Part 20

I have admired hands, respected them for their capabilities. As I dissected, I marveled at their intricacy and perfection... I admire all classes: the feminine, the masculine, children’s hands. I made drawings of my own hands, in the days I could squeeze the crabprongs of a horseshoe with ease. I remember Mother’s loving hands, Caterina’s sensual hands, Andrea’s clever, slender fingers. There have been clay and bronze and marble hands. The hands of beautiful women have appeared in my dreams. I can perceive, as I write, the hands of Christ and those of His disciples.

Perhaps there will be a few, reading this journal, who may care to know some of my thoughts about painting:

a - All colors, when placed in the shade, seem of equal degree of darkness. b - All colors, when placed in full light, seldom vary from their essential hue. c - The eyes, out-of-doors, in a illuminated atmosphere, perceive darkness behind the windows of houses which nevertheless are light. d - The eyes perceive and recognize objects with greater intensity in proportion as the pupil is dilated.

Sleep is a curious thing—resembling death.

Sometimes it is totally blank, as death must be; sometimes we see destruction. Flames rise. Buildings collapse. Sometimes we hear animals talk. Without moving, they run away from us. Sometimes we fall from great heights—without harm. Sometimes we talk to those who are unseen. Sometimes we meet those who can’t speak. If we do not sense death in our sleep we may sense confusion. Confusion in black and white. Or grey. We dream of bucolic scenes in grey, a grey stream, a grey tree, grey boulders. We stroll through grey air, grey birds in the sky.

Now, in color, a great hawk threatens us. Angels appear. There is a cave with a ragged mouth. It wants to swallow us. Now cadavers threaten. Enemies besiege us.

Now, a friend appears—a childhood friend, unchanged by time.

Christ descends from the refectory wall—leaving a terrible hole.

Cloux

March 4, 1519

I am writing very slowly now.

While painting The Last Supper I lived at the Santa Maria delle Grazie some of the time, working day after day, often sleeping on the floor, on a bench. I painted by day and at night, with the help of lamps and candles, placing lights on benches, on tables, on my scaffolding. I was altering forms, changing colors, imparting greater age to a face, lessening the impact of a gesture.

I might stay an hour, or remain for days: Ai, Matthew’s eyes might move; Luke might raise his arm; John might turn his head—or so it seemed. I was always there when the light was good; during inclement weather I might shove my key into the lock, and shut the door. A few grapes, some nuts, bread and wine... I didn’t need much food. With a basket or a bowl beside me on the scaf- folding I would go on painting.

I was forty-three.

When Christ’s model became ill and finally died, I retouched His face, imparting what I had learned while observing the dying man. I remember: to soften the shading I retouched with a lamp in my hand, holding it close to His face.

As I painted there were two dead men watching me.

I discovered Judas when he was drunk. I found him in a borghetto, slumped at a table, a big table sticky with spilled food and wine. Flies. Sipping wine at another table, I sketched him. So it was: I would not have to hunt any longer. That night, although he was drunk and unsteady, I got him to my studio and put a robe over his rags. We talked, we ate. His name: Carlo Macchini.

Carlo came and went. He never accepted a soldi.

Came and went, usually a little drunk. Kindly.

He was an assistant baker. Hated his boss, hated his job. Hated.

When I had completed his face in the fresco, he contemplated it for a while, shrugged, patted me on the shoulder, walked away...not a word... I never saw him again.

Before I finished the fresco, Luke had died. The last I heard about Peter was the news that he had added another child to his big family. Ninth. As for Mark...he was living with a prostitute. Sick. No job.

I made many sketches of each man: filled sketchbooks. I worked them into my cartoon...slowly, slowly. I wanted the faces to express the gravity of life; the clothes that they wore must not distract; the food on the table must not distract. I made the tableware similar to that used by the monks as they ate in the room. It took me almost a month to arrange the food and dishes. Twenty-six hands must tell their story but not overdramatize.

I strove for simplicity: that resolution haunted me. So many times, when rain drummed on the roof of the refectory, as I sat alone, I heard that word: simplicity, simplicity of color, design, shadowed by the past.

And while I painted, the beautiful refectory was flooded by a storm: I saw water two feet deep: pigments were washed away, brushes were lost.

Ai, I see it now: at least one of the disciples should have had a scarred face, should have been crippled perhaps. Life, in those Galilean days, did not let one escape unscathed. Out of the twelve, one would have suffered.

But there, there they are, with their Lord.

I had a brief letter from Salai today. If he had remained, we would have made our bicycle.

Tomorrow, I...

On my birthday, my friends, Father Luco Pacioli, Phillip, Donato Bramante, Abbaco Alberti, Peter, Francesco, John, Toscanelli, Andrea, Luini, Credi, friars, priests and many artists, gathered at the Grazie, and we burned lamps and candles for the first showing of The Last Supper. Standing on a bench, Father Luco said:

“Milan is indebted to our Leo...to him and Il Moro and the prior and his people. We have watched the fresco come to life. For three years we’ve seen it move along. It has meant something special to each one of us. It is Leonardo da Vinci’s miracle. A symbol of man’s desire for a better life.”

How well I remember those words!

In Milan, my Salvator Mundi attracted crowds when it was exhibited in my studio. King Louis had expressed his public approval of the painting and the curious had to be satisfied. Since General de Galen had come to Milan to deliver the painting to the King, I asked his protection. Onlookers came out of the alleys as well as the palace. Alley folk jeered. They shouted “Christ the Juggler;” they called Him “El Puto”...“the glassy-eyed Gascon.”

Riffraff threw mud and garbage.

I had to cover the painting...but that was yesterday...the jeers and criticism should remain in the past.

Here, at Amboise, at Cloux, all is respect, a respect that originates with King Francis. Courtiers and guests and workers often approach me in the gardens; we pass the time of day. I get along best with the gardeners because there are new plants and flowers to examine and sketch. Sit me on a bench and I am lost by a bed of flowers. An old maestro, toothless, stooped, a man from Padua, knows how to please me with a leaf, a flower, a seed.

“These roses I grew in my own garden...what colors!”

Thinking of Jesus, here in repose, I realize the Savior lacks an aura of gentle mysticism, the aura of my Jesus at the supper table. The globe He holds in His hand lacks the obvious meaning of brotherhood—the great concern of the disciples. My Savior’s eyes are not the eyes of a shepherd from the hills. He has a city man’s face. He is younger than the Christ at the table. His benediction is for all men and yet carries a sense of restraint, perhaps a sense of doubt. Perhaps it is my own doubt, a doubt that I feel keenly at Amboise, a doubt that seems based on my inability to bring together the meaning inherent in my studies, my optics, my hydraulics, my engineering work.

Dreams...dreams...

It is evening, and the kite comes. He grips me in his talons and helps me fly, over the Arno, over the town; he becomes my black-brown-grey kite with wings 18 feet long, wings of wood, cloth, wire. I hear the wind.

Francesco has been amused when I describe my experience with the kite; however, it is too old a dream, or experience, for me to dismiss. How many times it has encouraged me.

As I write, I hear someone calling my name.

April 2, 1519

Again, my health is failing rapidly. I can not continue my work with my treatises. I can not write my journal. Sometimes I can not speak. My vision is going. Francesco and I had begun to bring ends together; I had hoped for days ahead because there is so much to accomplish.

At night, in my room, the walls become a mural of Amboise, the manor house, the Loire, old bridges, royalty, paintings, rearing horses, Francesco, wings, rocks, caves, Galilean faces...like maddened bees.

Cloux

April 3

Yes, most of my years were years without sexual intimacy. I experienced ecstasy but it was often bitter later on. So, I comforted myself with sham comfort. I gained time through my solitary living and lost time that could have made me more human.

Yes, I had a woman for three years.

My own illegitimacy was often slammed at me...bastard da Vinci...that stigma harms the mind.

Dedicate?

Of course, dedication...but I have explained...art, music, sculpture, geology, mechanics...not one is bastard.

DEDICATE:

A priest outlaws distractions. What is an artist but a priest! Joyous children, sick children, they are part of most married lives...that little girl on your lap, sucking her thumb, kissing you, stroking your beard...she...she is dead.

Here, at the château, there are hall mirrors, mirrors in ornate frames: the artist observes himself in those mirrors: he also sees a rusty spatula and shredded brushes: sometimes, late afternoons, I see in those mirrors, someone in Milan, I see her smiling, I see the spiral of her yellow hair.

I hear her laughter.

I hear...but that is our staircase creaking. Or is it Francesco working in his studio?

Food has become tasteless.

What is wrong with my château wine?

Maturina scolds.

I think of those hungry days as apprentice, when eating was such a pleasure! I think of our kitchen, at Vinci. Mother’s. Fresh bread. Milk from that blue pitcher.

Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix!

Machiavelli is here. Unexpected.

He is enroute to Paris to collect a bad debt. A man owes him 600 livres. I have offered money. Niccolò is proud, too proud.

He has malaria and shuffles about in a great coat though it is warm. Last night by a studio fire he huddled in his coat. Perhaps Dr. Pedretti can help him. We’ll see tomorrow. As we sat by the fire, sipping wine, he railed about politics at home—-wretched deceptions. Scoundrels!

Most of his three days have been spent in bed. In his elegant clothes he bowed before the King. The two got along well. Lying and vying. Francis has offered one of his carriages for the trip to Paris.

Niccolò has lost weight. He was always skinny but now he is a shadow of himself. He resents my paralyzed arm...says it is God who is to blame. Then laughed—or was it a sneer?

He thinks Amboise is a true haven.

He is wonderfully clever with his tongue, Latin, French or Italian.

Sometimes loneliness has embittered me.

Last night I asked Francesco to come to my bedroom, though it was late. He came and sat by my bed. He understands my sickness; and he also knows he is going back to his Vaprio.

It was a cold night. A fire burned in my fireplace.

Francesco wore his grey wool gown, stared at me sleepily, flames on his thin cheek bones, on his hands, bringing out their veins.

Cloux was forgotten as I talked of home and my mother and my first days in Florence, at the Verrochio, first days so different from Francesco’s first days when Florence had more patina. I rambled on about Milan and my paintings and the siege and Milan’s bombardment and deaths—pell-mell thoughts. Francesco brought cups of wine. For us this was a father/son relationship. We two had been father and son since we left Italy, since Francesco cared for me during the big snow at the monastery. It pleases him that King Francis often addresses me as “Mon Père.”

Ivory-faced madonnas...regal pomp...commissions that failed, commissions that succeeded...my flying wing...I was reliving my life! Francesco asked about the men who had posed for The Last Supper. Faces, thoughts, words...flooded. We talked about Peter and James and Matthew; we found drawings of Jesus and He seemed real in the firelight.

Francesco added two or three logs to the fire.

He brought in a wine bottle and refilled our glasses.

Wind gusted smoke into the room.

We talked about Paris and our trip there. I told him that Rome was far more interesting than Paris. I related the story of the mirror-man, at the Vatican apartment: that story involved me in anguish. I stopped talking, to listen to the wind.

We talked of fishing in the Loire...when?

“Tomorrow,” I suggested.

“It’s tomorrow now,” he said, laughing.

“How time gets away from us.”

“Maturina will be rattling the breakfast dishes soon.”

“Then you had better get some sleep.”

“Good night, Mon Père,” Francesco said, and laughed that good laugh of his.

So, you won’t paint again! Where you are going you won’t hear the pestle grinding pigment. How insignificant my sketches, my trees, faces, water...as a boy I thought every sketch would open up the world a little more.

It was only a month ago I made the four small bronze horses, moulded the graceful contours of Andrea’s face...it was only a year ago that...

I hate the body’s frailty, that dead arm! Work was life, but no, there were hours to prowl the hills, to climb the Alps, to sit by the sea. Maturity came during those hours as well as during the hours of work. I remember, while painting The Supper...

I remember a little plant in the evening light, that frail light that shadowed the corolla. I remember a sorrel leaf, I remember a small fern. Small? What is small versus big? I should know.

A madonna in the evening light—her smile.

And the world shrugs.

Pigments reveal how I have erred...tell me green, tell me saffron, tell me royalty, tell me death.

And you, red chalk, speak!

Cloux

We think we are learning how to live but we are only learning how to die.

I, Francesco Melzi, write:

Maestro Leonardo da Vinci is dead.

He died at Cloux, in the manor house,

on May 2, 1619.

He was sixty-seven years old.

Cloux

April 4, 1519

DURING THE LAST WEEKS OF

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S LIFE,

I, FRANCESCO MELZI,

RECORDED THE MAESTRO’S THOUGHTS,

AS HE DICTATED THEM:

“Y

ou ask me what my apartment was like in Milan? It was an apartment of tapestries and antique furniture, paintings, mine and others. Sculptured pieces. I bought many things at the Thieves’ Market. My Camjac tapestries covered three walls. Made the room warmer. My paintings covered the fourth. This was my sala. A large stained glass window faced the street. You remember that street, of course. Lodi Street. Western exposure. Hot in summer. Dusty. But my apartment was on the fourth floor, had a wide, shaded balcony. There was a small courtyard of plants and a pair of little tiled fountains with squirting fish. Sometimes the courtyard was a refuge. Cypress. Old ones.

“With my big iron key, I stepped into my rooms. Five. My studio had good light. Of course I painted the walls black. You would have admired my Roman pieces, heads, busts. You, my friend, were living in Vaprio then.”

We moved his bed into the sun, and pulled open the drapes. He enjoyed lying there. “Spring is beautiful,” he said.

Cloux

April 5, 1519

Da Vinci talks to me with difficulty. However, I go on:

“Perhaps those years in Milan were the busiest years of my life. Irrigation projects, The Last Supper mural, easel paintings, the horse...yes, the horse... cartoons. I tried to interest the authorities in an ideal city. I made models for them. Planned double-decked streets. Vehicles would use the lower level, pedestrians the upper. There would be proper sewage. I wanted to show men that the plague might be avoided through sanitation.”

He has eaten a little fruit, and sipped some wine.

“In Milan, I went on with my anatomical studies, this time working in a clean hospital, with proper light. I had adequate leisure. I dissected male and female ...eight or ten cadavers...over the years. Made my drawings in various media.

“Illness laid me low...

“I never trusted physicians. They know nothing of anatomy and less about illnesses. I suffered alone—with my servants. They fed me, administered my concoctions...my kidneys. Nature cured me. After about six or seven months I was able to get about, to walk, stride along. There was kindness then...but kindness is your specialty...your kindness has never failed me.”

Cloux

April 6, 1519

“Remember this—I was forced to work for Cesare Borgia. Remember, Vitelli and I tried to refuse him. Refusal was impossible. We were like hostages in Borgia’s camps. Of course we wanted to escape...planned...we were afraid. Pay was high. So...we continued ours jobs as cartographers. Close friends, fellow artists, we looked to each other for support.

“As I sketched Borgia I realized his animosity. Vitelli and I were aware that his soldiers disliked us. They made it pretty obvious most of the time. I talked to Niccolò Machiavelli about this antagonism. He scoffed. Laughed at me.

“Yet Borgia, always demanding, arrogant, worried us. He went out of his way to annoy Vitelli. I tried to play down his swaggering. I tried to play down our apprehensions. Then...then, he had Vitelli strangled. Strangled in Borgia’s tent. Enraged, afraid, I left that night. Niccolò provided my horse. He rode with me. We escaped through the rain. Our horses fast. Solitary roads...hoof beats... I remember. Vitelli murdered. In the tent.

“We said little as we rode.

“At an inn we dismounted, drank, warmed ourselves. Niccolò could not justify his Prince.

“Ai, that murderous rain! His name, his face, that Borgia face, assassination rain!”

It is late as I finish writing down his words. He is in pain. Last night he slept very little.

April 7, 1519

“No, not purgatory and not hell...

“I esteem the horse and the dog because they are free of perversions...no misa, no confessional...

“Animals exact little...make no covenants.

“I can’t forget the Papal wars, the crusades, the Savonarola fanaticisms.

“When did robe and aspergillum exorcise evil?

“I’m still searching...but, in this world of ambiguity, I think there is no answer.”

Today...only these words, as I sat by his bed. Visitors annoyed him. Several times he asked for his mother.

Cloux

April 9, 1519

It is afternoon. The sun is low. Da Vinci speaks:

“When the old French King saw my Last Supper he was determined to remove the entire wall of the refectory, and have it transported to Paris. He discussed it with engineers and architects who said it was impossible.

“What a study...the King is scarlet, pompous, in a very bad humor, his syphilitic face grey. Flailing his arms, as he stood before my mural, he roared at the men around him, kicked a dog that had wandered in.

“ ‘Your fresco can’t remain in this wretched refectory!’ Everyone was amused.

“Later, when I painted his portrait, he was affable. I painted him in profile, a good study, in good light. He insisted on having a book on his lap. Ovid. I remember he said:

“ ‘In Amboise, I have a collection of fine books...Ovids.’

“He was willing to pay any price for my Madonna of the Yarn Winder. So, he paid...and carried it off to Paris.”

Stroking his beard, da Vinci watched rain streak his windows. Lifting one arm, he said: “No more today, Francesco, no more talk.”

Cloux

April 10, 1519

“Come, let’s get on with it...I have something to say:

“My deluge drawings express weight, gravity, power, fury, terror. The overturned, whirling chunks of masonry, the enormous waves, defy. This is the end of man. I believe such a cataclysm is going to overcome the earth.

“The drawings were inspired by my visits to the sea, by my trips to the mountains where I saw avalanches. Sound...the crash of falling boulders, the crash of a raging ocean...they warn. Finality—in one form or another—surrounds. We can’t escape.

“Rage, rage...much of life is rage...desperate rage.

“Here, far inland, I can hear the tumultuous sea!”

Sometimes I can barely make out his words. I served his supper. He ate very little. He remarked about the pigeons cooing on the roof.

Cloux

April 12, 1519

Royalty have visited us. Alone with me, da Vinci said:

“Yesterday, I dreamed that the sun was coming through my window at Vinci...there were bunches of grapes on our table...bare table, in the sun. Caterina was sitting opposite me, her hands in the sun. I seemed to be about thirty years old. She seemed to be about the same age. Our dog lay on the floor, waiting for me to take him out.

“I felt imprisoned by the sunlight, happily imprisoned... I was imprisoned by the beauty in Caterina’s face. My eyes followed the grain of the table, mixed with the bunches of grapes, went out into the street, returned to her face, her smile.

“...You have asked me about happiness. Does anyone know what happiness is? It is so often illusory. For you, Francesco, it’s a woman...or a swim in the lake. For me it was always work. If a great discipline haunts a man throughout his life...well, he’s lucky. You have seen me happy. You didn’t throw in your lot with a bitter man.

“We see King Francis...we watch him...he is eaten up with regrets...he is scheming, plotting...worrying...battlefields gnaw his guts...if we want sanity there are Vaprios, little rivers, little hills.”

He asked me for another cover.

Cloux

This was our last conversation—on April 23rd.

Melzi - I heard that you created a mirror machine while you were in Rome.

Da Vinci - I tried to amplify the stars—study them.

Melzi - Please explain.

Da Vinci - A series of mirrors and lens.

Melzi - To catch the light?

Da Vinci - I could position the mirrors and the lens. You have to visualize them, in a shallow cradle, some pieces one and two inches square, some pieces two and three inches square, most of them concave, all specially ground, to fit together like an eye, to focus like the eye. They could be raised or lowered, tilted, under a lens which I could also focus.

Melzi - They brought the sky closer?

Da Vinci - All of the mirrors and lens were destroyed by the man who had cut and polished them. He smashed them. Malice...fear...envy...

Melzi - A bitter experience, Maestro!

Da Vinci - That’s how it was...in Rome. The Pope learned of these experiments and ousted me from the Vatican.

He fell asleep.

Cloux

May 20, 1519

A

s requested in Maestro Leonardo da Vinci’s will, sixty men, each carrying a lighted taper, accompanied his coffin to St. Hubert’s chapel, on the evening of May the 4th. Royalty, château-pages, soldiers, visitors, servants made up the procession from the manor house to the Amboise chapel. It was a cloudy, threatening evening. The chapel bell tolled.

A bearded priest, in black vestments, performed the requiem. Royalty crammed the chapel. The royal green flag, sewn with hundreds of white salamanders, blanketed the casket. Wreathes of roses and carnations leaned against wall cabinets where there were lighted candles. Men chanted a Gregorian chant.

The Maestro was buried close to the chapel, under chestnut and cypress, buried by torch and taper light. The chapel doors were wide open as someone played the organ. Six men lowered the coffin.

Leonardo’s death was the saddest moment of my life.

When King Francis returned to Amboise, later in May, I walked with him to the burial place and he laid flowers on “Mon Père’s” grave. Fog filtered the grove and dripped on us. A hard day for the monarch.

King Francis has retained all of da Vinci’s paintings.

I was willed his drawings, sketches, journal, treatises, music, and correspondence.

Soldiers accompanied me on my return to Vaprio.

Villa Vaprio

July 13, 1519

My father and mother welcomed me home.