The Miracles of Prato Read Free Page A

said.
    â€œBut it will do her no good here,” Mother Bartolommea replied.
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    F ra Filippo selected a thin-handled brush from a jumble on his worktable. He dipped it into the fresh tempera and raised the bristles to the blank oval, preparing to make a mark that would define the Madonna’s cheek.
    â€œI don’t see it,” Fra Filippo mumbled to himself as his hand stopped. “I don’t see the Madonna I’ve promised.”
    Fra Filippo knew he needed only to follow the lines he’d drawn in order to have a Madonna that would please his patron, Ottavio de’ Valenti. But the monk was never satisfied by simply filling in the lines he’d sketched onto a panel. His Virgin had to be beautiful and tragic; a Mary full of grace yet already seeing beyond the joy of her son’s birth, to His sad end.
    â€œMatteo!” The painter’s voice echoed through the open rooms of his bottega, and Fra Filippo remembered that again that very morning he’d dismissed yet another young assistant—the stupid oaf had left the gesso brushes unwashed, and they lay stiff and useless on the ground. The monk kicked the brushes across the floor, and grabbed up a heavy jug of wine.
    Fra Filippo had accepted the commission from de’ Valenti knowing that he would need to work swiftly. He rarely turned down work, and never refused a wealthy man who might protect him from the vagaries of an artist’s life. Being a monk was no insurance against the perils of his own passions, as Fra Filippo well knew. Although Cosimo de’ Medici had recently called him the greatest living painter in all of the Italian states, Fra Filippo was heavily in debt, often short of money, and always behind in his work. His growing reputation as a brilliant painter brought him ever-increasing commissions, but hadn’t altered the monk’s tendency to procrastinate, or to make trouble for himself.
    Many had heard tales of his great bravado, the power of his appetites, and the roar of his pride. But few understood the hours Fra Filippo spent warding off doubt whenever he feared his talents would elude him. And as he often did at such moments, Fra Filippo felt overwhelmed by all that God and man asked of him.
    â€œWhy do you ask me to paint what I don’t see, Lord?” the painter asked aloud, letting his brush fall to his side. “If this is your will, then show me a face worthy of the Virgin.”
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    L ucrezia and Spinetta followed Sister Camilla past the convent’s small barn, stinking pigsty, and herd of braying goats. Ignoring the sweat that ran down her back, Lucrezia stepped carefullyalong a crooked stone pathway, past a fountain in the cloister garden that seemed to mock her with its cool, bubbling water.
    â€œWhen you enter the convent you surrender all worldly goods and vanities,” Sister Camilla said, her voice floating to them through the thick morning air. “Everything for a life of prayer and work is provided by the Lord, and the healing herbs from Sister Pureza’s garden help us to maintain a healthy balance of our humors.”
    Lucrezia gazed at a stooped nun who was looking at them across a stone wall. The woman held a basket filled with yellow flowers in her arms and watched as they entered a low stucco building. When Lucrezia looked back over her shoulder, the old nun’s bright eyes were still on them.
    â€œYou’ll wear these robes,” Sister Camilla said after she’d led the sisters to their cells, barely large enough for a narrow cot and small washbasin, and handed each a black garment. Her eyes passed over their ornate dresses. “Someone will come for your clothes.”
    The secretary looked at the young women’s long hair, and swatted at a fly that buzzed near her cheek.
    â€œThe convent has abandoned the custom of shaving our novitiates’ heads,” Sister Camilla said. “The prioress believes hair is not a vanity but a