by Linda Proud
‘Truth is the sister of Lady Grammatica,’ Angelo retorted. ‘If Grammar is abused, so is Truth.’
‘Meaning lies in the heart, not on the tongue!’ the Count said. This was a familiar argument between them, one that had been stalemated for years. It was perverse but, in order to prove that the words of Truth should be naked and unadorned, Pico was often compelled to use the high-flown language of the gifted rhetorician. Every argument ended with Angelo repeating some eloquent thing Pico had just said and laughing heartily at the contradiction. But now, after the sermon, he grudgingly agreed that there was great power in language that is blunt and uncompromising, simple, comprehensible to all levels of society.
Pico took a step backwards. ‘So you agree? You think Savonarola is impressive?’
‘Impressive, yes. But a true man of God? I am not convinced of that.’ He did not say why.
Pico, nonetheless, was now in the ascendancy in their contest. As the champion of eloquence, Angelo did not regain any ground until we received a visit, a month or so later, from Ermolao Barbaro.
Recently appointed by the pope as the new Patriarch of Aquileia – the Venetian equivalent to an archbishop – Barbaro arrived in an entourage. His robes wafted the scent of rosemary and lavender as he entered the sala of the Palazzo de’ Medici. Although he was dressed in ecclesiastical finery and attended by many servants, he was still our Ermolao, whom I had last seen in the catacombs in Rome. A member of the Roman academy, a brother, one of us. Pico and Poliziano stood to one side, impatient with the formalities, as Piero de’ Medici came forward to greet our honourable guest on behalf of his father. He apologised and explained that Lorenzo was away at the sulphur baths to seek relief from gout. Barbaro was disappointed at not meeting il Magnifico for he was desperate for Lorenzo’s help. The Venetian Senate, contesting his appointment, claiming it was theirs for the making and not the pope’s, had excluded him from his native territory. Piero assured him that Lorenzo was anxious to help in whatever way he could.
This was Piero’s first official engagement and the fifteen- year-old was dragging it out, making it pompous. Ermolao grew impatient with the speeches. When he was told that a banquet had been arranged for the evening, he turned his large, quiet eyes on the young Medici and said he would prefer a private dinner with his friends. He nodded towards Pico and Poliziano.
Piero de’ Medici responded as his father would have done, was gracious, changed the plans for the evening and did not insist on attending the small gathering himself. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You would like a symposium, of the kind Plato enjoyed. I will see to its arrangement.’
Apart from Pico and Poliziano, only Ficino and Bernardo Rucellai were invited to the private dinner held in Lorenzo’s own chamber. An occasion only for the invited, I waited in an antechamber for what seemed to be hours, watching food being taken in and empty dishes brought out. It was a time of frustration and reflection. I tried blaming many things for my poverty of station. It was my birth – but was I not a Maffei, albeit a natural one? It was my upbringing – but I had been educated by a man who was both a bishop and a member of the Platonic Academy. My lack of wealth, then – but I was not unique in that. My lack of scholarly brilliance? Aye, getting close. I was capable enough in both Latin and Greek, could copy with as much ease as my left hand afforded, could correct other men’s work, but I had written nothing myself to contribute to knowledge. I fed off other men’s learning. I was a parasite. No wonder I never moved either socially or philosophically: the inner sanctum of the academy was closed to me. Elbows on knees and head in hands, I was pulled down to hell by a sense of failure.
The door to the chamber opened. Ermolao Barbaro himself – the Patriarch of Aquileia – looked out. ‘Tommaso,’ he said, ‘we need you to tell us about beauty.’
Pico and Poliziano had dominated the supper by drawing the others into their argument as to whether Truth is best expressed in plain terms or elevated language. Pico had won Rucellai to his side; Poliziano and Barbaro were in delightful and harmonious agreement with each other. Ficino refused to join either party, saying there was merit in both arguments. I had been brought in – at Ermolao’s own suggestion – to settle the matter.
After the past hour’s miserable reflections, I was in no fit state to speak and could not think of a single philosophical principle, let alone a decisive one. These famous faces stared at me expectantly. Ficino already occupied the arbiter’s chair: I had to come down on one side or the other and, either way, risk annoying a friend. I stared back at them, speechless.
‘Come, Maso,’ said Poliziano. ‘Speak the truth beautifully.’
‘It will be more truthful if you state it plain,’ said Pico.
What truth? I thought desperately.
‘When I met Tommaso in Rome,’ Ermolao said, ‘I was reading Pliny in the Vatican library. That it was a beautifully illuminated edition was beyond my notice. I was interested only in the text. What did you say, Tommaso?’
‘Er, I remember identifying the scribe, and naming the hand he used.’
‘Accurately. But what did you say when I expressed lack of interest in such things?’
‘Oh, yes, I said that, since it has been written so beautifully, it will not die of neglect, as so many books do. All men appreciate beauty, even if they are philistines in respect to learning. They value it, put value on it.’ I was on my horse at last. ‘Men may be attracted to truth through beauty.’
‘Are you saying that we only read the gospels because we have some beautiful editions of them?’ Pico asked.
‘No, of course not, but I do not need to tell you about the different degrees of beauty. When Christ speaks, it is beautiful. The parables are beautiful, the ideas.’ Now I was galloping. ‘When a poet goes into the innermost part of himself, as he must, drawn inwards by the voice of inspiration, what he returns with is beautiful: witness Angelo’s work. And yours, Count, and yours, Father Marsilio. The truer you are to that innermost voice, the more beautiful your words. Admit it, all of you, your best words are not your own.’
All heads around the table nodded in agreement.
‘And so it follows that the Muse, or the god, or whatever divine force it is you listen to, is of itself beautiful. Therefore, it is not a case that truth must be expressed beautifully, more that it cannot be expressed in any other way.’ Now I was careering. ‘I’ll go further: if plain, blunt speech is not beautiful then it is not truthful.’
They all sat up like hares. What had I said? Pico jabbed a finger at me. ‘You are going too far. Would you say that Savonarola is untruthful?’
I refused to answer until, after some frantic reflection, I said, ‘We should not mistake beauty for adornment. Those scripts that I consider to be most beautiful tend to be simple. There are three principles of beauty,’ I declared confidently. ‘Simplicity – clarity – legibility. That is what I was taught as a scribe, but these principles would, I think, apply to anything. Beauty is not adornment, and simplicity is not plainness. Beauty lies in proportion.’
‘Precisely what Aristotle said!’ Ermolao brought his hand down hard on the table. ‘The argument is won, I believe.’
‘Who by?’
‘All of us. In some measure, each of us has been speaking the truth. What we need is an academy of language such as your academy of Plato. Perhaps your friar would deign to join it. For what is required is neither empty adornment nor truth used as a sledge hammer. We need appropriate language for the task each of us is engaged in, clearing the world of sin, error and ignorance.’ He also proposed that he, Pico and Poliziano begin a new translation of Aristotle. ‘As fine as Ficino’s is of Plato. When the peripatetic is heard in his purity, the Platonists will not object.’
Ficino nodded in agreement.
Pico quickened. ‘It would harmonise the old quarrel and bring peace to the universities.’
Angelo sighed. ‘I wis
h Lorenzo were here.’
It seemed to me a tremendous work to be made by this trinity of great scholars, but Evil is no abstract concept, and it called on Death to thwart the initiative. Pico – Poliziano – Barbaro: all were to die when the work had only just begun.
38
THE PAINTED SMILE
1490
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A HIGH POINT OF HIS CAREER WHEN Filippino Lippi was commissioned to decorate the chapel of Filippo Strozzi in the church of Santa Maria Novella. Straightway, however, he went to Rome, saying that he could not afford to live on the miserable fee the Strozzi had given him and needed to work simultaneously elsewhere. He had a wife and infant son to support. The truth was, of course, that he could not bear to work so close to Domenico Ghirlandaio, who at that time was completing his fresco cycle in the chancel behind the high altar in the same church. They would, in effect, have been working on either side of the same wall.
It was not just that Ghirlandaio had become rich by his art, was courted by the wealthiest patrons and held in such high esteem, nor that he was always sumptuously dressed and seemed never to get his hands dirty; no, it was because Domenico Ghirlandaio could paint a woman smiling. Leonardo could do the same. I could not see the difficulty, but apparently there was one, and Filippino rated painters and sculptors according to their ability to capture a smile. Strangely, capturing the smile seemed to be easier for sculptors than painters; plenty of our funerary monuments had cheerful angels, while Desiderio da Settignano and the Rossellini brothers had done Madonnas and Infants in marble that could melt your heart. As for Mino da Fiesole – there were two of his angels bearing candles on the altar of the cathedral of my native city. If they did not smile, somehow Mino had caught in stone the look of inner contentment.
The sculptors had gone, all passing away in recent years, taking with them, it was feared, all knowledge of sculpture. Only one man remained alive who had studied with Donatello: Bertoldo. Now in his seventies and seriously ill, he had been ordered by Lorenzo to put off death for a few years yet and return to work. Bertoldo had done as bidden and revived himself as Lorenzo wished to revive the art of sculpture. Many said it was a miracle, a resurrection, but Ficino said that purpose may often keep a man alive better than any medicine. Bertoldo moved into the Palazzo de’ Medici and began to teach young men whom Lorenzo was selecting from various painters’ workshops.
‘If they are going to revive sculpture,’ Filippino Lippi told me, ‘it is even more imperative that painters learn to render the smile.’
I looked on him affectionately, considering him to be as all dedicated artists seem to be: half mad.
‘If no one on our walls smiles, what a lifeless, wooden age this will seem to men of the future. They will ignore our paintings and seek out our sculptures. We cannot let that happen. Some painters say that the smile is not proper to the subject, that holy scenes should be grave and dignified, but they only say that because they can’t do it. Take Sandro Botticelli – he says the smile is inappropriate – but you look at some of his pictures and you will find at least one figure grimacing as if constipated. The trick is, I told him, not to show the teeth. No, it should be gentle, like this…’ and Filippino, whose own teeth were protuberant, turned and smiled at me with his lips closed and his eyes downcast as if he were a demure and contented maiden. My sudden bellow of laughter disturbed a mass being held in a side chapel. A priest came to tell us off and, like two boys, we stood with our heads down and our hands clasped before us and promised it would not happen again.
I never knew when Filippino was being serious or playing some long, drawn-out and well-planned trick. But in the matter of the smile, I believed him to be serious, for I had seen many of the studies he had made, none of which pleased him and all of which he threw away. Perhaps his fascination with this human attribute had something to do with a painting by his father, Fra Filippo Lippi, of the Madonna and Child which is most lovely. A little angel in the foreground looks over his shoulder at us and smiles. It is a perfect portrait of Filippino at the tender age of three. It is a perfect portrait of any child born to parents who love him. Now, thirty years on, Filippino was struggling to draw smiles, his brow puckered in a frown.
39
A LACK OF SPACE
1490
DURING ONE OF HIS BRIEF VISITS TO FLORENCE, WHEN Filippino was putting his designs on the chapel walls, he invited me to watch. His apprentices had put up pricked cartoons in his absence and had pounced them with charcoal. Now the cartoons were taken down and, with a fluid wrist and a brush loaded with a weak sepia tint, Filippino joined up the dots. He wore his cap low on his brow to keep his hair out of his eyes. Unlike Ghirlandaio, he did not much care how he looked, at least not while he was at work.
‘I cannot bear the usual piling up of scenes, one atop another.’ He spoke very loudly, but I doubted that the large force of artists concentrating on their work in the chancel could have heard as he intended them to. His brush flew over the wall, revealing crowds of frenzied figures in scenes from the lives of Saints Philip and John, drawn from apocryphal sources. Setting these scenes within the great architecture and triumphal arches of Rome, Filippino was keen to give them a true historical context.
‘Not for me sacred events happening in the streets and squares of Florence,’ he thundered like Savonarola, his voice bouncing off the vaulting. ‘The disciples lived and breathed in the first century after Christ, when Rome was ruled by Nero, and that is what we should show.’ No one came from the next chapel to see what he was talking about.
Whilst in Rome he had been tireless in making sketches of monuments of antiquity, but what had excited him most was the discovery of the Golden House of Nero. Built over by successive emperors, the Domus Aurea had become subterranean and forgotten until a young man, walking in the Aventine hills, had fallen into a hole and found himself in a decorated room. Filippino had had himself lowered down on a rope so that he could see the walls for himself.
He came down from the scaffolding, wiped his hands on his jacket and pushed his cap back. He handed me one of his notebooks. ‘This is authentic,’ he said. ‘This is the kind of thing that Peter and Paul would have seen with their own eyes.’ I looked through the pages filled with designs of urns and lamps, winged harpies, griffins, heads sprouting leaves, masks, satyrs, lyres and candelabra, sphinxes and sirens, trophies and herms. It was a teeming world of fantasy.
‘These things have no meaning,’ I complained.
His snorted in annoyance. ‘But it is authentic background. This is ancient Rome the way it appeared to ancient Romans. My pictures will show the real place where St Philip preached and died. Here, look – costumes.’ He turned to a page brimming with figures in ancient dress.
‘How can you know what they wore?’
‘From statues and small figurines. That part is easy. But in the Domus Aurea what we are seeing for the first time are the colours…’ It was difficult not to get caught up in his enthusiasm, and it was a familiar argument. Poliziano was making it all the time: text needs context. Things must be seen in the light of their own time. Only then may they be properly understood. And so I approved of Filippino’s scheme, even if it did mean that space, that precious element that Florentine painters had gone to such lengths to depict, was now to be filled with ornament.
As well as grotesques, his notebook was full of portraits of a little boy. The father’s love shone on the page. According to Filippino, little Tommaso (no, he was not named after me, but after Masaccio and Masolino) was showing precocious ability with a paintbrush at the age of eighteen months. ‘He will grow up to make Leonardo da Vinci weep in his old age,’ said Filippino, with that determination which some men have in the place of true faith.
40
A PRIVATE VIEW OF THE FRESCOES
1490
FRESCO PAINTERS COVER AN AREA IN PLASTER THAT THEY expect to finish in a day’s work, and so the day ends when the w
ork is done. Because of this, and since they often work at night when the plaster does not dry so quickly, one could never predict when the chancel would be quiet, but one Sunday at dawn, an hour before the first mass, I went with Filippino to Santa Maria Novella and found no one there, either in church or chancel.
‘At last…’ he said, and went behind the high altar. The decoration of the chancel had been commissioned by Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni, who was not at all stingy with his fees (Domenico Ghirlandaio received four times the amount Filippino had been given). The chancel was shrouded by murky hangings that were lashed up at night like a tent, but Filippino found a way through and, by the weak light from the windows, we stood and gazed about us. Out of respect for my friend’s feelings, I did not shout out the amazement I felt but stood looking critically as Filippino himself did. Very little remained to be completed: the unveiling was just a month or so away. Filippino took the left wall, mounting the ladders and walking along the scaffolding in front of scenes of the Life of the Virgin. I went to the right wall to see the scenes of the Life of John the Baptist. Filippino was never one to hold back his opinion and considered it his duty to let everyone know what he thought of their work, even if they were not present. He owed it, he said, to the goddess of truth and art.
‘Those portraits,’ he said, pointing across to the first scene on my wall, ‘are of mere bystanders, done so vividly that they draw all attention.’
On the first stage of scaffolding, I gazed upon the face of Poliziano, who had been depicted in a small group of scholars which also included Ficino, Landino and Domenico Chalcondylas. ‘Pippo, admit it,’ I said, ‘you are outdone.’