The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman

Author:Carol Goodman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345500120
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Four frescoes in the wedding suite to celebrate the marriage of Asdrubale di Tommaso degli Barbagianni to Caterina di Albertozzo degli Galletti in the month of May in the year of 1511, depicting the story of Nastagio degli Onesti. The first fresco depicts the rejection of Nastagio degli Onesti by his beloved in the garden of her father. Various flowers and fruit trees…

I skip the botanical details and read ahead to the description of the second painting, of Nastagio wandering through the forest (no mention, I notice, is made of the birds in the trees—a surprising lapse for this thorough notary), and the third, of Nastagio watching a “noble knight” pursuing an unclothed maiden through the woods.

It is clear from the description of the third painting, the one in which the knight disembowels his former lover, that the notary must have described the painting while standing right in front of it. In fact, he seems to have taken a morbid interest in each gory detail as though the grisly subject matter had taken possession of him just as it had of Nastagio degli Onesti. He even adds an odd little editorial note to the inventory: “And so the young man learns of the perfidy of women and that he is not the first to be so thoughtlessly scorned by one of them.”

A rather unorthodox reading of the tale, I think, and not what I imagine Lorenzo was paying his notary for. Perhaps the notary was admonished for embellishing his account, because the next painting, of the banquet scene on the west wall, is described in a perfunctory manner. Or maybe the notary just had little interest in the happy finale of the story. “And so,” he writes laconically, “Nastagio declines the lady’s offer of a night of unhallowed lust and agrees to marry the lover who first rejected him.” Obviously he wasn’t aware of the existence of a fifth painting that suggested a different ending for the story.

Was it possible that then, as now, the painting was concealed by a tapestry or other wall hanging? But I can’t imagine this particular notary not lifting a piece of cloth to look beneath. And there’s no mention in the inventory of tapestries of one that hung in the camera nuziale. Clearly the tapestry in the rotunda was later moved to cover the fifth fresco.

I can only conclude that the fifth painting must have been added later, although it strikes me as odd. Wedding spalliere, like cassoni, had gone out of fashion by the late sixteenth century. Why would Lorenzo Barbagianni add another to the camera nuziale? And why such a horrible one? I’ll have to go through the account books to determine whether it was ever listed there. First, though, I turn back to the listing of furniture to see whether the cassone is listed and find a forziere—which, I remember, is the term that was used for wedding chests at the time—commissioned in 1511 to celebrate the marriage of Asdrubale and Caterina.

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