“Look.” Donatello turned the bozzetto face forward. “You can see here how the right leg bears the weight of the body while the left knee bends as he places his foot upon Goliath’s head. The right arm and the sword make a long, uneven triangle that runs the whole length of his body while the left arm makes a small perfect triangle on the other side. They please the eye. The long sword pulls your attention down to the head beneath David’s foot.”
Donatello traced the lines of the statue as he talked.
Agnolo fidgeted at his side. He was not interested in triangles or swords.
“Tell about the feather,” Agnolo said.
But Donatello was moving at his own pace. “Notice the curved line of the body on the left and the swelling movement of the flesh here, on the right hip.” Donatello touched the right hip of the statue and then, with the tip of his fingers, touched the right hip of the boy standing next to him. “Just here,” he said. “You can feel the slight bulge.”
Agnolo put his hand to his hip and nodded.
“Now notice this side.” He turned the stand on its pivot so that they faced the statue in its left profile. “Notice how the stone in your fist is in perfect line with your shoulder and your foot.” He touched Agnolo’s shoulder. “And with the angle of your elbow.” His finger drifted slowly in a straight line from Agnolo’s shoulder to his elbow and then, turning away, he pivoted the statue another quarter turn. “From the back your hair falls down to the top of your shoulder blades, and note here the slight twist to your spine and the swell of your buttocks.” Donatello touched the statue here and let his fingers trace the curve of the buttocks. He lingered there but he did not touch Agnolo. They stood silent for a moment and then Donatello said, “Beautiful.”
He turned the statue to its right profile and pointed out that the sword and the right leg carry the eye firmly down and up despite the diagonal lines of the forearm and the thigh.
He turned the statue once more full front.
“Goliath’s head,” he said, “and the helmet . . .”
“More about David,” Agnolo said.
It was as if Donatello had been waiting for this.
“Note the setting of the eyes,” he began and Agnolo leaned in closer, his pleasure undisguised. Donatello, with the tip of his finger, traced the outer lid of the statue’s eyes and then repeated the gesture on Agnolo himself. “You can feel the weight of my finger tip and you can feel the flesh beneath it as it responds. Is this not so?” Agnolo nodded and Donatello went on, slowly, languorously, describing what he had done with the bozzetto and tracing on Agnolo himself the set of the eyebrows, the breadth of the forehead—he used both hands, gently, scarcely touching him—the high wide cheekbones, and the perfect lips.
I stared at my account book, unable to look up though I could see what Donatello was doing—his finger tracing the shape of the mouth—and I could see Agnolo’s response. He was enraptured, his face kindled with passion.
They stood facing one another and Donatello ran his fingertip across the boy’s upper lip, saying nothing, only looking into his eyes.
“Perfect,” he said, “perfect,” and I could see Agnolo tilt his lower body in toward Donatello and I could see Donatello lean in toward him until they touched. There was no shame on either part, only desire and need.
Without casting me a glance, Donatello said, “Cover the bozzetto with a wet cloth and lock the door when you leave.” He took Agnolo by the hand and they moved slowly down the long room and disappeared into Donatello’s privy chamber.
* * *
AND SO IT was a surprise on the next morning—a cold January dawn, heavy with mist—that Agnolo did not appear at the bottega. Nor on the next day. Nor the next.
Good, I thought, he is well gone. And I was hard put to conceal my joy.
1431 – 1432
CHAPTER 18
SO AGNOLO WAS gone and there would be no sculpting of the David until he came back. I had hoped life in the bottega would return to normal, but after his first fit of annoyance with the boy, Donatello grew half mad with anger and frustration. He was enraged at first that he could not continue with his sculpting but then his rage gave way to worry about the boy himself. He was perhaps ill. Perhaps the Black Pest, even during these winter months, had stolen upon him and borne him off just as he had feared. Or perhaps, taken by force in a sodomite tavern, the boy had been raped and murdered and his body was even now lying in some filthy alley behind the Mercato . . . or was being carried toward Pisa on the swollen waters of the Arno. We must find him. We must search him out.
In truth none of us save Donatello seemed sorry that Agnolo was gone. The garzoni—assistants hired for their specialized skills—were caught up each in his own task and the apprentices, who worked hard and resented all the attention lavished on the boy, were plainly relieved to see him gone. Pagno di Lapo seemed to me indifferent. “He’s run off with that sodomite soldier,” he said, “and he’ll come back when the soldier casts him off.”
I did not say, “All this fuss over a pair of boots.” I bit my tongue instead. But I wondered if this might be a new coyness, yet another assault on Donatello’s patience. How many rival soldiers could Donatello endure? I had no concern for the wretched boy himself; he was vain and stupid and a whore; it was Donato in this new frightening blindness I was concerned for.
Pagno had less concern for Agnolo’s welfare than for the bottega’s commissions, he said. The Prato Pulpit, for instance, was being completely neglected. It was long since time for Donatello—or Michelozzo—to carve the child angels for the cornices. Still, it was Donatello he worried for, and what the boy’s disappearance meant to him. “You must find him,” Pagno said, “he’s with his soldier.” And in Donatello’s hearing, he said, “After all he is your brother.”
As if echoing Pagno, Donatello said, “You will make inquiries? You will find him for me?”
“Of course,” I said. “You need only ask.” But I added, “He is not my brother.”
* * *
I KNEW THAT Agnolo lived with other boys of his kind in the warren of inns and rooming houses on the far side of the Ponte Vecchio, but I set out with little hope of finding him or—more unlikely still—anyone who might know of him. “A comely boy of sixteen? With fair hair? And willing?” They are thirteen to the dozen here, runaways and wild young boys and even the sons of good and noble families, ripe for danger and deviltry.
I went at nightfall, half frozen by the January cold and muffled in a double vest, a long cloak wrapped around me twice and a heavy wool scarf to shield my face against the fog. It was a damp night with rain just starting to fall and a dim moon that provided no light at all. Here and there flickering night torches lit a main street and gave safe passage to people hurrying home from work, but I turned from the main streets to the back alleys and the haunts of prostitutes and cutpurses and criminals of every sort. In such doubtful company and in such darkness and danger, how was I to discover the whereabouts of Agnolo Mattei? And yet, though it seemed impossible, it was not long before I chanced upon a gang of three young toughs who loitered at the head of an alley and who, by their youth and eager appearance, looked as if to welcome me and whatever I might have to offer. I asked about Agnolo—I mentioned his soldier friend—and they claimed to know him. “He wears boots like those of his soldier and he calls himself a sculptor,” one of them said, laughing. “A sculptor!” He was as tall as Michelozzo and as broad. I gave him a few piccioli and asked at what house I might find the boy. “Ask for him at the Buco,” he said. “It is a special house.” They laughed at this fine joke. “Or at the Sant’ Andrea or the Chiasso or the Fico!” I pretended patience. “And what of yourself?” another said. “Do you want for company?” I said I wanted only to find the boy. “He is lost,” I said. “He is my brother.” “Oh, he is surely lost, your brother,” he said and added quickly, “everyone should love his brother.” They were sturdy boys—bravi, you would think to see them. The tall one gave a quick embrac
e to the boy nearest him and let his hand linger on his buttocks shamelessly. He looked carefully to see my response. The third simpered and said nothing.
I thanked them and came away and sought out Donatello. I was struck of a sudden by how tired he looked, and how much older than his years, and I blamed Agnolo for this. Nonetheless I reported what I had learned, that we should look for him at a tavern called the Buco.
“I know the Buco,” Donatello said. “It’s an evil place.”
The next night we went there together. It was the worst of the January weather and snow was falling lightly as we crossed the Ponte Vecchio. Most of the shops were shuttered for the night and, despite the number of people crossing back and forth, the air was quiet and we could hear the Arno rushing beneath us. I thought of what Donatello had said about Agnolo’s dead body being borne off to Pisa on the swollen river and I shuddered to think I had wished him just such a fate. “Miserere mei Domine,” I said. Donatello, who could not know what I was thinking, cast me an odd glance and said, “Ever the Franciscan.” I took that unkindly and wished Agnolo ill all over again.
The falling snow had begun to gather in the streets, transforming the filth and the slops and the debris of the day into mounds of white and silver, a disguise that for a moment turned the ugly into something beautiful. There was the scent of woodsmoke from the evening fires and I wished we could forget Agnolo and walk on like this together until the night was over. But almost at once we came to the end of the bridge and the start of the Via Lambertesca where the snow turned dirty and the street itself became a stream of mud, dangerous underfoot and ugly to look upon. We reached the alley called Buco from which the tavern takes its name—the tavern is still there today, I am told, and still a haunt of sodomites—and we paused before the door, ill at ease. There were no windows onto the street. Only a hand-lettered sign above a narrow door indicated this as a place of business. “Taverna Buco,” the sign said, and beneath the lettering someone had scrawled what looked to be an erect penis.
“We’ll find him, surely,” I said for want of anything else to say.
The door opened upon a tiny entrance the size of a coffin where still another door opened into the main room of the tavern itself. I pushed the door inward and at once we were assaulted by the din of drunken laughter and the clash of tankards against wood and the roar of voices raised in mindless anger and pleasure and surprise. A great fireplace against one wall heated that end of the tavern, but the chimney drew poorly and smoke poured back into the room and stung the eyes. The noise was constant and the air was thick with the smell of spilled wine and sweat and wet woolen clothes. Serving maids came and went in haste. Tavern boys delivered flagons of wine and ale. A barman, thin to the point of emaciation, was heartily at his work with wine casks and tankards and a handcloth to slop away spills. The Buco had the look of a typical Florence tavern, except that a narrow stairway led to the floors above where there were tiny rooms that could be rented by travelers . . . or by sodomites to entertain their guests, boys and women alike, with rent to be paid by the hour or the night or, in special cases, for longer periods if money was no problem and the need was unremitting. All this was known to be true, though little of it had ever been proved in court. To me it looked like any other tavern in Florence.
Before I had adjusted to the shouts and laughter and before I could well see through the smoke-filled air, we were approached by the tavern keeper who surprised me by bowing slightly to Donatello and greeting him, “Ser Donato. Welcome to my tavern.” I could not tell if the tavern keeper knew him from the past or merely recognized him as the great sculptor he was. From his greeting it was impossible to know with surety.
“Benedicite,” Donatello said, and I wondered if he was mocking me.
“Our tables are full, as you see, but I’ll make up a new one especially for you.” He signaled to a boy and said “Another trestle.” The boy flashed us a broad and willing smile. He was no more than fifteen with a great mass of black curls, a gap in his front teeth, and the awkward, unformed body of a growing youth. He wore the new tight stockings—one leg red, the other yellow—that were meant to show his thighs and buttocks to advantage. Like Agnolo, he was shamelessly for sale.
“I’m looking for a boy,” Donatello said, and when the tavern keeper raised his brows in inquiry, he added, “my apprentice, Agnolo Mattei by name, in training to be a sculptor.”
“There are many boys,” the tavern keeper said, “with many names.”
“Wine, then,” Donatello said and the tavern keeper left us. A serving woman appeared, fat and happy, with her breasts much on display, and in her hands she bore two small tankards of wine. It was of poor quality and faintly sour. The Buco was not patronized for the quality of its drink.
“Agnolo, the sculptor,” she said. “He fancies a farmer’s hat in summer and a soldier’s boots all the year through.” She was pleased to show she knew him. She was that kind of loose woman who is motherly by nature and a prostitute by necessity. They are not uncommon even today. My Alessandra had been one of those . . . Alessandra who today is a nun of the Order of Preachers of San Dominic, Sister Maria Adriana, O.P., may she have long life.
We finished our wine and took leave of the tavern keeper and in the falling snow we made our way back across the Ponte Vecchio. We did not talk about what we had seen at the Buco—a life as far from the bottega as life in a Muslim seraglio—nor about what we would have done had we found him there. We walked in silence, listening to the crunch of snow beneath our heavy shoes. Reluctantly I suggested the other taverns known for prostitution—the Sant’ Andrea or the Chiasso or the Fico—and I was relieved that Donatello did not have the heart for it. Nor did he want to be alone.
Back once more at the bottega he lit a fire and we huddled by it while he ran his worries through his mind and I sat thinking murderous thoughts about Agnolo who was responsible for so much misery. I longed to be home now with Alessandra and my boys. For this misery too, I blamed Agnolo.
“Where do you think he could have gone?”
“To his soldier, I imagine.” I waited for a response and then, because I could not help myself, I said, “Or to a new soldier.”
Donatello shot me a hard look.
“He is not famed for fidelity,” I said.
“He claims you speak only to give him hurt. I wonder if he is right.”
“I speak the truth.”
“Always? I think you are very hard on him.”
“Yes.”
I could not bear to have Donatello think ill of me but no more could I bear to think of them alone together in Donatello’s privy chamber. I tried to force from my mind the thought of what things they did there and I wondered if, in the madness of love, I might be willing to do such things. I looked at Donatello, my father, my friend, and in truth I knew not what I could do. There was a long silence while we carefully studied the fire. It was burning low.
“He could have been arrested. It was late night when he left . . . here”—had he been about to say, “when he left my bed”?—“and it could happen that he ran into a gang of toughs, or soldiers on the lookout, or the Onestà . . . .” His voice drifted off into silence.
“He is too quick. He is too clever.”
But his mind had fixed on this. He has been arrested, Donatello said, he is in the dungeons of the Bargello, they are torturing him, that small body.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow you will go inquire. You must.”
I lowered my head and said nothing.
“He’s only a boy.”
“I’ll go,” I said, “and I’ll find him. Or news of him.”
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, ripe with fear and wearing my new cloak and my red capuccio, I set out to find the offices of the Ufficiali di Onestà.
At the Palazzo della Signoria the guard at the main entrance said he had no knowledge of the Onestà. He yawned. What exactly was I looking for? A young man, I said, perhaps a prisoner. Well, there are
no prisoners here in the Signoria, he said, with a wink and a half-smile. If I was in search of a prisoner I should go to the Bargello. But, he added, there are prisoners everywhere in Florence, not all of them in the city jail. I thanked him for his help. He nodded wisely and wished me well.
At the gates to the Bargello I asked for the offices of the Onestà. I was referred to the Office of Information, inside, to the left. There I found, between two armed police, a tiny man with a luxurious black mustache who sat behind a table thick with papers scribbled over in red and black and green: an official’s desk. Two men were ahead of me in line and I waited while their business was dispatched—with a certain amount of fuss and a good deal of contempt for the nuisance they caused—and then it was my turn.
“The Onestà?” He licked one side of his mustache and then the other. He had the white watery eyes of the near blind and, despite the sinister mustache, he had a kindly look. “What is your business with the Onestà?”
“Only an inquiry.”
“About what matter?”
“About a prisoner.”
“In the Bargello?”
“That is what I need to find out. If he is in the Bargello.”
“You won’t get that kind of information. They won’t tell you.” He licked his mustache again and shuffled the papers before him.
“Thank you for your help.”
“They can’t tell you.” He chuckled, pleased. “They don’t even know.”
“Thank you.”
“No one knows. Once in there, you’re gone forever. Sometimes.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll see.”
He waved his hand in dismissal and, as he instructed, I went outside and down the stairs and turned right. It was icy cold below stairs. I wandered in a dark corridor until I came upon a door with a small plaque that said Ufficiali dell’ Onestà and, beneath it, a smaller handwritten card that said Ser Paolo Ruggiero del Pagone, Conservatore di Legge. There was no guard at the door and no sign of anyone else in the corridor, so I knocked softly and, when there was no answer, I knocked a bit harder. I waited and knocked once more, harder still. I turned away and started back down the corridor when I heard the sound of a door opening. I looked back and there in the doorway marked Ufficiali dell’ Onestà stood a huge man with a bald head and the black gown of a cleric. He was peering anxiously into the dark corridor. He was enormously fat, with tiny slits for eyes and no chin at all and he was murmuring apologies.
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