He swung hard at a nail, but missed and whacked his thumb instead. He yelped and threw his hammer across the room. Throbbing pain shot through his hand. His eyes watered. At least it was his left thumb, and not his right. With a broken left thumb, he could still polish his marble. He groaned. When would he finally stop thinking about sculpting?
Staggering from too much drink, Uncle Francesco grabbed Michelangelo’s hammer and struck a nail. “No wonder you work so fast,” he slurred. “This one is better.”
Shaking his head, Michelangelo stood up and climbed off the foundation, into the street below. “Where are you going?” Lodovico called, but Michelangelo didn’t respond. He needed a break.
As he walked, he cursed Giovansimone for burning down the house and leaving him to clean up the mess. If Giovani were still in town, his father wouldn’t cling to Michelangelo so much.
He crossed under the shadow of the soaring Duomo and arrived at his shed. With a grunt of frustration, he kicked open the door. Only then did he remember that he hadn’t been inside the shed in months. Not since his family had carried him out in a feverish delirium.
He stepped inside. His eyes adjusted to the dim light.
There was David, exactly where Michelangelo had left him. Standing alone, rough and unpolished.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Michelangelo had convinced himself that the statue was nothing but a dream. A delusion manifested by his fever. But this was no mirage. David was alive, and he looked ready for a fight.
With shaking hands, Michelangelo fumbled with the buttons on his coat, took it off, climbed quickly up the scaffolding, and threw the coat over David’s face. He climbed back down and rummaged through stacks of pots and scrap wood. Finally, buried under a pile of old scratch paper, he found a stash of tools. He grabbed two hammers and his coat and ducked back out of the shed as fast as he could.
Two days later, Michelangelo was still installing floorboards while his father and uncle sipped watered-down wine.
“Mi amico!”
He looked up to see Granacci jogging toward him. Michelangelo felt a rush of joy, but he quickly swallowed it. He didn’t have time for old artist friends. “I’m busy,” he said and went back to work.
“It’s about your David.” Granacci crossed the floor with long, purposeful steps.
“The Duccio Stone is no longer my concern.” He refused to say the statue’s name. It was like speaking the name of the dead.
“If you walk away now,” Granacci warned, “the Operai will rescind their request for the twelve apostles for the cathedral. Do you really want to lose such a valuable, long-term commission?”
“Michel, what’s going on over there?” Lodovico called.
“Nothing, Papa,” he yelled, then turned to Granacci. “Leave me alone. I have real work to do.”
Granacci knelt down next to him. “Your David is in danger.”
“Go talk to the cathedral. They own the stone. They can decide what to do with it.”
“The cathedral isn’t in control anymore. Machiavelli forced Giuseppe Vitelli to open up your shed and show Gonfaloniere Soderini and the Signoria your statue.”
Michelangelo’s head popped up. People had been in to see David? Without him? He couldn’t breathe. He started to get dizzy.
“Machiavelli thought they would be offended by the nudity,” Granacci went on, “but they were not. Your statue is no longer some decorative element for Il Duomo. It is to be a symbol of the city. They are holding a committee meeting right now to decide where to place the David, whether you polish it or not.”
A symbol of the city? It was almost too much. His vision began to dim. He shook his head and forced himself to say, “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care where your giant is displayed?”
“No.” He wasn’t an artist anymore. He was a good Buonarroti son.
“Some of us, including Soderini himself, have been arguing that it should stand at the entrance to city hall. In place of Judith.”
Michelangelo caught his breath. Donatello’s bronze Judith and Holofernes was one of the most beloved statues in all of Florence, depicting the moment when the widow Judith, sword raised, stood over the unconscious Holofernes, about to decapitate him and save her people from tyranny. It was an exhilarating composition, a symbol of the weak triumphing over the strong. Florentines loved that statue. Never, not even in his most self-aggrandizing fantasies, did Michelangelo dream his work might replace Donatello’s. “I don’t care where it stands.” Then, loud enough for his father to hear, he added, “I am not returning.”
“Grazie mio Dio,” Lodovico called to the skies.
“So you’re going to let Leonardo win?” Granacci pressed.
“Leonardo?” Michelangelo’s nose flared. He had heard a rumor that the cathedral might ask Leonardo to finish the statue if he didn’t return to work, but surely someone would have told him if that had happened. Surely Leonardo had not touched his David. “They haven’t given him my statue, have they?”
“No. Not yet. But now that he is changing the course of rivers, everyone listens to him like he is God the Father himself. And they are listening to him right now. He is at the meeting, leading the charge to bury your David.”
Michelangelo’s gut tightened. “Where does he want to put it?”
“What difference does it make? It doesn’t concern you.” Lodovico had walked over to join the conversation.
“Buried in the shadows under the loggia,” Granacci said gravely.
The back of Michelangelo’s neck tingled. The loggia was the covered portico to the left side of city hall. Dozens of sculptures stood there. If David were placed there, he would be lost among the masses; even if people did notice him, they would dismiss him as unimportant.
“Leonardo says it needs to be protected from the elements. He also says visitors might be embarrassed by its …” Granacci paused to find the right word. “Forthrightness,” he said, waving his hand in front of his crotch.
“Lying old bastard!” Michelangelo shouted.
“Michel. Calmati,” Lodovico scolded.
“Leonardo is not only burying David, he’s burying you,” Granacci said.
“My son doesn’t care about that,” Lodovico responded proudly, patting Michelangelo on the back. “He’s a family man now, not a stonecutter.”
Was that true? Michelangelo wondered. Even if he never carved another piece of stone, would he ever stop being a sculptor? “Where is the meeting?” Michelangelo rose to his feet.
“Why do you care?” Lodovico demanded.
“Orsanmichele,” Granacci answered.
The thought of giving up sculpting vanished like a single snowflake melting in the flames of their burning house. He took off at a sprint.
“Where are you going?” his father called after him.
Michelangelo didn’t stop. His family needed him, but so did David.
Leonardo
Many of the city’s most prominent men were arguing in the attic of Orsanmichele. The small meeting room smelled of candle wax, stale wine, and the sweat of angry gentlemen.
“The David will be a great symbol of our city,” Soderini yelled above the din. “We should celebrate it, not condemn it to the shadows.”
“But you’re talking about replacing Donatello’s Judith,” Botticelli said, his beard trembling along with his jaw. He was squeezed into an upper balcony with the other artists. “You can’t dismiss our great masters with the scribblings of children.” Leonardo felt sorry for the aging painter. Was it fair to allow an aspiring sculptor to usurp legendary masters like Donatello and Botticelli? No. It was offensive. Especially when Botticelli was still alive to see it.
“Judith was commissioned by the Medici. It is a symbol of Medici power. We should replace it,” the architect Giuliano da Sangallo chimed in. Why was Sangallo supporting a bid to make Michelangelo more prominent, Leonardo wondered. The architect was an aging master, too. Leonardo had assumed they would all be
on the same side.
“Piero de’ Medici is dead,” Giuseppe Vitelli reminded them. “The great snake is no more. Cesare Borgia is on the run. What is this urgency to protect Florence from ghosts?”
A few men called out their agreement.
“They are not ghosts, but skunks, their foul odor lingering long after they are gone, infecting everything around them.” It was the first time Niccolo Machiavelli had spoken, and everyone quieted down to listen. “Piero de’ Medici may be dead, but his family is more determined than ever to retake the city in his name. And Borgia may be on the run, but even if he is captured, imprisoned, or killed, another will rise in his place. The threats will never stop.”
“When the Medici were expelled,” Soderini said, “the city moved Judith and Holofernes out of their palace and to the front of city hall. Immediately after it was placed there, Savonarola rose to power, we lost Pisa to the French, and the entire city suffered under the threat of Borgia. Does anyone here think Florence has improved under Judith’s watch?”
“No!” a few shouted.
“If David stands at the door of the Palazzo della Signoria, he will face in the direction of the city’s main gate and stare down any foe that dares enter. David could change our fortunes.” Soderini looked to Machiavelli for support.
The diplomat did not respond; instead, he looked up at Leonardo, sitting in the balcony with the other artists. One by one, every man turned to hear what the Master from Vinci had to say.
Leonardo took his time responding. He had been deeply troubled when he’d first heard Soderini’s proposal to place David at the doorway of the Palazzo della Signoria. Leonardo’s fresco would be housed inside that very building. Visitors would have to walk by Michelangelo’s statue in order to visit his masterpiece. The popularity of his fresco would no doubt raise the profile of Michelangelo’s David. He could never allow that to happen. “I do not care what you decide to do with that statue,” he finally said, waving his hand dismissively. “It is simply my duty, as an elder Florentine, to direct your attention to things that might offend. Pope Julius is new to office. None of us knows how prudish he is likely to be. He could be as conservative as Savonarola. Like it or not, a colossal nude male statue is controversial.”
“Don’t listen to that old man,” a voice roared. The crowd murmured as the intruder pushed his way to the front of the room.
Merda, Leonardo cursed silently, and then whispered to Pietro Perugino, “The boy looks like a pig accidentally stumbling into stables reserved for the king’s horses.”
“Why wasn’t I invited to this meeting?” Michelangelo asked. His beard was trimmed, his clothes clean. He even looked to have gained some weight. Living at home, not sculpting, seemed to be good for the young man. “I should at least get to offer my opinion about its final placement. It’s my statue.”
“A statue that you abandoned,” Leonardo called over the commotion.
“I was helping to rebuild my family home. Now that the job is underway, I have returned to finish my work.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Soderini said, moving through the crowd to stand next to Michelangelo. “Why don’t you tell us where you think the statue should stand, son?”
“I thought we had agreed not to ask the sculptor.” Machiavelli eyes darted up to meet Leonardo’s. “Too much bias.”
“Yes, because it’s ridiculous to consider asking an artist about his art,” Sangallo called out from the gallery.
“Well, son?” Soderini pressed. “What do you think? In the shadows of the loggia or at the entrance of the palazzo?”
“Or the cathedral,” Giuseppe Vitelli added.
“Not the loggia.” Michelangelo glared at Leonardo.
“The artist agrees! The entrance to Palazzo della Signoria it is!” Soderini exclaimed.
The men once again erupted into a screaming debate.
“David should remain covered,” Leonardo called out over the other voices, “placed behind the low wall, in such a way that it does not interfere with the ceremonies of state. And it should be decorated with suitable ornaments to cover its …” He cleared his throat and spoke louder, “… uncircumcised penis and intricately carved pubic hair.”
The men fell immediately silent. Soderini gaped. Machiavelli suppressed a chuckle.
“You could speak with a little more decorum,” said Soderini.
“Why should I measure my words? The statue we are talking about is nine braccia high and nude.”
“Have you seen it?” Michelangelo asked, his face flushed.
“No. But I have heard accounts from reliable sources. Are you denying my description?”
All heads craned to Michelangelo. He shook his head no.
Leonardo waited, letting Michelangelo’s silent admission spread through the crowd in a murmur. “If we cannot hear the words, what makes us think we can handle the thing itself standing in front of city hall?”
“Savonarola would have burned us all for such a display,” Botticelli said, his face turning a shade whiter. Botticelli had been a devoted follower of Savonarola’s, even throwing several of his paintings onto the preacher’s bonfires. The friar’s sermons surely still echoed in his head.
“The loggia it should be,” Leonardo declared. “Near the back.”
Michelangelo glared up at him like a gull honing in on a glinting fish. “Are you actually going to listen to that man’s opinion on matters of the heart?” His voice carried across the room—a trumpet before battle. “How many here have heard him talk about the importance of distance and scientific objectivity?”
Leonardo was surprised by the number of hands that went up.
“Of course you have,” Michelangelo went on. “He tells us all, whenever we fall silent for a moment.”
A few laughed. Perugino nudged him. Leonardo felt his skin grow hot. He wasn’t blushing, was he?
“He sits behind his strange scopes and spectacles and magnifying glasses and studies us like we are some sort of specimen. How many of you have caught him sketching the way your brow wrinkles in anger rather than ask you what is wrong? How many of you have heard him tell a joke at your expense instead of taking you seriously? And how many of you really know him? How many know his passions, his heart, his soul?”
Even Machiavelli averted his gaze then.
“But all of you know mine.” Michelangelo’s expression softened. “Mine is written across my face, in my eyes, on my marble. Exposed. For everyone to see. So who do you trust to make a decision about a monument designed to inspire your people—him? Or me?”
The vote was not close.
“The entrance of city hall it is,” Soderini declared after the last man weighed in. “Now, all you have to do is finish the statue, my boy. We expect it done by springtime, to be revealed at a ceremony this summer.” Soderini shook Michelangelo’s hand.
As people began filing out, Botticelli leaned over to Leonardo and said, “Good try, my old friend. But I suppose at a certain point, we all must step aside and let the younger men have their glory. I remember when you were nothing but a schoolboy biting at my heels.”
Botticelli gave a resigned shrug, and then, using a walking cane for support, descended the stairs. Leonardo was only—what—seven years younger? He hadn’t really been the upstart boy to Botticelli’s mastery. Had he?
He looked over the balcony and down at Michelangelo, who smiled as the crowd swarmed to congratulate him on his victory.
Leonardo took his time departing Orsanmichele. He didn’t feel like discussing the decision with the others. He should have known this building was a bad omen. Orsanmichele. The oratory of St. Michael. That sculptor’s name had been hanging over them the whole time.
After half an hour, Leonardo strode down the stairs and out of the church, his long, rose-colored cape billowing behind him. Outside, everyone was gone except Salaì, waiting patiently on the steps. “Someone ought to destroy that damned statue before the public has to endure it,” Leonardo murmure
d.
“Yes, Master, I believe they should.” Salaì was always willing to agree with Leonardo, even when they both knew he was only venting.
“Come, Giacomo. We have work to do.” If Michelangelo were going to finish his statue by springtime and reveal it by summer, then Leonardo would complete his work by then, too. The Arno could be diverted faster, his city hall fresco completed in a rush of paint; Lisa’s portrait could be drying on the wood within the month. If he worked hard, he might even be able to fly by summertime. Michelangelo’s marble David would be nothing in comparison to Leonardo’s flurry of masterpieces.
Michelangelo
Spring
That spring, Pope Julius captured Cesare Borgia and exiled him to Spain, and the entire peninsula celebrated. But while Florence basked in the warm sunlight of victory, word spread that Piero de’ Medici’s two younger brothers were raising a new army and preparing to invade. Machiavelli had been right. The threats would never end as long as Florence was, well, Florence.
The same mix of euphoria and anxiety that flooded the city ripped through Michelangelo’s veins. Gripping a piece of pumice stone, he polished the marble David day and night. As if rubbing off a layer of dried skin, the pumice stone slowly began to wipe away rough granules and polish the marble to a high gleam.
One warm spring day, the sun so radiant it brightened even the interior of the shed, Michelangelo finished the heel of David’s left foot and laid down his pumice stone. He had spent hours rubbing each ear lobe, elbow, and vein, even obsessively shining between toes. He had purposefully left one small patch on the top of David’s head unpolished. In the future, when people saw David, they might think the statue had fallen from heaven, made by God himself. So he left that rough patch to prove the statue did not drop to earth perfectly formed, but was brought to life out of a real piece of stone by the hand of a real human man.
His fingers were blistered and bloodied. His hands felt permanently clenched from gripping pumice and glass paper for months. There was a deep gash along the outside of his left palm. Half his right thumbnail was broken off, the flesh underneath swollen and purple. His hands would probably never look the same, and after working inside that shed for so long, his eyesight had dimmed, too.
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