The Medici Boy

by John L'Heureux

  Yet he did not surrender it to Palla Strozzi or to Venice. He kept it locked in his private chamber, unwilling or unable to let it go.

  * * *

  DONATELLO NOW DISCOVERED that the Gattamelata was well advanced under the care of Pagno di Lapo and the bronze experts he had hired. It was still able, however, to receive the impress of his own hands. He sculpted a new head for Gattamelata—in a rage he had taken a hammer to the earlier head because it lacked nobility—and he made corrections in the arch of his back and the thrust of his legs and the position of the lance. He took great care too that the front left leg of the horse balanced perfectly on the canon ball beneath it. And then, finally, he turned over the many finished pieces to the care of Andrea del Caldiere who had cast the bronzes for the high altar of the Basilica.

  At the same time the immense pedestal was being completed, with its mourning angels and its winged putti and the two great marble doors that made it both a monument and a tomb. Donatello was eager to finish the work on schedule and with a perfection worthy of the statues of the high altar. And he was eager to make amends for the time lavished on John the Baptist.

  “I AM NO longer so ugly. Say I am not.”

  “You are transformed. You are made a saint,” I said.

  “In the statue, you mean.”

  Donatello had brought the statue of John the Baptist from his locked chamber to examine it once more in the light of day. It stood in the great room of the bottega where it had been admired all through the long May afternoon.

  Agnolo was contemplating the finished statue with something less than satisfaction. In the year since its completion he had indeed put on weight. He looked more his old self and he had taken on some of his old restlessness. I knew where this would lead.

  “You will not go night prowling once again.”

  “Never. I will die before I go back to prison.”

  “Well done.”

  “I have such nightmares,” Agnolo said. “No young boy is worth it.”

  I thought of Franco Alessandro somewhere in Venice in exile. I could not look at Agnolo without thinking of my lost son. I offered each day a small prayer that God would be merciful to him and help him change his ways, though I understood that Franco’s ways were not his own, that somehow he could not help himself, that he was fated to be what he was. And which of us escapes our fate?

  “Yet you remain restless,” I said.

  “It is as if I cannot help it. As if I were possessed by the need . . .”

  “The need to fuck?”

  “The need to love.”

  “You are a sad creature,” I said.

  “But I will never suffer prison again,” he said.

  I did not hate him then. He too was bound by fate.

  Is one’s fate the same thing as God’s will? I wonder about this even today.

  IN LESS THAN a year—in 1453—Florence would again face the likelihood of disaster, this time from the mercenary armies of Venice, and once again it would be God’s strange interventions that would save the Republic. In June of that year Constantinople would fall to the Turks and his holiness Pope Nicholas V would call upon all of Christendom—even Venice and Florence—to unite against the Muslim enemy. It was a fine excuse for peace and the renewal of trade. Let us unite to crush the Turks. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

  * * *

  IN SEPTEMBER 1453 Gattamelata was mounted on its pedestal and all Padua came to marvel at it.

  Donatello’s work in Padua was complete.

  Mine, alas, was not.

  CHAPTER 40

  ON 13 JUNE 1453 the Operai of Padua made a great feast to celebrate the completion of the monument to Gattamelata. In truth it would be some months before we packed away all our tools but it was not too early to celebrate Donatello’s great accomplishments. An old man of sixty-seven years had achieved what many men together could not have: a new high altar for the Santo, seven statues flawlessly executed in bronze, a crucifix that would be the envy of Brunelleschi, and the largest bronze equestrian statue in the modern world. And all of it so praised that Donatello said he longed to return to Florence where he could hear some honest criticism.

  The wine flowed freely long past nightfall and even after all the remaining food had been cleared away. I was light-headed though not really drunk. But Pagno was drunk and in a great sadness at the thought that he was moving toward old age and was still unmarried. We decided we should gladden ourselves by visiting the houses of pleasure in the ancient parts of the city. In a feeling of good fellowship we strolled arm in arm through the Piazza delle Erbe with all the expensive whores in their gloves and bells and high-heeled shoes until at last we penetrated the alleys down behind the Bo.

  We were searching out our old favorites Stina and Katya. Stina was free and delighted to see her Rosso after so long a time but Katya was employed and so I satisfied myself with a new girl from Africa. She was lovely and untrained but we got on well and for the next hour I gave small thought to the curfew or to my account books or to my son Franco Alessandro who, for some reason, always came to mind when I was with a whore. Pagno was waiting for me—he was ever quick with his whores—and we walked back together arm in arm.

  We were passing a tavern called the Porco—a haunt of sodomites—when something caught my eye. It was a gold tunic over blue and lilac parti-colored stockings dissolving rapidly into the shadows. Agnolo had been wearing just such a costume at the feast this night and now here he was, dressed like a peacock with his hair neatly done, and at his side a young boy of no more than fourteen. Pagno was given over to singing a rude drinking song and had not caught sight of Agnolo so I did not point him out. And yet I wondered, is this a trap? Has this boy been chosen to seduce Agnolo and then betray him? As a path to Donatello? It was too fantastic to consider reasonably.

  “Did you see Agnolo just now, passing behind the Porco?”

  Pagno laughed, drunk. “Agnolo is home with Donatello.”

  “I saw him just now with a young boy.”

  “He is too old for boys. He should be married. So should we all be married, but Caterina is taken and Ria Scarpetti is an Amazon. You, Luca, you have a wonderful wife. If she enters a convent I will marry her.” He thought about that for a moment and then corrected himself. “If you are dead, I mean, then I will marry her. If she will have me.” He was drunk and happy.

  So I could expect no sensible response from Pagno.

  “He was wrong to spoil Franco Alessandro,” Pagno said. “I told him I could never forgive him that. It was bad. Bad.”

  “What are you saying? He spoiled my Franco Alessandro? But when? But how?”

  “How? There is only one way, my brother. From behind.”

  The blood froze in my brain and I felt my left arm begin to tremble and I could barely speak. But I must hold off the fit until I learned the truth.

  “When Franco was but twelve, I think. Franco was his first boy, he told me, but it may be he was jesting. Or intended only to shock.”

  I grasped him by the arm and stopped him where we stood before the Palazzo Raggione. “I’ll kill him for this,” I said, “if it is true.”

  “I thought you knew, Luca. It is not as if he raped the boy. The boy was willing. Surely you know that.”

  I sputtered in anger. No words came to me.

  “Still it must be hard to hear your own son spoken of this way. You must forgive me, please, you are my own true brother and it is drink that has so loosened my tongue. Say you will forgive me. Say it.”

  “It is Agnolo I cannot forgive. I always blamed him for the death of my two youngest. I could not have guessed this other thing.”

  “It is all poison. All fucking is poison. Say you forgive me. Say it again.”

  The pain in my head began to lessen and the shaking of my arm had stopped. The brain fit passed as suddenly as it had come on. I felt nauseous of a sudden and I turned to the gutter and vomited up a great quantity of wine. I was calmer now because, awful as it is
to think on it, I knew it was true that my pure and beautiful young Franco—even at twelve years—was more than willing, he was eager. Why is he made so? Our God is a mysterious God.

  “I forgive you,” I said, and I meant both God and Pagno.

  “And I forgive you,” Pagno said, still drunk and happy.

  “Perhaps he will die and we will be free of him at last,” I said.

  I should have known then that we would never be free of him.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING I was quick to notice that Donatello had slept alone. There was no sign of Agnolo. Toward evening I found myself alone with Donatello in the sculpting area of the bottega and, as casually as I might, I asked him if he had seen Agnolo this day. He gave me a sharp look and said nothing. He went back to his carving, a tondo of the Virgin and Child in white marble.

  “I saw him,” I said. “Late last night outside the Porco.”

  “Do you frequent the Porco now?”

  I chose to ignore his meaning and said. “It is more than dangerous for Agnolo to be found with a boy, even a willing boy.”

  “I am an old man. I have some sixty-seven years. Do you suppose my heart stirs in anger at the thought of him with someone else?” He threw down the small-toothed chisel he held in his hand. “Do you think I am such a fool!”

  “No, of course not. I . . .”

  “Well, I am. My blood no longer heats like yours, like his, and my cazzo stays soft even at the touch of him, but I ache for him still. I am an old man, covered in shame. Let me know my shame in privacy, at last.”

  I left him with his Virgin and Child. In privacy.

  AGNOLO WAS GONE for two days and then I heard through Pagno that he had reappeared in the bottega. It was late in the afternoon of the second day and I lay abed in Donatello’s small house, recovering from my brain fit and seeking the calm and cool of my tiny cell. Pagno appeared at my door, cautious.

  “Are you all right? Is your brain still under siege?”

  “I am as cool as God’s justice,” I said.

  “A frightening thought,” Pagno said. “Are you cool enough to meet with him? He has something he wants to say to you.”

  “About what?”

  “He wants to say it to you, not me. He looks very penitent.”

  “If it is about Franco Alessandro, I will kill him.”

  “I will go with you. You can kill us both.” He left my room and went next door to Donatello while I dressed.

  Donatello was lying down on his bed resting and Pagno leaned in at his door. They fell silent as I came from my room and joined them.

  “Agnolo is back,” I said and Donatello nodded.

  “He wants to see me. He wants to tell me something. So Pagno says.”

  Pagno put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “You are a good man,” he said. “I will meet you at the bottega.”

  I was suddenly furious and turned on Donatello. “What is this ‘good man’ business? Am I to be put upon again? Am I once more to play the fool between you and Agnolo?” I did nothing to conceal my anger. It is time he knew, I thought. It is time he came to his senses. “He plays you for the fool,” I said. He spies on you for them! For the Ufficiali! Here in your own house!”

  “Luca mio,” he said with that soft voice that spoke of understanding and concern. “You must try to understand. You have had so much in life and he has nothing. He has only ever had my love. Do not begrudge him.”

  “Can you not rid yourself of him?” I was near tears. “Even now can you not make him go?”

  “I am tethered to him like a goat at the stake. But I am all he has.”

  “You are a great artisan. You have created . . .” Tears pricked at my eyes.

  “I have created nothing. It is all straw. The heart alone survives.”

  I wept then as my sense of betrayal overflowed in tears. He got up and poured me a cup of wine.

  “Drink this,” and after I calmed down he said, as if he were merely thinking aloud, “We love where we must, not where we choose.”

  * * *

  IT WAS A cool evening for June and the frogs had not yet begun their croaking when I arrived at the bottega. A thorn bush grew near the bottega door and bluebells poked in from behind it and a soft breeze moved the flowers back and forth. It was the start of a new and gentle season. I sighed for all the fallen things in my life as I raised my hand to knock at the door.

  Pagno opened to me with his hopeful, “Come in, come in,” and I saw that he had been in conversation with Agnolo when I arrived. No one else was there. Pagno excused himself and went out back to the privy. There was nothing for it but to engage with Agnolo.

  “You’re out of prison,” I said. “It was a short stay this time.”

  “Any stay in prison is long. Too long.”

  “But you were gone a single night.”

  “A single night of—as they call it—interrogation.”

  “Did they torture you?”

  He placed his hand on his privy parts and nodded.

  “But you are well. And free.”

  He nodded once again.

  “Can it be true that you played the man with my son?”

  He was not surprised I knew this. “It was not what you think, Luca.”

  “He was but twelve years old. And you had him in that way?”

  “It is true, but only that once. And he was willing.”

  A picture flared up in my brain then: Franco Alessandro at twelve years of age with Agnolo working him from behind, thrusting hard and harder, again and again and again. My mind clouded and I lost balance for a moment and when I came back to myself I realized Agnolo had been saying, “I pray you for pardon,” over and again. I steadied myself and sat down at Donatello’s work table. We were silent then. There was a great abiding pain in my head.

  It grew dark and Agnolo lit the torch that stood by the table. The flame flickered and caught and there was the sudden smell of burnt reeds. The pain grew stronger. I lowered my head to the surface of the table and felt against my face the chisels Donatello had been using for the Virgin and Child. Some sliver of an idea lodged in my brain, but I shook it away and said, “You are a great corrupter of the young, Agnolo.”

  “For which I beg pardon . . . of you and of God.” He was silent then and I rested, my eyes shut against the sight of him.

  “It is a greater wrong they ask of me now,” he said. I was silent, waiting.

  “They ask that I embarrass Donatello.”

  I opened my eyes and gave him a hard look.

  “It is why they let me free. It is the condition on which I stay from prison. It is this or life behind bars. And torture. And death. I cannot. I cannot.”

  After a long while I asked, “And how are you to embarrass Donatello?”

  “It is nothing. It would come to nothing. The whole world loves Donatello. They wish only to get at Cosimo through him.”

  “Who wishes it? Who are they?”

  “The Albizzi of course.”

  “Working through the Ufficiali?”

  “Of course.”

  “And they ask of you exactly what?”

  “It is a small thing. That as I sleep with him they arrest us both for sodomy. He would be accused but he would be fined only and let go free. And I would go free. But the scandal would be public and a great hurt to the Medici.”

  “They would do so much for so little? For a scandal?”

  “They believe that such scandals will topple the Medici before too long.”

  “And you would do this? Be taken in his bed?”

  “Tonight. At the fourth hour after curfew.”

  “Like Judas.”

  “It is arranged.”

  “And you tell me this, why?”

  “That you may know I do him no permanent wrong. That you understand and forgive me . . . as a brother.”

  “As a brother.”

  “Because I know that you alone have loved me . . .”

  That slive
r in my brain lodged deep and I felt a tingling in my leg that I recognized from old. My foot began to tap tap tap of its own accord and a wet gray mist clouded my vision. I could not catch my breath. I made as if to rise but blood rushed to my head and I fell back in my chair. I tried to cry out but no sound came. And then the pain exploded in my head and I set up such a shout as could be heard throughout all of Padua. It was a roar, wordless, the cry of a beast without tongue, and even before the sound had ceased I snatched up one of Donatello’s pitching tools—long and sharpened to a point—and, rising from the table, I lunged at the stuttering Agnolo and drove it in his throat, his chest, his heart until the blood gurgled from his mouth and I stood above him, breathless both of us, the chisel clutched to my bloody breast.

  Pagno was there of a sudden, pressing me back against the table, hushing me, calming me. Quickly, deftly, he took another pitching tool and I shrunk away as he cut me with it on the neck and placed the tool in Agnolo’s dead hand. He turned to me and said, “He attacked you first. You were defending yourself.”

  And then the pain in my head overcame all my senses and my left arm fluttered uselessly and my leg gave way and, glad of the oblivion, I fell to the floor beside the body of Agnolo Mattei, brother to no one any longer.

  1467

  CHAPTER 41

  FOR TWELVE YEARS now I have been held prisoner in the monastery of Santa Croce. In truth I am a prisoner in name only. I am allowed, if I wish, to follow the daily schedule of the Frati Minori. I wear the simple gray gown of the Franciscan novice. I make morning meditation and attend daily mass and sing as many of the liturgical hours as please me. I can gaze upon Donatello’s Christ crucified—the one Brunelleschi called a peasant—and I can marvel at the frescoes of Giotto celebrating the life and miracles of Saint Francis. In the morning and evening I walk in the monastery cloisters. I am living the life I would have lived had I never met Maria Sabina and discovered the joys of sexual congress. This is a pleasant incarceration, the only penalty being that I know I am not free. But which of us is free in this life?