I, Mona Lisa, page 21
Il Magnifico himself leads the French king into the Palazzo Vecchio. Neither man, Medici prince nor the great king, dismounts. The King rides his black charger up the steps flanked by cavalry on either side. He is tall and slender, broad-shouldered with thick black hair, his plumed cap making him appear yet taller still. He wears a suit of black, embroidered with silver thread, and his golden spurs wink in the morning light. He seems half-man and half-god. Michelangelo’s Il Gigante and the copy of Hercules appear to salute him as he rides into the palazzo, but the young king doesn’t even glance at them.
A papal usher has sidled up unnoticed beside Leonardo. ‘His Holiness desires your presence in the palazzo. His Grace, Francis, the Most Christian King of France, has expressed an interest in your company, Master Leonardo.’
The usher leads the master and Salaì through the crowd, shoving people aside. Glancing upward, we see the beacon is lit and hear the distant sound of music. Despite the King’s sudden reluctance, the festa has begun and the pontiff has mounted Hanno the elephant and commenced the procession. I wonder whether the pontiff’s determination to press ahead is a political calculation, designed to match Francis’s demonstration of power with an equal showing, or whether it is instead a childish inability to face disappointment.
The French court has swarmed the Palazzo Vecchio. Inside it hums and seethes with people. All is chaos and uproar. I wonder whether we shall glimpse the entrata at all and I had so wanted to see Hanno the elephant. I’m nearly knocked out of Leonardo’s hands by the tide of courtiers and the stench of sweat, and we find ourselves borne up the grand stairs of the palace. The King and his court have taken over the Hall of the Great Council. I glance around with interest, able to survey the vast chamber from the privacy of my specially converted box. The crowd conceals most of the view, but through the gaps I glimpse ruins of Leonardo’s fresco of the Battle of Anghiari. It has not been painted over. Beside it is Michelangelo’s cartoon, which remains pinned to the plaster, the paper ragged at the edges. It appears he also never finished his commission and did not transform the cartoon into a mural. Leonardo fidgets unhappily. He does not want to be here, face to face with his greatest failure, forced to look upon the limits of his ambition and genius.
The room is so overstuffed with people that the walls are running with condensation and I am half-afraid that the floor will collapse. I spy il Magnifico glowering in a corner, playing surly and reluctant host. Then, upon a wooden seat, sulks the French king. Even seated and hunched over, he’s tall. He’s almost handsome, with a pallid face, black hair and a long, bulbous nose, too prominent for any painter to flatter away.
We wait. For hours. Leonardo has been summoned here by King Francis, but the Most Christian King neither speaks nor looks upon him, and does not invite him into the royal presence.
It appears that the Pope won’t let the King’s refusal spoil the lengthy festivities. We are all trapped in an interminable game between a king who won’t watch and a pope who won’t rush. His Grace, the Most Christian King of France declines to permit anyone from the French court to watch the festival either. There are rows and rows of windows in the palace all facing out upon the piazza and the sound of the festivities rises upward like smoke, filling the air with singing and lutes and joy. Leonardo and his assistants spent months in Rome on the plans for the arches, designing pulley systems for the moving parts as well as the costumes, and here we are, unable to even peep at the carnival. We are blind men, hearing from others’ distant shouts the scale of the triumph. No one dares so much as glance towards the windows; they are sealed not with paper but fear. Giuliano de’ Medici simmers in the corner, festering with rage. He has been ordered here to act as ambassador until his brother the Pope arrives, but he’s bored and slighted, yet even il Magnifico himself lacks the courage to stroll ten paces to the flapping window and watch the elephant lumber into the piazza. No one speaks or sits as there are very few benches. The room clacks with dread.
The King idly surveys the chamber. He settles upon Leonardo, who has been standing for some time.
‘Leonardo from Vinci?’
Leonardo steps forward and kneels; then, to his embarrassment, finds that tired from standing he has difficulty in rising.
The King is furious, but not with Leonardo.
‘Who let the great Leonardo stand for hours? Do you not know who he is? Find him a seat! He’s not a young man. Treat him with honour. Give him wine and food.’
Two courtiers help him onto a chair and give wine, plying him with a plate of duck, truffles and sweetmeats. Colour returns to his cheeks.
‘You were charged with this pageant? In my honour?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ says Leonardo.
It was planned to honour the King and Pope in unequal measure – in the pontiff’s favour – but this is not the moment to quibble.
‘Assist Leonardo from Vinci to the window so he can witness his triumph,’ orders Francis. There is a note of mockery in his tone, but again none of it appears directed at Leonardo whom he regards apparently transfixed.
The courtiers, the two burliest, simply lift Leonardo up in his chair and carry him with me in my box still clasped on his lap and set us both down on the raised platform beside the row of windows. Leonardo watches the window bleakly. Threads of duck flesh are caught in his beard.
‘Can you see?’ asks the monarch.
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ lies Leonardo.
The windows are far too high.
The King laughs fulsomely, throwing back his head. He rises.
‘Come. We will see the end of this absurdity. We will watch the Pope ride to us on his elephant. We do it for Leonardo who has planned and sweated in our honour.’
The point of refusal has been made. Leonardo is merely an excuse. No one is fooled. King Francis sweeps down the staircase, il Magnifico just behind, the court thronging at their heels. Leonardo and Salaì join the crowd; the pair of French courtiers are waiting to attend us.
‘Do you need the suitcase?’ asks one, looking at my box, baffled.
‘Yes,’ replies Leonardo frankly.
The courtiers thrust the herds of onlookers out of the way and, as we emerge from the Palazzo Vecchio into the chaos and fury of the piazza, they find Leonardo a place to watch on the edge of the regal platform behind the King of France who sits on a throne, head in his hands, feigning disinterest. The noise is reminiscent of a battle, thick with shouts and screams and cries, not of agony but ecstasy. The Pope approaches. A crimson tide of cardinals like a blood river sashays through the crowd, tossing silver coins to the wailing masses. There is the Pope himself, borne upon the back of the hulking grey elephant, wearing white robes and a white and gold crown – more god than king. The crowd leaps back, terrified of the massive beast, and then edges closer again, eager to brush the papal robes. At the head of the procession, on a gold-painted wagon pulled by two horses, is a towering pedestal where a young winged boy stands naked and gilded entirely from head to toe; the curls on his head are coils of molten gold as if he had been touched by King Midas. This is the Golden Age of Florence and the Medici. Even King Francis stirs and murmurs his approval, apparently moved. A tear falls from the eye of the Pope but, as we watch, the boy squirms and wriggles, scratching at his arms and tearing at his wings as he flails and chokes. A moment later, he falls, a golden angel or Icarus diving down to earth, and crashes onto the cart below. Men rush forward and seize the child, attempt to revive him. Salaì runs to discover what has happened.
He returns, downcast.
‘The boy is dead. Suffocated from the gold paint.’
I shudder. The pigments that brought me to life have killed the child.
His Holiness and the King send silver florins to the child’s mother. The Pope is trying not to be annoyed that the boy’s audacity at dying has spoiled his festa. It is not a good omen for the Medici. In the Hall of the Great Council, surrounded by courtiers from both courts – the papal and the Valois – the two men make endless professions of insincere friendship. Both are angry and displeased. This meeting is intended to set out more cordial relations between two men of formidable power and lay the foundations of a treaty of concord, but they each simmer with resentments. Francis wants Naples and a dukedom. And he presses Pope Leo to surrender Parma and Modena. I listen with interest, but Leonardo sits on his chair, leaning against his cushions, listless, hearing nothing. His face is painted with guilt at the death of the gilded boy. To have a golden angel was part of his design, another death marked upon his conscience.
The young king stands, towering over the corpulent and glistening pope, who perspires freely in his robes, and kneels with a smirk, kissing his hand. His Holiness blesses him through his teeth. Francis springs to his feet.
A cardinal shuffles forward and presents Francis with a gleaming golden box set with diamonds, emeralds, rubies and topaz. Painted saints with lapis eyes gape mournfully from the lid. Francis stares at it, his lip curling with his lack of enthusiasm.
‘This is a symbol of our friendship and our esteem for you, most high and excellent Prince, By the Grace of God, Most Christian King of France, Duke of Brittany; Duke of Milan, Count of Asti, Lord of Genoa; Count of Provence, Forcalquier and the lands adjacent,’ says Pope Leo, eyeing the box with unchristian covetousness.
The King makes no remark.
The Pope’s neck-rolls turn red with fury like strings of blood sausage in a butcher’s shop. ‘It’s a reliquary with a fragment of the true cross,’ he explains, outraged that such a treasure should require parsing.
King Francis gives a nod of cool and indifferent thanks. ‘If you truly wish to demonstrate your regard, but do not wish to present me with Naples, then I desire to possess Leonardo from Vinci’s Mona Lisa. And her sister Leda.’
I’m relieved that Leda is safely tucked up in Rome and this fierce boy-king cannot seize her. To glimpse her is to need her and he hankers after her already.
‘I’ve heard of their beauty even in France,’ continues Francis. ‘These are works of art beyond all compare. They have been touched by God, so it’s said.’
The Pope struggles to his feet, after finding himself momentarily wedged into his chair.
‘The true cross was actually touched by God!’ yells Pope Leo, then remembers himself, swallows and blinks.
‘The Mona Lisa and the Leda are indeed remarkable but,’ he winces and searches the room for Leonardo, ‘they are not mine to give. If they were, then of course I would bestow them upon Your Grace in a moment.’
‘In that case,’ says the King, with a chuckle, ‘it appears I must persuade all three – painter and his paintings – to accompany me back to France.’
The entire Valois court gathered behind their monarch on the left side of the hall erupts with obedient laughter. The papal court does not. Pope Leo stares at Leonardo with fury; any satisfaction at the feste has dissipated, only anger remains. Leonardo has humiliated him before the French king.
We sit in the receiving room in our lodgings. Leonardo huddles on the high-backed settle before the fire. No one speaks very much. The shutters keep out the streaming rain but not the ghosts; the night thrums with them. Leonardo frets over the dead boy. The landlady carries in food that no one eats. Cecco tries to tempt the master with morsels of salted fish and eggs, but he pushes it all away. Salaì is flushed with wine and pours another glass, slopping it on the table. He glares at me, stiff with resentment. He does not want to share Leonardo with any rival – not with another man, a woman; not with whatever I am.
‘You are celebrated, Mona Lisa, even beyond Italy,’ he grunts. ‘And you are making the master famous.’ His voice glitters with danger like a whetted blade.
He is jealous that I am bringing Leonardo renown across Europe. Leonardo rouses himself to look at his protégé. ‘It should be you, my garzone, who garlands my reputation. I do not need to collect my own laurels.’
Salaì shrinks like a kicked dog at the rebuke. He lacks much skill as a painter. Yet even little Cecco fades like a candle placed next to the sun, when compared to Leonardo.
There is a rap at the door, and the landlady hurries to answer it. A courier appears, not in papal livery but Valois blue, and presents a letter to Leonardo. It’s marked with Francis’s own seal. The master studies it for a second before opening it and reading. Once he has done so, he looks up at us – Salaì, Cecco and me – his expression bewildered.
‘Francis, the Most Christian King of France, desires us to go with him to Amboise. He wants me to be his court painter. He offers me a “most commodious manor, servants, and to accord me the esteem, respect and adulation that he fears I am not accorded in my native Italy”.’
‘It’s true. You are not accorded,’ I say.
‘How much?’ demands Salaì.
‘A thousand florins each year.’
‘I bet he offered Michelangelo more. And Raphael.’
We all stare at Salaì who preens in the attention. ‘Oh yes, the Most Christian Arsehole asked them both first and they turned him down. Too busy. Too adored in Italy.’
Leonardo is third choice. Salaì watches the master and his face contorts on seeing Leonardo’s hurt expression. The master pricked Salaì’s pride, and Salaì struck out in revenge like a viper, and yet he loves Leonardo, and he is both satisfied that he has wounded the master and agonised that his barb has caused him pain.
‘It doesn’t make a difference,’ I say. ‘There is no future for you here. You have not only made an enemy of your patron, il Magnifico, but also Pope Leo. You cannot stay with all the Medici against you.’
He stares at me, expression full of sorrow. ‘I fear you are right.’ He sighs. ‘We must make friends with France.’
For the second time, I find myself persuading Leonardo to leave Florence, but this banishment will not only be from Florence but Italy and this time he shall not return.
Alpine Pass, 1516
Autumn
We leave in early September when the sun is still warm on our faces. The mules are loaded with crates and boxes. Leda and I are carefully wrapped, placed in our cases and strapped onto mules. I’m relieved to have her with me again; we’ve never been apart so long, and we call to one another. I do not know then that the time will come when I must endure existence without her. But I’m young and only filled with excitement at this new adventure. The mountain rocks look blue and the thin air makes them appear bluer still – particularly in the shadows, according to Leonardo, who insists upon frequent stops so that he can draw. He is diverted by the livid moss and violet and ochre tones striping the strata in twisting patterns. Leda is entranced by the shining wild strawberries amongst the alpine rocks, like those sprouting beneath her toes, and Leonardo has Cecco grind up beetles so he can brighten those around her, casting painted sunlight upon them. She’s enthralled and can’t stop admiring the new berries.
We walk through days, then weeks. The light shifts. The sun cools and the air thins further as we climb. I hear the men huff and see them sweat. The path narrows and then disappears until we need a guide to seek out the way. Whether it is all the pauses so that Leonardo can sketch, or the slow pace of the overloaded mules, picking their way through the ragged paths, but the first flakes of snow fall as we reach the Aosta Valley. Our progress slackens and Leonardo catches a ragged cough that he can’t shake.
Our guide leads us on through tracks beside streams and pine trees. We are leaving Italy and approaching France. Snow flurries cover the stone quarries and hide the meadows. The wind picks up and hides our tracks. If it wasn’t for our guide, we wouldn’t find our way. Cecco sings to keep up our spirits and Leda joins in, her voice sweet and clear. Leonardo coughs and coughs, and stoops hunkered over his mule in silence, his cloak pulled up around him, trembling with cold. His fingers are blue every evening when he tugs off his gloves. We spend each night in wooden chalets along the road, bare but hospitable, where the master sleeps in a pallet beside the fire and is given soup and bread and warm milk. We can hear the snort and huff of the cattle just through the wooden partition, and the stink is ripe. Leonardo eats less and less each time, and he looks wan and feverish. Leda and I beg him to take a day and rest. I hear Cecco and Salaì arguing with the guide.
‘We need to slow down. He’s an old man. He needs a few days to recover,’ pleads Cecco.
‘Non,’ replies the guide. ‘We must cross the pass before real winter. These are only the first flurries. We’re already too slow.’
‘You’ll kill him with this pace,’ says Salaì.
‘He’ll die on the pass if we wait,’ says the guide. ‘Or you must hold up till spring.’ I look at Leonardo, but he’s already asleep in his clothes, his food uneaten, a blanket tossed over him. His skin is stretched taut and I can trace the shape of his skull, the outline of death already marked upon his face.
We trudge on. The snow continues to fall. I see it catching upon the men’s eyelashes. The mountains disappear. We only know they are there. The road has gone but the guide finds the way from the trickling of the stream, not yet frozen. All is white. We stumble onwards. We make our way through the shelter of the high forest, but just above us lies the bare back of the Alps, rocky and desolate, wearing nothing but snow, devoid of life. When the clouds clear, we see the bruised gleam of the glacier, tall and deep and otherworldly. Leonardo does not speak. His lips crack and bleed. We have to coax him to sip from the mountain streams like a baby sparrow. The sky is grey and threatens more snow.
‘We need to reach the church of Notre-Dame de la Gorge for shelter,’ says the guide, looking anxiously at the sky.
We cross the gorge itself, an old Roman bridge spanning the river, the waters smashing against the rocks below. Leonardo rouses and shudders, staring at the torrent, transfixed. The air is solid with snow, white and blinding. It patters against the luggage. The mules flick their tails and ears and slog on, uncomplaining. Leonardo slips from the back of his mule, unable to sit. Cecco clambers down and walks beside him, pinning him in place. We lumber onwards. At last, through the pines, there is a light. Huddled among snow-covered trees is a painted church, a lamp lit in the high windows.
