The Marriage Portrait

The theme of Duality and Exchange is present in the second part of the novel, as Lucrezia ends up betrothed to Alfonso due to her elder sister’s death. The sense that Maria should be the sister entering the Ferrara marriage is present with Lucrezia on her wedding day. She peers into Maria’s empty chamber and has the sensation that someone, perhaps her sister, slept there. While Lucrezia and her nurse, Sofia, grieve Maria, Cosimo’s consigliere and Alfonso are more preoccupied with how to maintain the dynastic advantage of the Este-Medici connection. Thus, familial power is promoted above Lucrezia’s wishes and grief for the lost daughter/fiancée; there is no perception that one sister cannot fully substitute for another because she is an entirely different person. Rather, the girls are commodities to be exchanged to sustain familial power and wealth. The chapters alternating the buildup to Lucrezia’s wedding with her languishing in the Fortezza give the conflicting impression of her as both a vulnerable pawn in men’s plans and as a survivor who will thrive above other women. This is especially prominent when she ascends to being a duchess on her wedding day, as the elderly Duke of Ferrara died, making Alfonso his successor. This role gives her the illusion of power and influence, yet she is still a child who lacks autonomy and has her fate determined by the wishes of powerful men.

These chapters also reveal women’s covert subversion of power in a patriarchal society and the limited reach of these efforts. When Lucrezia’s nurse hears of the impending marriage, she knows that she does not have the power to prevent it; however, she can delay it by feigning that Lucrezia has not begun the periods that would mark her as marriageable. She takes advantage of Vitelli’s awkwardness regarding menstruation to assert that Lucrezia is still a child and, therefore, not ready for marriage. For a year, the nurse and the girl manage to disguise the truth. This allows the girl to pretend everything will continue as normal; Lucrezia “studied accounts of Greek military tactics, painted a scene from Homer and walked whenever she was allowed to around the battlements of the tower, watching great nets of starlings [...] above her head” (97). These images of Lucrezia contemplating battle strategies and watching birds indicate that she has fantasies of expansion and freedom that will conflict with the cruelty of her marriage and untimely death. Here, O’Farrell creates a sense of poignancy, as the 1561 narrative indicates that the young girl’s life will soon end. Conscious of her impending death, Lucrezia sets out to fulfill her artistic potential by planning a series of miniatures in the night. Both scenes support the theme of Female Autonomy and Institutional Control and show that a patriarchal society’s expectations of Lucrezia threaten her plans and her safety. O’Farrell draws a parallel between marriage and death.

O’Farrell plants a counterforce to the idea of a doomed dynastic marriage in Alfonso’s expressions of affection for Lucrezia. His acute study of her is reflected in the gift of a stone marten portrait, which alludes to his memory of her with her pet mouse. Lucrezia briefly feels that this near-stranger understands a part of her essence that those nearer to her overlook. At the wedding ceremony, O’Farrell emphasizes the couple’s difference in age and size: the child bride’s “feet take up less than half the space of his” (134). However, Alfonso’s private expressions to Lucrezia that convey how long and boring the ceremony seems add a human touch to the formality and give the impression that he intends to care for her. O’Farrell uses this characterization of Alfonso as possibly well-intentioned to build suspense regarding the transition from this moment to his plotting her death within a year.