Oil and Marble

by Stephanie Storey

  As the weather turned colder and the autumnal smells of smoke, pine, and rain rolled in, Michelangelo soldiered on, sketching the stone, studying it from all sides, running his hands over every grain. He hardly ate and only trudged home to his father’s house late at night for a few hours of sleep. He slept on the kitchen floor, balled up in front of the fire near the door, so he could wake before sunrise, grab a scrap of stale bread, and head back to work before his family woke to harass him. He put all of his energy into the stone, and yet it remained silent.

  He had never encountered a mute block of marble before. Every piece of stone he had ever carved had spoken to him. Some whispered, others screamed and kicked, but they all had something to say. He had carved his first sculpture, a shallow relief of a Madonna and Child sitting on the stairs to heaven, when he was only fifteen years old, and even that scrap of marble had murmured softly. The stone that eventually became the Pietà had cried out at all hours of the day and night. The Duccio Stone, however, had never spoken to him. And until he could hear the marble, he had no hope of carving it.

  When future pilgrims viewed his Pietà, they would wonder at that strange name carved across the Madonna’s chest. Who was that artist who only created one good statue, they would ask. History would wipe his name from memory as quickly as it forgets an individual grain of sand.

  “Signor Buonarroti?”

  Michelangelo startled. His hand jerked, scrawling an errant line across his latest drawing. “I’m working,” he said to the young man hovering over him.

  “I’ve a message from the Operai.” The boy presented a seal as proof of his official position.

  Michelangelo balled up his ruined sketch and tossed it into the fire. “What do they say?”

  “I am to summon you inside the cathedral.”

  Michelangelo’s neck itched. Could the Operai fine him for working too slowly? He didn’t have any money. He wouldn’t be able to pay. Could they have him imprisoned and torture him in the basement of the Bargello? Could they burn him at the stake for treason? “I should go home.” He stood and picked up his leather satchel. “Change clothes. Clean up a bit.” If he could get away now, he could make a run for it. He could return to Rome, move to Siena, or hide up in the hills until the city forgot about him and that silent stone.

  “I am told to bring you immediately.”

  Michelangelo considered taking off at a sprint. He could surely outrun the youth. But if he fled, the Operai could hold his family accountable for his crimes. He had to face the charges himself. He dropped the rest of his sketches into the cauldron and followed the boy to his fate.

  Michelangelo had been attending services inside the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore since he was a child, but he was still struck by its beauty. Outside, the cathedral was famous for its dome, but inside it was dominated by high arches, long lines, and open space flooded with light streaming in through stained-glass windows. This is what heaven will look like, he thought as the door closed behind him.

  Standing by the altar at the other end of the nave were Giuseppe Vitelli, leaders from the Signoria, several members of the wool guild, and a handful of other dignitaries. He didn’t see a single friendly face among them. As he walked, his heavy boots clumped on the marble floor. He was relieved to finally reach the front of the nave and silence his awkward footfalls.

  “Buonarroti.” Giuseppe Vitelli stepped up on the stairs in front of the altar as though he were a priest officiating mass. “We have called you here because we, the church, the city, and the wool guild together, have for once managed to agree.”

  Michelangelo’s throat closed. All he could do was nod.

  “We have decided …” Giuseppe adjusted a crucifix sitting on the altar. “We do not want a Hercules.”

  Michelangelo opened his mouth to defend his statue, but his usual bravado drained out of him. He stood there dumbly. This was it. They were firing him. They would give the marble to Leonardo to make his fire-breathing dragon monstrosity. Michelangelo had battled with his family for the right to take this job and now he would have to skulk back into their house as a disgrace.

  “We cannot approve a pagan symbol to adorn our cathedral. We would like a traditional Biblical figure instead,” Giuseppe said.

  A Biblical figure? That couldn’t be Leonardo’s dragon.

  “We think it’s about time the city had another …” Giuseppe paused. The others nodded encouragingly until he finally added, “David.”

  The word landed hard as a boulder.

  Another David? He shoved his hands into his pockets in search of a pile of calming marble dust, but they were empty. They couldn’t be suggesting … “I’m sorry, you want what?”

  “The shepherd boy David, standing triumphant over Goliath,” Giuseppe said.

  Michelangelo looked from face to face, hoping to catch someone smiling. They had to be teasing. “But Florence is already home to the two most famous David statues, carved by the two greatest masters in history.”

  “And now we want another one.”

  “I can’t trump the Davids by Verrocchio and Donatello, and you know it.” Michelangelo’s voice had been louder than he’d intended. He lowered it. “Please, gentlemen, I have planned to give you a great heroic man, hearkening back to the sculptures of the ancients. The shepherd boy David was a pudgy, fleshy, prepubescent youth. A child. I spent years in Rome and never once did I see an ancient heroic statue of a boy.”

  “A Biblical figure will give glory to God,” Giuseppe said.

  “I too want to give glory to God.” Michelangelo crossed himself. “So, let’s compromise. How about a different Biblical figure? St. Matthew? St. George? Moses?” Any adult male, he thought.

  “No. It must be a David.”

  “Why?”

  Giuseppe averted his gaze.

  “Signor Vitelli?” Michelangelo stepped closer. “This wasn’t your idea, was it?”

  Giuseppe shifted his weight.

  “Whose was it?”

  “Mine.” A stranger stepped forward. In his thirties, he had skin so pale it had a hint of blue about it, and he moved with the slow assurance of someone who never lacked for time.

  Giuseppe Vitelli waved an introductory arm. “Chancellor Niccolo Machiavelli.”

  Michelangelo had heard of the talented diplomat. He had been elected to his government post when he was only twenty-nine years old, and his skill for mediation and manipulation was already legendary. But Michelangelo would not be intimidated. “Shouldn’t you be up in France negotiating with King Louis, not down here interfering with my statue?”

  “Michelangelo.” Giuseppe flushed.

  “It’s all right, Vitelli. I understand the temperament of such men.” Machiavelli turned his oily black eyes to Michelangelo. “I was discussing the project with Maestro Leonardo …”

  “Leonardo has nothing to do with my statue. Tell him, Signor Vitelli.”

  Machiavelli raised a hand. “We were simply discussing how the previous masters of the stone, Duccio and Donatello himself, both intended it to become a David. We think its destiny should not be altered now. Of course, if you don’t think you can do it,” Machiavelli said, and Michelangelo had an urge to beat him over his head with his hammer, “I’m sure we can find another artist who would be up to the task.”

  Michelangelo watched several of the men exchange self-satisfied smiles. This was a trap. The Operai wasn’t going to fire him. They had offered him the commission in public. They didn’t want to cause a scandal. But if he stepped down on his own, they could say he had quit, and he would be the one who looked like a fool. “Fine. If it’s a David you want, it’s a David you shall have.”

  Michelangelo mounted the stairs of Palazzo della Signoria two by two and entered the inner courtyard. There, as government workers hurried to and from their offices, he came face to face with a bronze statue of a nude boy wearing a hat and holding a long sword down by his side.

  Donatello’s David.

  M
ichelangelo hadn’t seen the statue in years. He advanced slowly, like a stranger approaching a wild stallion that might bolt. Raised up on a high pedestal in the center of the courtyard, the statue was smaller than he remembered, the height of a child and just as slender. He put his hand on the boy’s toe and caressed the soft bronze, hoping some of the brilliance would rub off on him.

  When it was crafted in the 1450s, Donatello’s David was the first freestanding nude statue since the Roman Empire, and it had inspired a new kind of art based on classical sculpture. Wearing only leather boots and a wide-brimmed shepherd’s hat, the beautiful boy, with ringlets of soft hair framing his tranquil face, stood triumphantly over the severed head of Goliath. Hand on his hip, David’s left elbow bent out, while his left knee bowed inward, giving him the feel of a vine growing organically up from the soil. Like Christ standing triumphant over Satan, Donatello’s David represented the best, most idealized version of man standing victorious over evil. When Michelangelo was young, this statue had stood in Medici Palace. For hours, he would sit at its feet and draw it. The mixture of realism and grace had crushed his concept of beauty and forced him to rethink all art. Now he was being asked to trump Donatello’s masterpiece. Impossible.

  Hunched over from the weight of Donatello’s genius, Michelangelo left city hall and walked over to the left of the palazzo, into the Loggia dei Lanzi, an arched portico that was home to a dozen Florentine statues. With so many on display, any single sculpture was lost in the crowd, but he knew the one he needed to see.

  Andrea del Verrocchio’s bronze David was not quite as famous or groundbreaking or beloved as Donatello’s, but Michelangelo was more afraid to face it.

  Like Donatello’s, Verrocchio’s bronze depicted a boy with curling hair, sword in hand, standing over the severed head of Goliath, but this David was clothed, and this face wasn’t idealized. No, this was an actual boy, with well-defined features. He had a straight nose, jutting chin, full lips. His eyes were a little sunken, and his cheekbones protruded and caught the light. Anyone who saw him would call him handsome. Everyone in town knew that Verrocchio had used one of his teenaged studio assistants as the model for this statue.

  And everyone knew that assistant’s name was Leonardo da Vinci.

  That boy was beautiful and talented and beloved, while Michelangelo was nothing but an unkempt, unknown sculptor with a badly healed nose. How could Michelangelo ever compete with such beauty? No matter what he did with his hunk of battered marble, he was sure to fall short. He had no hope of silencing this David with his own. This one would always sing louder.

  David or Leonardo. Leonardo or David. He had an overwhelming urge to climb up onto the statue and punch that straight-nosed boy in the face. But he didn’t. Because he knew the metal would break his hand and leave that perfect bronze nose unbroken.

  As he walked back to the cathedral workshop, Michelangelo hoped the crowds had gone home for the night. He didn’t want to cry in front of anyone else. When he saw three figures not just hanging over the fence, but actually inside the workshop, standing next to the stone, he groaned. It was the painter Pietro Perugino, architect Giuliano da Sangallo and—who was the third? His disappointment turned to rage when he recognized the last man.

  “Michel, my boy,” Leonardo called, spotting him in the distance. “There you are. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Leonardo

  “Did you go out for a stroll to clear your head?” Leonardo asked as Michelangelo approached, huffing and puffing like a wounded bull. “A mind is like a flame. It needs air to grow. It’s always good to walk away from a problem when you’re stumped.” He adjusted his spectacles and eyed the stone. “And you are stumped.”

  Giuliano da Sangallo grunted agreement.

  “Don’t worry. We’re here to help,” Pietro Perugino said, standing up as straight as possible. He was the shortest of the three masters and always trying to compensate for it.

  Michelangelo threw his leather satchel on the ground in front of the stone. “I appreciate your input, signori,” he said, jaw clenched, “but please leave me alone.” He dropped to his knees in front of a metal cauldron and stoked the coals into flames. Several bars of iron were already heating on the coals.

  “I told you he wouldn’t want my help.” Leonardo stepped back and leaned against the workshop fence.

  “He doesn’t even know what we’re here to say. Michelangelo, how old are you?” Perugino asked in a cheery tone. “Twenty-four, twenty-five?”

  Ignoring the question, Michelangelo took one piece of iron out of the cauldron, placed it on a flat stone, and began beating it with a hammer.

  “If Botticelli were here, the young man would listen,” Sangallo muttered. “I should go get him.”

  “Nonsense, we don’t need him,” Perugino said, and turned back to Michelangelo. “When I was your age, or thereabouts, I was still living and working in Verrocchio’s studio. Alongside Leonardo and Botticelli, and your own teacher, Dominico Ghirlandaio … When did you leave his workshop? At fifteen? I’d barely even started my studies by then.”

  “And I stayed in my father’s studio until I was much older than you,” Sangallo added, crossing his arms.

  “None of us left our masters’ nests to fly out on our own before we were ready,” Leonardo said. Michelangelo was about the same age as Salaì, and he could hardly imagine his unruly assistant living on his own, much less managing his own commissions, negotiating contracts, being responsible for the Duccio Stone. “You’re much too young to be doing this alone.”

  The sculptor pounded his piece of metal harder.

  “By staying in a workshop,” Sangallo went on, “we all received support from each other. We learned from older apprentices, taught younger ones …”

  “Learned to cast bronze from expert craftsmen and mixed colors alongside experienced assistants,” added Perugino.

  “And even learned marble carving from Verrocchio himself.” Leonardo sniffed. He hoped his meaning was clear: his training in marble far outstripped the young man’s.

  Michelangelo flipped the piece of iron over and began hammering the other side.

  “The point is,” Perugino said, “we all relied on each other. Do you have a family?”

  “Of course,” Michelangelo barked.

  “That’s good,” Perugino said.

  “That’s lucky,” Sangallo added.

  Leonardo did not chime in.

  “But your artistic family is as important as your blood one,” Perugino said. “And right now, you lack support in your art. We take responsibility for that.”

  “You?” Michelangelo stopped hammering and looked Leonardo up and down like a cook eyeing a suspicious piece of meat from an unknown butcher.

  Leonardo nodded. “Part of being a great master is being a great teacher. I have apprentices at my studio, and I see younger artists influenced by my work, but I don’t know who will call me their teacher. My assistant Salaì tries to paint, but he has no drive and even less talent.”

  “The point remains,” Perugino said, “you can learn from us. Use our expertise.”

  “I can teach you how to build sturdier scaffolding, for example,” Sangallo offered.

  “And I can teach you how to draw.” Leonardo crossed over and picked up a few charred sketches scattered around the bottom of the cauldron. “Where did you learn? Not from Ghirlandaio, certainly. Your lines are much more fluid and powerful than his. Although you should stop making muscles so conspicuous, unless the limbs are engaged in a great effort. Look at this one.” He sat down next to Michelangelo and showed him one of the sketches of Hercules. “You’ve drawn a sack of walnuts, not a human figure. You should study anatomy. If you can get your hands on a body.”

  Michelangelo grabbed the pages and dropped them into the fire.

  “Son, the city has given you an enormous commission,” Sangallo said.

  Perugino added, “No one can do it on their own. We can help.”

  “How? B
y talking to Machiavelli about the details of my commission?” Michelangelo returned to hammering out his chisel. The blows came hard and fast.

  “Machiavelli?” Sangallo muttered. Perugino shrugged. The two gave Leonardo questioning looks.

  He had a vague memory of drinking too much with the diplomat one evening shortly after the Duccio Stone was taken away from him. What had they talked about again? “We might have discussed it briefly …”

  “They want a David now,” Michelangelo said. A vein over his right eye bulged.

  “Oh,” Perugino said, a false note of cheer in his voice. “That’s good.”

  “Yes. A wonderful idea,” Sangallo said, unable to sound optimistic.

  “Well,” Leonardo shrugged. “At least tell them it’s a good idea. Always make the patron think they’re smarter than you.”

  Michelangelo tossed the completed chisel aside and used tongs to pull a new piece of metal out of the fire. “Why did you tell the city to make me carve another David?” He turned his cheek toward Leonardo, but did not look over.

  “I didn’t tell the city anything. Niccolo and I discussed the history of the stone, nothing more.”

  “You thought I would be so intimidated by the subject matter that I would beg for your help?” Under Michelangelo’s blows, the new chisel flattened quickly.

  Leonardo exhaled his frustration, trying to remain patient. Sometimes Salaì wore his patience thin, too. “You’re still trying to feel the statue, aren’t you, Buonarroti? You must stop feeling so much and start thinking. You should study nature, research the human body, inspect it with your own eyes. Wisdom is the daughter of experience.”

  “You humiliated me in front of my fellow Florentines. You treated me like a child. But now that I am the master of the stone, you want to be my friend? My teacher? The Donatello to my Duccio?” Michelangelo finished his second chisel and stood up.

  Leonardo stood up, too.

  Sangallo stepped between the two men. “I know Leonardo lost his temper and said some hurtful things after they awarded you the stone …”