Da Vinci's Tiger

by L. M. Elliott

  “Well, it could be a number of things, my lady. Gambling, prostitution, lechery, a woman breaking the laws against seductive or overly showy clothes.” She scowled. “Or any kind of bodily pleasure that is not procreative as prescribed by the Bible and could not bring about a baby.”

  Sancha spat on the ground. “May the Lord strike down that man! My own father was accused by some willy-wag gossip of debauchery. Not that the jackass didn’t deserve it. He was constantly wasting his wages at the brothels, carousing and buying ale for others to appear like an important man and doing disgusting things when drunk. Imagine the humiliation to my mother. And doing that when he had children to feed! The Officers of the Night tribunal had him beaten until his ribs cracked. But what help was that to us? He was never able to manage the hard work of the vats again. That’s when I had to leave home to work for your husband. My mother started mending clothes. It ruined her eyes.”

  Her face smoldered with hatred. “If I ever discover who denounced my father, I am going to find some piece of trash about that man that will stick to him and drop letters in every tamburi I can find. I will—”

  Sancha was interrupted by Leonardo emerging onto the street again.

  Verrocchio appeared at the door, shouting at his former apprentice’s back.

  Clutching a large hammer and sculpting chisel, Leonardo was marching toward the tamburi.

  “Leonardo!” Verrocchio called again, louder and more authoritatively this time.

  Leonardo ignored him.

  Verrocchio threw a cloth he had been wiping his hands with to the ground and ran after Leonardo as fast as he could, his belly jiggling. The older artist didn’t reach his former apprentice until Leonardo had already inserted the chisel up under the lid of the tamburi and raised his hammer to strike.

  Verrocchio nabbed him from behind by his arm and yanked so hard the taller and stronger Leonardo had to turn around to face his master. He shook Leonardo’s arm as he spoke. Leonardo listened for a moment before pushing Verrocchio away with such ferocity the artist nearly fell. But Verrocchio managed to steady himself and then took a step forward to slap Leonardo across the face.

  I gasped. Verrocchio was in his rights to discipline an apprentice that way, but a free man?

  Leonardo raised his hammer as if to strike his old master. Again Verrocchio held his ground. He spoke in a voice too low to overhear, gesturing to the box, to the house. Leonardo’s arm fell. Verrocchio grabbed him by the collar, like a mother would a child’s ear, to drag him back inside. That’s when Verrocchio realized people had stopped to watch them. He spoke urgently to Leonardo and took a step toward the house. But still Leonardo resisted.

  More people gathered and began whispering to one another behind their hands.

  “Someone is going to report him trying to break into the tamburi,” Sancha muttered, “if that older man doesn’t get that saucy one off the street fast.”

  I looked at Sancha, who nodded at me grimly, and then back toward Leonardo and Verrocchio. I’m not sure what got into me. I put my arm through Sancha’s and walked us toward them.

  “Maestro Verrocchio,” I called out, and smiled. “How wonderful to meet you again.”

  The pair of artists froze, mid-curse. Then a small smile spread across Verrocchio’s face. He let go of Leonardo’s collar and patted his chest. “Look, Leonardo, it is Luigi Niccolini’s wife. We met her outside the Medici palazzo.” He bowed, elbowing Leonardo to do the same. “Remember?” Leonardo merely nodded at me.

  “And how are you today, my lady?” Verrocchio asked.

  “Well, thank you. On our way to mass, although I think we are late for it now.”

  “I trust that you enjoyed your evening at the Medici palazzo?”

  “Yes, indeed, I did.”

  As Verrocchio and I exchanged these pleasantries, we both watched Leonardo out of the corner of our eyes. The way he held his body made it clear he was poised to return to his dangerous attack on the tamburi. Some of the crowd surrounding us lingered, nosiness keeping them there, watching.

  I was determined to keep talking until Verrocchio figured out what to do with Leonardo. “I was disappointed, however, Master Verrocchio, not to see the Marsyas statue you described. I would have very much liked to.”

  Verrocchio’s smile broke into a full-fledged grin. He whacked Leonardo’s chest to get his attention, but he spoke to me. “Perhaps my lady would like to see what we are working on right now in my studio? I am expecting a visit from a patron, praise God in all his mercy. But . . .” He elbowed Leonardo again. “Master Leonardo can show and describe some of our ongoing work to you.”

  “I would love that, sir. Thank you.” I smiled and looked up into Leonardo’s face expectantly.

  Verrocchio cleared his throat loudly and spoke sternly. “Leonardo, I know you wish to wipe gossip and hypocritical moralizing out of mankind’s character. But smashing the tamburi box is no way to do it. And”—he nodded toward me—“Donna Ginevra is waiting.”

  With palpable irritation, Leonardo relented, sighing and handing his old master the chisel and the hammer. “My lady,” he finally addressed me, and swept his arm toward the house.

  10

  STEPPING OVER THE THRESHOLD INTO THAT WORLD OF HEAVENLY beautiful art, I nearly retched from its earthly stench. Varnish, sweat, urine, stone dust, cow dung, charred ox horn, billowing smoke. I covered my nose with one hand. The other flew to my ear against the pounding and hammering, the chisels scraping stone, the shouts of apprentices as they dashed about the yard.

  Leonardo took me by the elbow to guide me through to the studio proper, Sancha trailing behind. We passed a young boy, in a swirl of dust, sweeping scrapings into the street. Another knocked chickens off a nesting roost in a great fluttering of wings to collect eggs. A third stoked a fire to a hellish-high blaze within a red-glowing furnace. The child was covered in soot, but he grinned and waved at Leonardo.

  Inside, a slightly older youth sat at a grindstone, smashing lapis lazuli into a powdery pool of blue. Next to him, another applied cream-colored gesso to a wooden board, just the right size for a portrait. A little army of small plaster statues of draped cloth marched beside them on the bench. I paused and cocked my head, wondering why they had no heads or arms.

  “These are exercises,” Leonardo said. “Master makes his apprentices do these studies so we know how to sculpt and paint clothing in folds that imply the movement of the human body underneath. Know the bones and muscles underlying the clothes, he always said. That way the cling of the cloth shows a walk. The direction of a gesture conveys the emotion of that moment.”

  “Ahh.” I nodded. Leonardo still held my elbow with his pincer-strong hand. He unceremoniously jerked me out of the way as the boy who’d plucked eggs from the hens darted past. Cradling a half-dozen in his arms, the boy looked as if he might drop them in his haste to deliver them to the youth grinding colors. That apprentice took the eggs one by one, cracked them, separated them, and dropped the gold yolks into a bowl to mix with water. Next he sprinkled in the ground lapis, creating an eddy of bright blue that slowly spread out into an azure paste as he stirred.

  “Take that paint to Perugino, boy,” Leonardo instructed the youth, who hurried the bowl of vibrant blue to an adult artist in the corner, painting the dress of a Madonna.

  I’d known nothing before of the process of making art. Enchanted, I pulled my elbow away from Leonardo’s grip, slowly turning around to take it all in. The studio was crowded with worktables littered with bowls, knives, papers, and charcoal bits. Along its walls hung tools and sketches. I caught my breath when I recognized a long triangular drawing of a reclining nymph and a Cupid trying to awaken her—the beginning sketch for the joust banner.

  I approached to get a better look. Gazing at the drawing, I began to understand how the figures on the painted banner had seemed so lifelike, their faces so expressive and the contours of their cheeks so real. The effect seemed to be achieved with contrasts of light and
dark. The nymph and Cupid were sketched in black chalk against the warm, creamy color of the paper. Their faces were made of soft smears and rubs of the chalk. There were no hatch marks or bold strokes until the elaborate braids in her hair and the millet stalks surrounding Cupid. Inching closer, I got practically nose to nose with the nymph and could see the cool white accents within the dark smudges on her face that at a distance created the dimple in her chin, the fullness of her lips, the rise of round, high cheekbones from the thinner jawline.

  Leonardo had come up behind me as I marveled at the technique. Once again reading my curiosity, he said, “Maestro Verrocchio wet the laid-in chalk with a brush to make those grays and white.”

  “The illusion is . . .”

  “Extraordinary. I know.”

  I turned round to look at Leonardo and caught his profile. His eyes remained fixed on the banner drawing, giving me a chance to study him better. He had a high broad forehead, full arched eyebrows without the wild scraggle common to men, and large dark eyes that drooped slightly at their outside corners. His nose was long but straight, his mouth soft and etched in supple red, his chin and jawline clean and strong. It was a lovely face, somehow pretty and masculine at the same time. What was most remarkable about it, though, was how perfectly proportioned it seemed, one element flowing into the other without a bump or bulge or pockmark to interrupt it. Flawless, as a perfectly measured and executed statue might be.

  Unaware of my staring, Leonardo reached over me to point at places in the drawing where dark and light blended seamlessly. “The trick is to blend the shadows and light without any clear borders or strokes, like smoke seeps into the air. Sfumato. That’s how the maestro created the swell of her facial bones as effectively as he does in his sculpture.” He didn’t move his arm as he murmured more to himself than to me. “I wonder.” He paused. “I must find a way to do this better, more consistently, with paint. Egg tempera dries too quickly. Perhaps . . .”

  Arm still extended, Leonardo inhaled deeply and then sighed, his breath warm on my cheek. He was completely transfixed by the drawing. I was riveted by his face, no longer by its physical features but by his expression. I fought my breathing, fearing to interrupt. I knew I was witnessing creativity, a thought trying to fight its way out of a cocoon to light.

  Sancha giggled from the corner.

  Startled, Leonardo stepped back, dropping his arm. The spell was broken. I shot Sancha a look of annoyance. She lowered her head, bobbed a curtsy, and retreated to the doorway.

  I tried to retrieve the magic. “I am intrigued that the maestro included this millet.” I pointed to the little forest of grain shafts. “Millet symbolizes fidelity, yes?”

  Verrocchio’s hearty laugh answered me. He was crossing the room toward us. “You know your mythology, my lady.” He threw his arm over Leonardo’s shoulders. “But my dear former apprentice includes the millet for a different reason, eh?” He playfully knuckled Leonardo’s ribs. “This one is not as interested in classical symbolism as our dear friend Botticelli is, for instance. Go on, explain yourself.”

  Leonardo frowned at Verrocchio, and then assessed me, his eyes narrowing a bit as he considered. I bristled at what was implied by his analyzing expression that I might not be intelligent enough to understand his reasoning.

  “My family owns several Alberti treatises, and I remember the author writing that painting contains a divine force that can make absent men present and the dead seem almost alive. Is there something about the way an artist presents millet that improves this divine capability?” I spoke with some arrogance in my education, thinking it would impress Leonardo. But I was still careful to smile sweetly as I challenged him to answer my question and not brush me off as incapable of such philosophic and artistic dialogue.

  Humph. Leonardo nodded slightly. “Well . . . if you are truly interested . . . I think nature is an all-encompassing force that dictates our earthly life. So to not include it in artwork, to present man standing all alone in a void, is idiocy.”

  Verrocchio roared with laughter and clapped his hands together, creating a little volcano cloud of stone dust. “Leonardo is as blunt as he is talented. Look there,” he said, gesturing to the millet. “Leonardo drew the millet, not I. To get it right, he brought armloads of the grain stalks into the studio to study before drawing. I swear they look as real as the plant in terms of the construction and details. But he goes beyond that. See how the millet’s lowest leaves swirl as if being tickled by the wind? So alive! Astounding! I am making use of that eye of his in one of my more important commissions. Come.”

  Now he took my elbow and walked me to an alcove at the far end of the studio, where light spilled in through a window and the stone floor was washed clean of dust. He pulled a cloth back to display a large painting of St. John baptizing Christ.

  “How lovely,” I said, instinctively crossing myself in reverence at seeing the depiction of the momentous biblical moment.

  Verrocchio considered the painting. “I have taken far too long to complete this. It was commissioned for a church high altar many years ago—there have been so many other lucrative works ordered in between. After all, I am responsible for feeding all these boys.” He gestured back toward the studio’s large room, swarming with busy, hungry youths. “And I will admit, signora, this painting has taught me that I am a far better sculptor than painter. I just could not get it quite right until recently. Leonardo has helped with that, particularly with the landscape.”

  He pointed as he spoke. “Look at the delicacy of these ferns and grasses, how transparent the water is and how it ripples away from Christ’s ankles as he steps into the river. Look how Leonardo has rendered the wilderness behind John and Jesus. The perspective! The scene seems to stretch back toward infinity.”

  Indeed, the meandering river and the mountains behind the holy pair became vague and paler as they receded, conveying a sense of distance—the hills in particular vanishing into the misty horizon, like smoke into air, just the way Leonardo had described. The scene also captured the imposing vastness of nature. I had seen many religious paintings that might have distant hills seen through windows or archways. But I had never before seen earth presented as a powerful, mythical force in its own right.

  Verrocchio put his hand to his chin and rubbed back and forth in thought. I waited for him to speak, and my eyes drifted to a pair of angels kneeling to the left of Christ. Their robes were still being finished. But I felt my hand cover my heart as I looked at their faces. One of the angels turned to witness the baptism with such rapture and awe.

  Verrocchio shifted his gaze to the angels. “Ah, you see. I am painting this one.” He pointed to the angel on the right, which was lovely, too. There was a true sweetness to his face, but somehow that angel didn’t possess the palpable look of adoration the one on the left did. “Leonardo is completing the angel to his left,” he said. His usual convivial smile faded to a rueful one. He crossed his arms and went silent as he looked over the work. “There was a time when Leonardo’s and my technique blended perfectly, like mirrors of each other. I did a Tobias, depicting the scene in which the angel Raphael tells him to burn the gall of a fish to cure his father’s blindness. Leonardo painted the fish in Tobias’s grasp and added the little dog said to have accompanied Tobias on his journey. The two figures added so much life to the painting, and echoed the look of the angel and boy I created. Now, though”—his voice lowered to a murmur—“in this painting of St. John and Jesus, it is clear that a hand other than mine painted that angel.”

  “Maestro!” A loud, merry voice pealed through the studio.

  “Ahhhh.” Verrocchio brightened. “There’s our patron,” he said, and winked at me before shouting out, “Your Grace!” He threw open his arms to greet the newcomer. “Welcome!”

  In strode Giuliano de’ Medici, grinning with his confident exuberance and obvious delight in the world that had earned him the title “Prince of Youth.” His waves of midnight-black hair were swept ba
ck from his handsome face, one hand jauntily atop the hilt of his sword to keep it from bumping along his thigh as he walked. Everyone stopped whatever he was doing to bow, one boy dropping a hammer to the floor in a clatter. As they straightened up, they froze again—this time to gape at La Bella Simonetta, who swept in behind her champion in a wake of apricot silk.

  Like a queen receiving courtiers, Simonetta remained serene as apprentices stared and Verrocchio hurriedly wiped his hands on his tunic before kissing hers. But then she spotted me. “Ginevra!” she squealed, and rushed toward me, holding her hands out for me to clasp. Kissing my cheeks, she whispered, “You are certainly well met.” I pulled back and looked at her quizzically. She giggled and squeezed my hands. “Prepare yourself, my dear.”

  “For what?” I whispered, charmed as always by her affectionate and conspiratorial girlishness.

  “A surrrrr-priiiise.” She warbled the word. Raising her perfectly plucked eyebrows mischievously, Simonetta Vespucci put her arm through mine. She turned me to face the threshold, just as Ambassador Bernardo Bembo entered.

  11

  WHILE GIULIANO MOVED WITH AN INFECTIOUS AURA OF JOY and gleeful anticipation of what the world was about to present him, Bernardo Bembo’s stride was jauntier, more of a grand entrance. It wasn’t swagger, exactly. It wasn’t a prowl. And it wasn’t pretense. It seemed honed, built by successful adventures—of a man sent to foreign kingdoms to charm old enemies into friendship, a man from a city-state that defied logic to create itself in a bog as the gateway between Christendom and exotic lands to the east. His bearing spoke of a place that bred men of resolve and improbable vision, men who did not take no for an answer.

  When Bernardo blessed me with that broad smile, that quick sweep of appreciation in his sea-blue eyes, I knew the word I sought to describe him. Audacious. I felt my legs go wobbly again, as if I stood in a boat bobbing on the Arno.

  Simonetta hugged my arm closer to her. “A pleasant surprise, then, I see,” she whispered in my ear. “The ambassador was talking about you and asking questions all the way here.” She raised her voice to a musical lilt. “Look who I have found, Ambassador, my dear friend and cousin, Ginevra de’ Benci Niccolini. I believe you two know each other?”