The Marriage Portrait

Lucrezia and Alfonso enter Ferrara to great fanfare. The crowds seem anxious to see their new duchess. The castello where they live is enormous and looks as fortified as a prison. Lucrezia is presented to Alfonso’s younger sisters, Elisabetta and Nunciata. While Elisabetta is pretty and communicative, Nunciata is plain, taciturn, and suspicious. The sisters make it known that their mother and their elder sister, Anna, escaped to France; they seem surprised that Alfonso has not shared this knowledge with Lucrezia. However, Alfonso dissimulates that he already told her.

The sisters guide Lucrezia to her chamber. Elisabetta voices that she is unmarried because she has not yet received a tempting proposal. Nunciata intimates that Elisabetta engages in extramarital transgressions; she seems embarrassed and tells Lucrezia not to mention anything to Alfonso. She later learns that Alfonso is so suspicious of treason that spies are stationed everywhere in the Ferrara region.

At the great feast to celebrate their marriage, Alfonso asks Lucrezia to put on a display by wearing her splendid wedding clothes. She is shocked to hear that the singers—the evirati—are castrated men, and she thinks about the cruelty they have undergone. She divines that there is a secret tryst between Elisabetta and Ercole Contrari, a head guardsman.

She writes to her mother, suddenly missing her family. She still makes art, but Elisabetta begins to send for her and occupy her time. While she enjoys Elisabetta’s company, she is uncomfortable when Nunciata begins to join them. Elisabetta jokes that Nunciata is jealous of their intimacy. When Lucrezia writes to her mother about the sisters’ seeking her favor, Eleanora urges caution. She insists that the sisters are seeking out her company because she is their social superior as a duchess, and they want to secure a position close to the duke. Eleanora states that Lucrezia should be suspicious of them.

Nunciata insists that Lucrezia should take the high-born Clelia as her lady-in-waiting, although Lucrezia would prefer to keep Emilia. Alfonso interrogates Lucrezia about the amount of time she spends with his sisters.

Il Bastianino begins his portrait of Lucrezia, and Alfonso hovers over the proceedings. Il Bastianino continually touches Lucrezia to adjust her position and sometimes even gives her a squeeze. During the sitting, she spots Elisabetta and Contrari through the window, and an impression of their love overcomes her.

Lucrezia is to be painted in an elaborate dress that Alfonso specifically chose for the occasion. When she poses in front of Jacopo, who has come to aid Il Bastianino, Alfonso remarks that Lucrezia is his “first duchess.” While he quickly amends his remark to “beautiful,” Lucrezia cannot help fixating on the word first, wondering why he does not regard her as his only wife. When Alfonso leaves, Jacopo is left to paint her. When he drops a stylus by her foot, he declares himself a “clumsy idiot” in Neapolitan dialect. Lucrezia recognizes this phrase from her nurses and asks him about it. He confesses that he could speak in the Northern Italian dialects if he wished, but he chooses not to. He tells her before he leaves that he shall never forget her saving his life. She, in turn, feels warm and happy at the thought that he is the one guarding her image.

At night, Lucrezia is awakened by the sound of a female voice imploring Alfonso for mercy. The next day, Lucrezia tries to summon Elisabetta. However, she does not reply, and Alfonso has ordered Lucrezia to stay in her rooms. He reminds her that her prime loyalty should be to him. Lucrezia learns from Emilia that Alfonso discovered Elisabetta and Contrari’s affair and punished them by having Contrari strangled to death while he forced Elisabetta to watch. Lucrezia insists on visiting the traumatized and bitter Elisabetta, who will go live with her brother Luigi in Rome. She warns Lucrezia to be careful because there is no evidence that Alfonso can get a woman pregnant, and when their marriage fails to produce an heir, Lucrezia will be blamed.

Lucrezia despairs and writes a letter to Florence, insisting that her life is in danger. However, her mother replies that she is letting her imagination run away with her and advises that her position at court will be bolstered by producing an heir. Emilia burns the letter.

Back at the Fortezza in 1561, Lucrezia enters the dining hall to find the presentation of her portrait alongside Alfonso, Il Bastianino, Maurizio, and Jacopo. While the men find gaunt, shorn-haired Lucrezia highly changed from the young woman who sat for her portrait, they do not say anything. The portrait reveals both her wealth and her occupation as a painter, and she gives a bold, questioning look to the viewer. Lucrezia is astounded by the portrait’s “acuity” and has the conflicting feelings of wanting the world to see it and to conceal it forever. She also senses that she is superfluous now that the portrait of the duchess can stand in her stead. She knows that Jacopo is the main force behind the painting. She senses that he intuits something and wonders whether he knows that she will soon die.

Jacopo then comes to find her. He tells her that she is in danger and needs to escape with them. When he touches her shoulder, Lucrezia thrills at his touch and senses a passion that “removes obstacles, sweeps them away, hurls them into the air” (381).