Prologue
VIA PAOLINA
ROME, CAMPO MARZIO
1596
Orazio Gentileschi dabbed the tip of his brush into the umber flesh tone on his palette while still staring at the painting on his easel.
He worked surrounded by a clutter of half-finished paintings, clay pots of paints, trays of pigments. Scattered about were a burnished lute, a crimson velvet drape, woolen shawls, and baskets woven of river reed. A sword lay unsheathed atop an unvarnished table, its blade gleaming in the late-afternoon light. In the shadowed corner of the room lurked an enormous pair of feathered wings, dark and menacing.
Before him—the subject of his painting—was his beautiful young wife and their firstborn child, Artemisia.
The fumes of turpentine scorched the three-year-old’s eyes, flooding them with tears. She turned away, suckling hard at Prudenzia’s breast, blinking up at her lovely face turned in profile.
“Open a window, Orazio. The turpentine—”
“Stai ferma,” said Orazio. “Hold still. Don’t look at the child. It will double your chin and cast a shadow.”
Signora Gentileschi pressed her lips together, her eyes fixed with worry on her child.
The orb of the mother’s breast without her maternal smile beaming down was insufficient for Artemisia. She felt eclipsed from the sun. Outraged at her neglect, the child thudded her little hands at her mother’s body, begging for her attention.
“Shh! Shh, Artemisia. Your papa is painting us.” Without moving her head, Signora Gentileschi jostled Artemisia higher in her arms so she could see her father’s head darting sideways from behind the easel.
“Guarda!” she whispered. “Look at him and his pretty colors, tesoro.”
As Artemisia turned her gaze away from her mother’s nipple, the turpentine stung her eyes again.
Signora Gentileschi heard her daughter whimper and said nothing. She wasn’t prepared to evoke her husband’s rage.
Artemisia stared at the white birch palette clutched in her father’s hand, his thumb sticking up through the hole like a worm curling out of an apple. The spots of bright crimson, the muted ochres and browns played hide-and-seek as his hand extended and retreated behind the easel. The paints swayed, angling toward Artemisia and away again as her father dipped his brush in the small pools of pigment.
“She likes the paints,” Signora Gentileschi murmured. “Look how she stares at them! Artemisia cocks her head just like you do, Orazio.”
Orazio smirked, making his pointed beard jump. It was as close as he came to a smile. “Babies like colors,” he said, shrugging.
“No, Orazio. I think she wants to paint like her babbo.”
Orazio set down his paintbrush and palette. His bushy brows rose and fell above his eyes. How he wished his firstborn was a son. A son who could paint.
He sighed, rubbing his hand with a rag. “She’s a girl.”
Signora Gentileschi’s smile vanished. She would not tolerate criticism of her beloved Artemisia. “Look at her, Orazio,” she insisted. “She is fascinated by your colors, your movement . . . your brush. She’s your daughter, your blood.”
Orazio stared hard at his wife, then at Artemisia.
Is she?
The sun’s warmth faded from the little girl’s cheek, a chill creeping into the room.
Orazio picked up another brush, colored with a muted yellow ochre, and waved it in the air. He followed Artemisia’s eyes as they tracked it. He set down the brush and the little girl turned back to her mother’s breast.
“Artemisia is too old to breastfeed,” he said.
“What difference does it make? I make milk for her,” Prudenzia said, looking down at her daughter. “I love her at my breast. And it saves money.”
Orazio approached and took Artemisia in his arms. She protested, holding her hands out to her mother.
“Mama!”
“You are all right, Artemisia,” said Orazio. “Tranquilla.” Calm down.
Artemisia’s father smelled of paint and oil, his hands were rough. She twisted in his arms and reached up to grasp his beard. He jerked his chin away, evading her grab.
“My paintings are selling,” he said, carrying the child toward the easel. “The battle of light and dark. Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro has brought us fortune, bella.”
“And he will land you in jail one day, the scoundrel,” Signora Gentileschi retorted.
“My paintings are selling,” he repeated. “We have enough to feed another mouth. And more babies . . . sons, artists!”
Signora Gentileschi blushed, buttoning up her blouse. She was pregnant again but hadn’t told her husband.
“Look, Artemisia,” Orazio said, setting her down in front of the canvas. “Who do you see there, eh?”
The toddler stared at her likeness, not recognizing it. But she did see the perfect replica of her mother, her breast. And a strange child nursing there.
Artemisia’s hand reached out to seize at the image of her mother and knock the other child away.
Orazio caught his daughter’s wrist before she smudged the painting.
“Oh, you sassy one. You think you know that pretty woman, don’t you? A better compliment I could not ask for.” He laughed. He released her wrist with a flourish.
Artemisia looked at him solemnly and then stared at his paint-splotched hands. The paint, the paintbrush, the canvas. The holy trinity of art. In her young mind Artemisia recognized that somehow her father had replicated her mother with his hands and a paintbrush.
Magic.
She grabbed his paintbrush, clutching it tight.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” he said, trying to pull back the brush, amazed at her tenacious grasp as they played tug-of-war.
He pried it from between her little fingers. Artemisia let out a bellowing scream.
“Take her, Prudenzia,” said Orazio. “I have work to do.”
Artemisia cried inconsolably for hours into the night, beating her hands against the wooden slats of her bed. Long after midnight her father appeared above her, his face illuminated in candlelight.
He placed a small paintbrush in her tiny hand. She ceased squalling and held it tight in her fist.
He looked down at her, his eyes glittering. “You are my child,” he whispered to her. “My child and no other’s! I will prove this to the world. To God himself!”
Chapter 1
ROME, 1599
“Where are we going now, Papa?”
“To show you a miracle.”
Artemisia’s little hand folded like a toy inside her father’s, her fingers warm and sticky from sugared almonds bought in Piazza Navona. She felt the coarseness of Orazio’s skin, roughened from solvents he used in painting, his calluses from stretching canvas, grinding pigments, and making frames for his art.
The late-afternoon sky painted Rome in golden tones, coaxing warmth from the stones of Piazza Navona. The slanting light brought out a richness in the rocks, coloring them a luminous ochre.
Orazio led his daughter through the warren of streets beyond the piazza, which were cloaked in the shadows of the setting sun. Stray cats ran ahead of them, frightened by Orazio’s long, confident stride. He dragged little Artemisia along, her skinny legs churning to keep up with him.
The narrow streets were strewn with rotting garbage and slick with the slop of chamber pots. Orazio swung the little girl up in his arms when he saw sordid puddles her little stride couldn’t avoid. Artemisia covered her nose at the acrid stench.