The Medici Boy

by John L'Heureux

  “And I had to go to the Ufficiali di Onestà,” I said

  “They inscribed everything in a record book,” I said.

  “I told them lies. They have my name,” I said.

  “And now he’s back?”

  “I saw him. He came to the bottega.”

  “Turn him away if he comes here. I don’t want to hear his name again.”

  “I did. I told him to go.”

  “Enough.”

  “Pagno gave him money.”

  He was silent then for a long time and I knew not to say anything more.

  Now at least Donatello would not be surprised if he came upon Agnolo in the street, and I further hoped that I had done Pagno some little harm. I was thinking this when Donatello of a sudden said, “Pagno is kind and generous. We should all be more like Pagno.”

  * * *

  AGNOLO WAS STANDING at the door, careful not to come in but just as careful to be sure we could see him from our work stations. I was bent over my account books, pleased that so many of our commissions were completed or were near completion, when I looked up and there he was, staring straight at me, not bold and confrontational this time but meek and penitent. I looked from him to Donatello who labored at his bust of Contessina, and I rose immediately and went to the door.

  “Go!” I said.

  He lowered his glance and gazed at his bare feet for a long minute and when he looked up there were tears in his eyes and he said, “I’m sorry.”

  I was astonished. I could never have imagined him crying and here he stood with a tear starting down his cheek and more to come. I softened at once, but reminding myself that Donatello had said his name was never to be spoken here again, I told him, “Go. It is too late.”

  He turned and left and I went back to my work. I was of course angry at Agnolo but surprised at my feeling of pity for him and so after a few profitless minutes staring at my account book, I got up and went outside to the privy. One of the new apprentices was using it and so I waited, looking back into the bottega at the figure of Donatello, consumed with his work.

  How can it be, I thought, that such a man as he could fall in love with such a boy as Agnolo. It could not be a question of physical attraction because Agnolo was mere skin and bones. In truth he had a fine, handsome head and wondrous yellow hair but he was soft and girlish and his behind was flabby and without form. Yet he was desired by many, so it must be that I simply did not understand the nature of his beauty. Caterina herself was taken with him. And, I suspected, so was Pagno. All the same, the source of Agnolo’s fascination remained a mystery to me. He was quick of wit in a vulgar way. He was keen to please when he was in the mood to do so. He was ready with a smile. But he was a soulless, selfish child. Still, he had once amused Donatello and made him laugh, so perhaps he had rare qualities that I failed to see. Or perhaps the Donatello who fell in love with Agnolo had qualities that I failed to see. I preferred the Donatello at work now on the bust of Contessina. He was a man of forty-five years—already in his late middle age—too old for the foolishness of first love and too wise to give over his good sense to a boy who sold himself at the Buco. Donatello was sane once more and I was resolved to keep Agnolo at a distance from him.

  I finished in the privy and when I came out, calmer now, who should be waiting at the door but Pagno di Lapo.

  “What?” I asked.

  “He’s back again. I thought you should know.”

  “I sent him away. He left.”

  “But he’ll never really leave,” Pagno said. “Not altogether.”

  “And you? What do you propose to do about that? You were once cold to him, but your temperature seems to have changed greatly.”

  “I feel bad for him.”

  I gave him a look that meant I knew the truth about him. It was a quizzical look, and I would say that I had learned it from Donatello except that Donatello did know the truth.

  Pagno was defeated for the time and went away.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT WHEN I returned home Alessandra greeted me with the news that Agnolo had been to our door. His soldier had left him. He was desperate for a few coins.

  “And you gave them to him.”

  “So would you have.”

  “His heart is broken, I suppose. He’s abandoned and alone.”

  “He was near tears,” she said.

  “Awash in tears, I have no doubt.”

  “He said he was sorry. And I think he is.”

  “Sorrow, like the request for money, comes readily to his lips.”

  “Even whores can be sorry,” she said. “It is not an easy life.”

  Supper that night was uncomfortable and I blamed Agnolo. The dread Agnolo, ever the sower of misery even in his absence.

  * * *

  DONATELLO, PAUSING IN his work, looked up and saw Agnolo standing at the entrance to the bottega. He crossed to the door and pushed it shut.

  He went back to his sculpting stand and with great calm resumed work on the bust of Contessina de’ Bardi. It was coming along beautifully.

  AGNOLO STOOD ACROSS the street from the entrance to the bottega, a penitent, barefoot, wearing only his shirt and that straw hat he fancied. Donatello had shut up the bottega and turned the lock on the passway door, when I spotted Agnolo waiting to be noticed. I tried to block Donatello’s view but of course he saw him at once.

  “He looks ill.”

  I made as if to move on but Donatello hesitated. He reached for the purse at his waist, touched it, and then thought better. We walked in silence to the Piazza della Signoria where we parted and each went our way.

  The next night, after we closed the bottega, Agnolo was once again stationed across the street. This time Donatello did not hesitate. He crossed the street and with only a glance at the boy he handed him a silver florin.

  “For the love of God,” Agnolo said.

  “No. Because you need it,” Donatello said. And we walked on.

  This was the beginning, however, as I knew it must be.

  The next night when Donatello told me he would shut up the bottega by himself, I knew that the moment of his surrender had come and Agnolo would again have his way. And so it was. I waited in the Piazza and watched from a little distance while Donatello bought him a meat pie. They stood together in awkward conversation for a short while and then, without a touch or a gesture, they said farewell. Donatello went off toward the house he shared with Michelozzo, and Agnolo went on to some tavern, I suppose. He looked the penitent no longer. He had a jaunty walk and his hat was tilted in a carefree way.

  Toward noon of the next day he appeared at the doorway where he was greeted by Pagno di Lapo with a smile, which made me think that Pagno must know that Agnolo was no longer an exile. They went out together through the rear doors of the bottega to the courtyard where Pagno was carving a set of tondos—the Annunciation in one and the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus in the other—that had been on order from the Linen Guild for more than a year now. I waited for a while and then made the privy my excuse for going outside where, to my astonishment, I found Agnolo, with chisel and hammer, hacking at a discarded chunk of marble. I approached them and asked Agnolo what he thought he was doing.

  “Getting the feel of hammer and chisel,” he said. “Pagno is showing me.”

  Donatello appeared suddenly, his eyes piercing, his look hard. “You are not to disturb Pagno at his work,” he said. “You’d better go.”

  Humbly, like a beaten dog, Agnolo left the bottega. We did not see him for several days.

  * * *

  IT WAS A COOL day in late September when he next appeared. He was wearing new stockings and shoes with thick leather soles and he had left off his silly hat. He looked clean and his hair shone in the light. He had found a new patron, I supposed, but his attitude was as humble as when we last saw him. He went directly to where Donatello was working and stood at a little distance, silent, until Donatello took notice of him. He looked the boy up and down and then sm
iled a bitter smile I had seen only once before when a client had tried to cheat him of a fair price for a sculpture he had executed. It had surprised me then and it surprised me now.

  “New shoes,” he said. “New stockings.”

  “They were a present,” Agnolo said, as if he were acknowledging his unworthiness of such gifts.

  “From a new soldier?”

  “From my old soldier. A present for memory’s sake.” Donatello continued to look at him—with contempt, I thought—but then Agnolo said, “It is true, I have played the whore, but I have put all that aside.”

  “Aside?”

  “I want to work for you. I want to change my life.” He hesitated and then he went too far. “I know I am unworthy.”

  Donatello gave another bitter smile and said, “Yes,” but whether he meant work or worthiness I did not know. And then he said, “Speak to Pagno and he will give you some money.”

  “If you treat people like whores, they will act like whores,” Agnolo said with a sudden flash of his old self and then he retreated behind his pretence of humility.

  I could see Donatello falling again into Agnolo’s trap and I could not endure it. “If you act like a whore,” I said, “people will treat you like one.”

  They both turned to look at me. In their absorption with each other, they had forgotten I was there.

  “Your brother is annoyed,” Donatello said.

  “He’s not my brother,” Agnolo said.

  “He’s not my brother,” I said.

  Donatello laughed as if he were in truth a happy man.

  * * *

  AGNOLO BECAME A regular presence in the bottega as I knew he would. In October the weather grew suddenly cold and that provided him an excuse to hang about with his continual offers to help grind paints and carry wood or marble or, as he said more than once, to model for anyone who wanted to draw him. Or sculpt him. Clothed or nude. None of us knew where or how he lived.

  Caterina did a sketch of him as the boy David and another as the young Joseph and then a whole gallery of sketches from the Bible and from Greek mythology. She had the excuse of needing these figures for her cassoni and Agnolo was eager to please. They spent much time together. The two new garzoni, Matteo di Bartolomeo and Betto d’Antonio, were entertained by what they called this new romance of the plain girl and the pretty boy, though in truth nobody thought Caterina plain. Pagno kept his distance, both from Agnolo and from me. Since he had Donatello’s favor, no one else mattered to him.

  By the end of November Donatello had completed the clay bust of Contessina de’ Bardi. To the dark red clay he applied wax in increasingly thick layers and, once it had hardened, he modeled the bust in fine detail: the nose straight, the chin firm, every line and wrinkle designed to produce the impression of nobility. Her thick neck was heavy with jewels, her fine eyes were deeply set, and the trace of a smile brightened her face and welcomed our glance. There she was, the wife of Cosimo de’ Medici, in a wax model that could be shattered in an instant. It was frightening to look upon a perfect work of art sculpted in a medium—mere wax—that would be melted away and replaced by bronze. I have never lost my dread of this moment preceding the great transformation. Is it death and resurrection we fear? Or death and no resurrection?

  Liquid clay was painted on the bust and built up gradually and allowed to dry. The core and the dried clay were yoked together. Vents were introduced. The core was heated slowly, gradually. And finally the molten bronze was ready for pouring. Everyone gathered around, at a little distance so as not to be in the way but close enough to observe master artisans at work. Agnolo for once left off trying to impress and watched with curiosity and respect. This was always the moment of greatest danger and excitement, since a successful cast depended not only on the physical strength of the men pouring the molten liquid but also and especially on the skill of the artisan who had calculated the thickness of the wax that would be replaced by the molten bronze.

  Michelozzo and Donatello worked together as one. In truth their partnership was based on just this mutual need. The final result could never be guaranteed but this casting proceeded without fault, and the newly cast bronze—rough and edgy though it was—required only a minimum of chiseling and chasing. The bust was to be an Epiphany gift from Cosimo to his wife and so, as soon as the bolts were removed and the casing chipped away, Donatello fell to the work of finishing the bronze with eagerness and determination. He completed the bust and presented it to Cosimo well ahead of time and Cosimo, true to his nature, was most generous in his thanks and in his payment. All was well with Donatello.

  But Agnolo had seen for the first time how a bronze sculpture comes into being and, thinking on the David, he was set afire with vanity.

  He waited until the bust of Contessina had been delivered to Cosimo, and payment was received, and Donatello once more approachable. “I could pose for you,” he said. “You could continue with the David.”

  Donatello looked at him. He had been expecting this.

  “If it would please you,” Agnolo said.

  Donatello continued to look at him, kindly, but not eager to succumb.

  “I know how to pose now and I would be no trouble,” he said.

  “I would not go away with anyone. I have no soldier,” he said.

  “I have no friend at all,” he said. “Only you.”

  So, at the end of this year Agnolo once again began to pose for the David. The Florentine army could have learned something from Agnolo at the siege of Lucca. Agnolo’s siege had taken only a few months and Donatello had surrendered completely.

  To lessen the sting of his capitulation Donatello made it a hard rule that Agnolo must be present in the bottega after first light and stay as long as he was needed, that there could be no absences, no spells of anger or boredom or petulance that spoiled the work time, and that if he ran off again with a soldier, with anyone, they were done with each other. This was his last chance. This was final and forever.

  “Just as you wish, my lord. Just as you say.”

  Donatello then arranged for Agnolo to share a room with three of the apprentices and agreed to pay him an apprentice wage. He bought him a new winter cloak of thick brown wool, and when Agnolo protested that he preferred green, Donatello gave the brown cloak to Pagno and bought a green one for Agnolo, less expensive and less warm but without any doubt green.

  There was a spirit of Christmas in the air and Donatello and Agnolo were both well pleased with the bargains they had struck.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE NEW YEAR came on cold, there was ice in the street, and for a few days snow pushed hard against every door. The bottega was freezing. The smell of wet wool and wet stone mingled with the smell of burning wood so that the air tasted of vinegar and the smoke stung our eyes. It was a relief to duck out into the snow and draw a breath of fresh air.

  Donatello and Agnolo huddled by a brazier in the posing section. Agnolo posed for him without clothes and without complaint and Donatello worked rapidly and surely, sketching him in the pose of the destroyed bozzetto, his left hand on his hip, his right hand clutching the sword and his left foot resting on Goliath’s severed head, and all of it saying, Look at me.

  “You can rest in a minute,” Donatello said. “Don’t move until I tell you.”

  But Agnolo needed no indulgence. He was present in mind as well as body and he assumed the pose Donatello asked and held it as long as there was need. He had become a good model.

  Donatello moved on to the bozzetto and in less time than seemed possible he constructed a wooden core and, with wires and rods and clay, he roughed out a scale model of David triumphing over the fallen Goliath. He worked with economy and speed and great satisfaction.

  He was pleased with Agnolo and he had good reason. At first light each morning Agnolo was at the bottega and ready for work. He never complained. He expressed gratitude for the small gifts Donatello gave him—a cap of rabbit fur, a set of woolen gloves—and he never asked for ext
ra money. He got on well with the apprentices whose room he shared and at the end of each day he offered to tidy Donatello’s work space, though he knew that was my job and I would relinquish it to no one. It appeared that Agnolo had given over the whim of becoming a sculptor and had resigned himself to the glory of living forever in Donatello’s bronze.

  “I could be of help,” he said.

  “You help by posing well,” Donatello said.

  “But there are many other things I could do.” He was clever enough to pretend he meant no more than the words he said.

  “You do enough,” Donatello said. “We have an agreement. We must not go outside its limits.”

  “But I . . .”

  “Enough,” Donatello said, and I could see that Agnolo would have to work very hard to break down this new unyielding attitude.

  At the end of January the weather broke momentarily and our spirits rose. Work was proceeding well for all of us and there was the false feeling that the hardships of winter were past. At just this time I discovered that Agnolo’s thoughts had been inclined toward Caterina, and his thoughts—as always—had led to action and thus, to my horror, he had lain with her. I learned this from Michelozzo who had learned it from Pagno di Lapo.

  “I have spoken to her, firmly,” Michelozzo said, “and you must speak to Agnolo.”

  I thought of Caterina and that boy at play with her. I hoped she knew of the daucus carota and its preventive powers, since a child by Agnolo was not to be thought upon.

  “Do you hear?”

  “Agnolo is a fool,” I said. “And so is Pagno.”

  “But Donatello must not know of this. For his own sake. And for Agnolo’s as well.” Michelozzo thought for a minute. “You have never seen him in anger.”

  I could not believe he was serious. I had seen Donatello crush the wax head of Saint Louis against his chest and I had watched as he took the hammer to the David bozzetto. “I have seen him in anger.”

  “He will not suffer betrayal,” Michelozzo said. “Not again.”

  I said I would speak to Agnolo as he would have me do. “In a brotherly way.”