Bernardino applied his eye to the hinged crack where one panel joined the next in his makeshift screen. One look to his Master told him that Leonardo had seen all – he always did. But, though his beard hid a great number of the great Master’s emotions, nothing concealed the raised brow as he carried on his work.
Da Vinci was not spiritual, and his disregard for religion bordered on the heretical, so it was a matter for ironic comment that, with his flowing white beard and hair, he greatly resembled the image of a God in whom he did not believe. The Master cared not if such jests were cracked upon him; he enjoyed human folly in all its manifestations, and so was particularly indulgent of Bernardino in his amorous adventures. He had favoured the boy from the first, even making him a present of his fabled scrapbook known as the Libricciolo; fifty pages of the finest grotesques ever drawn. Its pages displayed a wench with just two holes where her nose should be; a fellow with buboes on his neck so large it seemed he had three heads; and a poor wight with his mouth sealed up by nature so that he could only eat through his nose, with a strawlike contraption that Leonardo himself had invented. Bernardino spent hours poring over the freak-like images, and the Master nodded his approval. ‘Just so you know, Bernardino,’ he remarked, ‘when you are drawing your limpid Lombard beauties, that not all that nature creates is beautiful.’ But if the Libricciolo showed ugliness in its natural form, its reader was handsome enough to prompt scurrilous rumour that the boy’s beauty pleased the Master in ways that were not merely aesthetic. Why else would Leonardo bring the boy back home to Florence with him, a boy whom he had merely apprenticed in his Milan studio, a boy who had never before left the flat disc of Lombardy, bounded by mountains at one end and lakes at the other?
Now, Bernardino could see Francesco striding down the room, with a flourish of his cloak which overturned more than one canvas. All the students turned to watch the scene, but none were curious as to the cause – all knew that the root would originate with Bernardino. The outlook in this case was not promising, for Francesco was flanked by two of his liveried men, wearing the Giocondo arms, with their swords clanking time with their footsteps. Francesco would have all the assistance of Florentine law afforded to one of its wealthier merchant citizens. The wronged husband halted before Leonardo, and that he moderated his tones only slightly marked his contempt for artists and all their kind.
‘Forgive the intrusion, Signor da Vinci,’ began Francesco in a manner which assumed the pardon already granted. ‘I seek your pupil Bernardino Luini, who has done me a great wrong.’ Bernardino saw his eyes slide over to regard his wife, where she sat motionless on her chair. Francesco reminded him of his grandmother’s cat – sleek, fat and dangerous.
Signor da Vinci deliberately painted a few more strokes and then laid his brushes aside. He turned to face Francesco, but before he had composed his features Bernardino caught the twinkle of his eye. The Master meant to enjoy himself. ‘I am puzzled, Signor del Giocondo,’ he said. ‘My pupil is a man of three and twenty, a student in the art of painting. What harm can he have inflicted on a merchant as great as yourself?’
Francesco looked a little put out. Bernardino smiled. He knew, as da Vinci knew, that Francesco would never admit to having been cuckolded by a lowly artisan such as he. He knew also that Leonardo would only take so much interest in the affair so far as it affected his work – if del Giocondo decided to take his wife away, and the portrait could not be finished, then the Master would be seriously displeased. Therefore he would protect his model’s reputation, and by association, that of his wayward pupil too.
Francesco shifted his considerable weight and answered the question. ‘’Tis a private matter. One of…business.’
Da Vinci coughed delicately. ‘Well, Signor, I am desolate that I am unable to help you conclude your…business,’ here the brow arched again, ‘but I am afraid that Signor Luini is no longer here. I received a commission from his Eminence the Doge of Venice, and Bernardino has just lately gone to that state to begin the work.’
Francesco’s eyes narrowed in disbelief, till da Vinci produced a letter from the sleeve of his gown. ‘You know, perhaps, the cognizance of the Doge?’
Francesco took the proffered letter and examined the seal closely. He gruffly acknowledged the arms and made as if to open the missive until Leonardo snatched it back. ‘You will forgive me, Signore,’ he said dryly, ‘but my matters, too, are private.’
Francesco could do little more. He attempted to regain countenance by saying, ‘Well, as long as he is gone from my sight; for should I see him on the streets of Florence again, I will challenge him and he will die.’
Bernardino rolled his eyes unseen. For the love of Jesu, this was 1503! Three years into the new century and the man spoke as a lover from the antique days of the medieval courts! He fixed his eye on his rival and saw him extend a hand to his wife where she sat on the dais. ‘Come, madam.’
Bernardino saw his Master stiffen.
‘I pray you, madam, remain still.’ Leonardo turned to Francesco. ‘Surely, Signore, there can be no cause to remove your wife from this place? Now that the man who has offended you has gone, there can be no evil influence? Your wife has no fault in this affair, surely?’
This last Francesco could not publicly deny. He seemed to waver, so da Vinci turned to flattery. ‘Consider, Signore, what this portrait will do for your reputation as a patron, a lover of the visual arts?’
In point of fact, Francesco had no love for the visual arts, nor understanding of the same; but he knew that Florence’s reputation stood well amid the city states on its art and architecture, and he felt all the importance of being a part of this. But he seemed to resist. ‘’Tis only a portrait,’ he said. ‘Not one of your great battles, or a scene from scripture or some such. None shall see it but our family circle, where it hangs in my palazzo.’
‘Nay, Signore, you are mistaken.’ Leonardo became animated by his passion for his work. ‘For this portrait will be different. It will be a showcase for my latest techniques. See how I have blended light and shadow in this wondrous chiaroscuro? And here at her mouth, how my brush blurs the corners to make her expression ambiguous, in a manner I call sfumato? Believe me, sir, your wife will be admired the world over, and in this service to her you are not only proving yourself a great patron and art lover but the greatest of husbands too.’
That did it. For despite his family name, Francesco had no sense of humour but a great deal of pride. How better to heal any rumoured rift with his wife than to immortalize her in this portrait? He let his proffered hand drop to his side, bowed to Leonardo and left.
Bernardino leaned his head against the wooden frame of the canvas with relief. He breathed in the sweet scents of oil and poplar, and below that something else…the sweet smell of sandalwood that his lady wore, and still deeper, the sharp spicy smell of her sex, so well remembered from yestereve. The remembrance sent a frisson to his groin and he was obliged to spend the next few moments counseling himself against such folly – he had just escaped a skinning and must not let his lusts weaken him again. He must leave la Signora alone. His Master’s voice brought him to his senses. ‘You can come out now, Bernardino.’
Bernardino sheepishly emerged, to laughter and scattered applause from his colleagues. He bowed to the collective with a theatrical flourish. Leonardo raised his brow again, as if caught on a fishhook. Bernardino bowed in earnest. ‘Thank you, Signore,’ he said. ‘May I return to work, if it pleases you?’
‘You may return to work, Bernardino. But not here.’
‘What?’
‘You have enjoyed the eavesdropper’s fate of overhearing your destiny. I wish you to go to Venice and take this commission, for it was not a device which I invented to dispatch your rival, but a genuine request from the Doge.’ He pulled the letter from his sleeve once more and waved it at his pupil. ‘I think it best that you are out of the reaches of Signor Giacondo for a while.’
‘Venice?’
‘
Indeed. His Eminence writes that he will pay three hundred ducats for a fresco to be painted in the church of the Frari. A Holy scene. The Virgin, angels, the usual kind of thing. I think, at last, you are ready.’
‘Figures? An entire scene? Not hands?’
Leonardo gave a rare smile. ‘Figures, yes. But hands they should have certainly, else I don’t think the Doge will pay you.’
Bernardino’s head was in a whirl. Venice. The Veneto. He knew little of the place save that it floated on water, and for this reason the women were leprous and the men had webbed feet. He was enjoying his time in Florence – it was the first time he had left his native Lombardy and was making the most of it. He had friends and…lovers here. He loved Florence. And yet – it would not be forever. A year or two might meet the case. And he was to be entrusted with full-figure work for the first time, instead of the forest of hands he had painted – interminable digits and knuckles – he hated the sight of them. And the money. He could make his fortune. And there would surely be some handsome women in that state too?
He took the letter from his Master with thanks, and took his leave affectionately. Leonardo took Bernardino’s face in his hands and looked him long in the eyes. ‘Listen to me well, Bernardino. Do not be overwhelmed by the weight of your own genius, for you have none. You are a good painter and could be a great one, but not until you begin to feel. If you have pangs of sorrow at your removal from this lady, if your heart bleeds, so much the better. For your work will reflect the passions that you experience and only then will you place those emotions on the canvas. You have my blessing.’ Warmly the Master kissed the pupil on both cheeks. Bernardino then turned to the model, whose eyes followed him closely around the room. No, she was not handsome, so there would be little for him to pine for. But, leaning close, he whispered, because he could not help himself: ‘I hope to take my leave of you later, lady. When your husband is from home.’
Bernardino walked his beloved streets under the cowl of a cloak – he did not wish to meet his rival before he could safely quit the place. But on the way back to his lodgings he went to the places he loved well. He walked in step with the bawling bells that shivered his ribs with their sweet cacophony. Through the Florence he loved, the square where Savonarola had burned, and the vanities with him. Bernardino had little to do with the looking glass, so he could not know that as he said a tender farewell to the wrestling statuary that adorned the Piazza della Signoria, the carrera marble exactly matched the strange silver hue of his eyes. He leaned on the warm stone balustrades of the Arno and said goodbye to the perfect arches of the Ponte Vecchio. The late evening sun – his favourite light of all – turned their stones from amber to gold in her daily alchemy. But Bernardino knew not that his own skin had the same rosy hue. As he wandered through precincts of Santa Croce and bid arrivederci to the monks of the Misericordia, he was unaware that those Holy fathers wore cowls as black as his own hair. He was innocent of the fact that the pearly marble of the vast domed basilica was precisely the white of his teeth. Yes, whether he knew it or not, Bernardino was as handsome as the city itself. At the last, he took a drink from the fountain of the golden boar and rubbed the Porcellino’s nose to be sure that, one day, he would return. Bernardino was not given to introspection. He would miss the place, to be sure, but his spirits were already bubbling to the surface. As he walked home he looked to the future, singing softly a ditty composed by Lorenzo de’ Medici, Il Magnifico himself:
Quant’è bella giovinezza,
Che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto sia:
Di doman non c’e certezza.
How fine a thing is youth but how short-lived.
Let he who wishes to be merry, be so.
For there’s no saying what
Tomorrow will bring.
In the studiolo, Leonardo was still for a moment as he thought on Bernardino. It was well he was gone, for the boy was too beautiful to be under his eye every day. He thought of the lustrous black curls, the startling eyes that spoke of a heritage far from Lombardy; the black lashes that looked as if each had been painted individually by the finest sable of no more than three hairs. Bernardino even had all his teeth – and white ones at that. Leonardo sighed in valediction and turned back to his model. She was no beauty, however he may flatter the husband, but still she had something, if only an exquisite seriousness of countenance. He assumed that her nickname ‘La Gioconda’ was given to her with ironic bent – a play on her name, and no indication of her general humour. But wait…something was different… round the corners of her mouth there played – almost, but not quite, a smile? Her gravity had dissolved in an instant to this enigmatic, this wholly inappropriate expression. Leonardo cursed Bernardino roundly. What had he said to her? He took up his brushes and worked over the mouth once more. Damn the boy.
When Bernardino swore that any woman he painted would have to be as beautiful as an angel, he did not know that he would have to wait more than twenty years to find her. When he painted his first commission for the Doge, her parents were just lately married. When he began his Pietà at Chiaravalle near Rogoredo, she was being born. When he painted one of his greatest works in 1522 – the magnificent ‘Coronation of Our Lord’, painted for the Confraternity of the Holy Crown in Milan – she was at that time being wed to another and choking on an almond nut at the feast. Bernardino’s mastery grew, but he never, in all his models, found a countenance he considered worth painting. Not until he accepted a commission in 1525 did he come to be in the very same room as the object of his aesthetic desires. This was because, at the behest of the Cardinal of Milan, he came to be in the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Saronno on the very morning that Simonetta di Saronno came there to pray for a miracle.
* * *
‘Who is that?’
Father Anselmo turned to his visitor. He guessed the artist was much of an age with himself, somewhat in the middle years, but his voice betrayed very different sensibilities. While Anselmo thought of God and things heavenly, this handsome fellow seemed made to seek only earthly pleasures. He liked the man already; for all that they had only been acquainted perhaps the quarter of one hour. But the priest’s answer held a warning.
‘Signor Luini, that is Signora Simonetta di Saronno.’
‘Really.’ Luini’s voice was full of hungry fascination.
Anselmo looked the taller man full in the face. ‘Signore. She is a very great lady of these parts.’
‘Of any parts, I’ll warrant, padre.’
Anselmo tried again. ‘She is just lately a vedova, widowed by the war.’
‘Better and better.’
Now the priest was properly shocked. ‘Signore! How can you say such a thing? The war has ravaged the entire of the Lombard plain – not just this poor lady, but many others are suffering the loss of those they loved. Great families and humble ones suffer alike. This battle lately at Pavia took away that poor soul’s lord – and he such a man! Full of youth and vigour, and proper devotion.’
‘Sounds like you’re missing him yourself.’
Anselmo tried to quash such inappropriate attempts at humour. ‘These wars, as all wars do, bring nothing but evil.’
Luini, unaccountable fellow, merely shrugged. ‘War is not always such a bad thing. Hundreds of years of wars on this peninsula of ours have set the city states so much against each other that all try and outdo their neighbours in respect to the arts. We have the finest artists in the world; architects and men of letters too. How many Swiss artists can you name?’
‘Perhaps God loves better a country of peace.’
‘Peace! They may have no wars at home to promote their arts, but they are hardly a peace-loving nation. The Swiss boast the best mercenaries in the world,’ exclaimed Bernardino, his face lively with argument. ‘But at least they kill both sides if they are paid enough. Very even-handed. I’m sure God is very well pleased with them.’
Anselmo did not mind how many points he conceded in the d
ebate so long as they had left the dangerous subject of the lady of Saronno. But Luini’s mind could not be distracted for long. ‘Lombardy is covered in blood and paint; the blood drains away, but the paint stays forever. Especially with such a subject.’ He looked back at the lady. ‘She is devout you say?’
The Madonna of the Almonds Page 3