Da Vinci's Tiger Read Online Free PDF

cherished guest as well. I know he will be thrilled to have his wife delight us with her poetry. The feminine voice is so moving. My mother writes fine devotional verses herself, as you know.”
    â€œIndeed, she will be honored to come, as will Luigi,” spoke a deep baritone voice. My uncle Bartolomeo had approached our group. “We all are very proud of Ginevra’s womanly virtues, particularly the needlework she learned to sew at the convent.”
    â€œYou must attend as well, Bartolomeo,” Lorenzo added graciously. “Your presence makes any event more festive.” The twenty-six-year-old slapped my uncle on the back. Only Lorenzo was allowed such familiarity with men a decade older. Even more telling of how Florence’s rules did not apply to him, the all-powerful Medici was four years shy of being eligible to have his name put into Florence’s lottery for public office. Lorenzo turned to Bernardo Bembo. “Such tales I have to tell you about Bartolomeo. But they will wait until our dinner.”
    My uncle bowed in thanks, putting his hand to his chest. He wore a scarlet, knee-length wool mantello , the standard over-cape wealthy Florence merchants donned in cold weather. But I noticed that underneath he wore blue hose to match the Medici costume.
    I looked to Lorenzo and back to my uncle. The two of them had brokered my marriage to Luigi exactly one year before, when I was sixteen years old. And so the evening was agreed to, like so much of my life had been determined up until then—negotiated and sealed by men and their ambitions.
    But this time, I was rather happy about it.

4
    T HE NEXT MORNING, I BUSIED MYSELF WITH CHORES WHILE I hoped Lorenzo’s invitation would truly come. I was on my way to check our granary supplies when I ran into my husband.
    â€œGood morrow, wife.” Luigi bowed his head.
    â€œHusband.” I curtsied.
    â€œI trust you slept well after yesterday’s festivities?”
    â€œI did, sir. And you?”
    He nodded. “A wonderful display of the city’s cloth in all the banners and garments.”
    â€œIndeed, yes. I hope the brotherhood was pleased?” My husband was an important member of the cloth merchantguild, the Arte di Calimala. During the joust, he’d been seated with other prominent guild officials and magistrates. We had yet to discuss our differing experiences at the spectacular event.
    â€œImmensely,” he answered. “And you looked quite beautiful, my dear. I hope you received compliments on your garb?”
    â€œSimonetta was very impressed with the roses and vines stitched into the mantle’s border.” It was delicate, artistic work, done by one of the female embroiderers populating the narrow streets that wrapped around Santa Croce. “She thought the blossoms particularly well executed.”
    That pleased my husband. I was, after all, essentially a walking advertisement for his wool shop and fabric trading business. In a city where people judged wealth and reputation on fine textiles, clothes were recognized symbols of status, ennobling the wearer. My husband oft quoted the popular writer Leon Battista Alberti, saying, virtue ought to be dressed in seemly ornaments.
    The opportunity to display his goods at the joust was sweetened by the fact that I would be sitting beside Simonetta, an honor I was granted because my aunt Caterina was her mother-in-law. All eyes would be on La Bella Simonetta—and if my clothing was resplendent enough, I would catch those gazes as well.
    So Luigi had carefully directed my attire, sparing no expense. My cape was of the softest wool, colored a deep scarlet with the costliest of dyes made from ground-up shellsof the kermes beetle imported from Arabia and Persia. Its gold border—the color created with a dye of crushed marigolds and poetically named “Apollo’s Hair”—matched the fabric of my dress underneath, which was embroidered