Urban Venus Read Online Free PDF Page B

clearly longing just to touch the painting. An alarm beeps loudly, alerting the guard, who leaps in quickly with a ‘ Signore, per favore non toccare. ’ His words are not harsh but his expression takes no prisoners. As they move off I sit down again in front of Venus to contemplate her more fully.
    Now the room is still once more, I can properly take in my surroundings. A room that seemed a perfect cube to start with is actually slightly off-kilter, as though a small child has picked up this block-shaped room and squashed it into vague imperfection, like a chunk of plasticine. I imagine it probably hasn’t changed for centuries; the only concessions to modernity are the invasive, bright red fire extinguishers, alarm buttons and wiring. All the high-tech things a historical building can’t function without in the twenty-first century, particularly when it’s crammed from floor to ceiling with priceless works of art. The smell is of true museum, a mix of oil on canvas and all things old, the stuffiness of a room never opened to the fresh air for fear of the damage it may do to the art within. I breathe deeply and wallow in the aroma of times past.
    Venus reclines in her opulence in front of me. I know popular belief has it that the models for Flora and Venus are one and the same, but as I glance over my shoulder at Flora again, despite the similarities of facial expression and incline of the head, she has none of the wanton sensuality of Venus. Maybe it’s just because Flora, in her innocence, is looking meekly to one side, away from the gaze of the onlooker, whereas Venus seems to be regarding you directly, as if challenging you not to find her beautiful. I suppose she could be the same woman; certainly the style in which they are painted is so very Titian in its appreciation of the voluptuousness of women.
    So who was she, this Venus? The books all say that no one really knows who commissioned this painting, even though it eventually came into the hands of the Della Rovere family, and that link seems to be reaffirmed here by the placing of Venus between Francesco Maria and his wife Eleanora. It must have been a pretty racy painting in its day, and I wonder how the austere Eleanora feels about her portrait hanging next to the wantonly nude Venus in perpetuity, forced for ever to stare at Venus’ beauty, when she herself had not had the fortune to be blessed with such charms.
    I imagine Eleanora’s spirit, wherever it may now reside, being totally shocked. Maybe her ghost haunts the gallery at night, trying to wreak havoc on the painting, and that is why Venus is behind glass? That random thought makes me giggle out loud, and as I raise my hand to my mouth to stifle it the guard gives me an odd look. Even more amusing if the model who sat for the Venus painting had had an affair with Francesco Maria. Imagine if this girl from the sixteenth century had come between them in life and now here she is, hanging between them for eternity! But who would ever know that sort of detail about their lives? I resolve to find out a lot more about them all.
    I am surprised to find myself so intrigued with Venus, and I know I will be coming back here a lot; there’s something about this room, and in particular, that painting, that I love. It seems to draw me in, compelling me to sit here and look at it. Each time I look I discover details I’d not noticed before, from the folds of the curtains to the drape of her hair. Women of that era were certainly appreciated for their curves; there’s no way the skinny Kate Moss’s and Victoria Beckhams of our day would have appealed to those Renaissance artists. No, in those days, they liked them a little plumper, more womanly. Not a size zero body in sight on the walls of this gallery….
     
    He runs his fingers lightly around my jaw line, grips my chin in his thumb and forefinger and gently turns my head to one side, raising my face to what remains of the light. He glances angrily towards