Free The Poet Prince by Kathleen McGowan Page B

the crucified Christ was the stuff of legend in Tuscany and remained on permanent display in the ancient city of Lucca. Both Nicodemus and his patron, Joseph of Arimathea, were present at the crucifixion and aided in the removal of the body of Jesus from the cross. After witnessing the events of Good Friday, Nicodemus carved the first crucifix, in this case a life-sized version of the image he could not erase from his mind. The face of Jesus he carved was considered so sacred that the artwork was referred to only as the
Volto Santo,
the Holy
Face.
    On the day of the original Easter, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, along with another revered artist who would be known to history as Saint Luke, founded the Order of the Holy Sepulcher. They pledged through their Order to preserve the teachings of the Way as Jesus instructed through the gospel written in his own hand, the Book of Love. When Jesus announced his resurrection to Mary Magdalene on that sacred Sunday, the three men knew beyond any doubt that she was the chosen successor of their messiah. The teachings of the Book would endure under her guidance, and the newly founded Order would be sworn to protect this woman, her children, and her descendants through time. Most of all, they would be sworn to protect the true teachings, the Way of Love as Jesus had set it out most specifically for his followers. Often the Order would preserve these teachings through secret symbolism and encodings in art and literature.
    As a result, like Cosimo and all nobles of the Order, René was a keen patron of the arts. He was looking forward to a time when he could focus more completely on art, music, and architecture and less on politics. Because art was the language members of the Order used to communicate the truth, both Cosimo and René were constantly seeking new ways to see the beauty of the secret teachings expressed in art.
    As the men approached the apple cellar, René stopped to listen to the deeply melodic sound emanating from behind the door. He looked at Cosimo, amused. “Singing? Do you have magical apples here in the wilds of Tuscany, Cosimo, which have the power of song?”
    Cosimo laughed in return. “No, I have wayward artists who are delinquent in their commissions, who have the power of painting.”
    René was taken aback. Cosimo was renowned as the most benevolent of patrons, giving generously to his artists, even supporting them and their families completely, while lecturing other patrons to be more magnanimous. “You, of all patrons?
You
lock up your artists in a cellar?”
    “Well, not normally. But Lippi is the exception to all rules.”
    René gasped. “Lippi? You have
Fra Filippo Lippi
locked in there?”
    Cosimo nodded nonchalantly. “Yes, I do. He doesn’t sound distressed to you, does he?”
    René shook his head with no small degree of amazement. The booming voice from the apple cellar sounded positively—and
inexplicably—ebullient. That the sound was coming from Filippo Lippi, who was the most impressive artist working in Florence, was astonishing. Lippi’s frescoes were considered so divinely inspired that even the king of France was interested in sending for him. But Lippi would never leave Cosimo de’ Medici or Florence, not for anything: not for the king of France, the king of the world, or a king’s ransom. For all his eccentricities, Fra Filippo Lippi was unerringly loyal to the patron who protected him against the perils of the world.
    Much of what made Lippi’s art transcendent was his extraordinary ability to capture the divine by communicating with it directly. He was a member of what Cosimo referred to as his “army of angels,” an elite group of supremely gifted artists who had the talent to translate divine inspirations and teachings into canvas and marble. Within the Order, they were called “the angelics.” The coming of these scribes of a new era had also been predicted by the Magi. Cosimo had a passion for locatingand