The Birth of Venus Read Online Free PDF Page A

Though I swear if I were to paint the scale I could do it in a flash: shining gold leaf for the top notes, falling through ochers and reds into hot purple and deepest blue.
    But today I am saved from further torment. As the dancing teacher starts humming the opening notes, the vibrations in his little nose sounding like a cross between a Jew’s harp and an angry bee, there is a thunder of knocking on the downstairs main doors and then a flurry of voices, and old Ludovica puffs her way into the room, grinning.
    “My lady Plautilla, it’s here. The marriage
cassone
has arrived. You and your sister Alessandra are called to your mother’s room immediately.”
    And now my giraffe legs take me out faster than Plautilla’s gazelle ones. There are some compensations to beanpole height.
    IT IS ALL CHAOS AND CONFUSION. THE WOMAN AT THE FRONT OF the crowd is toppling over, a hand flung out wildly in front as if to steady herself. She is half undressed, her undershirt diaphanous around bare legs, her left foot naked on the stone ground. In contrast, the man beside her is fully clothed. He has a particularly fine leg and a richly embroidered brocade jerkin; if you look carefully you can spot pearls shimmering in the cloth. His face is close to hers, his arms clasped hard around her waist, the fingers knotted together to catch her falling weight better. While there is violence in the pose, there is also a grace, as if they too might be dancing. To the right a group of women, nobly dressed, are huddled together. Some of the men have already infiltrated this group; one has his hand on a woman’s dress, another his lips so close to hers that they are surely kissing. I recognize one of my father’s gold-veined fabrics in her skirt and fashionably slit sleeves and go back to the girl at the front. She is far too pretty to be Plautilla (he wouldn’t have dared to undress her, surely?) but her loose hair is fairer than the others, a transformation of color the like of which my sister would gladly die for. Maybe the man is supposed to be Maurizio, in which case the portrait is a blatant piece of flattery to his leg.
    For a while none of us say anything.
    “It is an impressive work.” My mother’s voice, when it finally comes, is quiet but brooks no disagreement. “Your father will be pleased. It brings honor to our family.”
    “Oh, it’s magnificent,” Plautilla twitters, happily by her side.
    I am not so sure. I find the whole thing somewhat vulgar. To begin with, the marriage chest is too large, more like a sarcophagus. While the paintings themselves are of some delicacy, the stucco and ornamentation is so elaborate—there is no inch of space that isn’t covered in gold leaf—it takes away from the pleasure of the art. I was surprised that my mother was so deceived, though I later came to realize that her eye was a subtle thing, as much trained to read the nuance of status as of aesthetics.
    “It makes me wonder if we should have employed Bartolommeo di Giovanni for the chapel. He is much more experienced,” she mused.
    “And much more expensive,” I said. “Father would be lucky to see the altar finished in his lifetime. I hear he barely completed this chest on time. And most of it is painted by his apprentices.”
    “Alessandra!” my sister squeaked.
    “Oh, use your eyes, Plautilla. Look how many of the women are in exactly the same pose. It’s obvious they’re using them for figure practice.”
    Though I have later thought Plautilla did well to put up with me during our childhood, at the time anything and everything she said seemed so trivial or stupid it was only natural to goad her. And equally natural that she would rise to it.
    “How could you! How could you say that? Ah! But even if it were true, I can’t imagine anyone noticing it but you. Mama is right; it is very fine. Certainly I like it much better than if it had been the story of Nastagio degli Onesti. I hate the way the dogs hunt her down. But these