Part 15

Almost everywhere I travel I am troubled by poverty: I talk with the workers and some of them say they are hungry all of the time: I talk with them about their tools, and try to improve them. Shovels. Spades. Rakes. Forks. I have suggested a more efficient roasting spit—I have made detailed drawings. I have improved a wood- planer and a file-maker. I have designed a textile machine, a better barrow, a good water-lamp.

For most field laborers, theirs is an ox-life.

Horse, mule, donkey, ox, man...they are inextricable.

Landlord and tenant, the struggle goes on and on: they are as much at loggerheads as pope and duke. Serfs, beggars, greed, knights, fools—pathos.

At Vaprio, I sometimes ate with a farmer and his wife, in their tiny stone farmhouse. They did not complain, yet they slept on mats, ate meat now and then, worked from dawn to sundown, shivered through the winters, saved flo- rins in a clay pot. Their hands at mealtime were the hands of old people and yet they were not old.

In the Vaprio region the people have to pay exorbitant milling fees, pay to use a common oven or wine press. Fishing rights have been stolen. For a few gentlemen there may be no wood for winter; for many others there may be no wood at all. Some want a civil war to put them on their feet.

At Vaprio, I recall a child of nine or ten: I saw her often on my visits there: she reminded me of that festa, in May, in Florence, when I fell in love with my own Beatrice, when I was eleven or twelve years old. My Beatrice was beautiful, her features delicately formed, her behavior gentle and agreeable, full of candid loveliness... I thought of her as my angel.

In those days, in Firenze, I often passed Dante’s home: his wooden door had a bronze knocker, a simple braided ring. I used to imagine knocking and saying:

“Is Dante Alighieri at home?”

I expected a housekeeper to reply:

“He’s been dead a hundred and fifty years, you fool!”

I would have dashed off, laughing.

Cloux

I suppose I must admit it: I am a parasite of royalty.

During forty years I have had nine royal patrons.

Each one has hindered me; each one has helped.

I could not have survived in my vineyard at San Vittore: I need artists, sculptors, apprentices, courtiers, women, princes, jousting, masques, jewelry, perfume... I need great art. I need antique art. Libraries.

Last night, at Amboise, in the garden, at the pergola, I explained some of my observations of the moon. Courtiers crowded around. A duke was there. A princess. There was an earnest exchange as I passed around lunar drawings, in the lamplight and torchlight.

“The details are as accurate as I could draw them...notice the craters, pits, the rills...you see, if you keep the moon under careful observation over a period of time, you’ll become aware of fixed landmarks. I made those drawings from the Coliseum...in Rome...”

Francesco has copied this. It was written in Florence, in 1508. I thought it rather interesting, so I have included it here:

For several days I have forgotten to hang my notebooks on my belt. I must see to it that I remember. Tomorrow I must write down exactly what I observed when I dissected the pigeon I found dead in front of the church.

Se sarai solo, sarai tutto tuo...

NOTE: when you sever the man’s legs tomorrow afternoon, lay them on the floor beside him: measure length, diameter, muscle curvatures. Dissect each foot, and record differences. Since the man was very fat, try to discover ways of overcoming this problem.

Remember to borrow the lancet from Tomas.

I warned my new assistant: Cosimo, squeal on me and I will see to it that you never become a member of the guild.

He has threatened to write the Pope (or one of the Cardinals), and expose me. He could. He knows how to write. Now I pay him more soldi than any of the others. Blackmailer!

Ah, you Florentines, look, look! I render a skull— yours! You tremble. You are afraid of learning! For centuries you have been afraid. Afraid of yourselves, of others, of God. You are trapped in stupidity and lassitude.

Blood—how it scares you: You whimper at the sight of blood. I remove a man’s guts. You are horrified. But you will batter a man to shreds on the battlefield, and show your gory sword. You will dump boiling oil on him...you will blast him with gunpowder...but you won’t dissect him...you won’t learn how we are made!

Sometimes kids overran my studio; maybe because I never could yell at them. They would sneak in from the street; they had to poke, to see, to talk, to giggle. One afternoon (I remember it was such a fine day, a day to chuck everything and walk out of town), five or six boys and girls came in and before I could figure out what they were up to, they rushed out with two of my models. Two or three ran toward the Arno; others ran off into the countryside. I couldn’t follow both. Whooping and hollering, the kids flew their model over the river. I watched it soar away, dip, glide, plunge into the water.

When I found the other kids, in the country, they had my Red Hawk: they had it launched on a cord, and kite- like, it was climbing, spiraling, staying aloft.

Kids—I miss their laughter, their enthusiasm!

There was a time when I had dirty waifs sleeping on the studio floor. We took in two or three; then others came. Their parents had died in the plague at Santa Maria; I guess it was at Santa Maria. Those were hungry weeks for all of us; yet we somehow managed, managed to feed them, get clothes for them, find homes for them—and kept on working.

Cloux

Copied from my 1504 Florentine notebook:

As soon as we met in the Town Hall there was a big wrangle. Ten or twelve of us, bearded patriarchs and upstarts, were at odds. We must decide where Michelangelo’s David was to be placed. We must situate it where it had shade part of the day, where it was protected from the weather; we must have it mounted on travertine; we must move it carefully; we must see to it...

It was lucky for us that Michelangelo was not around. He would have exploded—and told us off.

We walked around Florence for several hours, fighting the heat (and each other); then, we reached our one and only mutual agreement—to go somewhere and eat.

Later, I went with Francesco to Michelangelo’s studio, and we sat there, the two of us, and talked about his David, sitting on a bench facing his work. We agreed that it equaled any classical masterpiece. It was a little difficult to accept such beauty coming from such a troublemaker.

It required four days for men to move it, by windlass and rollers, to a site alongside the Town Hall: how carefully we worked, the statue suspended in a sling. Sometimes there were thirty of us at the job. A downpour drenched us. As we moved forward over slippery cobbles I thought the figure would topple. Cargadores bellowed. Michelangelo was on hand and beat one of the cargadores with his fists, screaming at the top of his voice.

When we had David in place we arranged a party. All the Florentine artists. Michelangelo was absent.

A while ago Niccolò Machiavelli wrote me from his Tuscan farm, where he is still exiled from Florence. His disturbing thoughts linger:

“Mornings, weather permitting, I hunt or snare thrushes, reading Dante or Ovid to make the hunts more agreeable. After lunch, I visit an inn and throw dice with the yokels, to taste my malign destiny in their brutish company.

“When evening arrives I go to my library, after I have shed my muddy, everyday clothes. Now I am dressed as if about to appear at court, as an envoy from Florence. Elegantly attired I enjoy the presence of great men of the past. They receive me cordially. I talk with them, speaking confidently; they are at ease. For a few hours I lose myself: I am not afraid of poverty and death.”

Familiar...the thoughts of the exile.

Yesterday, I wrote Niccolò and invited him to Cloux.

“We will be a pair of exiles. Stay with me a month or two. Amboise won’t bore you. There’s a superb library. The King has welcomed you. There will be no expense on your part. I will see to that.”

How he helped in Florence: I remember that I owe my Anghiari commission to him. And that night Cesare strangled my friend...it was Niccolò who provided the horse.

A library.

A library can erase problems.

A library is a kind of stained glass.

Francesco and I enjoy the Cloux library. Handsome room. A fine Mantegna—in an old style frame—hangs on the far wall. Its mythological scene is pleasantly antique. The shelves hold parchments, vellums, velvet-bound books, illuminated manuscripts, scores. Francesco has turned up a score I wrote for the Medici, one I used to play.

There is a white marble table with alabaster legs where I spread out the manuscripts and books.

The librarian, keys at his waspish gut, is a defrocked Jesuit, ashen-headed, ashen-faced; he admits that he has never lifted down half of the books.

A lovely prie dieu holds a Latin volume, its pages ornamented with pastel watercolor and gold leaf. The carpet is a mouse-chewed Turkish weave, red on red on red, with colorless, limp fringes.

The unchained books are in Spanish, Latin, French, Greek, Dutch, and Hungarian—collected by King Francis’ father. He loved this room. He died there.

Sitting under the green pergola at Amboise, King Francis and I sipped apéritifs, the afternoon warm, a lazy hunting dog at his feet.

“I don’t understand how your army crossed the Alps in six or seven days.”

“Five days,” he corrected me.

“By the Col d’Argentière?

“Yes...do you know that Pass?”

“I have camped there. I have seen some of it when I was collecting fossils. But for an army to get through, it seems impossible. You had cannons, horses, mules...”

“We were determined to surprise the Milanese.”

We watched dragonflies circle above lily pads in a small rock-rimmed fountain, their orange wings on fire in the afternoon light. Near the fountain men were planting young columnar cypress. Other gardeners were spading paths because the King was re-landscaping. Someone, pushing a barrow, with an enormous red wheel, asked the King if he could plant the roses in the circular beds already prepared.

“We had good weather,” Francis said.

“Think of it...it took me almost a month to reach here.”

“But you were in no hurry, Mon Père.”

“Snow...mud...ice...”

“I realize.”

“Did you think of Hannibal?”

“I did.”

“What Pass did he use to invade Italy?”

“Some say the Mount Genevre.”

“He was a great tactical genius.”

“Our army was well led...but there were times when I wished we had some of Hannibal’s elephants...but fog was our worst problem...morning fog, thick as an elephant’s hide...maybe that fog helped us...our scouts encountered shepherds in the fog...stopped them from informing others...”

Most men fail to come to grips with nature’s intricacies. When they find a fossil they are satisfied with a cursory look. As for flowers, insects, animals, birds, they turn away from them if they serve no practical purpose. And because men do not care to probe, they resent or fear my studies. I have been made to feel this through the years.

They accuse me of wizardry...alchemy...vile practices.

My studio door is banged open.

“Help me, Maestro...oh, God, help me!”

And I try... I draw out pus... I patch a hole in a rogue’s leg... I sew up flesh...but the same man, when he is well, whispers lies about me :

“He steals bodies from the morgue! He steals dead men’s legs...he slices men’s skulls in half!”

The body’s secrets, the mind’s secrets...we must unlock them!

In his Amboise armory, facing the Loire, Francis showed me his trophies and gear: his new armor from Cadiz, engraved with floral patterns; his father’s armor inlaid with gold and silver (from Milan); a plumed helmet with the regal salamander in brass and copper inlay; a circular shield inscribed AFTER DEFEAT VICTORY.

We spent a morning among spears, pikes, swords, scabbards, helmets, bows and arrows, arquebuses...standards...saddlery. The King admired a Toledo sword and a pair of antique Hungarian spurs. I was taken by an engraved dagger from Greece—Homeric lines along its shaft.

Leaning on a pike staff, Francis spoke excitedly about his conquest of Milan:

“...How we fought! Was it for twenty-eight hours or longer? I thought our cavalry would mow down the Swiss...the Swiss kept rushing toward us...it was our artillery that destroyed them...I fought on my great Conde, the chestnut you admired...he was wounded, badly wounded...I had to leave him...I had my visor smashed...my shoulder was sliced open...it was like your Anghiari... horses...men...smoke and dust...at times I couldn’t see...everybody yelling...drums beating...the Venetian troops saved us...

“By God, it was terrible...sometimes I felt alone...sometimes I thought my own men would kill me.”

“Is it true that 15,000 men died?”

“Yes...yes...15,000...12,000...who can count the dead? Some wounded crawl away to die...peasants began pilfering, killing...maiming...our wounded filled the Maggiore Hospital...you must have heard...the halls and loggias were filled...

“Milan was poorly defended,” I said.

“The walled area of the city? Few tried to stop our entry. News of defeat had spread throughout Milan...little resistance...futile...”

I returned to my studio thoroughly disheartened: it is this repetition: city against city: pope against duke: the stupidity seems endless: what shields protect us against the fools of the world!

Yesterday, I enjoyed the King’s dinner—another hundred or more guests: Cardinal Mercier, De Brosse, Ambassador to Holland, military, priests, courtiers, beautiful women. I sat opposite Francis and enjoyed his scarlet- gold suit, sewn with diamond chips. I believe he was wearing five or six rings; one of them is rather like the stone I gave Mona long ago. Francis personifies youth, hedonism, and royalty. Watching him, listening to him, I forget the tedious round of courses.

Princesse de Lamballe, sitting beside me, a lovely woman in her forties, dressed in blue and nakedness, praised the banquet:

“Francis has such wonderful chefs...the food is fresher here than in Paris...I’m so glad to get away.”

“Tomorrow,” the King said, leaning toward me, “all of us are leaving Amboise...we’re going to Chambord.” He waved his hand, and smiled. “All of us!”

All of us meant about a thousand people, as the King headed for Chambord. I watched his retinue (I declined the invitation): I estimate that there were four hundred horsemen, two hundred mules, mounted archers, stablemen, the Chamberlain, musicians, clergy, wizards, cooks, doctors...the archers wore black and red, the musicians wore yellow and green; the King wore a hat with a yellow plume and a yellow cloak flecked with white fleur-de-lys. The musicians played oboes, trumpets, tambourines, and drums. Such discord. Away they went, pennants, banners, oriflammes.

Suddenly, it was quiet at Amboise.

In my studio I sat at my desk and looked down on the peacocks and some pheasants: Francesco came: we began to work: I dictated pages from my treatise regarding horses.

FRANCESCO MELZI is a proper, thoughtful villa-man, handsome, slight, middle-tall, grey-eyed, blond. He is my patient friend, my gracious friend (gracious to everyone): he has his father’s agreeable manners. He is horseman and archer. Flutist. A painter for fifteen years, he handles chiaroscuro like a master: he is best as portraitist. No woman-chaser, he is dedicated to Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French...and all of the arts. When he trims my hair and beard he likes to flatter me.

I am searching for a glass that reflects a Florentine face—not a wrinkled, bearded patriarch.

GIOVANNI BOLTRAFFIO—Tony—has always had wealth behind him (like Francesco); here, at Amboise, he wears satins and silks, claims that the King’s tailor is “the best in the world.” Tony is so enormous, so muscular, his satins often split. Blue-eyed, genial, bowing, a little too obsequious, he sometimes dabs perfume on his paint-messed hands. He has big hands, big feet, big skull—topped by curly brown hair. With him decorum comes first. He is always aware of his sedate heritage. He sings beautifully, and is an accomplished lutenist. At home he is devoted to his cathedral choir. In Amboise, he is considered a notable fencer. He’d rather fence than paint. He’d rather eat than paint. He will have nothing to do with dissection. Right now, he is involved with a red-headed hussy who champions sex.

ANDREA DEL VERROCHIO—tall, with not an ounce of extra meat on him...it seems to me he is still a young man, that we are at work together in his studio. But no, no, the Arno roared throughout that night, as we mourned his death. Many of us. Corpses lodged against supports of the Puente Vecchio. Plagues. Madness. Work. We cherished him, his frailty. Guild-member at twenty. Such kindness, such classic renderings in stone and bronze. We revered his Saint John, his serenity in stone.

We exhibited his sculpture in every corner of his workshop and yard. People. His Dolphin Boy. His Christ. Ghosts from his metal and chisel.

We learned how to use the abacus together; we learned about mixing oils; he taught me silverpoint and charcoal; we worked with pastels, with gold leaf.

Ai, Andrea—what a scalding rain on the night you died. We sat about, we drank wine; then, next week, we returned to our casting, our horses, busts, angels.

Most of the years in his studio were tranquil. There were wonderful days, when, like John in the Desert, we detected our own worth—in the mastery of his work. His home was mine. His garden was mine. His florins.

I see him painting a madonna’s drapery...weeks of work, painting delicate, gilded folds...he gave me books...

He said: genius is dedication.

He also said: art and friendship.

1517

Cloux

January 6, 1517

A

fter walking along the Loire, the water grey, swallows passing underneath the grey arches of the château bridge, I sat where I could study the supports, estimating their bulk and weight. No notebook. Too many unfinished sketches and treatises. An ancient bridge and my face— ravaged by time.

At the little chapel of Saint Hubert, which I admire so much, so complete in itself, pigeons were flying about. Wings again. What are the correct angles for flying? Which wing structure can lift the most weight? How to estimate the camber?

Rain splattered me as I walked about. A drum roll reminded me of the thunder at Vinci. I climbed the Tour Hurtault and was a boy again, as I watched the rain, as I had watched it at my mother’s house. Then I used to try to estimate the number of drops, measure them, weigh them.

What a superb château—this Amboise! I admire its bulk, its age. It is no wonder that kings have lived here! Amplitude. Privacy. Gardens. The gardens tempt me to walk on and on. Yesterday, I sketched the Tour des Minimes— emphasizing its massive base line, the skillful masonry; as I sketched a playful squirrel climbed a birch, flipped from branch to branch, nibbled. I must remember to sketch the bronze doors of the chapel. The sculptor stresses texture in his composition. Somehow Florentine!

Wander...

I wander...

I wander alone or with Francesco.

Inside the château, if it is raining or cold or misty, we prowl through the halls and public rooms. Halls, rooms, people. A door opens and there is someone. A door shuts, and you are alone with a dozen doors. Cold windows merge into cold mirrors, a door opens. Here are tapestries from Bruges. Someone coughs. Feminine laughter sounds.

As I walked toward Cloux, lights blinked in window after window; a light appeared in my studio; someone passed carrying a torch. Maturina has a fire in my fireplace. She has the table set for Francesco and me. Glaring at me she scolds me for my damp clothes. “Your cough...you know! You never think of yourself. Your supper has been ready a long time. I’ve asked Francesco to look after you but he forgets. Only yesterday I said to him...”

Whenever the Egyptian sultan presented the Florentines with a new animal, I made sketches. At one time, there were several lions in the town’s menagerie. An old lion had a stubby grey mane and a black splotch across his face. Since one of his paws was crippled, he limped badly. As he walked or stretched out in the summer sun, a friendly ibis often pecked about in his fur. Old and wise, he ate only two or three times a week...and outlived younger lions. Bruno, a keeper, let me measure him. Skull. Neck. Spine. Shoulders. Rump. Paws.

I suggested large cages for the menagerie animals but no one listened. When I designed a cage for a lion on two levels, with a tree in a corner, nothing came of it.

One night, in winter, a friar opened a cage and let a sick lion go; for days the young man had tried to cure the female. Running amok through town, she created quite a scare until she was trapped in a cul-de-sac by some of my apprentices. Muzzled, growling, she was returned to her cage where she died.

It was only a few blocks from my studio to the menagerie and I often heard the animals roar while I worked.

Cloux.

Cage.

Our incessant feuds, wars, brutalities, our pettiness, have rotted our minds.

For years I have heard men describe roads frozen with sleet and dead, bloody ambuscades, military gear trapped in mud, mules and horses floundering, desolated villages. I have seen victory and defeat...Milan... Pisa...Bologna... Perugia...

Surrounded by death, I have known many men who want more and more of it. I have remembered that as I painted my mural, my Anghiari. Some of my war sketches have been aberrations. It would have been wiser had I confined myself to my atelier. Among my drawings, sketches, cartoons, models, among my plants and fossils, I should have gone on and on painting. Who, better than I, through my anatomical studies, know the marvels of life! Now, I shun crossbows, guns, chariots. I have asked Francesco to destroy those sketches.

Once again, as in Florence, as in my youth, I am putting art foremost. I am painting.

Tomorrow, Francesco and I will go along the Loire, sketching. If tomorrow is a rainy day we will try the next day. I think he is overly concerned with the problems of perspective. We will talk about the elimination of detail.

Painter and friend, I am lucky to have Francesco, my Cecchino!

These days, I sleep longer, but, through the years, in Florence, in Milan, I never slept more than three or four hours a night. There were too many plans, sketches, paintings, bronzes, portraits, models, commissions...three or four hours...that was enough...

Lie down, sleep...catch the dawn, the window shutters open. Mist on the Arno. Plunge face in icy water in that old white wash basin. Tie sketch pad onto belt. The town is sleeping; the birds are waking up. Careful, open the door quietly. Don’t disturb Andrea. Is that the moon, still hanging in the sky?

I made my way to the Boboli Gardens...passed the David...rows of crooked cypress...marble satyr...pool of frogs...a beggar whined...

A town sleeps a thousand years every night.

Cloux

Occasionally, while playing chess, I imagine there are no pawns; I imagine there are no knights; the good bishop has vanished; the castle has gone; there is no stalemate; instead, we are walking across checkered fields, Caterina and I. Soon, we’ll sit down to supper; then, when candles have burned low and lamps are dying down, we’ll lie in each other’s arms.

I have never been a clever chess player: I have spoiled games by envisioning a spiral staircase, by designing a parachute or estimating the cost of draining a marsh instead of planning my next move. I can cast bronze better than tackle chess strategy.

When King Francis and I play, I know the rules—those unwritten rules—and abide by them: the king must win.

Checkmate...what are the rules in life...checkmate...how to play the final move?

Someday our earth may be burdened with people (but I will not be there).

Numbers cheapen us.

Collective folly weakens us.