“Ah, non. That’s a charcoal sketch. A study. The artist draws the scene on the rough wall, then puts on a layer of smooth plaster. He paints the scene while the plaster is still fresh — that’s why it’s called ‘fresco.’ The paint soaks in, and voilà, it becomes part of the plaster. Over time the colors can fade, but the paint cannot peel off. Except with a chisel.”
“How did the artist remember all the details, after the sketch was covered with wet plaster?”
Stefan looked at the ceiling, or beyond, lifting the palms of his hands. “A miracle.”
“So, Boss, what’s the verdict?” Miranda finally asked. “You think Giovanetti’s our guy? Did he do the Shroud?”
I took another look at Jesus, then rescanned the entire room, floor to ceiling. “This is beautiful,” I said. “Giovanetti was a great painter.” Finally I shook my head. “But the style’s not right. His people are…I don’t know…too pretty. Too delicate. They don’t have the heft, the fleshiness, the power that the figure on the Shroud does.” I sighed. “That’s my two cents’ worth, anyhow.”
“Agreed,” said Miranda. “Too bad, though. Seemed like a great theory. Stefan, what do you think?”
“I think you are chasing smoke.” He checked his watch. “Merde,” he cursed, “I must go now. I have a stupid meeting with a petty bureaucrat.”
Miranda laughed. “But how do you really feel about him? And who is this charmer?”
“Pfft.” His meeting, he said, was with the city official who had jurisdiction over the palace. “I tell him I need to move the bones, and he says no, and no, and no,” he fumed. “I keep saying, ‘Someone’s going to steal them, and then you will be sorry,’ but he won’t listen. He is even too cheap to pay for the motion detector — I had to buy it with my own money. Fou. Idiot.” He shook his head in disgust. “Allons-y. Let’s go.”
He led us out by way of a different door, which — like every door in the palace, seemingly — yielded to his master key. This door opened onto a cavernous banquet hall, which was filled with display cases and milling tourists. Frowning at the tourists, Stefan pointed us toward the far end of the hall, where a doorway led to the main exit.
Miranda ducked through the doorway, and I was just about to, when I stopped dead in my tracks. There on the wall at the end of the banquet hall — on plaster the color of old linen — was the face of Jesus, larger than life. The eyes were piercing; the nose was long and slightly crooked, as if it might have been broken once in a fight; the first two fingers of the right hand, uplifted in a gesture of blessing, were long and thin.
“Miranda — wait! Come back!” She wheeled and hurried toward me, her face full of concern. I pointed; when she saw the picture, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
I read the plaque on the wall. The picture was a preliminary study for a fresco, it explained, like the sketch I’d seen upstairs. But this wasn’t a crude outline in charcoal; this was a finely detailed work of art, rendered in the same reddish-brown hue — and the same sure, powerful style — as the face on the Shroud of Turin.
The portrait was the handiwork of another Italian artist, one who — unlike the stylistically promising Giotto — actually did work in Avignon at the time of the popes. He was known by three names.
Simone Martini.
Simone of Siena.
Master Simone.
CHAPTER 19
“Master Simone, Hurry! Please hurry! If we’re caught, this will happen to us.” The nervous jailer leans backward slowly, easing his head through the doorway of the cell just far enough into the hallway to look and listen. He sees and hears nothing, but when he straightens and turns his attention into the cell, he pleads again, “Hurry.”
His eagerness to leave is inspired by more than just fear of detection. The scene set before him is like something from one of his nightmares — and in fact, after this night, it will become one of his nightmares, destined to haunt him for the remaining seven years of his life.
Six oil lamps flicker on the cold stone floor, their wicks sputtering at odd, startling intervals as they’re struck by droplets from the damp ceiling. All around the small cell, the lamps cast shadows of Simone at work. As he bends, straightens, shifts his feet, moves his arms, the shadows jump and writhe, like demons performing a macabre dance around the dead man stretched at the center of the cell.
Despite the jailer’s entreaties, Simone cannot, will not be rushed; such a remarkable subject demands his full attention and best work. The corpse — an older man, but robust, or a ravaged, ruined version of robust — lies faceup on the stone floor. He is nude, but Simone has modestly crossed the hands above the genitals. The artist is fascinated and horrified by the wounds, the very stigmata of Christ. The punctures in the wrists and feet are fringed by ragged flesh and crusty blood; the knife wound in the side is sharply edged, but the blood and serum from it are smeared down the torso, hip, and leg. A crude wooden cross leans against the back wall of the cell and it, too, bears bloody stigmata.
Simone never expected such an opportunity when he arrived in Avignon. He came simply to test the patronage waters at the papal court — to see if French clerics might consider loosening their purse strings for an Italian painter. But a painter can kiss the hands of prospective patrons only so many times before his lips and his spirit grow chafed. Once that happens, he needs to work, whether there’s money in it or not. So having had his fill of Avignon’s splendor, Simone sought out its squalor, making the rounds of its prisons, hospitals, and cemeteries, concluding each polite inquiry by pressing a florin discreetly into the welcoming palm of a jailer or nurse or gravedigger.
It’s not that Simone is morbid; far from it — no one loves life more than Simone of Siena! But it’s always a good idea to study and sketch a corpse or two, if opportunity presents itself. In a religious painter’s line of work, the quick outnumber the dead, but not by so wide a margin as one might suppose. There’s a steady market for martyr paintings, of course, but the real money is in dead and dying Christs: A painter who’s quick with his brush and smooth with his tongue can feed a family of ten solely with commissions for crucifixion paintings. It’s crucial, therefore, to master death and dying, but where to find the examples? Living models — thieves and prostitutes and beggars, who’ll pose for a pittance or a porridge — are far easier to come by than dead ones. Far more troublesome, too, though: the living wheedle and whine and fidget, while the dead demand no fee or food. Corpses hold stock-still, no matter how many hours the sitting lasts. On the other hand, if the sitting stretches too long, the stench becomes distracting, especially in summer. Ripeness is a virtue in fruits, women, and opportunities, Simone has learned, but not in corpses. This corpse, though — freshly dead, laid out on a cold stone floor in late fall — this corpse is a godsend.
The trip to Avignon came up unexpectedly in the midst of a chapel commission in Tuscany. Simone had spent months drawing the sinopia studies on the rough walls; finally every scene was sketched, and all that was needed was the duke’s final approval. That would surely be a mere formality — after all, each scene featured at least one family member in a prominent position, a flattering light. The Virgin Mary bore a striking resemblance to milady the duchess; Joseph, to the duke himself; the baby Jesus, to the duke’s squalling brat and heir; John the Baptist, to the duke’s younger brother; and so on and so on, down to the final feebleminded cousin, portrayed as a simple shepherd. The sketches done, Simone had ground his pigments, made new brushes, set up his worktable, and asked permission to mix plaster and proceed. But fate had intervened: His honor the duke had galloped off into the night, narrowly escaping an assassination, and was now rumored to be hiding in Rome, or perhaps Naples, or possibly Venice by now. The chapel project had ground to a halt for god knows how long.