by Linda Proud
‘Snow, Angelo,’ I said, walking into his chamber. I expected to find him at his desk, oblivious to the conditions of the day, but he was at the window, smiling.
‘You sent for me.’
‘What? Did I? Oh, yes. Listen. I have more notes for Botticelli. He is being very slow with my painting.’
‘It is highly complex and, I fear, threatening his sanity.’
‘Well, please go and encourage him.’
‘Have you seen the streets? They’re impassable.’
‘Nonsense. Didn’t I see you dancing in the piazza yesterday?’
‘Me? No, of course not. A man my age…’
‘Dancing like a boy. I think you will enjoy the walk. I’d come with you, only…’
‘You don’t want to ruin your shoes.’
‘… I’m busy.’
I went out to make the long and hazardous journey to Ognissanti. The piazza San Marco was blanketed, the church and monastery capped by snow. Although my footprints down the Via Larga were virgin, I was not the only one out. A servant from the Palazzo de’ Medici was riding up the street towards the sculpture garden.
‘Not the best day for riding out to find a sculptor,’ he said in greeting, all the colours of his apparel breathtaking in the lucid, bright light.
‘Nor a painter,’ said I. We laughed and passed on. At the palazzo I looked into the courtyard and saw Piero de’ Medici and his brothers playing with the snow, running about pelting each other, just boys. Cardinal Giovanni was with them, for after the election of Rodrigo Borgia to the papacy he had left Rome and had been travelling throughout Italy ever since. Now he waddled breathlessly round the Medici garden, receiving more snowballs than he succeeded in throwing, his pink face full of effort and misery.
By the time I returned from Ognissanti, where I had found Botticelli still in bed, saying it was too cold to get up, Angelo had arrived at the palazzo himself and was standing in the courtyard, blowing on his hands while staring into the garden at a new statue being built by Michelangelo, a statue of snow with a great round body and a ball for a head which Michelangelo was shaping into the form of a man. The Medici were helping, rolling balls of snow round the garden, gathering larger and larger quantities of material for the sculptor. Laughter rang within the confines of the palazzo walls, even Michelangelo’s. That was the only commission Michelangelo ever received from Piero de’ Medici: at least it made him laugh.
I told Angelo that his painting was still far from complete.
‘If it does not come soon,’ he complained, ‘Piero will be beyond understanding its message.’
I do not know what happened to The Calumny of Apelles. Certainly it was never completed before the great surge of events that washed the Medici out of Florence and Poliziano to his grave. It must still be with Botticelli.
79
CONVERSION
1494
THE POET, GIROLAMO BENIVIENI, HAD BEEN A CLOSE FRIEND of Giuliano de’ Medici. Even now, fifteen years since Giuliano’s assassination, Benivieni still did not smile. In any company he sat staring at everyone around him as if we were all lost in a delusion of life whilst he alone knew the truth: death awaits us all. As Pico became increasingly sombre himself, Benivieni drew closer to him and they often worked together on Benivieni’s philosophical poetry. He was also fond of me, given that he saw etched in my features a reflection of his own. I had battled with my own grief, had learnt to live again and tried to find purpose, but Benivieni had abandoned the attempt. ‘Tommaso,’ he said to me gravely, ‘you would enjoy the Academy of San Marco.’
‘Enjoy it, Girolamo? I have been once. It is the accademia sicofante. All those high-born men pretending they have found religion.’
‘Enjoy was a poor choice of word. You would benefit from it, as I do. You know, when we have found what we wanted in life, and then been stripped of it, then we are free. No longer do we chase after fool’s gold.’
‘Is human love fool’s gold?’
‘No, indeed, but it is mortal. Do you not feel as I do, afraid to commit your heart again?’
I cleared my throat but could not reply.
‘Only then are you free from the traps and snares that catch men and distract them from loving that which is the source of love itself. Tommaso, we spend our lives ignoring the one who gave us life. But you and I have been blessed with the death of human love. We can put these things behind us and, pilgrims of the heart, begin the journey to God. We are free.’
He told me that the accademia was only sicofante when Piero was in attendance. ‘The regular, weekly meetings are for sincere and steady men.’
‘Is it a lay fraternity?’
‘Of course. And its members have the privilege of listening to the wisdom of Fra Girolamo and speaking to him privately on any matter. We also have the freedom of the monastery – and we may borrow books from the library.’
‘We already have that freedom.’
‘It may end soon. There is talk of only holy books being available on loan.’
I started from my chair. ‘Is that true?’
‘Fra Domenico is persuading Savonarola that, for the welfare of the Florentines, access to the works of the poets should be restricted.’
I was already beginning to worry about the Medici collection in the library. Now Benivieni was confirming my fears. In a sudden change of mind, I accepted the invitation and agreed to go with him to the next meeting.
In the garden of the main cloister, Fra Girolamo welcomed me with an engaging humility and introduced me to the members of his academy, who were not the men I had met on the previous occasion. This was, indeed, the academy of the despairing and I recognised my own despair in every face amongst these widowers and childless men. But they had something else in common apart from sorrow: a lack of bitterness. They blamed no one for their ills, only sought a way to endure them well. The discussion ranged from the art of good government to the role of history. Astrology, theology, art – there was not a subject that Savonarola was not familiar with. But his view of literature remained unsettling. It was his opinion that the only literature fit to be read was the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers.
‘Of course one may read the poets, but never look to them for knowledge of the Divine. And one has to be very wary of their beauty of language and expression – it’s just a sticky trap for flies. I often hear it said in these streets, especially by the Platonists, that truth is beauty. But what is beauty? Is it a fair face and a fair form? An harmonious arrangement of colour? Truth is beautiful, that I will grant, but is beauty truth? Is a whiskery old woman with a pure heart and generous nature beautiful or not? And a handsome youth with beguiling eyes for whom nothing is of interest but himself. Is he true because he is beautiful? Of course not. I have heard it said by certain learned men that the language of scripture is coarse and uses a debased grammar. Does that make it untrue? No. For something to be truly beautiful, it must be holy. The function of art is to remind people of God. But art today has separated itself from this sacred function, and it celebrates Man instead, Man in all his finery, Man in all his vanity. God did not give us talent in art to paint portraits of rich and powerful men!’
To Savonarola, modern painters had irredeemably strayed from the path. ‘Leonardo, Filippino Lippi, Ghirlandaio – these men believe their talents are their own and they strive, they burst veins, to outdo each other and gain the attention of patrons.’ He pointed to a large lunette in the cloister, the most elaborate painting of the crucifixion I had seen, done in gentle but true perspective. Savonarola raised his hand to it. ‘Fra Angelico, for whom painting was prayer in colour. This is the function of art, to remind us of God.’
The scene was complex: Christ crucified, flanked by the two thieves and with about twenty figures at the foot of the three crosses. The movement, gestures and emotions were very affecting. Among the saints were Cosmas an
d Damian, the patrons of the Medici.
‘And yet even this,’ said Savonarola, ‘is a frivolity. What would St Dominic say if he saw the walls of this monastery so colourfully decorated with paintings paid for by a rich man with a bad conscience?’
Frivolity? I was not the only one to gasp at this.
‘The Pope told Cosimo de’ Medici that, to save his soul, he had to spend ten thousand florins on restoring San Marco. He spent much more than that. The Pope sent a bull granting Cosimo indulgence for his sins. Did it help? No. I tell you, Cosimo is burning in hell. What pope has the power to affect God’s judgement?’ He frowned at the Fra Angelico. ‘Only in the Eastern Church do they know how to use art in the service of God.’
Savonarola spoke to a friar who went away and returned bearing an icon wrapped in velvet. This he uncovered, slowly and reverentially. As the wrappers came off, my expectation was very high and I thought I was about to see God in paint, but the icon, which showed the Virgin and Child, was so dark and ugly that I turned away, repulsed.
‘Look again, Tommaso Maffei,’ said Fra Girolamo.
‘Oh, that is horrible!’ I protested. ‘It is dirty, it is chipped, and the figures – well, the man who did this simply had no talent at all.’ The eyes of the Virgin were huge, the nose slender, the mouth a little rosebud. Flesh had been painted brown and contoured with darker brown lines. The thing was a travesty of reality.
‘Look again, Tommaso Maffei,’ said Fra Girolamo. ‘Let the image enter your heart and mind, let it rest there. To do so is to welcome in the Lord and his Mother. Do not allow aesthetic judgement to be a barrier between you and God. Let it go. Become one with Him.’
As I gazed upon the image, Savonarola explained that the painter had not aimed at the life-like and failed. He had aimed at the heaven-like. ‘There is no perspective in heaven. No time, no space. To paint divine scenes you must look through the eyes of God, not man. You must look into hearts and not linger on pretty forms.’
Surely this was Plato’s own view? In the icon I saw my own vanity, in considering to be holy that which I perceived through the senses. I looked and what I saw was not form but intention. Suddenly the small painting seemed to be a window on heaven.
‘Do you understand?’ Fra Girolamo asked gently.
‘Yes, I believe I do.’
‘Only the holy is beautiful. This icon is beautiful, truly beautiful. What you call beauty is mere superficial attractiveness, a seduction of sight.’
I quickened at these words, at the truth and simplicity of them. How often had I read, how often had I copied Plato’s Symposium? I knew the theory of beauty only in my head. It took a black-cowled friar to get my heart to begin to understand.
Savonarola always preferred the open air no matter how cold, but a drizzle of rain sent us into the shelter of the cloisters, and when it became a heavy downpour, we retreated to the library. Savonarola led the way to the dormitory floor of the monastery. At the top of the stair was the fresco of the Annunciation by Fra Angelico, the angelic brother. Frivolity? It was a painting to bring you to your knees. To be in its presence was to be in the very presence of the Virgin Mary and the angel Gabriel. The scene had been set in a loggia that opened on to a garden. Coming up the stairs you could be walking into a Medici villa, or the Badia of Fiesole. This was a contemporary setting, but the scene it contained was eternal, timeless, now. How could Savonarola denounce this?
‘He is testing us,’ Girolamo Benivieni said in my ear, ‘as he is testing himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He speaks, he always speaks, the truth, but he finds it as hard as the rest of us to follow it in all its purity. Yes, the work of Fra Angelico is frivolous, but you try taking this off the walls in Savonarola’s presence. He loves it as we do.’
‘And the books, the poets?’
Benivieni nodded. ‘The same. The books are safe in his care, Tommaso.’
I looked askance at him, then realised that this man of God had tricked me into coming. But I felt grateful for it. It takes a trick to catch a trickster.
The cells of the friars were being aired and had their doors open. As Savonarola led the way to the library, several of us strayed, looking into each little cell and its single angelic fresco. One that I visited had the Presentation in the Temple. With the background the same colour as the plaster of the cell, it made the figures seem to hang in the air. The grace of Mary, the purity of Joseph, the devotion of the attendant saints, all focussed the attention on the Christ Child. I gazed in awe, rejecting Savonarola’s criticism of Italian art. Suddenly it was as if I saw what the painter had seen, and the tears that Fra Angelico wept as he worked began to prick my own eyes, only mine were tears of remorse. I tried to hold them back but could not. Silently they began to well up, spill over and flow down my cheeks. I felt as if I were dissolving in grief. To have lived so long in such error! Overcome by the weight of my sin, my body crumpled to the floor. Still the tears poured. In the rush of water, as in a flood, old possessions floated past – ambitions, attachments, loves. I saw my grandfather raising his arms to the sky like a priest of ancient Etruria; I saw my brother Antonio flying his falcon in the Volterrana, and, then again, riding bare-back and bare-skinned; I saw my city of Volterra raped by the armies of Florence; I saw the face of Giuliano de’ Medici, fresh back from a hunt; I saw a rose, flung from a window, its petals floating on the air; I saw a painting of Venus at dawn with her attendant Graces and Mercury; I saw Giuliano face down in a pool of blood; I saw Lorenzo de’ Medici crying. All these things brought forth more welling tears. The warm, salty waters rushed over me and through me, but still I kept my eyes averted from that one image that could kill me. But she came. First as a child, a little girl in a procession, and then as a woman, the wife in my bed. Elena. I cried out then, a great cry of pain that bounded echoing through the monastery.
Fra Girolamo was kneeling beside me, touching my face.
I writhed in the anguish of loss, wondering if this happened to everyone, if this was why his supporters were called the weepers. But this was not weeping – this was the death of the immortal soul. He said prayers over me and, in time, the heaving grief subsided, leaving me spent. He and I were alone – the rest had gone to the library. I lay there staring at the simple, single vault of the ceiling. I needed to confess, everything and at once.
‘I will hear your confession,’ he said, and, helping me to my feet, guided me to his own cell. A double cell with a desk in the first part and a bed in the other, it was a dark place, undecorated, and smelt like a stable. There I told him everything as best I could, including the worst part, that as predicted in my boyhood by a gipsy of Constantinople, I bore the curse of death, affecting all my loved ones but never me.
Savonarola told me not to persecute myself with such thoughts, that all men have their own fate, that if I am an instrument of divine will, then I should rejoice. He instructed me to pray for the souls of my loved ones, to surrender them to God, to beg God for forgiveness of my errors.
‘We have in these corridors two main cells,’ he said. ‘This one of mine and, at the other end, the one once used by Cosimo de’ Medici. I want you to spend time alone in both, and to choose. Today, this day, is your hour of choice. By the time we have finished our meeting in the library, you will have got off your fence, Tommaso.’
How did he know about my fence? I followed him along the corridor, turned left and went towards the library. Pausing at its entrance, he directed me to the double cell at the far end. Here it was as lucid as Savonarola’s had been dim. I knelt to pray before a fresco of the Adoration of the Magi, but my gaze went to the image of wise men from the East, painted with great delicacy. I felt as if I followed in their train of wisdom, that stretched back into furthest antiquity. I tried to pray but found it difficult, so I sat and practised the form of contemplation which Pico had taught me, and I found light and sweetness.
I then went back Savonarola’s cell, to the bare, vaulted room containing a desk and a crucifix. The air was soft, velvety, the odour earthy. Sunlight – air – faith. So simple. Pure. Here there was a power working greater than my own. I found myself kneeling before the crucifix, my mind focussed on prayer at last. Certainty. That was the way of Savonarola. The faith needs no philosophy; it is enough in itself. Innocence is the source of strength. I could leave Tommaso de’ Maffei, shed him with his clothes, take on the habit and have no more of him. It was that easy. The tears came again, but this time they were the tears of relief.
Turin, August 22nd, 1506
Erasmus is on my heels and asking for my latest chapter. I plied him with drink, telling him he needs solace after the gruelling examination for his degree, but he resisted the wine I was about to pour him.
‘Then you will have to be sober when I tell you what I have to say, because I do not wish you to read the truth about me before you have heard it from my own lips.’
‘What truth?’
‘Desiderio, my Augustinian friend, I am not as you have known me these few years, a travelling, rootless teacher. In 1493 I took the vows and entered the Order of the Preaching Friars. I am a Dominican.’
Erasmus slapped both his ears as if to clear them. ‘What?’
‘I am a Dominican friar.’
I am home. I am in Italy. If I must meet my fate – and what is the fate of a runaway friar? – then I will meet it honestly. ‘I’m sure I’m not the only one. There must be many of us who fled the monastery of San Marco when it was sacked.’
‘Sacked?’
‘I should have acted more bravely, I realise that now, and gone to Pope Alexander. He would have absolved me from my vows, perhaps even without payment, but instead I fled the country. I have been trying to divorce myself from the past; now I am walking into its jaws. Pope Julius is not as amenable to coin as Alexander was.’