Oil and Marble

by Stephanie Storey

  Wearing his finest purple satin tunic, checkered stockings, and green shoes, he was addressing the artists, merchants, guild leaders, clergymen, city council members, and Operai officials gathered to witness his acceptance of the celebrated commission. “And here now, signori, a glimpse of the wonders I’ll conjure with your Duccio Stone. Ecco.” He pulled a curtain away to reveal his plans.

  Dozens of easels displayed drawings of a winged dragon, fierce and roaring, standing on its hind legs and swiping its front legs at an unseen enemy. Salaì, wearing a costume adorned with sparkling silver scales and an elaborate crimson and orange mask, struck a pose, a real-life representation of what was in Leonardo’s mind.

  The spectators fizzed with excitement.

  “A dragon?” Guiseppe Vitelli asked, exchanging skeptical glances with his colleagues.

  “A dragon! How remarkable.” Piero Soderini shook hands with Leonardo as though ready to finalize the deal. Soderini was a popular politician known for his populist views, charismatic style, and his pigeon-like features of a balding head, beaked nose, beady eyes, and thin, almost nonexistent lips. As it currently stood, members of the Signoria, including its head, the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, were appointed to three-month terms. Every ninety days, the leadership of Florence changed. In the midst of wars, the invading French army, and threats from Cesare Borgia and Piero de’ Medici, there was a push to elect a permanent gonfaloniere to stabilize the Republic. Soderini was a leading contender for the position.

  It was through Soderini’s considerable influence that Giuseppe Vitelli and his Office of the Works had already unofficially agreed to award the commission to Leonardo. He need only formally present his ideas, and the Duccio Stone would be his. The Operai, with help from the city and the wool guild, had agreed to pay Leonardo a generous salary, install him in a lavish new set of apartments, and cover the costs of his studio expenses, including a team of assistants. He wouldn’t even have to physically carve the marble himself; he could develop the designs and direct his assistants to do the dirty work. The project was budgeted to last at least two years, but everyone expected it to take five. Leonardo hoped to stretch the job to ten and die under their employ. With Florence’s financial support, he could spend his remaining years studying mathematics, biology, philosophy, anatomy, optics, geography, and, of course, human flight.

  “Not just any dragon,” Leonardo said, positioning himself behind Salaì. “But a dragon that moves.” Salaì rotated his arms, legs, and head in a jerking, mechanical motion, as though he were a piece of creaking rock. “And breathes fire.” Leonardo flicked his wrist and a flame burst out of his sleeve, making it appear as though the blaze were erupting from Salaì’s mouth. The audience cheered as Leonardo set off puffs of red and yellow smoke to finish the effect.

  “I say it’s time to record the official vote,” Soderini announced.

  “I will call for that, Soderini,” Giuseppe Vitelli said, head twitching to one side in a show of annoyance. “This is my meeting.”

  “Well, then, call for it.” Rarely did Soderini drop his charming facade and display any sign of frustration, but the head of the Operai seemed to bring it out in the otherwise smooth politician.

  “Time to take the count,” Giuseppe Vitelli called.

  “Wait!” a voice echoed from a distance.

  Heads craned toward the noise.

  Who is that? Leonardo wondered.

  “Don’t start without me! I’m here!” A man hurdled the workshop’s fence and stumbled forward. Onlookers scattered out of his way.

  The interloper was covered in mud, but Leonardo recognized him immediately. It was that upstart sculptor, Michelangelo Buonarroti. Leonardo hadn’t seen him since that night he’d interrupted his party. He’d assumed the young man had fled the city in shame. But here he was, looking like he’d been dragged behind a wagon down a muddy hill. It was one thing to eschew personal hygiene, but quite another to purposely cover yourself in sludge.

  Granacci cleared the way, leading his friend to the front of the crowd. Leonardo heard Granacci whisper, “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

  “I’m here,” Michelangelo panted.

  “Here for what?” Soderini said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Not even he could keep his cool in the face of such unexpected filth, Leonardo thought.

  “For the stone.”

  “What stone?” Giuseppe Vitelli demanded.

  “The Duccio Stone.”

  “Are there any other events you plan on interrupting, Buonarroti?” Leonardo asked, catching Salaì’s glance. “I’d like to prepare myself next time.”

  “My dear Michelangelo,” Piero Soderini said with a pandering smile that made him appear to be completely sincere and completely phony at the same time, “the city’s other prominent craftsmen have already graciously bowed out in deference to Master Leonardo.”

  Gathered near the front of the crowd, all of Florence’s most notable artists were in attendance. Each of them, Leonardo noted, was at least twenty years older than Michelangelo. The flamboyant Andrea della Robbia, maker of famous blue and white ceramics, was sixty-six. The renowned architect Giuliano da Sangallo and master painters Sandro Botticelli and Pietro Perugino were all in their fifth decades. Even Davide Ghirlandaio was nearing the half-century mark. All of these men, including Leonardo, towered over Michelangelo in both age and experience.

  “It’s true, son,” Botticelli spoke up. His voice sounded like an orchestra, rich with the instruments of time and experience. “We have all withdrawn in favor of Leonardo.”

  “Perhaps you should step down, too,” said Soderini.

  “But none of these men are masters in marble. I am.” Michelangelo said, fumbling with the latch on his muddy leather satchel.

  “Leonardo is a master of every art, my boy,” Soderini corrected.

  Leonardo and Salaì exchanged smiles. He didn’t need to defend himself. Let others do it for him.

  “Here.” Michelangelo pulled several sheets of paper out of his bag. “I have made drawings.”

  Giuseppe Vitelli started to take the pages, but Leonardo snatched them away first.

  He looked down at the top sheet and inhaled sharply. This was not the scribbling of an amateur. This was a picture of a living, breathing man with rippling muscles and ideal proportions dressed in flowing draperies and lion skins. Leonardo flipped to the other two sketches. The compositions were dynamic, depicting twisting, lunging figures. Shadows rendered with a few masterful strokes. Each face had a different expression: fear, faith, and bravado. With nothing but a bit of chalk on paper, Michelangelo had captured life.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he looked the sculptor up and down. His face was still smeared with dirt, his clothes muddy and sweaty, but the youth no longer looked so ridiculous.

  “It will be a Hercules,” Michelangelo said. “A symbol of strength that will declare to the world that Florence is the true inheritor of ancient Roman culture and power.”

  “Son, we are all pleased to have such a spirited artist in our midst,” Piero Soderini said without even glancing at the sketches, “but you can’t honestly believe you can compete with Maestro Leonardo. You don’t even have your own studio.”

  “But that means Michelangelo can work for cheap,” Granacci piped in.

  “How inexpensively?” Giuseppe Vitelli asked, suddenly looking interested.

  “Surely”—Leonardo handed the sculptor’s drawings back—“you wouldn’t trade my experience for the brash, unproven talent of youth for the sake of a few soldi.”

  Michelangelo stood taller. Leonardo immediately regretted using the word talent.

  “Granacci is right,” Michelangelo said, handing the drawings to Giuseppe Vitelli. “You do not need to pay for my workshop. I don’t need one.”

  “Where are you going to carve the statue? Out here?” Leonardo opened his arms wide.

  Michelangelo nodded. “I enjoy the outdoors. And I live with my family, so no need for
lodgings either.”

  Leonardo’s shoulders tightened. This unknown sculptor couldn’t swoop in and steal his future from him. Could he?

  “I make my own tools, so I wouldn’t need you to pay for those,” Michelangelo continued in earnest. “Or for extra marble, or assistants …”

  “Non ci credo,” Leonardo cried. “The boy couldn’t carve that monstrous slab with the help of twenty assistants, much less alone.”

  “Maestro Leonardo,” Giuseppe Vitelli said, looking closely at Michelangelo’s sketches, “would you consider lowering your salary request to compete with the young man?”

  “Never,” Leonardo said, raising his chin. “I prefer death to loss of liberty.”

  “I can live on a few florins a month,” Michelangelo said.

  “You’ll get what you pay for,” Leonardo said.

  “I am the only one here who has carved a colossus out of a single block of marble,” Michelangelo said. “When I was seventeen, a Hercules, smaller than this one will be, but still about this tall”—he raised his hand over his own head—“and a Bacchus, down in Rome, taller than a full-grown man. And I’m the only artist here capable of creating another marble colossus for you now.”

  Leonardo felt his eyes widening incredulously. “Did I hear you correctly? A colossus? Meaning you expect to carve a statue out of the Duccio Stone, without adding any extra marble?” The boy’s drawings were good, but his brain was apparently askew.

  “Of course,” Michelangelo said without any hint of irony.

  “That is a bold claim, young man,” Giuseppe Vitelli said. Leonardo detected an unnerving hint of admiration in the man’s voice.

  “And how tall do you expect this so-called colossus to stand?” Leonardo inquired, keeping an eye on Giuseppe’s face. He was looking for any hint of growing regard.

  Michelangelo shrugged. “As tall as the block itself.”

  A murmur swept through the assembly.

  “Why? How tall is it?” Michelangelo asked.

  “Nine braccia,” Leonardo responded.

  Michelangelo looked up as though pondering the height. The stone would tower three times as tall as an average man. He nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, that’ll be perfect.”

  The spectators gasped.

  Leonardo frowned. No sculptor had carved a statue that size out of a single block of marble since the ancient Roman Empire, more than a thousand years ago. Few had even attempted such a feat. This sculptor had more audacity than a donkey charging a stable full of lions. “Do you know which of these rocks is the famous Duccio Stone, Buonarroti?”

  Michelangelo surveyed the workshop, but shook his head.

  “So you’ve never actually seen the stone?” Leonardo pressed.

  “No.” Michelangelo scowled.

  “Well, then,” Leonardo said with a congenial smile. He had seen a dozen of these young, ignorant, arrogant artists come and go without making much of a mark. This one would be no different. “Please allow me the honor of being the one to show it to you.”

  Michelangelo

  Following the sweep of Leonardo’s arm, Michelangelo surveyed the sea of marble fragments littering the cathedral workshop. He was searching for a stone of mammoth size, pristine whiteness, and unspeakable luminance, but none of this debris looked anything like the Duccio Stone he’d pictured. Leonardo took a step sideways and pointed to the ground. Michelangelo saw only a pile of rubble.

  Bending down, Leonardo laid his hand on a long, dirty, gray rock lying in a pool of mud. “This, my young friend, is the Duccio Stone.”

  As Michelangelo looked down at the hunk of rock, his heart hiccupped. The mangled block was lying on its side, weeds growing all around. The stone seemed too narrow to support a proper figure, with a deep gash hollowing out one side, and a jagged knot protruding awkwardly from the other. The surface was weathered from decades of exposure to the sun and rain. The longer marble was left out in the elements, the more brittle it became, and this rock looked likely to shatter if he so much as tapped it with a chisel. It didn’t even look like marble. Fresh marble was white and supple and sang in choral hymns, but this slab was gray and lifeless. He knelt down and touched the stone, hoping to feel life kicking inside. He felt nothing.

  Michelangelo looked up at the other artists, who all nodded grimly. He shuddered, realizing they had probably only stepped down because they believed it was impossible to carve anything of value out of that ruined block. They would rather see Leonardo fail than fail themselves.

  “So, what are you going to do with it?” Michelangelo asked.

  “I’m going to add more stone,” Leonardo replied with infuriating logic. “A new block for the head, more for the arms, extra marble for the legs. It’s the only possible solution.”

  Michelangelo took in Leonardo’s display of drawings and the strange man, wearing a sparkling body suit and a mask, lurching mechanically. It looked more like a show put on by a court jester than a serious entry into an artistic competition.

  “He’s going to make a dragon,” Soderini said. “That’s much more impressive than yet another statue of yet another man.”

  Michelangelo’s head snapped up. “Nothing transcends man. We are God’s greatest creation. By honoring man, we honor God.”

  A flash of concern crossed Giuseppe’s brow. “Now wait. Hercules was a Roman demigod, was he not? A pagan hero …”

  “Yes. Pagan. Not for a church.” Soderini pointed emphatically. “Moreover, Leonardo’s dragon will move and breathe fire.”

  Michelangelo crinkled his forehead. Had he heard correctly? “Move and breathe fire? That’s impossible.”

  “Maybe for you. Not for me.” Leonardo gestured toward his drawings. “I have already designed the device that could power this dragon for hundreds of years. I’ll use a mechanism similar to a clock.”

  Michelangelo shook his head. “The mechanics don’t matter. Marmo isn’t strong enough for that kind of movement. It’s too soft. It’ll shatter.”

  “This rock,” Leonardo said, sitting down on the Duccio Stone, “is brittle from fifty years of exposure to the elements. Botched from dozens of failed attempts.”

  “Exactly,” Michelangelo agreed.

  “The only answer is to add extra material. What you propose, a single colossus without adding more marble, is a laudable idea, but futile.”

  “Maybe for you, not for me.”

  “You have aimed too high, my boy,” Leonardo said haughtily.

  Michelangelo considered his words. “I think … the greater danger for most of us is not in aiming too high and falling short, but in aiming too low and hitting the mark.”

  “I have declared it hopeless,” Leonardo said, standing back up and brushing the dirt off his tunic. “And so have you, by the look on your own face when you first saw the thing.”

  It was true. He had. And yet, the stone might be disfigured and ugly, but it deserved a chance to prove itself. “There is nothing even the greatest artist can conceive that doesn’t already exist inside some block of marble,” he said, kneeling down and laying his hand on the rock. “This stone will tell me what already lives inside. All I have to do is carve down to the skin and stop.” Michelangelo closed his eyes and pressed the tips of his fingers into the fine grain of the marble. “Have you ever been in love before, Master Leonardo?”

  “I know about love.” Leonardo’s tone was defensive.

  “We are like lovers, aren’t we, we artists?” Michelangelo dragged his fingers across the rough stone. “Timid at first, skeptical about what we might find beneath the surface, but the more time we spend with the objects of our desire, the more we start to understand them. We find their flaws but also their possibilities. And when we connect, our hearts beat in time, and when we speak, our voices come from one mouth. Through love, we dialogue with our own souls.” Michelangelo opened his eyes and stared into the gray stone. “Love defies planning, doesn’t it? There is no reason and no answer and no rhyme that can recreate it. But in
an instant we feel it, a tingle on top of our heads, down our necks, into our fingertips. And we don’t know why or how it’s there, but it is, existing because of us, in spite of us. We don’t know what it is. We don’t know, and in the very act of not knowing, we feel everything.”

  “Emotion without intellect is chaos,” Leonardo sneered.

  “Chaos erupting into beauty. That’s art.” He stared into Leonardo’s golden-colored eyes and silently swore he would hold that gaze even if Dante’s Inferno started nipping at his heels.

  Leonardo looked away.

  Giuseppe Vitelli waved members of the Operai, Signoria, and wool guild forward to discuss. “Has Leonardo ever carved a marble statue on his own before?” he asked.

  “As they say,” a city councilman commented, “if you want something done on time and under budget, don’t ask the Master from Vinci.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Piero Soderini protested. “Cesare Borgia and his papal army threaten our borders. He’s marched on Siena, for God’s sake. And Piero de’ Medici is always plotting. In the midst of this most serious peril, you want to leave an unknown, inexperienced youth in charge of creating a symbol to inspire all of Florence?”

  “I can do it,” Michelangelo declared with as much confidence as he could muster. “I know I can.”

  Leonardo emitted a disdainful snort.

  “At least he has heart,” someone offered.

  “A single colossus would be impressive,” another chimed in.

  “Leonardo says it’s not possible. What if the young man fails?”

  Michelangelo held his breath. This was the moment that would decide everything.

  “Then it’ll be a cheap mistake,” Giuseppe Vitelli reasoned. “All in favor of giving the job to Leonardo da Vinci.”

  Only Soderini raised his hand.

  “You don’t get a vote here, Soderini,” Giuseppe grumbled. “All in favor of Buonarroti?”

  All members of the Operai, Signoria, and wool guild raised their hands.