Martha Ronk

 

Payment

Dürer’s fame meant he could sometimes pay with
his own woodcut prints and chalk drawings.
This time, however, borax was partial payment for
the portrait of Luca Signorelli,
azure pigment and a bed (not two).
The man with the rings has cheated me by half—
I do not understand it. The inventory of Gonzaga’s
worldly goods, priceless gems and manuscripts is,
it transpires, dazzling illusion, owing the Medici bank
in Florence 3,500 ducats, piling up a financial crisis
in which Ferdinand and Isabella in the 1480s
established their worth largely by increased debt.
Last night from the lawn, hanging in the azure air,
a crescent moon. The price of magnificence is high.