The Medici Boy

by John L'Heureux

He pushed the hair back from my forehead and smoothed his palms over my brow. With my head between his hands, he looked at me long and searching, his eyes upon my eyes as if he saw me in a new way, and then he kissed me full on the lips. It was a soft and searching kiss. His mouth lingered there on my mouth, his hands on either side of my head as he held me firmly in his grasp, and his lips were warm and hard. It was a lover’s kiss.

  “I have it now,” he said, and went back to his work stand, smiling, happy.

  The kiss was done, forgotten. He might have been kissing a statue, for the little it meant to him.

  He had discovered how to breathe life into his Saint Louis and he was full of joy . . . and as indifferent to me as to the manikin of wood and hair and dung he was about to abandon.

  CHAPTER 11

  HERE MY LIFE changed forever. We say that all the time, we point to a foul or fair moment in our lives and say, yes, here is where everything of a sudden went wrong, or right, and that is why today I am damned or saved. But in this case, it is true. My lord Donatello—who looked at me and into me and who knew me as none other has—kissed me on the mouth and changed my life forever. That night, Alessandra being large with child, I lay with Caterina who it seemed had long been willing. And when I left her I took money from Donatello’s hanging basket and went to the Mercato Vecchio where, in a meager passage used for that purpose, I stood against the wall with an easy whore, and after that with another.

  Alessandra and I would have three more children—healthy, all of them, until the Pest of 1437 claimed the youngest two—and I would remain faithful to her, after a way, and keep her close until the end. But on this last day of May, 1423, Donatello had kissed me like a lover, and though I was never again to feel his mouth upon my own, however much I was to think on it, this careless act of his made me his abject creature and so I would remain forever. Even in heaven or in hell.

  CHAPTER 12

  THIS KISS was nothing to Donatello, caught up as he was in his discovery of how to complete the Saint Louis. He abandoned the manikin in its robes of clay and created another that he threw together quickly and with ease. It was rudely done but in form very much like me, with my sloping shoulders and my narrow hips and even my way of standing with a slight twist to my back and my weight heavy on my right foot. Once again he postponed work on the head until later.

  On this new manikin he hung not clay robes but robes of fine brocade—gown, cope, gloves, mitre—and he arranged the folds and rearranged them until they said what he wanted them to say. And then he did a bold thing that had never yet been done. He painted the brocade with watered clay. It was a fine mixture that looked more like dirty water than like clay. He used a brush and quick, deft strokes that let the water sink deep into the cloth and after several applications and before the cloth grew too stiff to alter form, he went to work arranging the folds.

  The living cloth began to dry and harden as he shifted the curve of the drape so that when the clay water dried, the fabric took on the look of bronze that would reflect the light and create deep shadows. The cloth, weighed down and growing stiff, seemed nonetheless to billow outward. You could see at once that beneath those dramatic folds the saint’s body was not so much clothed in the episcopal robes as weighed down by them, the burden almost unbearable.

  The process took more than a week but at the end Donato had his workable core. Now he brushed the hard brocade with a thin coat of the finest beeswax. The liquid wax molded itself to the stiffened cloth, catching and keeping the texture of brocade while quickening the light and dark folds of the fabric. Then he laid on the wax in long sheets and, while they were still soft and pliable, molded them over the clay robes. As the wax hardened, he fell to carving in earnest. He began with the heavy twist of fabric that served as a clasp for the cope and from there he moved to the collar—twisting, cutting, smoothing out his errors—and then to the luxurious knot of silk thread at the meeting of glove and crosier. I watched him carve, no longer as an apprentice but as a conspirator.

  I do not think he held memory of the kiss.

  * * *

  IT WAS THUNDER weather. All day the sky had been heavy and overcast as if it might send down a deluge at any minute. It was hard to breathe and the noises of the bottega seemed louder in the gathering silence. Everyone’s temper was on edge. Donatello was at work completing the wax Saint Louis and all the apprentices were occupied at their several tasks when the great Cosimo made one of his surprise visits. Of a sudden he appeared at the door, splendid in his red cloak and cappuccio, accompanied as was his custom by a single servant. There were a few seconds of quiet while, one by one, we became aware of his presence and stared too long for courtesy, and then the ordinary noise of the bottega resumed.

  Donatello at once covered the statue with a work cloth and turned to greet the great man. They embraced.

  “My good friend,” Cosimo said.

  “My good lord.”

  They smiled. Cosimo remembered always that men wish to be treated with equality. Donatello remembered they were not equals.

  “I’m returning to Rome,” Cosimo said, and my mind went immediately to his Byzantine prayer book and the golden coffer I had sketched so many times. “But first I have a new undertaking for you. And for Michelozzo too, of course. His Holiness Pope John the Twenty-Third”—he meant the anti-Pope, one of the three who reigned in 1415—“desired at his death that a great tomb be raised to his memory, of marble and bronze, to be lodged within the Baptistry. Michelozzo would design it. You would execute it.” He paused. “There would be a handsome fee, of course.” The fee seemed to be especially pleasing to him.

  “Of course.”

  “His Holiness has left, as well, his greatest personal relic: the finger of Saint John the Baptist. A golden reliquary would be required.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of your exquisite craftsmanship.”

  Donatello nodded in agreement. No matter how much work there was in the bottega, no matter how far behind he was in that work, Donatello would refuse Cosimo nothing.

  They walked together to the work yard and I hastened to the pile of boxes where Michelozzo stored the records of Donatello’s commissions. I found the sheaf of sketches I had made for Cosimo’s golden coffer and placed them in the center of the huge worktable. Months earlier Donatello had glanced at the sketches, and nodded twice at the particular design I now carefully placed on top of the pile. It had merit, I thought. It had become my favorite.

  While they were outside rain began to rattle on the roof, and as the full force of the shower burst on them Cosimo and Donatello came in from the wet. There was a crack of thunder and a short shiver of lightning.

  “Ah,” Cosimo said, shaking off the rain and approaching Donatello’s worktable, “the tabernacle for my book? You are at work on it. Well done. Well done.” He examined the sketch with evident pleasure.

  “My lord,” Donatello said. “As you see.”

  “Very handsome. The family seal. The laurel wreath. A jeweled clasp.”

  “As you see.”

  “Spare nothing. And perhaps when I next return I will be able to look upon the thing itself?”

  Donatello smiled. Cosimo was a member of nearly all the committees that had commissioned Donatello’s work and he, better than anybody, knew that Donatello’s work was always astonishing and always late. Waiting was the cost of dealing with genius and Cosimo was an expert at waiting.

  “And our Michelozzo? He goes well?” His voice, hearty and pleasant to attend, softened noticeably as he asked for Michelozzo. Cosimo loved Donatello for his great artistry but his love for Michelozzo was more personal; they were friends of the soul; they studied the principles of architecture together.

  “He works with Ghiberti today. They are casting ‘Pentecost’ for the north doors.”

  “A marvel.”

  There was a loud crack of thunder followed by a long silence and a new onrush of rain.

  “God agrees,” Donatello said.
He believed still that his friend Brunelleschi should have had the commission for the Baptistry doors.

  “And the Saint Louis?”

  “Nearly done.”

  “And may I . . . ?”

  Donatello nodded, not willingly, but led him to the posing area where he removed the work cloth. Cosimo studied the wax sculpture for a long time and asked, “But how will you be able to cast it? It’s so large.”

  “Lozzo is an expert,” Donatello said. “He’ll do the casting.”

  Cosimo nodded and continued to look at the statue. “Miracolo,” he said.

  They embraced and he made to leave, but before plunging out into the drenching rain, Cosimo turned and said—as if Donatello might not know this—“He’ll need a head.”

  * * *

  THE HEAD AGAIN. He made a false start and then another until, frustrated, he let go the head and worked on the marble Zuccone and the two busts—a prophet and a sybil—long since commissioned for the Porta della Mandorla. Then one day, for no reason other than he saw me of a sudden with a different eye, he returned to the head of Saint Louis with a bold energy. The wax bozzetto he produced, carved in less than a week, seemed to me perfection itself. He worked with speed and fury, pausing only to confirm with his fingers the shape of my brow and my cheekbones and the line of my teeth. It was a marvel of invention. In another week the head and the whole was set for casting.

  To the core of the statue he had applied liquid wax and to the wax, once hardened, he had applied layers of clay in increasing thickness. The whole would be bolted together, core and clay with the wax in between, and when it was heated the wax would melt and the bronze would be poured into the hollow left by the wax. It was an ancient technique.

  He and Michelozzo broke the statue down into eight pieces and each was cast as a separate sheet, the head remaining till the last. The clay mold was bolted to the core and heated slowly, slowly—heated too fast, the wax would boil—until the wax began to melt and run out of the vents at the bottom. And then the molten bronze was poured into the mold through the funnel at the top, replacing in exact detail the wax that had run out the bottom. When the metal cooled, the bolts were removed and the clay armor stripped away and, behold, not the flawless wax that had been encased within but in its place a bronze mess, an eighth part of Saint Louis, that would now be carved and chased and polished. It seemed to me a disaster. All the fine detail was gone, the bronze had clotted, the brocade looked to be canvas. I gasped at the ruin of Donatello’s work.

  He himself was pleased, however, and chisels in hand, he set about carving away the unseemly clots, chasing the hard bronze, polishing the smooth surface until it was ready for gilding. Each finished piece was heated—evenly and for a long time—above a charcoal fire. This would strengthen the statue to resist foul weather but, more important, the transformative mixing of the chemicals would cause the gold to adhere to the bronze in a way no ordinary gilding process could produce.

  At the end the pieces were bolted together invisibly from behind. Constructed thus, the back remained unfinished and so would fit into the Or San Michele niche. The work was all but complete when—we had become this close—he let me put my mark upon it. The putti at the base of the niche are his in design but they are executed by me. To celebrate the birth of my son, Donatello assigned the making of these to me as a gift. That they stand there still—my poor work beside that of the great master—is a mark of his generosity and love.

  A solemn music here. A change in tone. You’ve noticed? All is not what it seems. It never is.

  During those weeks Donatello spent gilding the Saint Louis, I worked at carving the putti, making them frolicsome and antic, like Donatello’s own. In the end I was satisfied that the work was my best. But when Donatello looked upon it, he regarded the putti in a long silence, a fatal silence, but then because I stood beside him, hoping, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Well done, Luca. You have done well.”

  I could hear the disappointment in his voice and I knew that only his kindness kept him from pointing out the hundred places where my chisels had gone wrong. My putti were common, awkward, ugly; they were as unworthy of his great Saint Louis as I was of him. I felt a tingling in my leg and my foot began to tap, tap, tap and, though I tried to brush it away, that dull gray cloud descended upon my eyes. I made to cry out but no sound came. I lost all breath. The sculpting of the Louis was done, and my own sculpting of the putti had failed, and I would lose my master now, forever. Blood rushed to my head, pulsing. There was a roaring sound, and in my nose there was the stink of the dyer’s vats, and I made to cry out though no sound came. Donatello’s hand tightened on my shoulder and I began to shake and I could not stop. “Mio figlio,” he said. “Mio tesoro.” I heard the care in his voice and for a moment my vision cleared. But then I saw my work with Donatello’s eyes: these putti were not angelic babies, they were tiny men, deformed and loathsome. They had betrayed me. They had lost me his love and I was falling, falling.

  I snatched up a chisel and made to lunge at the putti. I would efface them from this world.

  He threw his arms around me and shook me hard. He pried the chisel from my hand and helped me to his private room. I lay down on his cot and he sat beside me, shushing me, be quiet, be quiet, figlio mio. He sat there, trembling himself, and placed his hand softly on my arm. And at his touch my terror fell away.

  I lost all sense. I was in a green meadow, the sun upon my brow and cool water flowing nearby. I was safe from all harm. I was not alone. No ill could befall me ever again, no mad pulse of blood within the brain, no dissolution of the heart.

  I fell asleep, his hand upon my arm a promise of salvation.

  1427

  CHAPTER 13

  IT IS TIME to talk of Michelozzo and Donatello—and of me—and what we did in the bottega before Agnolo entered our lives, but that is all too much for now—I am unwell today, I am discontent—so instead I will talk of Donatello only, and of the things I learned from filling out the forms for his taxes.

  Taxes ever were and are and always shall be. But in 1427, the year of the catasto, a new kind of wealth tax was introduced by Rinaldo degli Albizzi in hope of injuring his great enemy Cosimo de’ Medici and at last bringing him to his knees. Here was a tax that skipped over the poor and taxed the landowners and the merchants and the people who had all the money. The catasto obliged every Florentine citizen to declare in writing an account of his property, debtors, and creditors. As business people Donatello and Michelozzo fell under this obligation and I liked it much that it fell to me to tally what they owned and what was owed to them, for they were partners now. I grew close to both of them—they were my fathers, they were my brothers—and of Donato I learned much that I had longed to know.

  I have his tax declaration to hand since I have always been a grand conservator of notes. What I learned about his finances did not surprise me but what I learned about his family pleased me much.

  Niccolò, Donatello’s father lived long enough to see the marble David, though he was addled in his brain and had no proper sense of what his son had accomplished. He died in 1415.

  Orsa, his mother, was eighty years old and still sound of mind and body. She was a small woman with eyes like a ferret and, though frail of hearing, nothing escaped her view. She longed for only one thing: to die. But she could not die. If mothers live past child bearing, it would seem they live forever.

  His sister, Tita, five years his senior, was a dowerless widow with a sickly son, Giuliano, aged eighteen. He was crippled in his legs and he was given to fits and he could not speak. Small wonder then that Tita was a sour woman, jealous and self-pitying, who resented Donatello’s kindness to her son. She had a thorny, unforgiving wit. Donatello told me once that Tita’s heart had grown so bitter that it had shrunk to the size of a walnut. I was uncertain if he meant this in truth or if he was being figurative in speech or if this were some cruel jest. He was sometimes intricato in thought and in word.

&
nbsp; Orsa and Tita and Giuliano lived in a warren of rooms next to his new bottega in the Via degli Adimari. Donatello was their sole support.

  As for the tax itself Donatello claimed to owe one florin, three lira, and ten piccioli and to be without any property except thirty florins’ worth of tools and equipment for his art as a carver in partnership with Michele di Bartolomeo Michelozzi.

  “I am owed,” he says, “one hundred eighty florins for a narrative scene in bronze which I did some time ago for the Cathedral of Siena. Also from the convent and monks of Ognissanti I am owed thirty florins for a bronze half figure of San Rossore. I rent a house from Guglielmo Adimari in the parish of San Cristoforo. I pay fifteen florins a year.” He then lists creditors—goldsmiths and bronze casters and assistants—to whom he owes a total of one hundred fifty-six florins, not counting the thirty florins he owes for two years back rent. Donatello hated paying taxes.

  Michelozzo signed and filed Donatello’s tax report though it was I who did all the preparatory work. You can see how quietly useful I had become.

  My life was full and good this year of our Lord 1427.

  Alessandra gave me a third son, Renato Paolo.

  I was now indispensable to the workings of our bottega.

  And I had become the trusted friend of the greatest sculptor of our time. It is no small thing to have had the love of so great a man. How, then, did I become possessed . . . so that in the end it seemed the necessary thing was murder?

  In truth it was the fire I feared.

  Now, dying, I put aside my discontent to ask how different things would be if Donatello had not changed my life with that kiss and if that sharpened chisel had not come so readily to hand. I think, I pray. I remind myself that God permits these things. But in my dark heart I know the cause was fear . . . of Donatello used against Cosimo, Donatello denounced as a sodomite, Donatello stripped and at the stake, and I at fault for all that goodness consumed by flames.