The Medici Boy

by John L'Heureux

I left the next day to begin my new life in Padua.

  CHAPTER 35

  TWO GREAT CITIES could not have been more different than Florence and Padua. Money and the great works of artisans were the lifeblood of Florence, whereas in Padua the pursuit of knowledge was everything. Padua’s great university had for centuries brought together men from all parts of the world, students and professors, for the study of civil and canon law and for the more interesting study of man and his fate: astronomy and dialectic, philosophy and grammar and rhetoric. All these young men had needs and desires and the city of Padua looked out for them.

  In the past century Padua had been the home of Dante and Petrarch and Boccaccio. Giotto had frescoed the Scrovegni chapel here, a toy box for the baby Jesus. And now Donatello di Betto Bardi would bring the city everlasting fame with his great equestrian bronze of Gattamelata, the marble carvings of the miracles of Sant’ Antonio, and the great high altar of the Basilica itself with its immense bronze crucifix and seven bronze saints. Thanks to Donatello, the Piazza San Antonio would become the center of a new city.

  The old city was dominated by the University and the University was serviced by the Inn known as the Bo, so called for the fabled invincible Ox that once was stabled here. The Bo was a gathering place, handy to lecture halls and the nooks and crannies of the neighborhood where students shared bed and board with anyone who would have them. There were two central market squares, the Piazza della Frutta and the Piazza delle Erbe, and between them stood the immense Palazzo Ragione, the home of the law courts and a meeting place for the city council. On the top floor of the Palazzo was the vast Salone, a reception hall unequalled in size in all of Christendom. The Palazzo burned to the ground some twenty or more years before our arrival in Padua and it was immediately rebuilt, but lost in the fire were the frescoed walls of Giotto, floor to ceiling paintings of the cycles of the zodiac. The Bo, the Palazzo Ragione, and the two huge piazzas made up the public face of Padua. The private face lay deep behind the Bo, down alleys that smelled of decay, in taverns and inns that were dark and noisy even past the hours of curfew, and in those narrow, shuttered houses of pleasure with whores from all over Europe.

  I was a man of forty-three years, more or less, and I had the same needs as those young men who were pursuing wisdom at the university. I sought out the private face of Padua at once.

  * * *

  ON OUR SECOND night in Padua Pagno di Lapo and I went out—there is no nice way to put it—in pursuit of whores. We had labored all day under a heavy sky that had brought on an early dusk and we were ready for the night. We were men alone, in a new city, and there was the excitement of the forbidden.

  “I am not at ease with this,” I said. “I have always hunted alone.”

  “I have never hunted at all,” Pagno said. “This is new to me.”

  “Can it be that you have never had a woman?”

  “Only Caterina,” he said. “And she never more than once a week.”

  I was astonished. Caterina was Donatello’s niece and a woman not to be trifled with. I had had her more than once and I knew she fancied Agnolo but I had never thought of her fancying Pagno, however handsome he might be.

  “Is it your red hair she liked? Or are you skilled in bed?”

  “I would willingly have married her,” he said, “but she would not have me. She would not have any man to husband, she said, unless it be Michelozzo.”

  Here was no end of surprises. Caterina had stayed behind in Florence even after Donatello had left his bottega. She found work readily with Luca della Robbia, for she was an accomplished painter. And in Florence she would be closer to Michelozzo, though now that he had married it was hard to imagine she would entertain hope of him.

  For Pagno and me hope lay just around the corner.

  We had reached the Palazzo Raggione and walked on through the Piazza delle Erbe where vegetables and herbs were sold until late afternoon and where the hours that followed were given over to students and their professors and the more expensive whores. These wore the gloves and bells and high-heeled slippers that—in observance of the law—marked them out as prostitutes. There were small shops along the fringe of the market and many of these shops provided tiny rooms where prostitutes could entertain their clients. Pagno and I ducked into an alley that became a warren of small taverns and houses of pleasure and we looked into several before we were hailed by a fine, tall woman at the door of a tavern called La Procedura. She was much taken by Pagno.

  “Eh, Rosso,” she said softly. “You are a pretty one indeed.”

  Pagno left me to reply. “And you yourself,” I said. “Have you a friend?”

  “For you?”

  “For me.”

  “Everybody has a friend. But Rosso is for me. My name is Stina.”

  Stina led us inside the tavern and up a narrow stairs. The noise from below was deafening and the tavern itself smelled of spilt wine and sweat. The students were singing an anti-clerical ballad with enthusiasm and accompanied it with much banging of tankards on table tops. Stina shook her head in disapproval and pulled aside a curtain to reveal a tiny cell with a pallet and a small table that held a bowl of water. “For cleanliness,” she said, pulling Pagno in behind her. Before she closed the curtain she called out “Katya” and almost at once a hefty young prostitute appeared and without a word led me into the cell next to Stina’s. She pulled the curtain, undressed me, and went through the business of washing my parts before she undressed herself and lay down on the pallet. The rest of the ceremony proceeded as you know. Katya was from Dalmatia, with fair hair and a pale coloring, and I took care to offer her the pleasures I had learned so many years ago with Maria Sabina. It was soon over and I paid her fee, with a handful of piccioli extra, and pulled aside the curtain. There leaning against the wall was Pagno, waiting for me, looking anxious and indeed none too satisfied. He said nothing until we were out in the street.

  “It took you so long,” he said.

  “Speed is not the point of the game.”

  “No,” he said, but he seemed uncertain about it.

  “Do you not feel better?” I asked. “And younger?”

  “I am thirty-five years,” he said. “I am more than half done my life. Is it good to feel less old than you are?”

  “You’re very somber after such sport,” I said. “Was it not good for you?”

  He was silent as we continued to walk back toward the Piazza delle Erbe. The square was still alive with students, some drunk and singing, and a lovely young prostitute hailed us as we walked on in silence. I mentally marked the spot where she practiced her trade. We passed the Palazzo di Raggione and were crossing the Piazza della Frutta when Pagno paused and looked at me and said, “It is sin, finally, and no more than that.”

  I found myself embarrassed. I had enjoyed myself with the Dalmatian Katya and I was relaxed and refreshed and I did not want to think it a sin. Still, it was. But it was such a small sin and such a good and pleasureful thing that I could not bring myself to consider it very wrong. I would confess it during the next Easter season and I supposed Pagno would as well, but a man must get through life somehow, poor forked creature that he is, and I trusted God would allow for a little human weakness. So I was not pleased when Pagno said again, with a certain insistence, “It is sin.”

  Nonetheless in the months that followed we would go whoring together companionably enough, though I continued to hold him in distrust. That would change over our next ten years in Padua.

  * * *

  DONATELLO HAD LEFT Florence on the promise of a commission to create a bronze equestrian statue of the famous general Erasmo da Narni, whom we all know as Gattemelata, the Honeyed Cat. The Condottiere had died earlier in the year 1443 and the Venetian government—which had ruled in Padua for nearly forty years now—decreed that he should be honored in the Piazza Sant’ Antonio with a monumental tomb of bronze and marble. Donatello alone should be its creator. He set to work first on the commission for a huge bron
ze crucifix that would hang above the main altar in the Basilica.

  Our new bottega was established directly across from the Piazza Sant’ Antonio near a little house the Operai of the Basilica had set aside for Donatello and his assistants. This little house was readied within the month and he offered Pagno and me the opportunity to move in with him. The rooms were tiny, but neither Pagno nor I objected to the narrow cells we occupied—we were grateful each to have his own room—and an elderly woman came in by day to clean and cook for us so that the living arrangements were most agreeable. It lacked only Alessandra to make it seem like home.

  Early each morning we would set out for the bottega, a chunk of bread and a wedge of cheese in our packets, and we would make ready for the serious work of the design and execution of a huge bronze crucifix.

  Donatello was determined that this Padua crucifix, five feet wide and six feet tall, would reveal the suffering, redeeming Christ and not the peasant who carved it. He was already at work on his design.

  He worked well and seemed not to be yearning for Agnolo and I wondered where his old madness had gone. I wondered too if they were meeting privately. But where? And, with Agnolo in Prato, how could this be possible? Perhaps he had cast the boy aside at last. I resolved to keep a keen eye. But was there ever an eye keen enough for the duplicities of Agnolo?

  Well before the bottega was set up and ready for the casting of a bronze Christus, there arrived a huge shipment of iron—some forty-six pounds—for the cross itself and, even before that could be packed away for later use, there came another shipment—wax, this time—for use in creating the bozzetto of the corpus. The Operai of the Basilica were determined to get the best from Donatello.

  “They have anticipated your needs,” I said.

  “They have heard I’m intricato.”

  “They have heard you like to work hard.”

  “They think that if I have at hand all the material for the crucifix I will not easily walk away from it. They know me little.”

  I was unsure what he meant by this. “You have iron and wax in abundance,” I said, “and you have your little house and a fine bottega.” Still he did not respond. “We are well settled in Padua, I think.”

  “It is not Florence.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  He thought for a while and said, “I miss him.”

  “He is well settled too.”

  “But in Prato.”

  “You will work better without him.”

  “If I can work at all.”

  But over the coming months he did work and he worked well, his longing for Agnolo caught up into his creation of a Christus that had suffered physically and in his heart as well. Love rejected. Hope betrayed. A Christus whose face is a map of disappointment and despair.

  Donatello took on two new apprentices, young boys more remarkable for their strength than for their beauty. He hired three new assistants, men as experienced as Pagno and I, and he turned over to them the heavy work of casting and assembling. The chasing and polishing he reserved for himself.

  In this way it was not long before the iron cross was cast and gilded. The corpus of the Christ was cast in four pieces, a miracle of detail and exquisite in finish. The torment he has suffered is evident in his face. His cheeks are sunken, his eyes hollowed, and his mouth hangs slightly open as if he has only now ceased to gasp for breath. The hairs of his beard are modeled flawlessly and the hair of his head is pulled back to reveal the strain in his neck as his head falls forward and to one side. The body of the Christ, broken though it is, remains perfect in its bones and sinews. He is naked, his private parts barely visible, a shaming to our eyes.

  Donatello has caught the moment of death in the timeless act of martyrdom. Here truly is a man crucified by our sins. Brunelleschi would look upon this crucifix with wonder and admiration.

  Even before the crucifix was finished, the marvel of it had spread throughout the city. Donatello was the genius of our age. There was no sculptor who could compare. He must remain forever in Padua.

  The formal commission for the equestrian Gattamelata—and the money to execute it—followed fast upon news of the crucifix. Even before Donatello could give thought to this new commission—a marble tomb surmounted by a horse and rider in bronze, nearly twelve feet long and thirteen feet high—he was visited by another, even greater commission. He was to create a new high altar for the Basilica, with statues of six saints and the Virgin Mary.

  Money poured in for these commissions. Our bottega expanded to include two shops adjacent to the Piazza Sant’ Antonio. A new and enlarged foundry was created from another two shops near the expanded bottega. Skilled workmen were hired to do construction along with workmen who specialized in the use of wood and wax and bronze. By the feast of Epiphany 1447 there were some fourteen men employed in our bottega, along with one woman—Ria Scarpetti—an Amazon the size of Michelozzo who was hired for her expertise in the pouring of bronze.

  All this expansion of workers and work place consumed much time and Donatello used it to conceive and sketch out designs for a new high altar with bronze and marble panels before and behind it and, surmounting the altar itself, six bronze statues of saints dear to Padua. Seated in the center would be the Blessed Virgin holding the child Jesus. These designs he executed with meticulous care so that sculptors less skilled than himself could follow his precise directions and, under his watchful eye, proceed with the creation of the altar panels first and then the statues that would surmount the altar. The finished work would appear to be from the unique hand of Donatello himself. It was as if the bottega—now a small army of assistants—had somehow become an extension of a single mind and heart. With no mention of Agnolo Mattei.

  Overwhelmed but completely engaged in the work unfolding in his name, Donatello was not prepared for the news that came on August 14, 1447. Agnolo had once again entered his life.

  CHAPTER 36

  EARLY IN AUGUST Agnolo was arrested in Prato and would remain in prison there until his fate was determined: exile or death. Donatello decided therefore that I should go to Prato to learn the precise charges against him and then to Florence to seek the intervention of Cosimo de’ Medici. At the last moment Donatello said that Pagno would accompany me since he might prove more persuasive with Cosimo. I was offended by this, of course. I had designed and executed the two gold manuscript caskets for either side of his private altar and I had long served as copyist for his most prized Latin scrolls and I had proved useful in transferring his gold florins to San Miniato al Monte only days before his arrest and exile. And he had told me he would not forget me. Did all this count for nothing? But Donatello pointed out that it was Pagno whom Cosimo had requested to pose for the bronze bust that now stood in his great salon and that Cosimo was ever devoted to youth and beauty. I did not point out that at thirty-five years Pagno had not been a youth for some time and that Cosimo’s love of beauty was limited to bronze and paint and parchment. Instead I offered a grudging, “As you say.” Thus it was with no good feeling between us that Pagno and I set out for Prato.

  “That bronze bust of you counts for much with Donatello,” I said. “Let us hope it counts for as much with my lord Cosimo de’ Medici.”

  “I may yet prove of some use,” Pagno replied. And with that said, and pondered, we kept the rest of our thoughts to ourselves.

  * * *

  WE ARRIVED IN Prato late in the morning of August 17. It was a cool day for August, with a soft blue sky and the promise of more clement weather. There was birdsong and the lowing of cattle in the fields and we found ourselves full of excitement and energy. Suddenly a good feeling sprang up between us.

  As we entered the main square, the Piazza San Giovanni, we had our first sight of Donatello’s pulpit on which we had both worked but which we had never seen fully assembled. It was a glorious thing, all white marble with a gold mosaic background and a bronze capital. A gigantic umbrella of holly oak spread its shadow over the pulpit and threw into re
lief the row of seven huge panels where singing and dancing putti were praising God for his mighty acts. It was at once both gigantic and airily beautiful, a perfect site for the annual display of the Virgin’s sash. Pagno pointed out the putti he had carved and, in a moment of truthfulness, admitted how much inferior they were to Donatello’s. He expected me to agree, but—as Donatello’s bookkeeper and accountant—I was lost in my own thoughts about payment for the finished work. It was now 1447 and Donatello and Michelozzo had still not received their final payment of—I think I remember correctly—some seven hundred lire.

  “The rich are just like us, only stingier. They don’t pay their bills.”

  “How can you think of money when you look on something this magnificent?”

  “I lack your poetic soul, Pagno. And remember, I keep the books.”

  And so our mood turned sour again.

  * * *

  PAGNO AND I refreshed ourselves with a tankard of wine before braving the prison. A pretty serving girl lingered at our table, attracted I must admit by Pagno rather than by me, but I fixed her with a look and told her that she was very fair. Pagno seemed mindful only of what lay ahead of us at the prison.

  “This is no easy task,” I said, trying to put aside the sour mood.

  “It’s for Donatello. We owe him much.”

  We drank some more. The serving girl flashed me a generous smile.

  “You were ever close to him. To Agnolo, I mean.”

  “And you were his brother.” Pagno laughed a little to let me know he was joking.

  “Attenzione!”

  “He’s of an age when he should have put all this behind him.”

  I passed up the easy joke of “behind him” and said, “He has thirty-three years now. He is the age of Jesus.”

  We pondered this sobering thought and had another tankard of wine.

  “It’s time,” Pagno said. “We must look in on our brother prisoner.”

  We finished our wine and made ready to go but first I asked the serving girl her name and she replied, “Marguerita” with such sweetness that I knew she would let me purchase her affection for an hour or an evening. I told her I hoped I would see her again.