He continued to tell her of the beauties of Venice, of its culture and riches. Strozzi had many friends in that city but there was none other who held the place in his esteem which belonged to Pietro Bembo. Lucrezia knew of Pietro Bembo, of course. He was the greatest humanist in Italy and one of the finest poets. The friendship was treasured by Strozzi, he declared, and he felt himself honored by it.
“I know his work well,” said Lucrezia. “I agree with you that it could only come from a fine mind. Now I envy you your visits to Venice more than ever. There you will be with your poet friend. You will be together in that beautiful city; you will search the merchants’ treasures. Oh yes, I greatly desire to explore Venice.”
“You are a beautiful woman and nothing should be denied you. I could bring Venice to you, in some measure. I shall of course speak of you with my friend Pietro Bembo; I shall tell him of your charm and delicacy. I will make you known to him and him to you. With your permission I will search the shops of Venice for the finest velvets and brocades, and I will bring back the most exquisite, the most delicately embroidered, that they may be made into gowns worthy to be worn by you.”
“You are kind, my friend. But I could not buy these stuffs. Since I have been in Ferrara I am no longer rich.”
“You are the Pope’s daughter. I shall but mention that, and there is not a merchant in Venice who would fail to give you all the credit you desire.”
“You are a very good friend to me,” she told him.
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “To be the best friend you ever had, Madonna, is the greatest ambition of my life.”
“I thought that was to wear a Cardinal’s hat,” she answered.
“No,” he said slowly. “I have suddenly discovered that I no longer desire that hat.”
“You speak seriously?”
“I do indeed. For of what use to me would a place in Rome be when my Duchessa must remain in Ferrara?”
Ercole Strozzi was possessed of an inner excitement. His thoughts were constantly of Lucrezia. Her entirely feminine quality appealed to him in such a way as to present a challenge. Lucrezia seemed to demand to be dominated. He wished to dominate. He did not seek to be her lover; their relationship must be of a more subtle nature. The bucolic Alfonso satisfied Lucrezia’s sexual appetite, and Ercole would have considered a physical relationship between them crude and ordinary; he had been the lover of many women and there was no great excitement to be gleaned from a new love affair.
The lameness of Strozzi had filled him with a desire to be different from others in more important ways. There was in his nature a streak of the feminine which betrayed itself in his love of elegance, in his exquisite taste in clothes and his knowledge of those worn by women. This feminine streak impelled him to show his masculinity. The artist in him wished to create. It was not enough to write poetry; he wished to mold the minds of those about him, to guide their actions, to enjoy, while he suffered his infirmity and was conscious of the feminine side of his nature, the knowledge that those he sought to mold were in some respects his creatures.
Lucrezia, gentle, all feminine, so eager for friendship in this hostile land, seemed to him an ideal subject whose life he could arrange, whose character he could mold to his design.
He could advise her as to her dresses; he could show her the charm of a fashion she had hitherto ignored. He was now going to Venice to choose rich stuffs for her. Her outward covering would be of his creation; as in time the inner Lucrezia should be.
She was sensitive; she was fond of poetry. It was true that they had not educated her in Rome as Isabella d’Este, for instance, had been educated. He would remedy that; he would encourage her to become more intellectual; he would increase her love of poetry, he wished to be the creator of a new Lucrezia.
Thus he reasoned as he came into Venice, as he went through the stocks of the merchants and bought exquisite patterned satins and velvets of varying shades of color.
“They are for Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, and daughter of the Pope,” he explained; he had come from Ferrara on a visit to Venice, and she had entrusted him with these commissions.
There was not a merchant in Venice who was not prepared to bring out his most treasured stock for the daughter of the Pope.
When Strozzi had made these purchases he visited his friend, the poet Pietro Bembo, who welcomed him with great pleasure. Pietro was handsome and thirty-two years of age; but his attraction did not only lie in his handsome looks. His reputation throughout Italy was high; he was known as one of the foremost poets of his time, and because of this there was always a welcome for him in Ferrara, Urbino or Mantua, should he care to visit these places.
Pietro was a lover of women, and experience was necessary to him. He was in love at this time with a beautiful woman of Venice named Helena, but the love affair was going the way of all his love affairs, and Pietro, finding it difficult to write under the stress, longed for a quiet refuge. He and Strozzi had been fond of each other since they had met some years before in Ferrara; they admired the same poetry; they were passionately devoted to literature in any form; and they shared a detestation of the commonplace.
“I feel angry with Helena,” said Strozzi. “I fancy she is the cause of your long stay in Venice.”
“I am thinking,” said the poet, significantly, “of leaving Venice.” Strozzi was pleased to hear this.
“I have been buying fine materials here in Venice,” he said. “Such silks, such tabbies! You never saw the like.”
“Silks and tabbies? What do you want with such fripperies?”
“I have been buying them on behalf of a lady—the new Duchess of Ferrara.”
“Ah! Lucrezia Borgia. Tell me, is she a monster?”
Strozzi laughed. “She is the daintiest, most sensitive creature I ever set eyes on. Exquisite. Golden-haired, eyes that are so pale they take their color from her gowns. Delicate. Quite charming. And a lover of poetry.”
“One hears such tales!”
“False. All false. It is an ill fate which has married her to that boor Alfonso.”
“She feels it to be an ill fate?”
Strozzi’s eyes were thoughtful. “I do not entirely understand her. She has learned to mask her thoughts. It would seem that Alfonso perturbs her little; and when I think of him—uncouth, ill-mannered—and her—so sensitive, so delicate—I shudder. Yet there is a strength within her.”
“You are bewitched by your Duchess.”
“As you would be, had you seen her.”
“I admit a certain curiosity as to the Borgia.”
“Perhaps one day you will meet.”
The poet was thoughtful. “A delicate goddess married to Alfonso d’Este! One would say Poor Lucrezia, if one did not know Lucrezia.”
“You do not know Lucrezia. Nor do I. I am not certain that Lucrezia knows herself.”
“You are cryptic.”
“She makes me thus.”
“I see she absorbs you. I have never known you so absentminded before. I declare you are longing to go back to Ferrara with your silks and tabbies.”
Strozzi smiled. “But let us talk of you. You are restless. You weary of Helena. Why do you not go to my Villa at Ostellato?”
“What should I do there?”
“Be at peace to write your poetry.”
“You would come and see me there?”
“I would. Mayhap I would induce Lucrezia to ride that way. It is not far from Ferrara.”
The poet smiled, and Strozzi saw that the exquisitely lovely Duchessa of such evil reputation, whom he had described as sensitive and unformed, was catching at Pietro’s imagination as she had caught at his.