What Remains of the Fair Simonetta Read Free Page B

even in this age, would wear tights on purpose.   
    He set down a folded easel he carried under his arm. “ Signora Vespucci,” he said, with reverence and gave a slight bow and a bend of one knee while avoiding my gaze. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady.”
    I cocked my head sideways, squinting as I stared at the bowed face of the handsome man. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was afraid the early morning booze was fogging my brain, but I quickly realized that my eyes did not betray me. I wanted to rise to my feet to greet him, but feared what my dress might do, and my pounding heart caused me to skip the shallow breath or two my corset allowed.
    His hair was darker than it appears in the faded self-portrait in his Adoration of the Magi, although the rest was a fair likeness. His large, hazel eyes had heavy lids and his nose and chin— which featured just a slight cleft—were both strong and noble. He was hardly the frail and scrawny creature his father had described. His curvaceous lips stretched over a warm smile as he spoke, and I realized his self-portrait didn’t do him justice. I was glad to have the wine on board to calm my nerves, and prevent me from acting like a crazed movie fan meeting Brad Pitt.
    “I have been commissioned to paint your likeness for the banner. My name is Alessandro Filipepi, but most call me Sandro Botticelli.”
    “I bet your father hates that!” I blurted—a statement that sprouted from jitters and wine. I’d always lacked one of those filters that screen out the things one really shouldn’t say aloud.
    He looked at me curiously, before hesitantly replying, “As a matter of fact, he does.”

Chapter 4
    “I hate that they call him that!” Mariano would bark. He must’ve said it a thousand times over the last eleven years. His eldest son, Giovanni, was nicknamed Il Botticello , or the barrel , because he was rather rotund. When Giovanni became a stand-in father and tutor for Sandro—because Mariano just couldn’t deal with him—Sandro became Botticelli or the little barrel .
    Mariano was tortured by the awareness that in the twenty-first century, Sandro had a world full of adoring fans, and never had any knowledge of it. He never even knew his own father loved him. Mariano watched as visitors from around the globe came to the Ognissanti to pay their respects to his son, who was buried near his father. But Sandro always remained silent. The enthusiasts would leave notes by his grave expressing their devotion. The nuns would gather and remove them regularly, lest they disturb the serenity of the Ognissanti with their large numbers. In that respect, Sandro Botticelli is like the Jim Morrison of Renaissance art.
    I would speculate to Mariano that Sandro’s silence must mean he’s at peace, but I didn’t always believe it myself, because there was another presence in the Ognissanti. I never mentioned the “other” to Mariano, nor did he to me, but something or someone was undeniably there. A silent, yearning, presence. I thought at first it was the particles of the being that had occupied the incinerator before me, or a combination of longing souls rather than a solitary one. But I secretly hoped that it was Sandro, and one day he’d make himself known.
    There would’ve been a number of reasons for Sandro to be disquieted in the afterlife. His last years were documented by the chronicler, Giorgio Vasari, to have been a torturous time for him. His fame had waned, and he’d been overshadowed by newer artists such as Michelangelo, DaVinci, and Ghirlandaio. Even if he’d been able to secure new commissions, old age had crippled him, rendering him unable to paint. Vasari accounts that, in the end, Botticelli died penniless and alone in obscurity. His brilliance not rediscovered until some four-hundred years after his death. But the pain of a waning career would pale in comparison to the heartache and longing he felt from an unrequited love—the