A birth long awaited
Tue 07 July 2009
Claire Lai, Communications
On September 27, 1389, a baby was born within the walls of a Florentine townhouse in the working class district of the church of San Lorenzo.
The small room of confinement where the mother, Piccarda di Bicci, lay exhausted was not splendid like the ornate rooms of the Palazzo Vecchio.
It was not elevated in a tower like the bedchambers of aristocratic wives, and yet it was comfortable.
The afternoon light strained by linen curtains cast a pale glow over the new rushes that had been spread across the floor in preparation for the confinement.
The few discreet candles in plain brass stands cast amorphous shadows against the wall behind the wooden bed as the midwife’s assistants carefully bathed the mother in warm water and rubbed her exhausted limbs with olive oil infused with rosemary.
The bed, though not adorned, was large, comfortable and clean.
The room had been laid out in display for the female relatives who had gathered to witness the birth.
The coverlet and drapes, though plain, were of the finest quality available at the cloth business owned by the new father Giovanni di Bicci.
The midwife herself bent carefully over the child, who had taken so long to enter this world.
She had cleared his mouth of mucus and bathed him like the mother.
Her task now was to swaddle him tightly in the long strips of clean linen laid out beside the cradle.
It was well known that this was necessary to straighten his fragile limbs.
She was not herself with this child.
Though the women had opened every door and window in the house to persuade the womb to open, his birth had taken far longer than expected.
Now he gazed at her with an intensity that made her fumble.
Piccarda’s mother watched from a chair to one side of the room with her head tilted to one side, her eyes never leaving her grandson.
“This one he is different, he is ready to take on the world right now,” the grandmother thought.
She stood and walked to the small table behind the mid wife.
Opening a jar of honey, she reached over the midwife’s arm and gently wiped a drop on the baby’s tiny tongue.
“That’s right my grandson,” the grandmother murmured as he sucked.
“Have a healthy appetite for life.”
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