The Measure of a Man

by Marco Malvaldi

  This explanation might be interesting to the modern man, but definitely not to Caterina, who knew perfectly well how an artist’s workshop operated, including what happened when the artist would take his apprentice into the backroom.

  She sighed. “Listen, Leonardo. You almost never go to Mass, and so be it.”

  “Why should I go to Mass? I would if the preacher read what’s written in the Gospel. But all I hear are preachers who mistake their own brains’ delirium for the will of God. Like Friar Savonarola in Florence and Friar Gioacchino here in Milan.”

  “Last year, Friar Savonarola said that a disaster was about to befall Florence and three days later Lorenzo de’ Medici died.”

  “And we needed the voice of God to tell us that? Lorenzo had gout, he couldn’t stand up, he was as swollen as a goatskin.” Leonardo motioned to Salaì with an open hand, and the boy came to him and curled up in his lap like a kitten. “Well, even I can predict that this scoundrel is going to steal something in the next three days. You just have to know him.”

  “It wasn’t me, Messer Leonardo! You must have done the accounts wrong last time.”

  “You hear that, Mother? That’s Salaì’s cry. The dog goes woof woof, the cat goes miaow miaow, and Salaì goes ‘It wasn’t me.’” Leonardo gave the boy a slap on the back of his neck that was more a caress than a blow. “And the preacher goes ‘God’s will, God’s will.’ Each has his own cry.”

  “Careful what you say, son. Perdition isn’t punished only by God, but also by men. You got away with it in Florence because a little Medici cousin was with you and if they’d condemned him they’d have condemned you, too. But this is Milan, not Florence. Be careful what you say and what you do.”

  “And what is it I do that’s so reprehensible, Mother?”

  “You know, Leonardo.”

  “Well, Mother, if I already know, I won’t feel embarrassed if you tell me.”

  Caterina fell silent and twisted the rag in her hands.

  “Are you referring to the fact that I do unnatural things, as our friend Portinari put it?”

  Still saying nothing, Caterina nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “You’re right, Mother. I do unnatural things. Or rather, to be precise, I do one unnatural thing and one only. And you know what that is?” Leonardo lovingly stroked Salaì’s hair, and the boy moved his head like a purring cat, stretching his neck toward his master. “I don’t eat meat. I don’t feed on the remains of animals that are inferior to me, whether killed by me or someone else, as most animals do in nature. Stuffing oneself with the flesh of weaker animals is a natural thing, and not only do I not do it, I abhor it.”

  Having gotten Salaì off him with a slap on the back, Leonardo stood up from the table, visibly annoyed by all that had happened after lunch. He stretched and smoothed his pink cloth garment.

  “I abhor it but allow it to those I love, so much so that I brought you a piece of meat to make stock, meatballs or whatever you wish. I didn’t eat it, because that’s what makes me happy, and you did, because that’s what makes you happy.” Having reached the door, Leonardo turned, smiling. “Similarly, I shan’t stop you tomorrow from going to hear your beloved Friar Gioacchino blather on about hells, apocalypses, earthquakes, and locusts. Now, with your permission, I’m going to bed. And even without your permission, I’m going to bed anyway.”

  BY CANDLELIGHT

  The thumb ran down the horse’s thigh to where the muscle became a tendon and vanished from sight. Behind the thumb, half a meter away, was Leonardo, calm and focused. Here’s the muscle. It suggests movement. You need it, but it’s not enough. Still, it’s easier than painting. Sculpting is definitely easier than painting. You’re in three dimensions, so all you have to do is copy what you see and feel and you’re fine. There must be a reason why the paintings of the Ancient Greeks looked ridiculous, while their statues were majestic. It’s easier to do things in three dimensions, right? But it takes skill to do them in two. You need shading, and perspective. But which perspective? From your right eye or your left? All those artists dealt with how a scene appears to the eye, but humans have two eyes. Maybe that’s why we can’t see the boundaries of things very well. Or maybe it’s because there are no boundaries.

  * * *

  Leonardo roused himself. The clay would be soft and malleable for another half-hour at most. He had to be quick. Here, now. Touch it here, then there. You see? It works. You can see it and feel it.

  Where’s the boundary between me and you, horse? Is it here, where my hand is touching you? But that’s the boundary of my touch. If I press, it changes. And how can I distinguish you, horse, from a heap of new clay, with nothing but touch?

  If I move away I don’t touch you but I can smell you. A nice smell of clay and water, of soil and coolness. And if somebody touches you, gives you a tap, I can hear the sound. Until I move too far away and can’t hear it any more. Could that be where the boundary is between you and me, horse? But if I open my eyes, I can see you. And if I move away, I keep seeing you, and you remain in my eyes until you vanish on the horizon. Then is the horizon the boundary between me and you, horse?

  * * *

  Leonardo looked around and glanced at the wax candle in a corner, which had burned down a good couple of inches since he had first lit it. That meant he had been working for four hours. Soon it would be time to go back to bed and get some sleep. An hour and a half, maybe two. Until matins. Five days to go before delivering the work. There was still the tail to be done, but there was time. And there was clay, which would become a tail, shaped by my own hands, by Leonardo, son of Ser Piero, Leonardo who came from Vinci to Milan, and Heaven knows how long I’ll stay in Milan. Maybe we’ll stay here together for ever, my beautiful horse. I’ll see you every day.

  And if I don’t see you, because I’ll have gone away, too bad. You’re so well made that I might come across a traveler who tells me about you, who describes you, tells me about your curves, and even shows me a drawing. It’s not the same as seeing you, it’s beyond that. I can picture you in my mind, just as you are, or even more beautiful. That way, you would truly be my horse.

  Then perhaps there really is no boundary between me and you, horse. Just as there is no boundary between me and il Moro, in whose service I have to work even when he’s not here. Or between me and Salaì—may God protect him and punish him. I worry about him when he’s not around. So where’s the boundary, the separation? Yes, I love that boy. Like the son I’ll never have.

  FOUR

  The sun had not yet risen beyond the castle walls when the body was discovered.

  The pitch darkness of deepest night had already begun raising its curtain in the last few minutes, ready to present the spectacle of another brand-new day. But you couldn’t see much inside the castle, and even in the courtyard known as the Piazzale delle Armi visibility was quite low.

  That was why Remigio Trevanotti, one of the castle servants, did not immediately realize the nature of the object he had tripped over, an object that should not have been there in the first place, given that His Lordship had ordered that the courtyard be kept clear of objects lying on the ground at all hours of the day or night. It was a kind of bundle with an odd texture, almost like a sack containing large river stones stuck together with mastic. That was Remigio Trevanotti’s initial impression as he got back on his feet, cursing because it was now his job to remove this heavy package.

  It was only when he handled it, trying to find the best way to load it on his shoulder, that he realized the bundle contained a man.

  A man too cold and stiff still to be alive.

  * * *

  “Dead?”

  “Dead, Your Lordship.”

  “Stabbed?”

  “It would not seem so, Your Lordship.”

  “Then how did he die?”

  “It’s not clear, Your Lordship.”


  “Could it be that?”

  “It could be that, Your Lordship.”

  “Do we know him?”

  “I’ve seen him before, Your Lordship.”

  The voice was that of Bergonzio Botta, not only Ludovico’s tax collector but also sometimes the master of ceremonies at his morning audiences.

  “He was one of the supplicants requesting an audience yesterday morning. Your Lordship did not have time to hear him. He came by the castle again yesterday afternoon to request another audience.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “I must have written it on the list. I’ll go and get it right away, Your Lordship.”

  “Go, Bergonzio. But first send for Magistro Ambrogio.”

  * * *

  While the servants were laying the corpse out on the table, Magistro Ambrogio Varese da Rosate walked around it, swinging a thurible in which incense and lemon leaves were burning. Incense because its warm, fragrant fumes were believed to dispel the winds that carried contagion, and lemon leaves because Magistro Ambrogio liked the smell.

  Having laid the body down, the servants stood by the table, their eyes shifting from the dead man to the physician, their feet pointing more toward the door than in front of them.

  “Undress the poor wretch, may God have mercy on his soul.”

  The servants did so, with the quick, strained movements typical of those who are scared out of their wits, and within a very short time left on the table a naked, dead, and very pale man.

  Ambrogio da Rosate began circling the corpse, as slowly as a falcon searching for prey.

  Ambrogio da Rosate, too, was searching for prey. Or, rather, a sign. Any sign. But there were no signs on this body, of any kind. No signs of stabbing, no marks from a dagger. No bleeding from the mouth, the nose, the ears . . .

  “Turn him over.”

  . . . or any other orifices of the body.

  Ambrogio continued walking in circles, absorbed in thought, while the servants stood motionless, hoping they would soon be allowed to leave the room.

  Nor any sign of poisoning from substances different than arsenic, so fashionable in those days.

  No bruises or blemishes suggesting a beating, a brawl. or a violent contact with some blunt instrument.

  No congestion in the face or neck that would make one suspect an apoplectic fit. Besides, Magistro Ambrogio thought, if he had died from a stroke, why take the trouble of wrapping him in a sack and carrying him into the middle of the Piazzale delle armi? What was there about a poor fellow who’d died of a stroke that would need to be concealed?

  No boils, bumps, or other ostentatious signs of the disease that had overwhelmed half the continent over a hundred years earlier—those livid weals, those venomous fungi that would pop up under people’s clothes and meant one thing only. That, as Ludovico had said and Bergonzio Botta had replied. A disease so terrible that no one at court called it by its name and everybody feared it. Servants, cooks, and armigers feared it, and even Magistro Ambrogio Varese da Rosate, an expert in the art of the stars but perfectly well aware of not being anything as eternal as they were, feared it. And the man who had ordered him to examine the body feared it, too.

  “Have you finished, Magistro Ambrogio?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ambrogio replied in a slow, deep voice. “I’m very, very much afraid we’ve only just begun.”

  “What do you mean, Magistro Ambrogio?”

  Ambrogio da Rosate turned to the servant, heedless of the difference in their roles. His face was impassive, but there was dismay in his eyes. “Whatever this man may have died from, it’s an illness that’s never been seen before.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure, Magistro Ambrogio?”

  “I confess my ignorance, Your Lordship. I’ve never come across this disease on the body of any man or woman, or in the pages of any of my treatises.”

  “So it’s not the plague, then,” Beatrice said with a hint of hope in her voice.

  “I can state that with absolute certainty, Your Ladyship,” Ambrogio da Rosate replied, while behind the ducal pair, a servant, hearing the disease named so explicitly, made a quick sign of the cross with a furtive tap on his balls between the Father and the Holy Ghost.

  “Nevertheless it kills,” Ludovico said, his hands joined in front of his face. “And it kills fast. Messer Bergonzio, you told me you saw this man alive yesterday. When exactly?”

  Bergonzio Botta, official collector of tributes for His Lordship in the provinces of Lodi, Como, and Vigevano, was not a timid man. Although he went around escorted by a handful of armigers, it was, so they said, purely and strictly for reasons of personal safety—a safety that was also jeopardized by lightning, plague, poisonings, and all the other calamities that, in Bergonzio’s opinion, were seriously underestimated by most of his fellow men. Anyhow, as we were saying, Bergonzio Botta was not a timid man: he was a genuine chickenshit. As Ludovico addressed him, he was actually counting the hours since he had encountered that young man, a mere five paces away, ten at the most, and wondering if the slight dizziness he was feeling might be a first symptom of possible contagion.

  “At the ninth hour, Your Lordship,” Botto replied.

  “And how did he look, Messer Bergonzio?”

  “Well, exactly as you saw him. A blond young man, about thirty . . .”

  Ambrogio da Rosate, who had understood the question, tried rephrasing it. “Was he shaking? Did he look flushed with fever? Was he pale?”

  “On the contrary, he was sound as a bell. Or at least he seemed to be. I’m not a physician, but he looked perfectly healthy.”

  Ludovico il Moro, his face as dark as his name, looked at Ambrogio da Rosate.

  “I’ve never come across a disease like this, Your Lordship,” Ambrogio admitted.

  “Could he have been poisoned?”

  “I see nothing on the body that would lead me to that conclusion, Your Lordship. There is not the rash and bleeding associated with cantarella or aqua tofana. Every poison that enters our bodies leaves a trace, Your Lordship.”

  “Every poison leaves a trace.” Il Moro repeated Ambrogio’s words out loud, as though he either found them particularly interesting or knew them to be true from personal experience. “I see, Magistro Ambrogio. Now tell me: what do the stars say about this?”

  “I would need to consult my instruments, if Your Lordship will give me leave.”

  “Yes, go, Magistro Ambrogio.”

  After a deep, slow, dignified bow, Ambrogio da Rosate did exactly that. Ludovico let a few seconds pass in silence after the door had been shut, while Bergonzio Botta took his own pulse under his heavy dark cloth sleeve, trying to figure out if by any chance he was coming down with a fever.

  “I need your assistance, Messer Bergonzio,” Ludovico said.

  “At your service, Your Lordship.”

  “Send for Messer Leonardo.”

  “I shall fetch him myself, if Your Lordship will allow.”

  “Messer Bergonzio, do you still go around with your escort?”

  “Of course, Your Lordship. Six valiant men, armed and well fed. Messer Leonardo will be at no risk.”

  Ludovico rolled his eyes. “Messer Bergonzio, what would the populace think if I were to send a tax collector surrounded by armed henchmen to fetch my most talented engineer and artist?”

  “That he . . . I mean that there are issues between you and him, payment issues possibly . . .”

  “I see that even you can use your head if you force yourself, Messer Bergonzio. Send one of your men, on his own and unarmed, to fetch Leonardo. Let him come alone, without fanfare or henchmen. And conduct him straight to the hospital room.”

  “As Your Lordship wishes,” Messer Bergonzio, muttered, beginning to feel unwell in earnest.

  * * *

  �
��I’d quite like this, too, you know, having an east-facing room,” Leonardo said, looking through the window, which had no cloth covering.

  Outside, the sun, only apparently static in the sky, was actually rising, clothing with fresh light laden with promises the room and everything in it, including the dozens of coats of arms hanging on the walls, symbols of families of noble lineage, as motionless as befits a nobleman before a lord. And what a lord: Ludovico il Moro, master of Milan, who, they said, had the Pope as his chaplain and the Emperor as his butler. Il Moro was standing in the middle of the most luminous room in his castle: a sumptuous, open, elegant tableau. Too bad about the corpse lying bare-assed on the table in the middle of the room.

  “Yes, I’d like it very much. Do you see, Your Lordship, how it provides a totally different perspective? The morning light is the most honest.”

  I’d quite like an east-facing room too, Ludovico might have replied in normal circumstances, that is, with no infectious corpses in the vicinity. But I, effectively the regent and lord of the city, have to live in the Rochetta, in small, dark, west-facing rooms, until my useless nephew Gian Galeazzo kicks the bucket—although that’s something Ludovico would never have said.

  “The corpse hasn’t been brought here so that you might paint it, Messer Leonardo,” Ludovico said curtly. “Magistro Ambrogio claims that the winds that carry the plague spread from east to west, and leaving it thus exposed we put the city at lesser risk of contagion.”

  You mustn’t laugh, modern reader. Ambrogio da Rosate was merely complying with the medical knowledge of the time, which stated that it was the winds, and not bacteria, that carried disease, and that it was also the winds that swept them away, so much so that hospitals back then had doors facing the Vatican, to allow the Holy Spirit easier entry. Leonardo, therefore, found nothing strange in this detail. In another one, however, yes.