yet,” Mattea said with her shy smile.

“That is a challenge for another day,” Viviana brought them back to the task at hand. “For now, our most formidable task is finding Lapaccia ourselves.”

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Donna Russo Morin

BOOK TITLE: Portrait Of A Conspiracy (Da Vinci's Disciples Book 1)

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PAGE COUNT: 346

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