Free The Creation Of Eve by Lynn Cullen

the muscles twitch in his jaw.
    I fear young Don Juan will have to take care. As will the headstrong Queen.

To Tiberio Calcagni in Rome

Thank you for your kind letter. I must admit I was surprised to receive it. I had thought by your long silence since I had departed from Rome that our association had ended. Perhaps this gap can be explained by your work with maestro Michelangelo. I recognize the importance of this work and applaud the effort you put into it.
I fear you misconstrue my position here at Court. While I am honored to serve His Sacred Majesty as a lady to his Queen, I am but her teaching instructor. I am not allowed to paint her portrait.
A Netherlander named Anthonis Mor has that privilege and right as Painter to the King. So you must see how I look back on my studies in Rome with particular fondness. I know now that they were the most important days of my life.
I hope your efforts on the unfinished Pieta continue at a satisfactory rate. It is truly excruciating not to be able to bring unfinished business to fruition.

From Toledo,
this 15th day of February, 1560

Sofonisba Anguissola
ITEM: Some hold that inhaling the scent of a pomander is an effective deterrent from disease. This is yet to be proven. If one insists upon its usage, the recipe for filling it follows: Take two ounces of labdanum and benjamin, of storax one ounce, musk from a male musk deer, six grains, civet six grains, ambergris six grains, and of Calamus aromaticus and Lignum aloes, each the weight of a maravedi. Beat all these in a hot mortar with a hot pestle till they come to paste. Then wet your hand with rose water and roll up the paste. Place in the sections of a pomander.

ITEM: Several of the sisters serving the ill at the Hospital de Cardinal Tavera here in Toledo are fallen women who have renounced their sins and taken the veil.

ITEM: Over the canvas primed with glue and chalk, apply a thin layer of white lead ground into linseed oil and diluted with essence of turpentine. Let dry. Repeat.

    20 FEBRUARY 1560
    El Alcazar, Toledo

    The Queen fell ill last night. The Small Pox, it is feared. Her household is frantic. Ladies pace the halls and wring their handkerchiefs, then sob into their veils when the physician strides by with a flask of Her Majesty's Urine. Her young pages, the beautiful sons of the mighty, cower against the wall, abashed by the outpouring of feminine anguish. Servants huddle together in watchful knots; messengers stand agape with their letters Unread; tutors clutch closed books; dressmakers hold wound bolts of silk; musicians dangle silent instruments; cooks' boys balance Unopened tureens smelling of chicken. Among this crush of stunned attendants, lapdogs wrestle and bark and squat, mindless of the small, still figure on the red-draped bed of state. For in spite of all the orders given in regard to the primping, educating, and feeding of this precious commodity, no one has been assigned merely to hold the Queen's hand.
    Who could have imagined this scene yesterday morn? It had begun so promisingly, cold and windy but clear. The skies were that hard, brilliant blue particular to Spain--particular, too, to the eyes of young Don Juan--as we ladies of the court took to mule-drawn litters after Mass and a light meal. I peeked out of the crimson brocade curtains of our conveyance as we passed Under the carved stone towers of the Bisagra city gates, frightening a boy on a donkey. Apparently ladies do not often pop their heads out of luxurious conveyances.
    On the seat across from me, the condesa de Uruena, irritable for having been excluded from the Queen's litter in favor of Her Majesty's French ladies, frowned as I watched our descent to the dusty plain on the only side of Toledo not bounded by the river Tajo.
    "What are those?" I asked as we joggled past a scattering of stone arches among weedy drifts of rosemary. The smell of the woody plants permeated the dry air.
    "Ruins from Roman times. A coliseum." The condesa