Granacci pushed through the crowd and kissed his friend on both cheeks. “Have you thought about carving your name onto the David, like you did with the Pietà?” he asked, gazing up at the looming giant. “You could do that with all of your sculptures.”
“No thanks, mi amico,” Michelangelo yelled over the din of the chanting crowd. “I think I’ll let this one speak for itself.”
Leonardo
When La Vacca tolled, Leonardo was sitting on the railing of the Ponte Vecchio, gazing dreamily into the Arno River below. As the people chanted, “Vive Firenze,” Leonardo turned to Lisa’s portrait, propped up next to him as though keeping him company, and said, “It seems they like the statue.”
The celebration in the square lasted for well over an hour, but eventually Leonardo watched as happy Florentines straggled back home. Most who passed over the bridge ignored the strange old man sitting on the railing, dangling his feet over the Arno like a carefree child. Leonardo smiled and nodded at a few of the passersby, but he spoke to no one, and he never once pulled out his sketchbook to record their excited faces. He could do that another day. Today, he wanted to sit and think of nothing.
Once the revelers returned home, he was alone again. The old bridge, usually bustling with butchers, grocers, and shoppers during the week, was locked up and empty on Sundays. Sitting on that bridge with nowhere to go and nothing to do, he felt something bubble up from the bottom of his gut. It wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t a physical ailment. It was a feeling. He probably lived with the emotion all the time, but he rarely allowed himself to be conscious of it.
It was a powerful urge to paint.
Leonardo was no longer under contract to finish the altarpiece of the Virgin and St. Anne for the friars at Santissima Annunziata, yet he felt a desire to return to the composition. And he had a burst of inspiration for the city’s fresco of the Battle of Anghiari. And then Leonardo conjured a strange image of Christ giving a benediction while holding a mysterious clear crystal ball. The image, whatever it was, gave him a sense of peace and comfort. He wouldn’t dwell on it now, but he might paint that picture next. Above all, he felt a tickle to add a brushstroke or two, every so often, to his Lisa.
“Signore,” a young man called from the far bank of the river.
The voice startled Leonardo out of his reverie. He looked up and saw a well-dressed gentleman running toward him from across the bridge. Leonardo put Lisa’s portrait under his arm. He didn’t feel like showing her off right then.
“Signore! You’re the first person I’ve seen since entering town,” the young man said, coming to a stop. “I started to think Florence had been attacked, everyone taken prisoner.”
“No, just a sleepy Sunday.” He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the young gentleman was. He was probably around twenty years old. He had small graceful features and large round eyes. His hair was long and well groomed, and he wore the clothes of a wealthy courtier.
The young man pointed to the painting under Leonardo’s arm. “Are you a painter?”
“I suppose carrying a picture around gives me away.”
“Well, I’m a painter, too.” The young man smiled broadly. “From Urbino. I was on my way to Rome to study the ancients, but when I was just outside of town I heard that the most miraculous piece of art ever created was unveiled here today in your Piazza della Signoria. Is it true?” he asked with wide, excited eyes.
“Ah, you seek the David.”
“Yes, of course.” The young man beamed. “I hear it must be studied in order to understand the future of art.”
“If that’s the case, I suppose I ought to go see it, too.” Leonardo stood and brushed off his tunic. “Andiamo, I’ll take you to it.”
As they walked, the young man kept up a steady stream of chatter. His father had been a painter for the Duke of Urbino, so he’d grown up at court. He’d apprenticed as a painter in the Urbino branch of Perugino’s studio, and the local guild had considered him a fully trained painter for three whole years. He had even been hired to paint a couple of altarpieces on his own. And of course, he’d studied all the masters. Masaccio, Botticelli, Mantegna, even the great Leonardo da Vinci. All from copies, of course, but he had every one of their paintings memorized.
Leonardo nodded along. The lad might have Leonardo’s paintings memorized, but he didn’t seem to recognize the painter’s face. To him, the Master from Vinci was a piece of history. The youth probably thought he was already dead.
The pair turned a corner and entered the now empty piazza. Across the square stood the statue of David at the entrance to the palazzo. Even from this distance, the giant commanded the scene. The setting sun peeked through the surrounding buildings and glinted off the white marble with a heavenly luminance.
“Che bello,” Leonardo’s young companion said in awe, then sprinted toward the statue.
Leonardo approached at a slower pace, taking measured steps so that he might observe the sculpture from every distance. When he’d first seen the Duccio Stone, he hadn’t been able to imagine the possibility of a figure emerging from that weathered, beaten, botched lump of rock. Michelangelo had not only been able to imagine it, he had somehow lured a classically beautiful giant from those battered remains. Even from afar, the statue looked like a colossus that might have been plucked from ancient Rome. And that curve of David’s posture, dipping in at his left hip, was a revelation. That pose must have been a result of the day when Michelangelo had lost his temper and beaten the stone in a fury. But where Leonardo had seen disaster, Michelangelo had seen potential, molding a gentle swooping stance to fit the gash.
As Leonardo walked closer, he saw that David wasn’t a simply an aesthetically pleasing classical beauty, but a real man suffering from real conflict. Sling resting beneath his jaw, a stone in his right hand, eyes staring off at an enemy in the distance, this David had not already won the battle against Goliath; he was heading off for the fight. This David was not a trite, fierce warrior filled with pure, courageous confidence. This David was in turmoil. His left side was wound tight as a sling with anxiety and tension, arm and leg bent, neck twisted, ribs contracted, while his right side was relaxed, ready to face his destiny. Some of his muscles were taut, others loose; his ribs rippled, yet breathed; some fingers clenched while others fell slack. Even his toes were simultaneously limp, yet gripping the ground in fear.
And that face. Leonardo drew in a breath as he stepped to the front of the statue. The face was a sublime mix of hope, fear, angst, dread, passion, determination, pride, and courage. Leonardo recognized that expression immediately. The features were different. David’s nose was longer and straighter. His cheeks were fuller and softer. The lips and nose were much more handsome. But that marble forehead rippled with the same anxious furrows he had seen at least a dozen times, and the lines under David’s eyes captured a familiar weariness and trepidation. Leonardo knew that look well.
He saw it every time he encountered Michelangelo.
When Leonardo first met the scraggly, smelly, temperamental sculptor in his studio, he never would have imagined that such an uncouth youth could create such a beautiful piece of art. Leonardo might have more experience, more knowledge, and more intelligence, but Michelangelo had something that Leonardo did not have, and might never develop. He instinctively knew how to give his whole mind, soul, and heart, without holding back. This statue thumped with life, not because of some legendary piece of marble or because of the sculptor’s skill with a hammer and chisel, but because of Michelangelo’s own intensity. In comparison, Leonardo was an apprentice in the field of passion, only beginning to know enough to understand that he still had much more to learn.
Leonardo turned to his companion, who was staring up with wonder at the David. “What’s your name, mio ragazzo?”
“Raphael Sanzio, signore,” the young artist said. “And you?”
Leonardo gave a dismissive wave. “No one of consequence. So, Raphael, what do you think of our little statu
e?”
“It’s so amazing, I don’t have the words, signore.”
“Well, in that case, I highly suggest a young artist such as yourself sit down to sketch it.” Leonardo reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper and some chalk.
“Thank you, signore, but I never travel without it,” Raphael said, pulling out his own sketchpad. He settled down at the foot of the sculpture and flipped through his sketchbook to find an empty page. Leonardo was surprised to see such beautiful, graceful drawings from the hand of such a young man. Yes, the sketches were a little clumsy; the young painter needed more experience and practice, but his figures had a lightness and grace that transfixed Leonardo. The young artist flipped past a copy of Leonardo’s own Madonna of the Rocks. Raphael had drawn such a serene rendition that Leonardo shook his head. Even inexperienced, no-name youths in the street were starting to surpass him.
Then he noticed a figure standing on the edge of the piazza, watching him. The man was short, muscular, with a scraggly beard and black hair. Even from a distance, Leonardo could feel the intensity of his gaze.
Leonardo stood up straight and faced the sculptor. Gesturing to David, he gave a deep, sweeping bow usually reserved for courts and kings. As he looked up, he placed his hand over his heart.
With Michelangelo still watching, he made a show of opening his sketchpad and gripping his piece of chalk. Then he settled on the stairs in front of the statue, turned his attention to David, and began to draw. After all, the only way to keep learning was to sketch the masters.
Coda
David remained in the Piazza della Signoria (now more commonly called the Palazzo Vecchio) until 1873, when he was moved indoors to the Galleria dell’Accademia to protect him from the elements. In 1991, a deranged man attacked David with a hammer and broke off the second toe of his left foot. Museum patrons visiting the David tackled the assailant and restrained him until authorities arrived.
Today, David is considered the world’s most famous sculpture, with over three million visitors traveling every year to the Accademia to visit him.
In 1516, Leonardo da Vinci moved to France to serve as the painter to King Francis I. On May 2, 1519, he died in the king’s arms. At the time of his death, Leonardo still kept one of his paintings in his private chambers: the portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo. To his dying day, he claimed the portrait was unfinished. The painting hung in King Francis I’s palace at Fontainebleau until King Louis XIV was rumored to have taken it to Versailles in the 1680s. After the French Revolution, the painting was relocated to the Louvre, a former royal palace transformed into a public museum. Several times since its installation, the portrait has been moved for safety, and it may have spent a few years hanging on Napoleon’s bedroom wall in the Tuileries Palace. In 1911, an Italian immigrant stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and held her hostage for two years. She was recovered, unharmed.
Today, the Mona Lisa is the most popular attraction at the Louvre. It is estimated that every year over six million people travel to the museum to see her.
Author's Note
I first asked the question that inspired this novel twenty years ago, when I was in college and learned that Leonardo and Michelangelo both lived in Florence from 1501 to 1505. The historical record tells us the two openly disliked each other. Contemporaries reported contentious run-ins on the streets. As far as their rivalry goes, art historians focus on the dueling frescoes commissioned when they were each hired to paint an opposing wall inside Florence’s city hall. As addressed in this novel, Leonardo was hired to paint the Battle of Anghiari in 1503. Michelangelo was brought on after he completed the David to paint the Battle of Cascina. For a few months, until Michelangelo left for Rome in the spring of 1505, the two worked alongside each other in the same room, but neither completed his fresco. For centuries, art historians have lamented that this great battle came to nothing.
But, I wondered, did it really come to nothing? During the years just prior to the fresco commission, Michelangelo carved the David, while Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that the two most iconic works of art in all of western civilization were created in the same town, at the same moment. Is it possible to believe that these two brilliant, competitive artists did not try to best each other? Seemingly invincible opponents drive us all to greater heights than we could reach on our own. Isn’t it only logical that the young Michelangelo pushed the aging Leonardo to paint the Mona Lisa, just as Leonardo drove Michelangelo to carve the David? This novel is my attempt to answer that question.
Leonardo really did sketch the David. When I first saw that sketch (now held by the Royal Collection in England), I pictured Leonardo sitting at the foot of the David while the young Michelangelo looked on. And with that one drawing, this book was born.
Oil and Marble is based on twenty years of research and grounded in real history, but it is unapologetically a work of fiction. I have taken artistic license to tell the story of these two characters who have lived in my imagination for over two decades.
Leonardo was illegitimate and disinherited by his father, but the details of their relationship are unclear; I believe it was one of the most painful parts of the artist’s life. There is evidence that he was considered for the Duccio Stone, but the scene of the two competing for the commission is imagined—based on a Florentine tradition of hosting such events. During Leonardo’s service as Cesare Borgia’s military engineer, he mostly stayed out of war zones, but there is evidence he saw battle. I do not know whether he built his multi-barreled armored cannon, but I like to believe he had a chance to bring some of his inventions to life. He and Machiavelli were at Borgia’s camp at the same time; I wish I had been able to eavesdrop on their conversations. Leonardo’s notebooks are filled with designs for flying machines, sketches of birds, and even a reference to a trial flight, but the attempt must have failed; he surely would have recorded it if he had succeeded. Florence hired him to divert the Arno River, and the project collapsed during a storm, killing eighty. However, I moved the diversion site closer to the city and the date of the flood by a few months to fit the story. The bird ring is made up. Why didn’t Leonardo give Mona Lisa to its patron, her husband? And why did the artist keep the picture with him until he died? We will never know.
According to Giorgio Vasari, the famous biographer of Renaissance artists, Michelangelo carved his name into the Pietà after it was mistakenly attributed to Gobbo (some historians now claim that story as a myth; any fiction writer would be foolish to leave it out). Michelangelo did have money saved after the Pietà, but I have him robbed on the road home for story purposes. His arrest upon entering Florence is fiction, although he was detained once when entering Bologna and a friend had to bail him out; I used that story as inspiration. Michelangelo’s father really was unsupportive of his chosen profession. His brother Giovansimone was always troublesome. I once read an anecdote that Giovansimone set fire to the Buonarroti family home in Settignano (yes, the Buonarroti family held property, even if it did not bring a large income. Their home in Florence was rented); that story inspired the fire in this book. The Duccio Stone was as botched as described, and Michelangelo really did build a privacy shed. The shed from history was brick; I imagined it as wood, and I let my imagination win on that detail. We do not know how the two artists met or if they ever argued over a dissected corpse; I like to think they did. The move of the David to the Palazzo della Signoria, including the attack on the statue one night, is historically accurate. The date of David’s official unveiling is correct, but I have no idea what that moment looked like. Was it as momentous as I made it out to be? I would hope so. And, of course, no one can ever know the internal process of creation. I don’t believe any work of art comes fast or easy, and I tried to explore the artists’ struggles as they created these masterpieces.
As is usual for writers of this time period, I translated all dates into our modern calendar to avoid confusion for readers. In Renaissance Florenc
e, a new year did not begin until the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25.
For a complete description of the real history behind the novel, an explanation of when and why I used artistic liberties, and a bibliography, please visit the “History Behind the Novel” section of my website at www.OilandMarble.com.
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