Oil and Marble

by Stephanie Storey

  The Duccio Stone blazed bright and white in his mind. He had assumed he could not compete with Leonardo for the Duccio Stone, but why? Leonardo was a painter, not a sculptor. His only attempt at colossal sculpture had been the bronze equestrian statue for the Duke of Milan, and everyone knew he had failed to cast it. Why should Michelangelo, an experienced stone carver, step aside so that a mere dauber of paint could get his hands on a legendary stone? He would probably botch it worse than Duccio had. Leonardo might be a great master, but he was getting old; his designs were dated. Michelangelo, on the other hand, was young and eager. He was just getting started. Besides, that old crank was too mean, too condescending, and too pompous to be worthy of that stone. Leonardo did not deserve the commission.

  A new prayer emerged on his murmuring lips. He wouldn’t leave Florence. He would stay, and he wouldn’t accept some staid government position. He’d submit his name for the Duccio Stone, and he would not only compete for the commission, but also win it. Staring out the window, moonlight shimmering in his eyes, Michelangelo whispered up to the heavens, “Amen.”

  Leonardo

  Lying awake, Leonardo felt agitated, like a boat jostling on ocean waves as a storm blew in. He wished he could remove the emotion from his mind, place it on his desk, and dissect it like a corpse. Maybe then he could understand it.

  He looked over at the bedside table. According to the wooden clock, the height of German time-telling mechanics, it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. He eased his arm out from under Salaì, slipped out of bed, and, careful not to nudge the door that always squeaked, shuffled into the next room. Moonlight illuminated remnants of the party: empty wine bottles, muddy shoe prints on the floors, someone’s scarf accidentally left on a chair. The damned old notary, the disappearing friars, that young sculptor whom he had mocked mercilessly, he wanted to forget them all.

  He sat down at his desk, took out a small wooden cigar box, and slid the lid open. Tucked inside was the carcass of a small brown bat. He gently lifted the little body out of his makeshift casket and laid him on a metal tray on his desk. Usually he would light a candle to study by, but he didn’t want to wake Salaì. Besides, working in the dark forced him to rely on his other senses. The bat smelled of rot, but also strangely of fresh grass. The bony armature crackled as he carefully opened the wings, but he was surprised at how supple the membrane felt. It twisted and bent without breaking. He compared the weight of the torso to the density of the wing and thought that if such a bulbous creature could soar into the air, then surely man could too.

  He heard a creak coming from the bedroom. Shifting to look behind him, his chair groaned under his weight. Quietly stretching his leg out, Leonardo hooked his foot on the door of a tall, eight-sided wooden box standing next to his desk. He nudged the door open with his foot. Inside the box, each wall was a mirror. He had designed the contraption for Salaì, so he could step in, close the door behind him, and enjoy a three hundred and sixty degree view of himself. Salaì practically lived in the thing whenever he had a new outfit. Leonardo adjusted the mirror on the door until he could see into the bedroom beyond. There, in the shadows, he spotted Salaì reaching into the drawer of the bedside table.

  “Giacomo,” he called.

  Salaì slipped the coins he’d just swiped into his own pocket. “I thought you’d gone out for a walk.”

  “You ask me to teach you.” He kicked the mirror box closed. He’d once been a poor young man, too, with not enough money to buy a new pair of hose. “Come. Sit. Learn.”

  Salaì crossed the room and looked down at the bat. “I want to be a painter, not an anatomist.”

  “Those obsessed with art but not science are like captains setting out to sea without a compass. They’ll never know where they are going.” Leonardo lit a candle and put on a pair of spectacles. “When I was young, many churches allowed physicians and artists to study the dead. I personally cut open hundreds of men. But things have changed.” Over the past year, he had gone from mortuary to mortuary, looking for someone to grant him access to corpses, but every father and friar had balked. Two priests had threatened to have him arrested, and one had tried to exorcise a demon from his soul. “These days we must content ourselves with frogs, birds, and bats.” He sliced off a corner of one wing, held it near the candle, and used a magnifying glass to try to look at it in the dim light.

  Salaì moved away from the desk and grabbed a velvet cape Il Moro had given Leonardo for directing the festivities at his wedding. “Master, if you’re going to work all night, don’t you think it would be a good idea to work on the altarpiece?”

  Ignoring Salaì’s plea, he scrawled a few observations into a notebook. At times like these, his ideas came too fast to wait for the ink to dry, so he wrote right to left to ensure that the side of his hand would not smear the ink. “Nature, even if she doesn’t yield easily, will eventually give up her secrets to the persistent student.”

  Salaì put on the cape and studied himself in the mirror box. “Before they left the party, I heard the friars discussing your Adoration of the Magi.”

  He pushed his scalpel into the wing’s membrane. He didn’t feel like discussing the friars. Not tonight. “You know how I have encouraged you to study each one of Masaccio’s individual brushstrokes to see how they fit together? It’s the same thing with anatomy. Every vein, every muscle, every hair of connective tissue matters.”

  “They were talking about how it’s been twenty years, but the Adoration still isn’t complete. One of them accused you of leaving Florence for Milan so you wouldn’t have to finish it. That same fat friar even mentioned how it was also an altarpiece for a monastery. Said maybe you never finish projects for churches.” Salaì tied the cape around his neck. “Said maybe you don’t believe in God.”

  “Here’s something you’ll find interesting.” Leonardo took off his spectacles; they were better for small details. He could see people better without them. “Did you know that the bat doesn’t follow any natural law in pairing, but female goes with female, male with male, female with male, just as they chance to find themselves together?”

  Salaì pulled a chair up next to him and sat down. “I’m not suggesting that you go back and finish the Adoration, Master. I’m simply suggesting that you finish this altarpiece. For this church. If you finish one, people will, well, they’ll stop saying you never finish things.”

  “Animals have souls, just like you and me,” Leonardo said, clasping Salaì’s hands. They felt soft and smooth, yet strong. The perfect combination of youth and maturity. When Leonardo was that age, no one ever took his hands and told him the truths of the universe. “Animals feel joy. Pain. More so than humans, for they are closer to nature, and therefore are more honest and true. We must study them. Live in harmony with them. Be a vegetarian. It’s more in tune with nature and will also help you live longer. Don’t you want to have a long life?”

  “What I want is to have a roof over my head, and if you don’t please the friars …” Salaì took his hands away. “Why don’t you make some drawings for the Duccio Stone? That would be productive.”

  Leonardo put his spectacles back on. “I do believe the bat is the best model for human flight. Look here, how the membrane serves as airtight armor, binding the bones. It’s an extraordinary design of nature.”

  “The Duccio Stone is an extraordinary commission.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Soderini has already promised it to me. Here, hold this.” Leonardo handed the magnifying glass to Salaì.

  “Soderini doesn’t have a current seat in the government.”

  “And the stone isn’t the city’s to give away. It belongs to the cathedral, but never assume that without a direct link to power you’re powerless. Soderini will come through.” He adjusted the way Salaì held the magnifying glass. “Angle it this way.”

  “If it’s such a sure thing, why are they holding a meeting to decide the winner?”

  “If you cut into a man’s leg,
he does not necessarily perish. And if you cut into his arm, he can walk away. But slice into his head or heart, and he dies almost instantaneously. Do you think it’s the same with a bat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The answer to flight might not be in the wing.” He moved his scalpel to the bat’s torso.

  Salaì adjusted the magnifying glass on his own this time. “That young sculptor. I bet he finishes things.”

  The way Salaì’s voice lilted made the storm of anxiety blow back in, tossing Leonardo’s stomach like a wave. “Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll be there later.”

  Salaì leaned back, taking the magnifying glass with him. Leonardo leaned in closer to the corpse and cut into the chest, through fur, skin, and bone.

  “There is something about Michelangelo, Master.”

  “No more wars, Salaì. I surrender.” He pushed the organs around with his scalpel. If he dug deep enough he might locate the bat’s flight center. Then, he could transfer that secret into man and take to the skies.

  “He seemed passionate.”

  Leonardo sometimes wondered if Salaì actually found him attractive or if he only thought of him as a replacement father who was willing to buy him fancy clothes and let him filch money from the coffers? Perhaps he would prefer a young, strapping, filthy stonecutter.

  “Like he might be something some day.”

  Leonardo raised his head to order Salaì back to bed, but was confronted by the young man looking at his face through the magnifying glass. Salaì’s brown eye was giant and blinking.

  “The young man is already forgotten,” Leonardo said, pushing his scalpel all the way through the bat until it struck the metal tray below. “And I don’t want to hear one more word about him.”

  Michelangelo

  August

  Giuseppe Vitelli, the squat-faced, squat-bodied supervisor of the Office of the Cathedral Works, had announced that the Operai would select the next master of the Duccio Stone on Monday, August 16. To most, that date held little suspense. Every Florentine, except Michelangelo, knew the stone already belonged to Leonardo.

  Michelangelo spent all day, every day, working on a design for a statue worthy of becoming a part of Florentine history. He reviewed the history of sculpture all the way back to ancient Rome, polished his tools, and sketched hundreds of men in the streets. He made stacks and stacks of original drawings. The lines came to his mind and out his fingers like music. By the end of the summer, his hands seemed permanently stained from gripping so much red chalk.

  The harder he worked, the more his father fumed. “Demon!” Lodovico cried, as he tossed dozens of drawings into the fire. “I’ll call a priest to have you exorcised.” After that, Michelangelo slept with his sketches under his pillow.

  Finally, the morning of the meeting arrived. Michelangelo rose early. It was a warm summer day with azure skies. A gentle breeze lilted in through the open window like a lullaby. The weather was a good omen.

  With his brothers already downstairs eating breakfast, he was alone in their bedroom. Kneeling on his sleeping pallet, he carefully selected three of his favorite drawings to present to the judges and slid them, along with a set of freshly polished carving tools, into his leather satchel. Then he reached under a pile of clothes in the closet and pulled out a secret stash of supplies: a jug of water, a washrag, and a fragrant Genoese soap.

  His heart was thundering. It had only been one week since his last bath. His father would seethe if he caught him washing again so soon. Michelangelo usually agreed with his father about waiting at least a month to bathe—rubbing with cold water not only made people susceptible to illness, it was sacrilegious to wash off God-given grime. On that day, however, he was willing to break the rules. Leonardo would, no doubt, arrive at the meeting immaculately groomed and smelling of lilacs. Michelangelo did not want the old painter to have the upper hand in anything, so he dunked a rag into the water and washed himself all over, even scrubbing his hair.

  After his bath, he dried off and donned a new black tunic. He had used a few of his remaining soldi to buy a length of linen, and his grandmother had secretly sewn the garment for him. He would not arrive in hand-me-downs today. He checked his appearance in a cracked, dusty mirror. His nose was too crooked and his forehead too large to be considered handsome, but his new tunic fit perfectly and his dark hair was neatly coiffed. Even his battered leather bag seemed more dignified now. He looked clean and fresh and gentlemanly. He was ready to face Leonardo.

  In the distance, church bells chimed. He still had a quarter of an hour to get to the cathedral. Plenty of time. Hoping to slip out of the house without his family noticing his dandified appearance, Michelangelo quietly nudged the door, but it didn’t open. He put his shoulder into the thrust. It still didn’t move. He rammed against the heavy wooden door. It rattled, but didn’t open. “Ma che cazzo,” he cursed.

  “Get comfortable,” his father’s voice rang out from the other side of the door. “We have half the furniture in the house stacked against the door.”

  Michelangelo’s stomach lurched. He couldn’t be locked in. Not today. “Open up!”

  Silence from the other side. Michelangelo pictured his father, lying among a mountain of furniture, his face set with determination, as immutable as an emperor’s profile cast into a gold coin.

  “If I don’t show up, they will never award me the commission.”

  “I told you. I won’t allow my son to be a lowly mason.”

  For several minutes, Michelangelo yelled and kicked at the door, but Lodovico didn’t budge. Michelangelo sunk to the floor. Tears stung the back of his eyes as he felt the Duccio Stone slip away. Now that insufferable Leonardo da Vinci would be handed the commission without a fight. The stone deserved better.

  He stood and scanned the room for an alternative escape route. The only possible answer was the single, tiny window, high on the wall.

  He slid the bed under the window and climbed up to get a better look. He could easily remove the wooden shutters, but the opening was much too slender for him to fit through. And even if he could squeeze out, he was two stories above the ground. If he fell wrong, he could break his leg.

  “Babbo? Please, let me go,” he tried one last time.

  “No.”

  Michelangelo snorted, then pulled his hammer and chisel out of his bag, placed the blade along the edge of the window, and began hacking through grout, careless of the noise. It wouldn’t take his father long to figure out what he was doing. An unskilled man would have spent an hour breaking through that thick wall. Michelangelo cut through the stone quickly; after two dozen blows, he had removed the entire window frame and two additional stones.

  Santa Croce’s church bells clanged twice. The meeting was set to begin. He was already late. He stuck his head outside. It was a long drop. If he dangled out the window, maybe he could grab onto the laundry line to help slow his fall. The muddy road would cushion his landing, but would also sully his clean new clothes.

  “He’s getting out,” Giovansimone called from a downstairs window.

  His father cursed and began scooting furniture away from the door. Footsteps pounded throughout the house. The whole family had been alerted to his escape. Mud or no mud, it was time to go.

  Michelangelo flung his feet out the window and lowered himself to swing from the sill by his fingers. There was no chance he could catch onto the laundry line fluttering in the wind more than three arm lengths away. He looked down. Now that he was hanging out the window, the drop looked as far as jumping off Il Duomo.

  An elderly woman across the street, tossing her garbage out her window, stopped to gawk at him dangling out of his house.

  “Michel!” Lodovico called as he finally barreled into the bedroom. The old man gasped when he saw his son hanging out the window. “Per favore, let me help you.”

  As Lodovico reached to grab his son’s arm, Michelangelo let go. As he fell, he looked up at his father, whose mouth was open, scre
aming, “No!” Michelangelo didn’t know whether his father was upset that he was falling or that he’d gotten away.

  He bent his knees to break his fall, but still he landed hard and rolled down the muddy street. Thankfully, he felt no bones snap.

  “Stop him!” Giovansimone burst out of the house.

  Michelangelo staggered to his feet and lurched down the street. His family yelled after him, but years of carving marble had made him stronger than his brothers, so he quickly outran them, turning one corner, then another, sprinting toward the cathedral. He didn’t have time to stop and clean off the mud, but a quick check in his leather satchel confirmed his drawings were unsoiled. He would have to rely on his designs to outshine his appearance. If he wasn’t too late.

  Leonardo

  If Leonardo believed in omens, he would have taken the bright blue skies, balmy temperature, and sun shining like a twinkle in God’s eye as a sign that the Duccio Stone would bring him legendary success. If he had faith in such things, he would think there was a hint of destiny about the fact that he was reaching the climax of his career at the same spot he had begun it: in the outdoor cathedral workshop where, thirty-five years before, as an apprentice in Verrocchio’s studio, he had helped raise the decorative metal ball onto the top of Il Duomo. If he accepted harbingers as truths, he would see the flock of sparrows circling overhead as proof that the contract for the Duccio Stone would help him achieve his goal of human flight.

  However, he did not put faith in omens. He never had. He trusted only what he could see with his own eyes and feel with his own skin. And on that day, what he saw and felt told him the exact same thing as the sun and the sky. It was a good day, going precisely as he had planned.