I, Mona Lisa, page 14
We live under the protection of the Count of Milan. He enjoys having Leonardo here, and has gifted him a farm with a vineyard as well as an annual stipend. He only asks that La Cremona visits him once each moon to read him poetry. Or so she says. Leonardo works with the vitality of a man half his age. Cecco spends hours grinding up cinabrese, red lead and malachite. His fingers are permanently stained. The swans have left, and Leonardo berates the empty river, entreating them to return. I don’t leave his side. He paints Leda, talking to us both as he works. Leda is shy at first, bewildered by the world, newborn. He sketches the wild strawberries that flourish on terraces and between the cracks in the loggia, instructing Cecco to grind up the tiny cochineal beetles for carmine for the berries and paints them at Leda’s feet. The ferry delivers fresh linseed oil for binding the paints. Leonardo draws study after study of bulrushes that tremble in the currents of the Adda, and these are copied onto the panel. He watches La Cremona: her skin, the angle of her shoulder, her hip. She and Leda are no longer the same. Leda watches her babies, as they hatch, transfixed in adoration. In motherhood, she possesses a serenity that La Cremona does not.
Painters come from Milan to copy Leda. Already the rumours of her beauty are spreading and they stay a month or two or three. Cesare da Sesto. Bernadino Luini and half a dozen others from all across Lombardy and Italy who I quickly forget. Cecco and Salaì even attempt to copy her. Some artists are here to paint and learn from the maestro, earnestly rising at dawn to sketch and work, but others fall under the lume particolare of La Cremona and leave dazed after weeks with their panel unprimed, brushes dry, pigments never unbottled.
The leaves fall. First a few, then dozens all around. We are driven inside the villa by the rains and then the storms and cold. Some nights the coverings on the windows freeze. The fires blaze day and night. Leonardo takes a fallen leaf, an ash, and copies it, painting it sap green upon the limewashed plaster in the hall. Cecco is enchanted by the effect and pleads with him to paint a thousand more. Transform the four-square villa into a forest, like he did for Ludovico Sforza many years before. But if there are to be more leaves, they must be in fresco. And we need chickens to produce enough eggs to bind the tempera to the plaster. The ferry delivers them.
One leaf becomes a branch. Then a tree. Its branches spread into the next year. The ash grows into an oak and then a chestnut and the trees become a wood, and then, as the years pass, a forest. Leda and I watch. I teach her the names of all the pigments that are ground up and blended to make up her many parts. She learns to laugh and teases me and my desire to learn everything I can from Leonardo. ‘Don’t be so serious, Mona. No more lessons today.’ She is full of playfulness and fun. She is no longer newborn.
An invitation comes from il Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici in Rome. The old pope has died, and the conclave of cardinals has elected Giuliano’s brother Pope Leo X, the first Florentine pope. The Medici brothers want in their court the great Florentine artists and they request Leonardo’s presence in Rome. The master doesn’t wish to go. We are happy here on the outskirts of Milan in our villa of trees under the count’s protection. Yet, for all our contentment, we fret that it isn’t sensible to refuse il Magnifico Giuliano. It is unwise to decline the summons of a Medici. We ignore it for a little while. We sing and paint. We test the bounds of fate.
We wake one morning to find news that the Count of Milan is dead and that Swiss mercenaries are gathering outside the city walls. We ought to have left at once. No one ignores a letter with a Medici seal. They have unholy powers. La Cremona and Leda believe that we brought ill fortune by not departing immediately. Leonardo refuses to consider such nonsense and superstition.
La Cremona and Leonardo hold hands and whisper, humming with anxiety. They step out into the garden and peer through the mist; fires are being set in the distance by the mercenaries and blaze in a furious inferno of orange and red, the smoke mingling with the fog and drifting across the river. The Count was our patron and protector and the city is about to swarm with his enemies. We cannot stay here.
La Cremona kisses Leda and then me goodbye.
‘This parting is easier for you than for me,’ she says. ‘You are taking me with you.’
‘Only your looks,’ I say. ‘You and Leda are nothing alike.’
‘I am perfected,’ agrees Leda.
‘I shall miss you all,’ says La Cremona.
‘Come to Rome,’ says Leonardo.
‘No. Venice is the place for me. I’ll soon be as rich as a queen. I shall buy from you both Mona Lisa and Leda, and they’ll live with me in a palazzo beside the Grand Canal.’
Leonardo only laughs but for La Cremona it is not a joke.
I worry for her in Venice. It is in Milan that she is renowned for her genius and grace. Venice throbs with hundreds of cortigiane and she is no longer the youngest. Her eyes are luminous with tears.
‘Cortigiana or queen,’ I say, even though she cannot hear, ‘you are a woman of virtù. Of power and poetry.’
She curtsies and blows me a kiss. In less than a year she will be dead of venereal disease. I shall not see her again.
Rome, 1513
Winter
When I first glimpse Rome as we ride in, I fear it has been sacked and the Sultan has invaded from Constantinople. It seems to lie in ruins, rubble and stones heaped upon the streets, every church and edifice half-pulled down and entombed in scaffolding. Then, as I look, it’s clear that the city is a building site, swarming with masons and carpenters, and artisans of every guild as Rome is built anew, repainted and restored to remind the people of her glory, and that not only do all roads lead here but the only road to salvation is through her shining gates.
Leonardo is given apartments in the new Belvedere Palace. From one window we look upon the never-ending construction. The noise starts at dawn and continues until dusk. The din maddens Leonardo, who summons a foreman and demands to know when the work will be done. The foreman shrugs and spits. He hasn’t a clue. Perhaps it will be finished in twenty years. Perhaps fifty. The popes keep on changing their minds about what they want. And then dying.
Cecco plays upon his lute to distract from the racket and persuades Leonardo to look out of the other windows. The apartment in the Belvedere Palace stands on a hill amid vast wooded gardens, a wilderness in the heart of Vatican City, seemingly ancient enough for Romulus and Remus to still lurk with dryads in the sylvan shades. There are grottoes and orchards of plum and apple and cherry; the now bare limbs are skinny hands, baubled with mistletoe like emerald rings. From one window we glimpse pergolas and fish ponds brimming with gliding carp. Sombre statues shiver in the morning frost, and the smooth slopes roll down to the valley at the bottom. Leonardo pulls on his velvet cap and his blue tinted glasses against the spiked glare of the low winter sun and strides for hours amongst the trees, drawing his cloak about him, declaring, ‘Nature is the mistress of all masters.’
Il Magnifico himself sends the Medicis’ own architect to the apartment to make any changes Leonardo desires. Leonardo is out on one of his customary walks when the architect arrives and Cecco lists the requested alterations.
‘Pine-wood partitions. And a framework for a new ceiling for an attic. This window is too narrow. The maestro needs more light to paint.’
The architect scribbles down notes.
‘Four dining chairs, poplar. Eight stools. Three benches. And a counter for grinding colours.’
Leda and I consider him from our easels. He bows and scrapes, a supplicant to a new Medici favourite. He notices Leda and catches his breath. Drops his pen. Leda accepts his adulation as her due.
‘She is a wonder. A rival to the marvels of Michelangelo and Raphael,’ he murmurs.
Leda is displeased. She does not like rivals any more than Leonardo. She wishes to surpass them all.
‘I prefer Leda to anything by Michelangelo,’ I say, loyal. ‘I’ve heard the Sistine Chapel’s a miracle, the closest thing to God on earth, but at least when you gaze upon Leda, you can do so without getting a crick in your neck.’
‘Quite,’ says Leda.
The architect blinks and turns to stare at me. He’s like a fish, opening and shutting his mouth with a popping sound.
‘She’s so lifelike. It’s unsettling.’
Leonardo arrives back from his walk, gratified to find the architect here, measuring up with his stick. The architect is accompanied by a cursore, an official papal courier, in splendid crimson livery. Until now, he’s remained silent, standing absolutely still beside the door. Now, from a belt around his waist, he unfastens a leather pouch and produces a letter folded over and sealed with crossed keys and Medici shield, the papal seal of Pope Leo. He hands the letter to Leonardo.
‘I am to deliver the missive to you, Messer Leonardo. Into your own hands.’
Leonardo reads it quickly and nods, pleased.
‘We are summoned to the Medici court in the Eternal City for an audience. All of us. Giuliano wishes to meet Madonna Lisa and Leda. He has heard the rumours of your beauty. He wishes to show you to His Holiness.’
Already Pope Leo is assigning commissions with a speed to rival his predecessor, determined to make his mark upon posterity and pave his way to Heaven. There won’t be a blank wall or ceiling without a fresco in Rome. Now, living in the Belvedere Palace, we are stars in the orbit of the Medici and everything glints with golden possibility. Leonardo sketches on paper after paper an endless series of ideas for all the different paintings he yearns to undertake. It’s been years since he attempted anything on an epic scale and he’s impatient with possibilities. None of us dares to speak of Anghiari.
Salaì, always the man to hear the talk in the taverns closest to the Vatican, and knowing who to buy a drink for, hurries back with the news that Michelangelo has at last finished the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. The radical and wondrous painting is complete.
‘Good for him,’ says Leonardo. ‘The man is impossible, but I should like to see it. As long as he isn’t there to sneer.’
‘Or to smell,’ I add. ‘I doubt the man’s washed since we saw him last in Florence.’
‘You’re missing the point, maestro,’ says Salaì, impatient. ‘Michelangelo has painted almost every braccio of the chapel under the patronage of the last pope; there is only one section left. But Pope Leo is determined to leave his own mark on history. He’s ready to commission the final part of the chapel.’
‘Well,’ asks Cecco, ‘what does he want?’
‘Tapestries all around the walls depicting the Lives of the Saints.’
‘The maestro isn’t a weaver!’ objects Cecco.
‘No. The weavers are in the Low Countries. The Pope is commissioning cartoons, vast cartoons for the weavers to copy. The greatest and most ambitious in all the world.’
I look at Leonardo. ‘Why do you think he summoned you here to Rome?’
We all stare at Leonardo.
He smiles; his face is brimful of hope.
The men attend Mass, and afterwards, while the Pope and his cardinals banquet, Leonardo and his boys hurry back to collect us and return with us to court. The Pope needs to see what the great Leonardo can achieve, and Leda and I are the pinnacle of his genius, paintings touched with the divine, so pleasing that we are beyond nature and something more than human. Cecco cradles me in his arms. Giovanni bears Leda. The evening is cool and fine, and we plead not to be swaddled, desperate to see, and Leonardo relents. He has chosen a portfolio of work to show the pontiff. He is jittery, and fiddles with the silk of his tunic and imagined creases on the velvet of his hose. He is wearing his favourite cap in midnight velvet. He hasn’t seen the Medici brothers since they were boys in Florence.
Torches are lit along the paths leading to the Apostolic Palace and the flames gutter and spit. Papal Swiss Guards in the Medici livery of crimson and gold stand to attention as we walk up Palatine Hill. Already I can hear music. It isn’t holy. There are lutes and keyboards, flutes, trombones, cornets and crumhorns. There are a host of singers, and while the sound they make is heavenly, the words are not. They are not Italian or Latin.
‘What language are they singing?’ I ask.
‘English,’ says Leonardo.
‘It’s barbaric,’ I complain.
We walk through the courtyard, listening to the music of the fountain mingling with the voices of the singers. Papal Guards open the massive palace doors and we are led into the Cortile delle Statue, where the exquisite Apollo himself stands resplendent and ignoring us. Leonardo pauses to regard the perfect stone curls of his hair, the metamorphosis of marble into the soft cambric cloak falling on his shoulder. The Pope, it seems, is an admirer of many gods of Rome. An usher in a splendid livery with the Medici crossed keys and shields waits for us, gesturing for us to follow.
‘When will His Holiness finish the banquet?’ asks Leonardo.
‘It’s a fast day. Today they only eat fish,’ rebukes the usher.
Yet the smells of sage and butter wafting outside are making Salaì and Cecco and Tommaso’s bellies rumble. We are led back inside and taken through a maze of corridors and walkways to a large chamber with a coffered ceiling, each panel picked out with gilt and displaying papal shields. The walls are adorned with frescoed parrots and angels, and here and there, amongst false marble columns, I am sure I spy real parrots roosting. Pope Leo and il Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici and the ranks of solemn cardinals are still eating. The Pope is extremely fat. His face sits brooding like a chicken on a nest of chins. His crimson camauro squats on the top of his head. He peers around the room, short-sighted. His porcine fingers are salamis, drumming on the table to the music in perfect time. He closes his eyes in happiness. I wonder if prayers ever provoke expressions of such bliss upon the face of the pontiff as these peculiar tunes. A broken consort of musicians perform while they sup, as well as several apple-cheeked choirboys. These must be the Englishmen as, beneath their rouge, there is a gruesome pallor; yet the boys can sing. There is a jubilant exultation to their song.
We stand awkwardly at the back, listening. No one notices us; they are too busy with eating and music. I notice that the musicians are wearing bizarre outfits, physicians’ gowns. Il Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici spots Leonardo. He throws up his hands with pleasure and rises from the table. The cardinals flinch, frowning at the interruption. Giuliano bows an apology to His Holiness, strides over and kisses Leonardo on each cheek.
‘Leonardo from Vinci. A Florentine. Not a friend, a brother.’
Leonardo is taken aback by the affection and effusion of his greeting. We are all remembering the painting of the cherubic, curly-haired boy in the church at Maria Santa Novella in Florence. This man is tall and angular, with a neatly clipped beard and thin red lips, and handsome despite the prominent Medici nose.
‘Come, come. I cannot wait. His Holiness will not mind.’
His Holiness doesn’t even notice his brother leaving the room. His jowls are wobbling to the music.
Giuliano leads us from the chamber. He keeps touching Leonardo, as though to check he is really there and not some phantasm.
‘I hope you like your apartments?’
‘Most agreeable, Magnifico,’ says Leonardo, bewildered by such attentions.
This man, who is half-skipping with pleasure in his company, is the commander of the papal troops: a soldier, a scholar and a prince. Even so, I detect the glint of Medici steel that warns of caution. Giuliano, despite his façade of charm and nonchalance, is a man used to getting his own way. We seem to be friends. We must remain so.
‘Why are the musicians dressed in physicians’ gowns, Magnifico?’ asks Cecco with sudden daring.
Giuliano laughs. ‘It is a little joke Pope Leo enjoys. They are dressed as physicians or medici. And we too are Medici. Especially as, unfortunately, His Holiness requires physicians. He suffers from a fistula. He eats too much.’
Giuliano has no sense that he ought not to be sharing such an intimate detail with us. We are appellants of his circle now. An usher in robes holds open the door to another frescoed chamber, smaller than the last, and Giuliano waves us inside.
‘This is His Holiness’s private study. He’ll come here after he’s finished eating. He might be some time. You can set out the pictures ready for him to inspect.’
Leonardo steps inside and looks in awe and wonder.
‘Now do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of all the world? Oh, Raphael!’
‘Yes, indeed, this room was painted by Raphael of Urbino and his workshop,’ says Giuliano.
It still smells of paint. The frescoes on the walls cannot long be finished. The domed ceiling is gilded with so much gold leaf that it casts a glow upon the cheeks of the men below, and in the reflection of the torches and candles it gleams like the light of the sun. I have never seen Leonardo silenced by the work of another artist.
Salaì, Cecco, Tommaso and Giovanni are setting up easels for Leda and me, reverently placing us upon them, laying the portfolios of drawings out on the table ready for the pontiff to examine. Leonardo pays no attention to them, still busy with Raphael’s fresco of the School of Athens. Salaì comes to stand beside him and gives a snort.
‘Look, everyone’s there. Michelangelo glowering in his dog-skin boots. Ill-tempered as ever.’
‘I’m glad I’ve never met him,’ says Leda. ‘He looks a perfect grouch.’
‘And there’s Raphael himself in the far corner,’ I say from my vantage on the easel. ‘Except his face is too thin, and I don’t much like his hat. He’s not flattered himself. And, master,’ I exclaim, ‘Plato looks just like you. He’s even pointing his forefinger heavenward in the identical pose as your Salvator Mundi and St Thomas.’
