VI
Leaving the prior's cell, Giovanni Boltraffio turned his steps towards the Piazza della Signoria. In Via Larga he met the sacred troop. The children had stopped a palanquin carried by black slaves, in which reclined a woman gorgeously attired. A lapdog slept on her knee, a parrot and a monkey were on perches by her side, the litter was followed by servants and by guards. She was a courtesan, Lena Griffi, not long come from Venice, one of those whom the most Serene Republic called 'meretrix honesta,' or playfully 'Mammola' (little dear); and whose name in the placard, drawn up for the convenience of travellers, was set down in large characters and in a place of honour at the top of the list.
Lolling on her cushions like Cleopatra, or a Queen of Sheba, Lena was reading a love-missive from a youthful bishop. Its postscript was a song ending thus:—
'Listening to thy voice I rise
From this globe towards the skies,
Plato's Sphere of Ecstasies.'
The courtesan was meditating on a return sonnet, for she was an accomplished versifier, and used to say that had it depended on herself, she would gladly have passed her whole existence in the Accademia degli vomini virtuosi—in the Academy of the Virtuous.
The sacred troop of children encircled the litter. Dolfo, the leader of one of the bands, advanced raising his red cross, and cried: 'In the name of Jesus, the King of Florence, and of the Blessed Mary our Queen, we bid you strip off these sinful ornaments, these vanities and anathemata. And if you refuse, may you fall under the malediction of God!'
The dog suddenly awakened began to bark, the monkey chattered, the parrot, flapping its wings, screamed out a verse it had learned from its mistress:—
'Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona!'
Lena was about to bid her attendants rid her of the crowd when her eyes fell on Dolfo, and she beckoned to him.
The boy came, his eyes on the ground.
'Away with these ornaments!' shouted the children. 'Away with the vanities and the anathemata.'
'Ah, you handsome boy!' said the courtesan softly, disregarding the cries of the crowd. 'Mark you, my little Adonis, I would willingly give you all my poor toys, but the matter is they are not mine own!'
Dolfo raised his eyes; and Lena, with a scarcely perceptible smile, nodded as if confirming his secret thoughts, then added caressingly, in her soft Venetian accent: 'In the Vicolo de' Bottai, near the Santa Trinità, ask for Lena, the lady from Venice. I'll be expecting you.'
Dolfo looked round and saw that his followers had become involved with a party of Savonarola's enemies (called the Arrabbiati, the Enraged), and had forgotten the courtesan. It was his duty to bid them fall upon her, but suddenly he felt himself vanquished, and flushed and hung his head.
Lena laughed, showing her white teeth; and behind the sumptuous Cleopatra and Queen of Sheba there shone out the Venetian 'Mammola,' the saucy street-girl, mischievous and naughty.
The slaves lifted the litter and she pursued her way unmolested, spaniel on lap; the parrot settled down on his perch; only the monkey still grimaced, and tried to snatch the pencil with which the courtesan was beginning verses to the bishop:—
'My love is purer than a seraph's sigh....'
Dolfo, meantime, preceding his company, but without his former braggadocio, mounted the stair of the Palazzo dei Medici.