Now that his first year was almost up, Leonardo needed to convince the friars to let him stay. He had barely made any progress on human flight. Relocating now would interrupt his experiments. He had to prove that he was not only working on the altarpiece, but that a painting by him would be worth the wait. So, for the last two weeks, he had been displaying his design to the public, and now he had invited the friars up to witness the spectacle.
As the song came to an end, Leonardo stepped onto a raised platform next to a large panel covered in a piece of black velvet. He raised his hand with a flourish, and Salaì yanked off the cloth.
His cartoon, the life-sized preparatory drawing for the altarpiece, was displayed on a gilded pedestal. Candlelight illuminated the charcoal and chalk sketch on thin, tinted paper. The picture was of St. Anne, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and baby Jesus, all interconnected in a surging, pyramidal composition. The four figures were vibrant, their faces the ideal of classical beauty. He’d spent months dreaming up that image before putting it down on paper, so when he’d finally started sketching, the lines seemed to appear in a flash. Like his performance that night, it was all part of his show. Let the people think the design had arrived complete and perfect, as if sent by God himself. It would only increase the public’s fervor.
A man called from the back of the room, “Let me through. I can’t see.”
Leonardo’s smile fell. He recognized that voice.
The crowd parted like water meeting a warship as Santissima Annunziata’s notary made his way to the front. The old man had been an ardent supporter of the uncompromising Dominican friar Savonarola and still adhered to the now dead preacher’s austere dress code: plain black clothes with no embellishments. The notary had the same angular face Leonardo remembered, the same pointy nose, and same steely gray eyes still filled with that same look of judgment. Standing on top of the raised platform, Leonardo had the advantage of looking down on the old man, but somehow, even frowning up at him from below, the notary made him feel small.
“I thought I made myself clear,” Leonardo said. “If I accepted this job, I would not have to see you.”
The friars started to protest, but the notary raised a hand to silence them. He took his time responding. “I came to offer my congratulations.” He looked at the cartoon. “It is quite extraordinary. The final painting will be a miraculous treasure for the church.” The old notary was so good at acting earnest.
“Why did the music stop?” Salaì called and clapped at the musicians.
As the band started to play again, Leonardo stepped down from the platform and grabbed the notary’s elbow, dragging him toward the back door. “I have been back for a year, and you choose tonight to finally speak to me?” Leonardo said in a low voice.
“The friars invited me.”
“But instead of stopping by the studio during the day, when we could discuss things privately, you pick a public event. Why? So the whole world can witness your generous show of support?” He shook his head. The old notary wasn’t the first person to treat him poorly when he was young and unaccomplished, and then grovel at his boots now that he was successful. His door had been battered down by such shallow flattery since his return to Florence.
“I’m trying to make amends, Leonardo.”
“Like a bee: with honey in your mouth and poison in your behind.” Leonardo led him out of the studio and into the back hallway, closing the door behind them. “So, you no longer think I’m a ne’er-do-well?”
“I never said that. I said you have too many ideas for your own good, and you would do better to stick to one and finish it, rather than flit from one thing to another. But it is nice to see you have settled down now. I’m pleased”—he placed his hand over his heart—“that this job has been good for you.”
He recognized the old man’s look of condescension. “You think you convinced the friars to give me this commission, don’t you?”
The notary looked to the floor.
“I assure you, it was my reputation, not your words,” Leonardo said. “But even if you had secured me some employment, you think that can make up for what you did?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” The thought of that old betrayal was enough to make his left eye twitch. When Leonardo was twenty-four years old, weeks after leaving Verrocchio’s studio to open up his own workshop, an anonymous note was delivered to the Office of the Night accusing him and five other men of sodomy. Although the practice was common in Florence—especially among humanists who celebrated it as the ideal way for man to connect to man—perpetrators, if convicted, could be sentenced to death. Leonardo had long believed it was that damned old notary who had reported him to the authorities, although the old man had never admitted it. “You told me I should burn in the seventh circle of hell.”
“I’ll admit I’m glad you were caught.” He fiddled with the only piece of jewelry he wore: a simple gold wedding band on his thin finger. “If you’d kept at it, you could have found yourselves in real trouble.”
“I could have been executed.”
“The charges were dropped.” He lifted his chin as though he could be proud of the fact.
“The charges were only dismissed because one of the other accused was a relative of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s mother. If tried alone, I probably would have hung.”
The notary shook his head.
Someone tried to open the door from inside the studio. Leonardo grabbed the handle and held it shut. “When I was a struggling artisan, I didn’t exist to you. You were a respected notary. I, a low-class laborer.”
The notary started to interrupt.
Leonardo went on. “But now that I am revered for my—what words did you just use? Miraculous treasures—now you want the world to see that we are friends? We have never been friends.”
The notary’s steely eyes connected with his. “No. I suppose we have not.”
“Tonight is important to me. I need to be calm. Rational. Focused on my patrons. You’re not helping. You need to leave.” He stood up straight, refusing to bow. “Please don’t come back.” He knew the notary had too much pride to beg. Sure enough, the old man walked away without argument.
Leonardo took a few slow breaths. Rolled his shoulders and neck. Then, with a smile, he returned to the party.
Salaì was waiting by the door. “I sent two boys out the front to make sure he leaves and doesn’t return. Are you all right?”
“Patience protects us against insults just as clothes against the cold. Now,” he said, removing his jacket and handing it to Salaì, “why does it seem so quiet in here? There should be entertainment at all times.”
He strode toward his cartoon. He wanted to make sure the friars were enjoying their merchandise. “Once, when I was only a boy in my master’s studio, a merchant entered,” he said with a jovial tone, loud enough to be heard by the entire crowd. “He was looking for a painting that pleased him, but was agitated by my master’s monstrous children, running through the house like delinquents. The merchant asked, ‘How can you paint such beautiful pictures, when your children are so ugly?’ To which the painter replied, ‘I make my pictures by day, but my children at night.’” As the crowd laughed, Leonardo arrived in front of the cartoon. He didn’t see any of the friars. Not one.
Salaì scurried up next to him.
“Where are the friars?”
“They left,” Salaì whispered back.
Leonardo closed his eyes. The friars were gone. That damned old notary had ruined everything. He took a deep breath and smelled … urine? He opened his eyes.
One of the ugliest men he had ever seen was standing in front of him. The stranger was young, with black hair matted down with grime. A disfigured nose. Wearing the soiled clothes of a peasant who hadn’t washed in weeks, he was bloodied and bruised as though he had recently lost a tavern brawl. He clasped a ragged leather bag of tools and carried a sketchbook in his front pocket. He was an
artist, Leonardo surmised, but judging by his meager dress, not a very successful one. Why were all of these uninvited guests disrupting his party this evening?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Leonardo said, “please welcome a child most certainly made by night.”
The crowd laughed, and the young man blushed, hunching his shoulders and crossing his arms in front of his chest; he appeared as uncomfortable with himself as everyone else was. “Maestro Leonardo, it is an honor to meet you.” He spoke like a boulder clearing the way during a landslide. “I am a sculptor and at your service.”
Well, that explained it; stonecutters were always unkempt. “Sit down and sketch, son. Copying the masters is the best way for a student learn.” Leonardo waved his hand dismissively and returned his attention to the problem at hand. He was going to have to figure out a way to make up the evening to the friars. Perhaps he could invite them in for a private viewing the next day or even attend services that Sunday. He must do something to atone for the notary’s rude interruption.
“May I show you some of my work?” The sculptor fumbled for his sketchbook. “It would be a great honor if you could give me your endorsement.”
Why was this sculptor still bothering him? Yet another Florentine, desperate for the great Leonardo da Vinci’s friendship and approval. What a night. “By all means, young man. Come in, uninvited, to my studio and take me away from my guests. Please, please, allow me to interrupt my night in order to serve the needs of yours. It is apparently the theme of the evening.”
The sculptor looked confused. Did he not understand sarcasm?
A well-dressed gentleman stepped forward. Leonardo recognized this stylish fellow as a local artist, Francesco Granacci. “Maestro,” Granacci said, offering a deep bow. “This is my friend, Michelangelo Buonarroti.”
“Buonarroti?” Leonardo muttered. “I have heard of you.”
“Yes, sir?” The sculptor’s eyes widened with childlike hope.
“Salaì, what did we hear?”
Salaì leaned in and whispered in his ear.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said. The night was already ruined. Time to have a little fun at the intruder’s expense. “Gather around my friends, to meet a truly legendary artist.” He waved the spectators in closer. “My son, why didn’t you tell me who you were? I heard of your work all the way up in Milan. The whole court spoke of it. Even Duke Sforza.”
The young sculptor flushed. His chin raised a notch. Leonardo recognized the look. It was pride. He was tired of other people’s pride.
“This is one of his generation’s best and brightest,” Leonardo announced. “The famous carver of …” He let his voice trail off, letting the anticipation build. “Snow people!”
The guests giggled as the sculptor’s expression darkened. Granacci grabbed his arm as if to restrain him.
What was the boy going to do, punch him? Go ahead. Leonardo could use a good fight. “You all remember the snowman young Buonarroti made for Piero de’ Medici, right? I, unfortunately, wasn’t here to see it. Entertain us, my boy, with glorious tales of your days in ice. Was it cold?”
The sculptor’s face drained white as the snow he’d been forced to carve. “So I had one lousy commission. You’ve had your share.”
“Never something quite so laudable as snow art. Congratulations on discovering an art that abandons his maker before his maker can abandon it.”
“Perhaps you’ve heard of my Pietà, currently on display in the Vatican.” He spit the last word as though flinging a knife toward Leonardo’s throat.
“That’s Gobbo’s. From Milan.” Leonardo looked to Salaì, who nodded in agreement.
“No. It isn’t. The Pietà is mine.” He drew himself straighter.
“Poor hunchback, can’t even get a decent credit. Ah well.” Leonardo turned back to his guests. “Who wants to see a magic trick?”
The sculptor’s filthy fingers grabbed his arm.
“Michelangelo, please,” Granacci whispered.
“Tell me, tell us all,” Michelangelo said, raising his voice. “Have you seen my Pietà?”
Leonardo squared his shoulders and turned back around to address the sculptor. “No. The last time I was in Rome I did not have time for visiting inconsequential carvings.”
“Then what have you heard about it?” Michelangelo pressed.
“That your Mary is not a thing found in nature. She is gargantuan …” He puffed out his cheeks and chest and stomped around like a giant. “Three times the size of Jesus and”—he launched his voice high—“twice as young.”
The audience tittered.
“Don’t you know,” Leonardo went on in a mock-scolding tone, “that mothers are smaller and older than their sons? What are schools teaching students these days?”
He led the crowd in a chorus of laughter.
“A chaste woman preserves her youth and beauty,” the sculptor said.
Did Leonardo spot tears in the young man’s eyes? Had he taken the teasing too far? As the older and wiser artist, should he help this young buck preserve his dignity? Leonardo leaned in and whispered, “Pipe it, boy, you’re losing the crowd.” Then he addressed the gallery. “I know. Let’s try to turn tin into gold. The wonders of alchemy.”
“The body is a reflection of the soul; the more moral a person, the more beautiful,” Michelangelo said.
“Thank you for proving I must be more moral than you,” quipped Leonardo.
The guests laughed.
“Listen, son,” Leonardo said, putting a gentle hand on the sculptor’s shoulder. It wasn’t his fault that the notary had ruined the evening. “A drop of ocean water had the ambition to rise high into the air. So, with the help of fire, it rose as vapor, but when it flew so high that the air turned cold, it froze and fell from the sky as rain. The parched soil drank up the little drop and imprisoned it for a long time: punishment for its greedy ambition. You’re like that drop of water suffering from too much ambition. I have not seen your Pietà. I cannot judge it. But I can assure you, just by the looks of you, that you’re not yet a master. So please, sit down and sketch my work. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
“Bastard.” Michelangelo enunciated the word so clearly that no one could doubt what he’d said.
As the crowd murmured, Leonardo took a breath. He had tried to be nice. “Yes, it is true. I’m an illegitimate son. But I am thankful for my illegitimacy.” He stared into the sculptor’s brown eyes. “If I had been born legitimately to a legitimate married couple, with a legitimate father, I would have had to suffer through a legitimate education in legitimate classrooms, memorizing legitimate information made up by legitimate men. Instead I was forced to learn from nature, from my own eyes and my own thoughts and my own experiences, the best teacher of them all. I am, it is true, an unlettered bastard, for shame, but”—he gestured around the room—“does anyone here think that makes me stupid?”
Silence descended. Guests stared into their glasses of wine.
The night had gotten out of his control. It was time to take it back. He grabbed his lyre and hopped up onto a tabletop. “Painters versus sculptors. A long, spirited rivalry. But I believe I have finally found a winner.” He strummed a few chords. “The painter sits before his work, perfectly at ease, moving a light brush dipped in a pretty color. His house is clean, he is well-dressed. But the sculptor”—he pointed toward Michelangelo—“uses brute strength, sweat mixing with marble dust to form a mud, daubed over his face. His back covered in a snowstorm of chips, his house filthy from flecks of stone. If morality is akin to beauty, as this student himself claims, a painter is by definition more moral than a stonecutter.”
Michelangelo’s flattened nose flared, and he opened his mouth to offer a retort. Instead, he turned and bolted from the studio.
“Music,” Leonardo called, and the band began to play once more.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo stormed out of Santissima Annunziata and down the winding streets, trying to burn off
his fury. He was exhausted from days of travel and being tortured in the Bargello. Night had fallen. The city was dark except for the soft glow of fires winking through shuttered windows. Most people were already tucked in their homes, sharing a meal. The evening was calm. He was not.
How dare that old man humiliate him when he had done nothing to deserve it? Sure, he had lost his temper and lashed out, but only after that braggart had mocked his work in front of a studio full of strangers. Leonardo hadn’t even acknowledged him as a fellow artist; instead, he’d derided him as nothing more than a lowly stonecutter, a forgettable student. What was he supposed to do, kiss Leonardo’s feet? The man might be brilliant, but he was also a bully, and the worst part was that Michelangelo had put his faith in that smug blowhard, who wore too many rings and styled his hair in those ridiculous curls. There wasn’t even any dirt under his fingernails. What kind of an artist didn’t have a bit of dirt under his nails?
Michelangelo cursed out loud, and a pedestrian crossed the street to avoid him. At night, only criminals and prostitutes roamed the city muttering like madmen.
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