“They claim it’s important, Your Lordship.”
“Everything’s important to an interested party, even the smoke from their neighbor’s chimney,” Ludovico said, standing up and gathering his garment around his legs as he turned. “Tell them to come back tomorrow or go to hell.”
“Tell me yourself, if you’re able to,” a polite but firm voice said. A woman’s voice.
Ludovico turned again and noticed a few blushing faces among his dignitaries.
On the threshold, dignified and haughty, stood Cecilia Gallerani. Beside her, Leonardo da Vinci.
* * *
“Countess, dear Cecilia. Why come see me as a supplicant?”
“Because today I am a supplicant, Your Lordship,” Cecilia replied, with flushed cheeks and narrowed eyes. “Today I come to you as a Milanese and a subject of the Duke of Milan and of those who have power in this city. Messer Leonardo and I have extremely important news to impart to you, so that justice may be done and the city not fall into ruin.”
“Really?” Ludovico said, trying to make light of it, but failing. Every word carries more or less weight, depending on who utters it, and the fact that his interlocutors were Leonardo and Cecilia Gallerani could not leave him indifferent. The two people who were before him now had more brains than the rest of the residents in his castle put together, present company included.
“You will judge for yourself, Your Lordship.”
“Very well.” Ludovico turned to his councilors. “In that case, since I have to judge for myself, gentlemen, I ask you to withdraw.”
* * *
“I understand,” Ludovico said, hands joined together, knuckles over his lips and eyes closed, something which never happened in public.
“So, Ludovico . . . I mean, Your Lordship,” Cecilia said, as though embarrassed at having addressed him by his first name. “Was I right? Is it or is it not a matter of capital importance?”
“Yes, Cecilia.” Ludovico opened his eyes, seeming to realize only then, with a second’s delay, that Leonardo was also in the room. “Yes, Countess. It is. In fact, it was important before, now it is even more so. But I must check. You can appreciate that what you say makes sense, resonates with me, and is consistent. Now I must see if it’s true.”
“But Your Lordship—”
“I have spoken with you. And I have also spoken with Accerrito Portinari this very day. I must compare your reports and see if they are true. Meanwhile, you, Leonardo, will remain at the castle. You still have an obligation toward me, and by staying here you will avoid distractions.”
Leonardo bowed his head, slightly embittered. The first part was true, the second ambiguous. In this way, Ludovico was stopping Leonardo from going around making agreements with anyone or making anything disappear. It was obvious he still had his doubts about him.
“Good. There’s one more person I need to speak to, and then I will make an informed decision.”
And Ludovico headed for the door.
Yes, this was the right decision, Leonardo thought. There was indeed one person who absolutely had to be questioned about this matter.
“Castellan!” Ludovico called, knocking on the door.
The heavy door opened and the sallow, unhealthy face of Bernardino da Corte appeared.
“Send for Magistro Ambrogio da Rosate. I need him to consult the stars.”
But it wasn’t him he was thinking of.
FROM THE DESK OF GIACOMO TROTTI
To Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, ferre cito! cito!! cito!!!
My Most Illustrious, Most Respected Lord,
I send Your Excellency news of the events of today and last night, so that you may be aware of the developments and provide your counsel.
Last night, Messer Leonardo da Vinci was assaulted as he was coming out of the Castello Sforzesco on the side of the new Broletto, at the end of the Maino district. Two men with covered faces stopped him and attempted to do him violence.
As the aforesaid Leonardo was making an effort to escape, a young man arrived, screaming like a demon, and lashed out cum the flat and the sharp of his sword. Item there arrived two other men from the Cusani district, et two more men armed with sword and hammer coming from another direction and in specie from the Nirone district, and all four leaped into the fray with such clamor and commotion that shouts, swearing, bad language, and I will not tell you what else came from the house of Giovanni del Maino.
Members of the del Maino family joined in the confusion, attempting to put a stop to this disorderly merry-go-round in which everybody dealt random blows while Messer Leonardo made a great struggle to extricate himself from this tangle, reminiscent of Laocoön and his sons.
Asked to calm down, the screaming young man was recognized by Leonardo as Jacomo Caprotti also known as Salaíno, his apprentice. Two of the armed men said their names were Graziano and Ottolino, in the service of the Most Illustrious Bernardino da Corte, the Duke’s castellan, who confirmed their claim. The other two were identified as Frenchmen, Gaspard Robinot and Geoffroy Mattenet, attendants to the Duke of Commynes. Finally, and this is the ultimate reason for my most expedient letter, the last two men said they were Veniero del Balzo and Coriolano Ferrari, envoys of Your Most Illustrious Lordship, the Duke of Ferrara.
The three pairs of armed men began insulting one another, blaming one another for the assault on the aforesaid Messer Leonardo, while the aforementioned Salaíno insisted cum force et anco cum coarse words that his master and teacher had been assaulted by the Frenchmen and, when asked how he had recognized them, replied that it was by their horrible stench. This unleashed another brawl, which was immediately calmed by His Illustrious Lordship Ludovico’s nine guards, who had arrived in itinere. All these men are currently confined in the prison of the Castello Sforzesco, except for Leonardo and Salaíno, who are in the house of the aforesaid Leonardo.
I am writing because His Lordship Ludovico summoned me this morning at an early hour to put an end to the quarrel and request the presence at court of Your Most Illustrious Lordship for the trial of the two men claiming to be your envoys, and so I am imploring Your Most Illustrious Lordship’s counsel.
In other words, to put it in a nutshell, you sent soldiers to Milan without telling me, and now, as usual, it’s up to me to get you out of this shit. So you’d better turn up in Milan pretty damn quickly, my dear Ercole, Duke of Ferrara,
to whose benevolence I commend myself as ever.
Mediolano, XXIII octubris 1493
Servus Jacomo Trotti
TWELVE
Signor Giacomo Trotti, ambassador of His Most Illustrious Lordship Ercole, Duke of Ferrara.”
“Show him in,” Ludovico said, without much ceremony.
And, without further ado, Giacomo Trotti came in, with his hat in his hand and a not-very-clear plan of action in his head.
Ludovico was waiting for him, apparently calm, sitting on the high-backed chair in the center of the Room of the Chevrons.
As Leonardo liked to say, speaking about painting, the artist must depict the appearance of a man and his mind’s intention through the posture and movement of his body. In this case, all one would have to do to portray Ludovico and fully relate his intent would be to pay attention to how he was sitting.
His body firmly propped against the back of the chair, his chin high, his jaw clenched, his hands resting with palms down, relaxed, on the armrests. This is my place, Ludovico was saying. The chair, the room, the entire city around us. I am lord here, and that is not up for discussion. Now we are going to speak and explain ourselves, and it won’t be easy, but don’t forget that fact while we’re talking. Or else? There is no “or else,” I won’t even deign to consider an “or else” option. I’m the one in charge here. Don’t forget it. Period.
“I offer my respects to Your Lordship,” Giacomo Trotti said as he walked in.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s a pity,” Ludovico repeated, without any sign of getting to his feet. “I had hoped you would be offering me an apology from my father-in-law Ercole for sending undisciplined soldiery to a city I lead and govern without even asking my permission.”
Giacomo Trotti rubbed his hands behind his back. This wasn’t a particularly pleasant situation. Ercole on one side, Ludovico on the other, and, in the middle, specific orders to report. What one needed to do here was to be a kind of glue—to become fluid, adhere to both sides of the vise constricting him, then to dry, remaining firmly in his position, forcing the two parties to acknowledge that it was the only possibility.
“Your Lordship is entirely in the right. In family relations, especially when the individuals are powerful, mutual trust should be paramount. In justification of my Most Illustrious Lord’s actions, I can only suggest that he meant well and took the same measures as Your Most Illustrious Lordship.”
“I don’t understand. What measures am I supposed to have taken?”
“You assigned two men to protect Messer Leonardo da Vinci, just as my Lord did.”
“You’re mistaken, Messer Giacomo. The two guards intervened after their sentry duty at the castle, when they heard a clamor and commotion coming from the Maino district.”
“In that case may I be so bold as to suggest that when the war begins, Your Lordship might take these gentlemen into battle and appoint them couriers and messengers? They must be fast runners indeed to have arrived in the district all the way from the depths of the castle before Ercole’s men.”
“What do you mean?”
Giacomo Trotti took a deep breath. Showing a powerful man that he is wrong beyond any reasonable doubt was never easy, nor in the least useful.
“I presume, Your Lordship, that the men my Lord sent had been instructed to watch over Messer Leonardo’s safety, and so were following him discreetly, a few steps behind him, trying to pass unnoticed. Despite which, your soldiers arrived at the scene of the assault before the men from Ferrara.”
“You presume?”
Trotti looked up. The moment had come to play all-in, as Texas Hold’em poker players would have said, had they witnessed the scene—highly improbable, given that America had been discovered barely a year earlier and during those months the conquistadores had had other things on their minds, like wiping out the natives, rather than inventing card games.
“Your Lordship, I am sure that Ercole intended to protect Messer Leonardo after I myself informed him of the secret project on which you are working.”
“Secret project?”
“Call it what you will. The reason for Leonardo’s leaving his house at night, every night, and coming to the castle in secret. The reason he’s been in danger, so much so that the young man he calls Salaí has been following him, armed. So much so that you yourself have decided to keep him under protection. So much so that even Ercole, as a result of my letters to him, decided to keep him under protection.”
Ludovico looked at Trotti, stony-faced. “I had my reasons for keeping Messer Leonardo under surveillance, and as you’ve seen, they were not unsound. Messer Leonardo was assaulted last night, and the work he is doing for me is something between him and me and has nothing to do with it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it is a matter that cannot be of importance to anybody outside the castle.”
Trotti tried to restrain himself, but didn’t like being taken for an idiot. “Forgive me, Your Lordship, but actually, it’s a matter of the greatest importance. I can understand your desire to keep it a secret, but it certainly wouldn’t remain so for long. People would soon realize. They would realize and act accordingly. As you can appreciate, I cannot keep such a discovery secret from my Lord. In Ferrara, as well as in the rest of Europe, the reaction would be pandemonium.”
It was now Ludovico’s turn to look at Trotti as though he had turned into an idiot. “In Ferrara, Ambassador, yes, of course. But I honestly don’t see what it has to do with the rest of Europe.”
“Are you trying, then, to deny that Leonardo da Vinci has discovered the means to transmute base metal into gold?”
Ludovico was silent for a moment. His face turned scarlet.
Then he burst out laughing.
A belly laugh, like a boy who sees a man slipping and falling on the ice or a woman making twenty-six maneuvers to park her old clunker in a spot big enough for two.
The Duke of Bari and Lord of Milan was laughing so hard, he began to cry.
And all the while, Trotti stood there motionless, silent, and even somewhat shocked.
“Forgive me, Messer Giacomo, but these have been, and still are, trying days and I must have accumulated so much tension, like a loaded crossbow. And you pressed the trigger.”
Ludovico took a deep breath, wiped away a tear, and was once again serious.
“No, Messer Ambassador, you’re right, and I owe you an explanation. It’s true that Leonardo is working for me. Can you keep a secret?”
“I’m an ambassador, Your Lordship. It’s my job to keep secrets.”
“You may not find it easy, but it’s essential that you do. The thing is, as I once confided in you, pregnant women don’t appeal to me.”
“‘I find pregnant women repulsive,’ that’s what Your Lordship told me.”
“Oh, yes.” Ludovico looked at Trotti with a conspiratorial air. “So, when my most excellent and beloved wife, your lord’s daughter, was pregnant, I looked for enjoyment and distraction with one of her ladies in waiting. Men need to let off steam, you know.”
“I understand,” Trotti replied. He was seventy, and for him it was more a matter of vaguely remembering than understanding. “And, if I may, this lady is . . .”
“Lucrezia. Lucrezia Crivelli.”
“That dark-haired young lady who looks a little vulgar?”
Il Moro smiled. The grapes are out of your reach, aren’t they, you old fox? “It’s you who are a little vulgar, Ambassador. I find Lucrezia very attractive. And Messer Leonardo agrees with me, so much so that he has agreed to paint her portrait.”
“Oh.”
“Precisely. That’s why Leonardo has been coming to the castle at night. I could hardly ask Madamigella Lucrezia to pose during the day, when she might be in conversation with my wife, could I?” Getting up out of his high-backed chair, Ludovico displayed to Trotti his full one meter ninety, just to make it clear, once again, which of the two men was His Highness. “Can I rely on your discretion, Ambassador?”
“No fucking way, you lousy creep!”
Ludovico froze in surprise.
Not because Trotti had uttered these words, of course, since it wasn’t him at all—he would never, ever have allowed himself to do so. No, Ludovico was disconcerted by the fact that these words had been preceded by a hollow crash and a sudden light, as though someone outside had thrown a brazier at the cloth that shielded the window from the wind, tearing it off with a bronze-like sound.
Which was, indeed, what had happened.
In the luminous frame of the window, now deprived of its opaque protection, stood the haughty and very much pissed-off noble figure of Beatrice d’Este.
* * *
“My darling wife—”
“Darling wife my ass! I was hiding here so I could listen to you, because I was convinced you were going to tell the ambassador my father had been appointed commander-in-chief. Instead of which, I discover I’m being cheated on! And you’re actually telling that to my father’s ambassador, you piece of sh—”
“Look, Beatrice, I don’t think it’s appropriate to make a scene like this in front of everybody.”
Ludovico had tried to assume an air of lordly detachment, rather like a cat that falls off a table whil
e chasing a bird then gets back on its feet, as though nothing has happened, mustering all its recent but significant airs and graces. Unfortunately, although nobility and upbringing may prevent the man who possesses them from yelling his head off, it is nevertheless true that they cannot gag anyone else.
“Oh, really? So it’s not appropriate for me to scream in front of everybody, but you’re quite happy to fuck the servant girl and then shout it from the rooftops? For me to raise my voice is embarrassing, but it’s all right for you to knock up the kitchen maid, is it? What kind of fucking morality is that?”
“Listen, Beatrice, you’re the Duchess of Bari, you can’t—”
Once again, Beatrice responded to nobility with decibels. “I’ve heard enough. Wasn’t my sister noble enough for your Messer Leonardo da Vinci to paint her portrait? Isabella, daughter of Ercole d’Este, isn’t an interesting enough subject, whereas he runs for his brushes as soon as he sees one of your common whores, is that it?” Beatrice took a deep, hard breath. “As for what I can do, I’ll do it right now by going back to Ferrara.”
“If I may advise Your Ladyship,” Trotti ventured, in a smooth tone, “it might not be appropriate to go to Ferrara at this stage.”
Beatrice turned to Trotti as though seeing him for the first time. “For once, Messer Giacomo, I could advise you exactly where to go.”
“Thank you, my Lady, I would rather stay here.”
Beatrice turned, in a whirl of skirts and drapery, and walked out.
Ludovico watched for a few seconds as his wife left, walking slowly and, a few seconds later, hiding her face in her hands, like someone looking down at a precious object lying broken on the floor. Then he slowly turned his face from the window and returned to his high-backed chair, apparently calm and detached, but with his eyes downcast.
“Well, Ambassador,” he said, sitting down. “My day began at terce with an assault on my most important engineer and artist, continued with a diplomatic misunderstanding, and proceeded to my getting insulted by my wife in front of my father-in-law’s ambassador. Now let’s see if we can get it back on track.”
The Measure of a Man Page 17