by Mary Hoffman
We had rigged up a kind of viewing platform on one side of the studio – just a rough wooden stage with steps on each side so that the viewer could look at David from closer to eye level.
‘Otherwise they’ll just look straight up into his crotch,’ Antonio da Sangallo had said.
So the Gonfaloniere had the first view of the statue that was to cause so much dissent in the city and he pronounced himself well satisfied.
‘It is well done, Maestro Buonarroti,’ he said graciously. ‘I can’t wait to see it set up and finished in its proper place.’
‘Wherever that is,’ muttered my brother.
I think everyone I knew in Florence came through Angelo’s workshop that day – from wealthy noblemen to merchants to working people. Among the first was a little knot of frateschi, Gianbattista to the fore. It was his name day on the morrow so he was in holiday mood; ‘seeing the Giant’ was just a part of the festivities.
But he was impressed – I could tell. I had told the cell of Savonarola followers about my brother but they had been more interested in his politics than his artistic skills. Now their eyes were opened.
‘It is magnificent,’ said Gianbattista when he climbed down from the platform. ‘It is you and yet not you – a faithful copy of the outward form but with some inner fire we haven’t seen in you, at least not yet.’
I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment but I was proud that he praised Angelo’s work. My eye was on Simonetta, who had come to the viewing with her brother. She seemed pale and as if overwhelmed by what she saw. She didn’t speak to me but passed quickly out of the door.
It was just my bad luck that the next person coming in was Grazia, with Leone. She looked at Simonetta’s colourless face in passing and looked straight at me, as if I had been responsible for upsetting another young woman. It was so unfair.
But then Leone led Grazia up on to the platform and it was her turn to be impressed. I was amused to see just how disconcerted this huge representation of me with no clothes on made her. It was left to Leone to go and congratulate the sculptor, while Grazia exchanged a few words with me.
‘Was that the woman you told me about? The one leaving just now?’ she asked.
‘What do you think of the statue?’ I asked. I didn’t think I had to answer her question.
‘I think it’s . . . it’s . . . terrifying,’ she admitted. ‘So . . . huge and naked . . . it’s almost obscene. Well, indecent anyway. How does it make you feel to see yourself on display like that?’
‘I’m used to it,’ I said. ‘I’ve been either posing for Angelo or helping him with the fine details of the statue for about two years. I have to see it through others’ eyes today.’
‘It’s a fine piece of work,’ she said. ‘But I can’t see it as a piece of art. I see it as you. And I think a lot of other people in the city will see it that way too. You won’t be an unknown person any more.’
Wolf whistles from the platform alerted me to the presence of Salai and a little gaggle of his friends. I excused myself from Grazia and mounted the steps in a hurry to stop them from causing trouble.
Salai looked me up and down appreciatively. ‘Here he is, boys,’ he said. ‘About to be the most famous . . . face . . . in Florence!’
‘Stop it,’ I said, trying hard not to blush. ‘You are absolutely not to make a scene here. Your master would be most annoyed to hear that you had behaved badly and shamed him in front of so many citizens and his fellow artist.’
‘Really? And what about how he shamed my master in the Piazza Santa Trinita, criticising him for his work in Milan?’
‘I know nothing about that,’ I said truthfully. ‘But Leonardo is a man of courtesy. I am sure he would not want you to let him down in your manners today.’
Salai paused for a long time, then shrugged and said loudly, ‘It is a very superior piece of statuary. You must be proud of your master – as I am of mine.’
Then he led his little gang off the platform and one dangerous moment had passed.
Next came Gandini the baker and his beautiful young wife, Alessa. I really was beginning to feel self-conscious at the number of Florentine women who were gazing at such a large-scale representation of my nakedness. True, some had seen me naked in the flesh, but not Simonetta or the baker’s wife! I wondered if I’d ever dare go into their shop for a pastry again.
The day was as much of an ordeal for Angelo as for me. He had to listen to a lot of praise and even some criticisms from people who knew nothing about sculpture or any other of the arts. It was my body and face on display but it was his work, his art being scrutinised and assessed.
A few of the visitors were fellow artists, like Leone, the Sangallo brothers, even the ‘little barrel’ Sandro Botticelli limped in on two sticks. Angelo himself helped the older man up the stairs and brought him a stool to sit on.
But most were ordinary citizens, the ones who would walk past the biggest statue in their city every day for – well, who knew how many years? They were the ones whose opinions would carry the day. Would David the Giant meet with their approval or their disdain?
Florentines took their art seriously and were not backward in expressing their views. Would they cast their flowers at David’s feet or throw stones at his head?
I recognised the silk merchant Giocondo, who had also brought his wife. I looked at her with interest because this was the woman Leonardo was going to paint when he returned from his military adventure trying to shift the river Arno. The portrait that had so annoyed the baker, because he really wanted Leonardo to paint his wife.
Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo was clearly very proud of his young wife and introduced her to Angelo, who summoned me over.
‘Gabriele,’ he said, ‘I think you have met Ser Giocondo? And let me introduce you to his wife, Monna Lisa del Giocondo. This is my assistant and an old friend of the family, Gabriele del Lauro.’
I clasped hands with them both but it was the wife who glanced from me up to the Giant and said, ‘And your model too, I think, Ser Buonarroti!’
‘Quite right,’ said Angelo. ‘You are observant, Monna Lisa. Let me escort you up to the platform so that you may see the work more clearly.’
I followed with del Giocondo, who was a pleasant man. They both seemed to me intelligent and cultured people, at ease with each other in spite of the great difference in age between them.
‘Your master has done a great thing,’ del Giocondo said to me. ‘Of course, I can see that this statue is in some ways based on you – its youth and strength and fine physique. But he has also made a man for all time, a man whom others will look upon in the future and see not Gabriele the Tuscan, but David the Israelite king-to-be and saviour of his people.’
‘It is a great responsibility,’ I said.
‘More so for the sculptor,’ said del Giocondo, moving forward to congratulate Angelo.
I saw him yield Monna Lisa’s hand to her husband and was struck by the thought that maybe this very composed and charming young woman could have been the cause of his early disappointment in love.
But I dismissed the thought as ridiculous. Even though the accusation in the Mouth of Truth had been a vicious lie, it would not have been made if Angelo’s reputation in the city had been one of a lover of women.
I had not long to think about my brother’s love life for Altobiondi was leading his wife up the other side of the platform. They stopped to speak to del Giocondo, who was obviously an old acquaintance and the two women made deep curtsies to each other, as if they were of the same social degree.
The de’ Altobiondi were followed by many men that I knew well from my meetings in their palazzo. Indeed I had dressed myself for this important viewing in my best quasi-Altobiondi livery of purple and green. Visdomini was among his pro-Medici friends, with his pretty wife, and I was very glad that Gianbattista and the other frateschi had come earlier; it would have been uncomfortable for me to have both groups in the same room at the same tim
e.
‘A fine thing, a very fine thing,’ Altobiondi was saying to my brother. ‘I congratulate you. People will come to Florence from far and wide to see this statue you have made.’
I was in an agony of tension. Altobiondi was behaving as if Angelo was one of his circle and indeed he must have known that the sculptor’s first great patron had been Lorenzo de’ Medici – everyone in Florence knew that. But everyone also knew that Angelo had left the city nearly ten years ago to escape that connection.
Visdomini was frowning and pointing out something to the other compagnacci about the statue. I wasn’t paying much attention because of the way that Clarice and Maddalena Visdomini were both looking at it. I knew that Clarice was thinking of the pose in sketch I had given her and was comparing the naked Giant with his original. And I wondered if Maddalena was remembering the night she had surprised me in Leone’s studio. My face felt hot.
‘Ah,’ said Altobiondi’s commanding voice. ‘I see what you mean, Ser Buonarroti. You have shown our young friend as a defiant champion about to slay the attacker of his people. It is a republican symbol, is it not? And yet your model is no republican, I think?’
There was laughter among his friends and Angelo looked furious. Giuliano da Sangallo, who had also been a de’ Medici protégé, stepped forward to smooth the situation over.
‘You know well, Ser Altobiondi, how we artists must work to please our patrons,’ he said, putting a restraining hand on Angelo’s arm. ‘The statue was commissioned by the Operai del Duomo and encouraged by the Signoria. The artist is not at liberty to change the subject or the manner of its depiction.’
In fact, this was exactly what Angelo had done, as Sangallo well knew, but Altobiondi was satisfied by the explanation.
Still, as he and his friends left, he beckoned to me.
‘It is a great work of art,’ he said, not bothering to lower his voice, ‘but it pains me to see such a stout supporter of the de’ Medici and our exiled princes posing like a republican firebrand.’
Then he and his entourage swept out.
‘That’s it,’ said my brother, shooing out the last visitors and closing the doors. ‘The show is over for today. I need a drink.’
Chapter Sixteen
White Smoke
Leonardo was back in Florence. Whether he had changed the course of the Arno or not, nobody knew. What we did know was that he had begun his portrait of del Giocondo’s wife, Lisa. I even saw him working on it.
It turned out that old Lodovico was on quite friendly terms with the silk merchant and had known his wife’s family, the Gherardini, when they lived in the Santa Croce district. He knew Leonardo’s family too. His father, at any rate.
‘Not that Piero da Vinci was too ready to acknowledge his son,’ Lodovico told me. ‘At least not until he became famous.’
He saw no irony in this statement.
‘Piero could get no legitimate heirs till he’d been through several wives,’ said Lodovico, with all the pride of a father of five sons born in wedlock. ‘And young Leonardo was a by-blow from his youth. But he put him out to apprentice with di Cione, the painter, and he turned out all right.’
‘Di Cione?’ I asked. I had never heard the name.
‘Oh, they called him Verrocchio,’ explained Lodovico. Of course I knew him! He had made his own David. His nickname meant ‘true eye’ – a wonderful name for an artist.
‘Is Piero still living?’ I asked.
‘What? Oh, yes. Though he’s very old. Nearly eighty, I believe.’
I couldn’t imagine the sophisticated dandy I had met having an old father and wondered what Piero thought of his celebrated son now. But it opened up a new world to imagine Piero da Vinci, Lodovico Buonarroti and Lisa Gherardini’s family all living in Santa Croce and knowing each other at least by sight.
It had taken me a while but I was at last beginning to realise that life hadn’t begun with my own birth. Anyway, two of Angelo’s brothers, Buonarroto and GiovanSimone, were in the wool trade and one day they asked me if I would go round to del Giocondo’s house in the Via della Stufa, with a package of samples.
I accepted willingly because I’d been intrigued by the couple when I met them at the viewing of the Giant, and I had no objection to seeing the striking Lisa again.
I was on the way to their house when I first heard someone shout out ‘David!’ to me in the street. It was no one I knew – a complete stranger – but the snub-nosed youth shouted and waved and grinned at me from across the street and I realised he had recognised me from the statue. I waved back and went on my way.
That was the day I found Leonardo painting Monna Lisa’s portrait. When I had delivered my samples, del Giocondo asked me if I’d like to go and see the progress of the picture.
Leonardo wasn’t a bit like Angelo; he positively welcomed visitors while he worked. There was already another young man in the room, playing softly on a recorder.
‘Ah, Gabriele!’ Leonardo greeted me, recognising me straight away.
‘Forgive me if I do not rise,’ said Lisa del Giocondo, smiling but not moving. ‘I dare not change my position while Ser Leonardo is at work.’
‘I hear that Buonarroti’s statue is a – huge – success,’ said Leonardo, laughing at his own joke.
‘Salai told you, I suppose.’
‘He was very impressed.’
‘As we all were,’ said del Giocondo.
‘May I look at your painting?’ I asked.
Leonardo made a graceful gesture that meant, ‘Be my guest’.
I moved closer, feeling self-conscious and a bit intrusive. But when I saw the painting I forgot everything else. I think I might have gasped.
The portrait was not very far advanced but two things struck me straight away: the first was that it was just like the sitter. The second that it had the face of Salai.
I went back to Ser Visdomini’s. He had a fine collection of paintings on classical subjects now but he was still eager for more. Theseus and Ariadne was finished but his new idea was for a painted version of Lo Spinario, the boy of the Roman statue, who sits peering at the thorn in his foot.
‘Am I not a little old to be the boy, my lord?’ I asked.
‘Leone can soften your features,’ said Visdomini, ‘and reduce those muscles a bit.’
He took the opportunity to squeeze my upper arm.
‘Anyway, I’m glad to have you back,’ he said, giving me a little pinch. ‘I hope to see you back in your old place at Altobiondi’s too. He was shocked to see you as David, you know. We all were.’
I said nothing; merely bowed.
That night was the first I had spent with Grazia for months but it was as if neither of us could help it; we were just drawn back to each other even though we both knew our love affair wouldn’t last. I no longer needed to go to her private room for secret information about the compagnacci now that I was freely admitted to their houses, but I went with her all the same and we fell upon each other like starving people offered a feast.
Later, as I was stroking her hair, I said, ‘I’m glad we are friends again.’
‘Friends!’ she snorted, then smiled. ‘Yes. Better to be friends than nothing.’
‘We were never nothing,’ I said.
The next night I went to Altobiondi’s palazzo for the first time for weeks.
‘Ah,’ he greeted me. ‘Here comes our David!’
There was a fair bit of ribbing, which I was expecting. And there were new people there since our last meeting – more aristocrats, but much younger. One of them who was smiling at me looked vaguely familiar.
‘Gherardini,’ he introduced himself. ‘Gherardo Maffei de’ Gherardini.’
‘Gherardini!’ I said. ‘You are related to Monna Lisa del Giocondo? You were playing the recorder yesterday when I came to see her portrait.’
‘Ser Leonardo likes her to stay entertained while he paints,’ said the young man. ‘I am her cousin.’ He looked at me curiously and I could tell
he was wondering why I appeared so well dressed now when I had come to the house on the Via della Stufa dressed as a working man. But he was too well bred to mention it.
Instead he introduced me to his young friends, Vincenzo, Filippo and Raffaello. It turned out that they had all been to see the statue at the public viewing so they joined in the good-natured mockery.
‘That is all very well, boys,’ said Altobiondi. ‘But which of you has ever been asked to model for a hero?’
‘Perhaps the day is coming when we can be heroes, not imitate them,’ answered Vincenzo, who was a Martelli and had a warlike air.
I pricked up my ears. I was beginning to think that this bunch were all words and no action; their ‘plot’ to return the de’ Medici didn’t seem to have advanced at all since I had last been in their midst.
‘Perhaps it is,’ said Altobiondi. ‘We have heard from Cardinal Giovanni and from Giulio. They want to know more about the loyalty of their followers in the city before they come back. After Piero’s last effort . . . well.’
‘What do we have to do to prove ourselves to them?’ demanded Filippo. It was clear that these new recruits were hotheads, desperate to be put to the test. I thought that it would not be long before their enthusiasm boiled over into action.
It was strange to be working alongside Angelo every day now. He had finished the tondo for Bartolommeo Pitti, who had been appointed one of the Operai of the Duomo, but it was still in the workshop. But he had not finished the bronze David. He seemed to be in a kind of limbo. We still worked at refining the marble giant but Angelo seemed more interested in teaching me skills.
We worked side by side on small blocks and he tried to teach me to see what might be inside them. And, while we worked, sometimes we talked.
‘Are you being careful?’ he asked me suddenly one day in August.
‘In what way?’ I answered cautiously, not sure if we were talking about Grazia or something else.
‘Those are dangerous friends you are seeing now,’ he said.
But I still didn’t know if he meant the frateschi or the compagnacci.