Читать книгу Painting Mona Lisa - Jeanne Kalogridis - Страница 17

The instant that Baroncelli’s body ceased its twitching, a young artist near the front of the crowd set to work. The corpse would hang in the piazza for days, until its decomposition caused it to drop from the rope. But the artist could not wait; he wanted to capture the image while it still possessed an echo of life. Besides, young hooligans, giovani, would soon amuse themselves by casting stones at it, and the imminent rain would soon cause it to bloat.

He sketched on paper pressed against a board of poplar, to give him a firm surface to work against. He had cut back the plume from his quill pen, for he used it so continually that any barbs there irritated his long fingers; he had carved the nib himself to a fine, sharp point, and he dipped it regularly, mindlessly, into a vial of brown iron gall ink securely fastened to his belt. Since one could not properly draw constrained by gloves, his bare hands ached from the cold, but he dismissed the observation as unworthy of his time. In the same manner, he dismissed the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm him – for the sight of Baroncelli evoked profoundly painful memories – and focused instead on the subject before him.

Despite all attempts to mask their true feelings, all men and women nonetheless revealed them through subtle signs in expression, posture, and voice. Baroncelli’s regret was blatant. Even in death, his eyes were downcast, as if contemplating Hell. His head was bowed, and the corners of his thin lips were pulled downward by guilt. Here was a man overwhelmed by self-loathing.

The artist struggled not to yield to his hatred, though he had very personal reasons for despising Baroncelli. But hate was against his principles, so – like his aching fingers and heart – he ignored it and continued with his work. He also found killing unethical – even the execution of a murderer such as Baroncelli.

As was his habit, he jotted notes on the page to remind himself of the colours and textures involved, for there was an excellent chance the sketch might become a painting. He wrote from right to left, the letters a mirror image of conventional script. Years before, when he had been a student in Andrea Verrochio’s workshop, other artists had accused him of unwarranted secrecy, for when he showed them his sketches, they could make no sense of his notes. But, he wrote as he did because it came most naturally to him; the privacy it conferred was a coincidental benefit.

Small tan cap. The quill scratched against the paper. Black serge jerkin, lined woollen singlet, blue cloak lined with fox fur, velvet collar stippled red and black, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli, black leggings. Baroncelli had kicked off his slippers during his death throes; he was shown with bare feet.

The artist frowned at Baroncelli’s patronymic. He was self-taught, still struggling to overcome his rustic Vinci dialect, and spelling bedevilled him. No matter. Lorenzo de’ Medici, il Magnifico, was interested in the image, not the words.

He did a quick, small rendering at the bottom of the page, showing Baroncelli’s head at an angle that revealed more of the gloom-stricken features. Satisfied with his work, he then set to his real task of scanning the faces in the crowd. Those near the front – the nobility and more prosperous merchants – were just beginning to leave, hushed and sombre. The populo minuto – the ‘little people’, remained behind to entertain themselves by hurling epithets and rocks at the corpse.

The artist carefully watched as many men as possible as they left the piazza. There were two reasons for this: The ostensible one was that he was a student of faces. Those who knew of him were used to his intent stares.

The darker reason was the result of an encounter between himself and Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was looking for a particular face: one he had seen twenty months earlier, but for only the briefest of instants. Even with his talent for recalling physiognomies, his memory was clouded – yet his heart was equally determined to succeed. This time, he was determined not to let emotion get the better of him.

‘Leonardo!’

The sound of his own name startled the artist; he jerked involuntarily and out of reflex, capped the vial of ink, lest it spill.

An old friend from Verrochio’s workshop had been on his way out of the piazza, and now moved towards him.

‘Sandro,’ Leonardo said, when his friend at last stood before him. ‘You look like a lord prior.’

Sandro Botticelli grinned. At thirty-five, he was several years Leonardo’s senior, in the prime of his life and career. He was indeed dressed grandly, in a scarlet fur-trimmed cloak; a black velvet cap covered most of his golden hair, cut chinlength, shorter than the current fashion. Like Leonardo, he was clean-shaven. His green eyes were heavy-lidded, filled with the insolence that had always marked his manner. Even so, Leonardo liked him; he was possessed of great talent and a good heart. Over the past year, Sandro had received several fat commissions from the Medici and Tornabuoni, including the massive painting Primavera, soon to be a wedding gift from Lorenzo to his cousin.

Sandro eyed Leonardo’s sketch with sly humour. ‘So. Trying to steal my job, I see.’

He was referring to the recently painted mural on a façade near the Palazzo della Signoria, partially visible behind the scaffolding now that the crowd was beginning to thin. He had received a commission from Lorenzo in those terrible days following Giuliano’s death: to depict each of the executed Pazzi conspirators as they dangled from the rope. The life-sized images duly inspired the terror they were meant to provoke. There was Francesco de’ Pazzi, entirely naked, his wounded thigh encrusted with blood; there, too, was Salviati in his archbishop’s robes. The two dead men were shown facing the viewer – effective, though not an accurate depiction. Like Botticelli, Leonardo had been in the Piazza della Signoria at the moment Francesco – dragged from his bed – had been pushed from the uppermost arched window of the Palazzo, hung from the building itself for all to see. A moment later, Salviati had followed and, at the instant of his death, had turned toward his fellow conspirator and – whether in a violent, involuntary spasm, or in a final moment of rage – had sunk his teeth deep into Francesco de’ Pazzi’s shoulder. It was a bizarre image, one so troubling that even Leonardo, overwhelmed by emotion, failed to record it in his notebook. Paintings of other executed men, including Messer Iacopo, were partially completed, but one murderer had been altogether missing: Baroncelli. Botticelli had probably taken notes himself this morning, intending to finish the mural. But at the sight of Leonardo’s sketch, he shrugged.

‘No matter,’ he said breezily. ‘Being rich enough to dress like a lord prior, I can certainly let a pauper like yourself finish up the task. I have far greater things to accomplish.’

Leonardo, dressed in a knee-length artisan’s tunic of cheap used linen, and a dull grey wool mantle, slipped his sketch under one arm and bowed, low and sweeping, in an exaggerated show of gratitude.

‘You are too kind, my lord.’ He rose. ‘Now go. You are a hired hack, and I am a true artist, with much to accomplish before the rains come.’

He and Sandro parted with smiles and a brief embrace, and Leonardo returned at once to studying the crowd. He was always happy to see Sandro, but the interruption annoyed him. Too much was at stake; he reached absently into the pouch on his belt, and fingered a gold medallion the size of a large florin. On the front, in bas relief, was the title ‘Public Mourning’. Beneath, Baroncelli raised his long knife above his head while Giuliano looked up at the blade with surprise. Behind Baroncelli stood Francesco de’ Pazzi, his dagger at the ready. Leonardo had provided the sketch, rendering the scene with as much accuracy as possible, although for the viewer’s sake, Giuliano was depicted as facing Baroncelli. Verrochio had made the cast from Leonardo’s drawing.

Two days after the murder, Leonardo had dispatched a letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici.

My lord Lorenzo, I need to speak privately with you concerning a matter of the utmost importance.

No reply was forthcoming: Lorenzo, overcome with grief, hid in the Medici palazzo, which had become a fortress surrounded by scores of armed men. He received no visitors; letters requesting his opinion or his favour piled up unanswered.

After a week without a reply, Leonardo borrowed a gold florin and went to the door of the Medici stronghold. He bribed one of the guards there to deliver a second letter straightaway, while he stood waiting in the loggia watching the hard rain pound the cobblestone streets.

My lord Lorenzo, I come neither seeking favour nor speaking of business. I have critical information concerning the death of your brother, for your ears alone.

Several minutes later he was admitted after being thoroughly checked for weapons – ridiculous, since he had never owned one nor had any idea of how to wield one.

Pale and lifeless in an unadorned black tunic, Lorenzo, his neck still bandaged, received Leonardo in his study, surrounded by artwork of astonishing beauty. He gazed up at Leonardo with eyes clouded by guilt and grief – yet could not hide his interest in hearing what the artist had to say.

On the morning of the twenty-sixth of April, Leonardo had stood several rows from the altar in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. He’d had questions for Lorenzo about a joint commission he and his former teacher Andrea Verrochio had received to sculpt a bust of Giuliano, and hoped to catch il Magnifico after the service. Leonardo only attended Mass when he had business to conduct; he found the natural world far more awe-inspiring than a manmade cathedral. He was on very good terms with the Medici. Over the past few years, he had stayed for months at a time in Lorenzo’s house as one of the many artists in the family’s employ.

To Leonardo’s surprise that morning in the Duomo, Giuliano had arrived, late, dishevelled, and escorted by Francesco de’ Pazzi and his employee.

Leonardo found men and women equally beautiful, equally worthy of his love, but he lived an unrequited life by choice. An artist could not allow the storms of love to interrupt his work. He avoided women most of all, for the demands of a wife and children would make his studies – of art, of the world and its inhabitants – impossible. He did not want to become as his master Verrochio was – wasting his talent, taking on any work, whether it be the construction of masks for Carnivale, or the gilding of a lady’s slippers, to feed his hungry family. There was never any time to experiment, to observe, to improve his skills.

Ser Antonio, Leonardo’s grandfather, had first explained this concept to him. Antonio had loved his grandson deeply, ignoring the fact that he was the illegitimate get of a servant girl. As Leonardo grew, only his grandfather noted the boy’s talent, and had given him a book of paper and charcoal. When Leonardo was seven years old, he had been sitting in the cool grass with a silverpoint stylus and a rough panel of wood, studying how the wind rippled through the leaves of an olive orchard. Ser Antonio – ever busy, straight-shouldered and sharp-eyed despite his eighty-eight years – had paused to stand beside him, and look with him at the glittering trees.

Quite suddenly and unprompted, he said, Pay no attention to custom, my boy. I had half your talent – yes, I was good at drawing, and eager, like you, to understand how the natural world works – but I listened to my father. Before I came to the farm, I was apprenticed to him as a notary.

That is what we are – a family of notaries. One sired me, and so I sired one myself – your father. What have we given the world? Contracts and bills of exchange, and signatures on documents which will turn to dust.

I did not give up my dreams altogether; even as I learned about the profession, I drew in secret. I stared at birds and rivers, and wondered how they worked. But then I met your grandmother Lucia and fell in love. It was the worst thing ever to happen, for I abandoned art and science and married her. Then there were children, and no time to look at trees. Lucia found my scribblings and cast them into the fire.

But God has given us you – you with your amazing mind and eyes and hands. You have a duty not to abandon them.

Promise me you will not make my mistake; promise me you will never let your heart carry you away.

Young Leonardo had promised.

But when he became a protégé of the Medici and a member of their inner circle, he had been drawn, physically and emotionally, to Lorenzo’s younger brother. Giuliano was infinitely lovable. It was not simply the man’s striking appearance – Leonardo was himself far more attractive, often called ‘beautiful’ by his friends – but rather the pure goodness of his spirit.

This fact Leonardo kept to himself. He did not wish to make Giuliano, a lover of women, uncomfortable; nor did he care to scandalize Lorenzo, his host and patron.

When Giuliano had appeared in the Duomo, Leonardo – only two rows behind him – could not help but stare steadily at him. He noted Giuliano’s downcast demeanour, and was filled with neither sympathy nor attraction, but a welling of bitter jealousy.

The previous evening, the artist had set out with the intention of speaking to Lorenzo about the commission.

He had made his way onto the Via de’ Gori, past the church of San Lorenzo. The Palazzo Medici lay just ahead, to his left, and he stepped out into the street towards it.

It was dusk. To the west lay the high, narrow tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, and the great curving cupola of the Duomo, distinct and dark against an impossible horizon of incandescent coral fading gradually to lavender, then grey. Given the hour, traffic was light, and Leonardo paused in the street, lost in the beauty of his surroundings. He watched as a carriage rolled towards him, and enjoyed the crisp silhouettes of the horses, their bodies impenetrably black, set against the backdrop of the brilliant sky, with the sun behind them so that all detail was swallowed … Sundown was his favourite hour, for the failing light infused forms and colours with a tenderness, a sense of gentle mystery that the noon sun burned away.

He became lost in the play of shadow on the horses’ bodies, on the rippling of muscles beneath their flesh, the spirited toss of their heads – so much so that as they came rumbling down upon him, he had to collect himself and move swiftly out of their way. He found himself standing on the southern flank of the Palazzo Medici; his destination, less than a minute’s walk away, was the Via Larga.

A short distance in front of him, the driver of the carriage jerked the horses to a stop and the door opened. Leonardo hung back, and watched as a young woman stepped out. The twilight turned the marked whiteness of her skin into dove grey, her eyes to nondescript darkness. The drabness of her gown and veil, the downward cast of her face, marked her as the servant of a wealthy family. There was purpose in her step and furtiveness in her posture as her gaze swept from side to side. She hurried to the palazzo’s side entrance and knocked insistently.

A pause, and the door opened with a long, sustained creak. The servant moved back to the carriage and gestured urgently to someone inside.

A second woman emerged from the carriage and moved gracefully, swiftly, towards the open doorway.

Leonardo spoke her name aloud without intending to. She was a friend of the Medici, a frequent visitor to the palazzo; he had talked to her on several occasions. Even before he saw her clearly, he recognized her movements, the cant of her shoulders, the way her head swivelled on her neck as she turned to look up at him.

He took a step closer, and was finally able to see her face.

Her nose was long and straight, the tip down turned, the nostrils flared; her forehead was broad and very high. Her chin was pointed, but the cheeks and jaw were gracefully rounded, like her shoulders, which inclined towards the Palazzo Medici although her face was turned towards his.

She had always been beautiful, but now the dimness softened everything, gave her features a haunting quality they had not heretofore possessed. She seemed to melt into the air; it was impossible to tell where the shadows ended and she began. Her luminous face, her décolleté, her hands, seemed to float suspended against the dark forest of her gown and hair. Her expression was one of covert joy; her eyes held sublime secrets, her lips the hint of a complicitous smile.

In that instant, she was more than human: she was divine.

He reached out with his hand, half thinking it would pass through her, as if she were a phantom.

She pulled away, and he saw, even in the greyness, the bright flare of fear in her eyes, in the parting of her lips: she had not meant to be discovered. Had he possessed a feather, he would have whisked away the deep line between her brows and resurrected the look of mystery.

He murmured her name again, this time a question, but her gaze had already turned towards the open doorway. Leonardo followed it, and caught a glimpse of another familiar face: Giuliano’s. His body was entirely obscured by shadow; he did not see Leonardo, only the woman.

And she saw Giuliano, and bloomed.

In that instant, Leonardo understood and turned his cheek away, overwhelmed by bitterness, as the door closed behind them.

He did not go to see Lorenzo that night. He went home to his little apartment and slept poorly. He stared up at the ceiling and saw the gently lucent features of the woman emerging from the blackness.

The following morning, gazing on Giuliano in the Duomo, Leonardo dwelled on his own unhappy passion. He recalled, again and again, the painful instant when he had seen the look pass between Giuliano and the woman, when he had realized Giuliano’s heart belonged to her, and hers to him; and he cursed himself for being vulnerable to such a foolish emotion as jealousy.

He had been so ensnared by his reverie that he had been startled by the sudden movement in front of him. A robed figure stepped forward a fraction of a second before Giuliano turned to look behind him, then released a sharp gasp.

There followed Baroncelli’s hoarse shout. Leonardo had stared up, stricken, at the glint of the raised blade. In the space of a breath, the frightened worshipers scattered, pulling the artist backwards with the tide of bodies. He had thrashed, struggling vainly to reach Giuliano, with the thought of protecting him from further attack, but he could not even hold his ground.

In the wild scramble, Leonardo’s view of Baroncelli’s knife entering Giuliano’s flesh had been blocked. But Leonardo had seen the final blows of Francesco’s unspeakably brutal attack – the dagger biting, again and again, into Giuliano’s flesh, just as Archbishop Salviati would, in due turn, bite into Francesco de’ Pazzi’s shoulder.

The instant he realized what was happening, Leonardo let go of a loud shout – inarticulate, threatening, horrified – at the attackers. At last the crowd cleared; at last no one stood between him and the assassins. He had run towards them as Francesco, still shrieking, moved on. But it was too late to shelter, to protect, Giuliano’s good, innocent spirit.

Leonardo dropped to his knees beside the fallen man. He lay half-curled on his side, his mouth still working; blood foamed at his lips and spilled from his wounds.

Leonardo pressed his hand to the worst of them, the gaping hole in Giuliano’s chest. He could hear the frail, gurgling wheeze of the victim’s lungs as they fought to expel blood and draw in air. But Leonardo’s efforts to staunch the flow were futile.

Each wound on the front of Giuliano’s pale green tunic released its own steady stream of blood. The streams forked then rejoined, creating a latticework over the young man’s body until at last they merged into the growing dark pool on the marble floor.

‘Giuliano,’ Leonardo had gasped, tears pouring down his cheeks at the sight of such suffering, at the sight of beauty so marred.

Giuliano did not hear him. He was beyond hearing, beyond sight: his half-open eyes already stared into the next world. As Leonardo hovered over him, he retched up a volume of bright, foaming blood; his limbs twitched briefly, then his eyes widened. Thus he died.

Now, standing in front of Lorenzo, Leonardo said nothing of Giuliano’s final suffering to Lorenzo, for such details would only fuel Lorenzo’s grief. He spoke not of Baroncelli, nor of Francesco de’ Pazzi. Instead, he spoke of a third man, one who had yet to be found.

Leonardo recounted that he had seen, in the periphery of his vision, a robed figure step forward on Giuliano’s right, and that he believed it was this man who had delivered the first blow. As Giuliano tried to back away from Baroncelli, the figure had stood fast – pressed hard against the victim and trapped him. The unknown did not even recoil when Francesco struck out wildly with the dagger, but remained firmly in place until Francesco and Baroncelli moved on.

Once Giuliano had died, Leonardo had glanced up and noticed the man moving quickly towards the door that led to the piazza. He must have paused at some point to look behind him, to be sure that his victim died.

‘Assassin!’ the artist had shouted. ‘Stop!’

There was such outraged authority, such pure force in his voice that the conspirator had stopped in mid-stride, and glanced swiftly over his shoulder.

Leonardo captured his image with a trained artist’s eye. The man wore the robes of a penitent – crude burlap – and his clean-shaven face was half-shadowed by a cowl. Only the lower half of his lip and his chin were visible.

Held close to his side, his hand gripped a bloodied stiletto.

After he had fled, Leonardo had gently rolled Giuliano’s body onto its side, and discovered the puncture – small but very deep – in his midback.

This he relayed to Lorenzo. But he did not admit what he knew in his tortured heart: that he, Leonardo, was responsible for Giuliano’s death.

His guilt was not irrational. It was the product of long meditation on the events that had occurred. Had he, the artist, not been so overcome by love and pain and jealousy, Giuliano might have lived.

It was Leonardo’s habit to study crowds – faces, bodies, posture – and from this, he usually learned a great deal of information. Almost as much could be read from a man’s back as from his front. If the artist had not been absorbed by thoughts of Giuliano and the woman, he would surely have noticed the exceptional tension in the penitent’s stance, for the man had been almost directly in front of him. He might have noticed something peculiar in Baroncelli or Francesco de’ Pazzi’s demeanour as they waited beside Giuliano. He should have sensed the anxiety of the three men, and deduced that Giuliano was in great danger.

If he had been paying attention, he would have seen the penitent surreptitiously reach for the stiletto; he would have noticed Baroncelli’s hand tensing on the hilt of his sword.

And there would have been time for him to take a single step forwards. To reach for the penitent’s hand. To move between Giuliano and Baroncelli.

Instead, his passion had reduced him to a witless bystander, rendered helpless by the panicked, fleeing crowd. And it had cost Giuliano his life.

He bowed his head at the weight of the guilt, then raised it again and looked in il Magnifico‘s sorrowful, eager eyes.

‘I am certain this man was disguised, my lord.’

Lorenzo was intrigued. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘His posture. Penitents indulge in self-flagellation, they wear hair shirts beneath their robes. Then slump, cringe, and move gingerly, because of the pain each time the shirt touches their skin. This man moved freely; his posture was straight and sure. But the muscles were tensed.

‘I believe, as well, that he was from the upper classes, given the dignity and gentility of his aspect.’

Lorenzo’s gaze was penetrating. ‘All this you have ascertained from a man’s movements, a man who was draped in a robe?’

Leonardo stared back unflinching. ‘I would not have come if I had not.’

‘Then you shall be my agent.’ Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed with hatred and determination. ‘You shall help me find this man.’

So, over the past year, Leonardo had been summoned several times to the prison in the Bargello, to carefully examine the lips and chins and postures of several unfortunate men. None of them had matched those of the penitent he had seen in the cathedral.

The night before Baroncelli’s execution, Lorenzo, had sent two guards to bring Leonardo to the palazzo on the Via Larga.

Lorenzo had changed little physically – save for the pale scar on his neck. If his unseen wound had similarly healed, this day had torn it open, rendered it fresh and raw.

Had Leonardo not been so stricken, he might have delighted in il Magnifico‘s unique features, especially his prominent nose. The bridge rose briefly just beneath the eyebrows, then flattened and abruptly disappeared, as if God had taken his thumb and squashed it down. Yet it rose again, rebellious and astonishing in its length, and sloped precipitously to the left. Its shape rendered his voice harshly nasal

That evening, il Magnifico wore a woollen tunic of deep rich blue; white ermine edged the collar and cuffs. He was an unhappy victor this night, but he seemed more troubled than gloating. ‘Perhaps you have already deduced why I have called for you,’ he said.

‘Yes. I am to go to the piazza tomorrow to look for the third man.’ Leonardo hesitated; he, too, was troubled. ‘I need your assurance first.’

‘Ask and I will give it. I have Baroncelli now; I cannot rest until the third assassin is found.’

‘Baroncelli is to die, and rumour has it that he has been tortured mercilessly.’

Lorenzo interrupted swiftly. ‘And with good reason. He was my best hope to find the third assassin; but if he does know him, he will take the secret to Hell.’

The bitterness in il Magnifico‘s tone gave Leonardo pause. ‘Ser Lorenzo, if I find this third assassin, I cannot in good conscience turn him over to be killed.’

Lorenzo recoiled as if he had been struck full in the face; his pitch rose with indignance. ‘You would let my brother’s murderer go free?’

‘No.’ Leonardo’s own voice trembled faintly. ‘I esteemed your brother more highly than any other.’

‘I know,’ Lorenzo replied softly, in a way that said he did know the full truth of the matter.

Gathering himself, Leonardo bowed his head, then lifted it again. ‘I want to see the man brought to justice – to be deprived of his freedom, condemned to work for the good of others, to be forced to spend the remainder of his life contemplating his crime.’

Lorenzo’s upper lip was invisible; his lower stretched so taut over his jutting lower teeth that the tips of them showed. ‘Such idealism is admirable.’ He paused. ‘I am a reasonable man – and like you, an honest one. If I agree that, should you find him, he will not be killed but instead imprisoned, will you go to the piazza to find him?’

‘I will,’ Leonardo promised. ‘And if I fail tomorrow, I will not stop searching until he is found.’

Lorenzo nodded, satisfied. He looked away, and stared at a Flemish painting of bewitching delicacy on his wall. ‘You should know that this man …’ He stopped himself, then started again. ‘This goes far deeper than the murder of my brother, Leonardo. They mean to destroy us.’

‘To destroy you and your family?’

Lorenzo faced him again. ‘You. Me. Botticelli. Verrochio. Perugino. Ghirlandaio. All that Florence represents.’ Leonardo opened his mouth to ask Who? Who means to do this?, but Lorenzo lifted a hand to silence him. ‘Go to the piazza tomorrow. Find the third man. I mean to question him personally.’

It was agreed that Lorenzo would pay Leonardo a token sum for a ‘commission’ – the sketch of Bernardo Baroncelli hanged, with the possibility that such a sketch might become a portrait. Thus Leonardo could honestly answer that he was in the Piazza della Signoria because Lorenzo de’ Medici wanted a drawing; he was a very bad liar, and prevarication did not suit him.

As he stood in the square on the cold December morning of Baroncelli’s death, staring intently at the face of each man who passed, he puzzled over il Magnifico’s words.

They mean to destroy us …