No, Rose. He’s a client like any other. If it’s too expensive you negotiate, the same way you would with anyone else. She brought the figure back up and turned to her email in-box.
William /
The cursor blinked expectantly on the screen. Curled up in his chair by the window, Odin tucked a paw over his good eye.
“Fine, I’ll just cut and paste something.” Rose announced her decision to the empty shop. She found an old client letter, highlighted the text, and dropped it into the blank message field.
Mr. Lomazzo,
Thank you for the opportunity to work on this project. Attached for review is a detailed summary of my estimate, as well as a draft contract. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
R.
It seemed formal, cold, but she didn’t know what else to write. She fished his business card out from the antique silver tray by her pen jar. [email protected]. Character by character, she typed it in. Hit Send.
She exhaled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
The emails to her contacts were easier. These were fellow experts, collectors, and academics she’d met at conferences or online. She asked each if they’d come across mentions of Lomazzo in any other texts, or seen different versions of the treatise. Her own research had left her empty-handed, and she was curious: the title of the document suggested it’d been meant for publication, and Venice had been a publishing mecca. The odds it had gone to print were relatively high.
By the time she’d biked home, one reply was waiting.
It was from Yuri, who lived in New York. They’d struck up an online friendship years ago in a collectors’ chat forum. Rose had gathered through conversation that Yuri was older, maybe in his late seventies, with a curious mind and a dry sense of humor. They’d immediately taken a liking to each other and begun a lasting, if sporadic, correspondence. Theirs was a meeting of minds: just like her, Yuri had a fondness for research and what seemed to be a near-photographic memory. His rare-book shop was on the Lower East Side, close enough for Rose to pay a visit, but for some reason seeing each other in person felt like it might alter their friendship. She’d conjured an image of him that she didn’t want to disturb: an elderly man with round glasses balanced on the tip of his nose and an erudite glint in his eyes, manning the desk at a dusty, treasure-filled hole in the wall.
Rosie—
I have not personally seen a version of this treatise, but I do remember the name Lomazzo. Years ago, I came across a version of Borghini’s Il Riposo with previously unpublished notes included. Have you read Il Riposo? It’s a treatise also, published in 1584, after Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. It’s interesting, but gives enough detail of the Counter-Reformation to bore a priest!
Point is, in going through the notes I recall mention of a treatise by Lomazzo that circulated through Italy in the late 1500s. The impression I got was that Borghini had been influenced by Lomazzo—particularly by his beliefs that writing about art can be an art form, and that art should be accessible to those who are not artists themselves.
You know how ideas were stolen so easily back then (and now, for that matter). My hunch is that this Lomazzo’s treatise was appropriated by Borghini to some degree. As for the treatise itself, I’ve never seen it or heard mention of existing versions. If you have a copy, you should tell your client to publish it. Can you imagine the academics? They’d piss themselves! May get a substantial sum at auction too, if he’s hard up for cash.
I hope you are well otherwise, my dear. Keep me updated on how the restoration goes. Life here is good, although I wish spring would hurry up. You know me, Rosie—these old bones can’t handle the cold like they used to.
Yuri
Rose had been eating dinner—canned tomato soup and a thick, flaky roll from the bakery she passed on her ride home—when the second email arrived. Her laptop was open on the table next to her, and when she looked up there it was, at the top of her in-box, the only one marked “unread.”
R,
Please, call me William. Thanks for sending the estimate so fast, I appreciate it. You’re very professional. I’ve signed the contract and attached a scan here, but I can bring in a printed copy, if that’s the way you usually do it (?)
I’m interested in learning more about the restoration process. Do you mind if I stop in from time to time to see how it’s coming along?
Thanks,
W
He’d copied the way she signed off, with a single letter. Or did he just happen to do that also? And what did that mean, “You’re very professional”? Had she been too formal? Joan was always telling her to loosen up, that her shyness made her seem cold. It wouldn’t kill you to try to smile more, Rose. But it was his last sentence she lingered on. He wanted to come back to the shop. That meant she’d see him again—maybe soon. She felt her pulse quicken before her mind could interject: Lomazzo lives in Connecticut with his wife and their two daughters.
Still, she couldn’t help but read the note over three, four more times, leaning forward on an elbow as if getting closer to the screen would help her find some hidden meaning in his words. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard…
No.
She should send a reply tomorrow—tomorrow afternoon. Let an appropriate interval pass. She turned back to her dinner. The hunk of bread she’d dipped in the soup had gone to mush, leaving just a sad hard edge of crust poking out from the middle of the bowl. Months later she’d remember that scene: the disintegrating bread, the soup skinning over. She’d wonder if any of her actions could have altered the way events unfolded, or if it all would’ve turned out the same no matter what she’d done.
4
THE AIR IN THE ROOM grew palpably lighter after Corvino and Venier departed. The redhead and the brunette shifted into more comfortable positions, loosening the laces of their bodices with the same unburdening sigh Gio made when taking off his shoes at night. Chiara held her pose, gazing at him expectantly.
He rummaged among his things for a stick of chalk, then quickly began to sketch. Holding the board in one hand and chalk in the other, he methodically captured all the small measurements that would help him re-create the composition later. The angle of her knee to the corners of the room, the placement of her arm, the spot where her jawline touched her shoulder. A dozen minute points of connection, intersection, and calibration that would guide him later, through sitting after sitting. Once he’d mapped her body on the parchment he paused, leaning to take a first sip of wine.