This was a kind of signal agreed between Galeazzo and Ludovico. Whenever Galeazzo used an improper word then apologized for it, it meant that he wished to be alone with il Moro.
“That’s quite all right, my dear Galeazzo. But even so, it may be best if your ears do not hear such grim stories, my most beloved wife.”
This was said with gentle words and in a gentle tone, of course. But it was rare for il Moro to ask to be left alone, and when it happened it was only right and proper that he should be obeyed at once. With a smile and a flourish, Beatrice d’Este left the room, no doubt to see the kid for the daily four- or five-minute parental care slot. But not before gathering in her encircling hand the little silver coins lying in her skirts.
“So, tell me, Galeazzo. It seems you weren’t the first to enter that wretch’s home.”
“No, the house had been turned upside down, from top to bottom, if one can use the words ‘from top to bottom’ about a couple of shabby rooms. We weren’t the first, but we were the luckiest.”
Galeazzo took the wooden chest he was holding and put it down on the floor, in front of Ludovico.
“Whoever went into the house didn’t search it thoroughly. There was an anvil next to the bed, a large block of wood. The block was hollow but well filled so that you wouldn’t notice the hollowness from the sound.”
“And how did you notice it?”
“What would a painter be doing with an anvil? Why would such a poor man keep such a bulky object in such a small room?” As he spoke, Galeazzo opened the chest and took out a long iron shoe horn. “Because he needed it. Do you know what this is?”
“No, I don’t. It reminds me of something but I’m not sure what.”
“Perhaps it’ll become clearer if I also show you these,” Galeazzo said, taking two silver rods from the chest.
“Holy Mother of God.” Ludovico’s eyes moved to the object. “An iron channel for fusing metals. Chiti was a forger.”
“So it would seem,” Galeazzo confirmed. “There were a few planchet marks on the anvil, as though someone had struck coins on it. In addition, the chest contains files, pliers, and a copper plate, as well as a small crucible.”
“Is there also money in the log?”
“Not coins, no, but money, yes. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Fancy that,” Ludovico said as Galeazzo bent over the chest again and rummaged through it. “Our little scoundrel Chiti could have been murdered by someone in his shady circles. Messer Leonardo might have been right after all.”
Galeazzo, grabbing hold of what he was looking for, shook his head. “Be patient for a second, Ludovico. We’re going to talk about Messer Leonardo now.”
* * *
“So, Messer Leonardo, we’ve arrived. I wonder if I might ask you a favor.”
“Do tell, Messer Giacomo,” Leonardo said, opening his front door. “My modest rooms are at your disposal.”
“Thank you, Leonardo. You see, I have a sudden urge to relieve myself, and I was wondering if . . .”
“Most certainly, Messer Giacomo,” Leonardo replied, gesturing to the stairs. “Feel free to use my room as you wish. You will find everything you need in the bottom drawer next to my bed. Good evening, Caterina.”
“I’m in the kitchen, Leonardo,” Trotti heard as he climbed the stairs.
Having opened the door, Trotti looked around. Still looking around, he opened the drawer Leonardo had mentioned and pulled out a heavy brass chamber pot.
Giacomo Trotti was, after all, seventy years old, so asking to use the chamber pot in someone else’s house was never solely an excuse for being able to look around at his leisure; but while using it, with all the care a seventy-year-old must apply in such cases to coordinate as best he can his poor eyesight and his over-enlarged prostate, Trotti did in fact take a look around.
The room was an ordinary room, which could have been anybody’s except for the numerous sheets of paper scattered all over the place, in an order that was an order only in the owner’s head. No blowpipes, no glass receptacles, no metallurgical tools or other alchemist’s apparatus, although these might be in his workshop. What could be here, at most, was the odd note. It was hard to get a clear idea, and impossible to start looking through the papers, especially since they were written right to left, which made them incomprehensible unless one had a fair amount of time at one’s disposal. And Trotti did not have that much time. Prostate or not, he couldn’t spend a quarter of an hour alone in somebody else’s room.
Having put the chamber pot back, after emptying it out the window with a polite but stentorian warning, Trotti tidied his clothes, left the room, and went back downstairs.
“Well, Messer Leonardo, I thank you for your company . . .” he began, but stopped on entering the kitchen and seeing Caterina sitting at the table with a basket of beans in front of her, shelling them with a solemn air. When she saw Trotti, she put down the pod and stood up, brushing hulls from her skirt.
“Forgive me, Messere, my son’s had to go out in a great rush. A servant from the castle arrived with the order to escort him to His Lordship Ludovico Sforza. He apologizes for not saying goodbye to you.”
“No matter,” Trotti replied, opening his hands to show that it was no big deal. “It is I who must thank you, and I must also thank your son for granting me a little of his precious time.”
“Ah, time. Leonardo never has enough of it. He carves it out and looks for it in every way he can. He sleeps for an hour and a half then wakes for four. And he’s always doing a thousand things.”
“So he also works at night, does he?”
“Most definitely. And as if it weren’t bad enough that he works at home, which just means that he loses sleep, he also goes out.”
“Goes out? At night?”
“Yessir, signore. I’m old, you know, so if I wake up at night I can’t get back to sleep. It’s three times now that I’ve noticed he wasn’t at home during the night, and that he came back shortly before matins. I told him it’s dangerous to roam around the city at night, but he won’t listen. If His Lordship Ludovico asks me, he says, I have to do it.”
“Ludovico? And what does he have to do for His Lordship at night?”
“You don’t know? Neither do I.” Caterina rubbed her hands on her apron and threw a quick glance at the table and the pyramid of beans still to be hulled. “Now please excuse me, signore, but I have to return to my chores. There’s so much to do and no one to give me a hand. Actually, if by any chance you see a young man in a white jacket and blue and white tights out there in the street, give him a shout and send him in here.”
* * *
“Messer Leonardo da Vinci is here, Your Lordship.”
“Show him in, castellan, show him in.”
The castellan admitted Leonardo to the Room of the Chevrons, where three people were waiting for him: Ludovico il Moro, Galeazzo Sanseverino, and young Marquess Stanga.
Leonardo’s heart felt lighter as soon as he saw the latter. Despite his ridiculous name – Beanpole – he was a very serious character: superintendent of the Court treasury, in other words, the official paymaster. The man who gave out the coins, as people said in those parts. And his presence in this room could only mean one thing. That Ludovico had received the money straight from the Confraternity and was about to put an end to his financial tribulations.
“Here you are, Messer Leonardo. Come. We have important news for you. Stanga, you may leave us. We’ve finished for today.”
“As Your Lordship wishes,” the man replied with the hint of a bow, and started to walk away, leaving Leonardo in the company of il Moro and Galeazzo, but much more alone than earlier.
“So, Messer Leonardo. As I was saying, we have important news. Come in, come in. What are you carrying in that satchel?”
“Copper plates, Your Lordship. To
do a few small-scale tests for the casting of the horse. Master Antonio Missaglia most generously gave them to me.”
On this subject, may I remind Your Lordship that you promised me a payment and now I see Stanga is dismissed. I would like to know why you summoned me here. Because it was you who summoned me and I’ve already had a lousy day. I’ve thought this, Your Lordship, I’m not saying it. Copper plates on credit, and then Missaglia. Who puts me in a difficult situation with bronze and lead. You summoned me. Alright, now they’ll pay me. I see Stanga and you send Stanga away. Why am I here?
“Well, now. Our Leonardo is a hard worker. He does one thing and thinks another ten. I’d give a penny for your thoughts every now and then.”
Every now and then but not now. You wouldn’t like them.
“As I was saying, Messer Leonardo, there’s important news. Captain Galeazzo has had the dead man Rambaldo Chiti’s rooms emptied and examined. They found it in a terrible state, a dreadful mess. As though somebody had already been looking through Chiti’s things.”
“Which, if I might say so, Your Lordship, supports my theory that Chiti was murdered. Have they found anything interesting?”
“Many things, Messer Leonardo, many. Or rather, whoever searched first didn’t find anything, whereas our good Galeazzo found these, carefully hidden in an anvil. Do you know what they are?”
“Files, planchets, clay. Pliers. Burins. An iron rod for casting. The tools of a jeweler, or a forger.”
“Precisely, Leonardo. Are you well? You look pale.”
“I’m well, Your Lordship. I’ve had a hard day.”
“And it’s not yet over, Messer Leonardo. I have two other things to show you.”
Ludovico took a few papers from Galeazzo’s hands and opened one. It was a sheet of very fine Florentine paper, with tidy, precise handwriting.
Year of Our Lord 1493, on the 24th day of June, in Florence
1,000 Florins
As is customary, this letter entitles Messer Rambaldo Chiti to one thousand florins, at the rate of one thousand and twenty-five ducats per florin, on behalf of Messer Accerrito Portinati and associates in Milan. Christ be with you.
Beneath, a signature. A signature Leonardo knew. But it wasn’t the signature that mattered, it was the whole letter.
When a banker received a letter of credit, he was supposed to return in cash the amount stated in the letter. Naturally, every bank manager has a specimen of the handwriting of all his colleagues from the other branches. And when we talk about the Medici Bank, or banks affiliated to it, we are talking about branches all over Europe, from Rome to London, by way of Bruges.
The letter of credit was the cornerstone of the continent’s business, protecting its owner from thieves or from journeys made arduous through the need to take with you a cart full of money. You deposit the money in Florence, you take the letter, you go to London and get back the money deposited at the current exchange rate: there’s a small loss in monetary terms but a huge gain in safety.
Leonardo looked at the sheet of paper in bewilderment. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. This is a letter of credit for a thousand ducats, in the possession of a miserable wretch who worked as a painter. But at least that makes two of us who don’t understand. As for the second document I’m about to show you, perhaps you’ll understand it better than I.”
And Ludovico showed Leonardo a second sheet of paper. A sheet showing a number of drawings, along with numbers, and covered in tiny handwriting that was indeed almost impossible to understand.
Not surprisingly. It was written from right to left.
EIGHT
Rambaldo Chiti was one of my apprentices. He was introduced by the client of a good friend, Giovanni Portinari, who asked me to take him into my home and my workshop, which I did.”
Ludovico was listening, motionless, his hands clasped one on top of the other in front of his mouth, as though to show that for as long as Leonardo spoke, he was all eyes and ears, and everything in between.
“Rambaldo was good, he had talent, he was a quick learner, bright and well-mannered. I was pleased with him, and he soon started giving me a hand with my work.”
Leonardo sighed slowly, looking down at the floor. There was no need to look up to realize that Ludovico was there and hadn’t yet changed position.
“Then, one day, two years ago, Master Antonio Missaglia sent for me. He said he’d found fake coins in his payment drawers. Lead ducats thinly plated in gold, perfect copies that were quite deceptive until you weighed them on hydrostatic scales. He suspected a few of his customers. So he asked me to mark the money I gave my apprentices.”
Beside Ludovico, Galeazzo seemed to be following both of them alternately, watching Ludovico while Leonardo was speaking, then looking at Leonardo whenever the latter caught his breath and gathered his thoughts.
“A month later Master Antonio called for me. That morning, I’d given Rambaldo Chiti four ducats and marked them. But the ducats I saw him deliver with his own hand at the fifth hour had no mark. It was something that could not be ignored.”
Leonardo opened his hands. Ludovico did not move a muscle. It was extraordinary how a creature so still could at the same time be so obviously alive.
“After apologizing most profusely to Master Antonio, I took Chiti home and asked him to explain the process he’d used. I shan’t go into too much detail, but it’s exactly what you found written on the paper you showed me earlier, the procedure used to coat lead with gold. The procedures and timings were clearly marked, because if you don’t follow them to the letter, the result is a disaster. It was the same procedure Master Antonio and I had considered at first for making the armor of the most illustrious Captain Sanseverino, using light metals and giving them the appearance of gold.”
Leonardo took a deep breath.
“You can understand my dismay and embarrassment, Your Illustrious Lordship. I’d taught that rascal the skill myself, and now I could see it was being used to make fake coins and palm them off on one of my dearest friends in Milan. I was so ashamed and disgusted by what he had done that I didn’t even chide him. I threw him out of my house and wrote to the few friends I have who are experts in the art of metal, Sangallo, Francesco di Giorgio, and Pollaiuolo, telling them not to let the wretch in if he ever came knocking at their doors, because they would be letting disaster in.”
Ludovico moved his hands away from his face and lowered them. Leonardo fell silent.
“You should have reported him to me and the Secret Council,” Ludovico said in a sharp tone.
“You would have put him to death, Your Lordship.”
“I would have done my duty as lord regent of this city. I would have stopped fake coins from circulating and deterred anybody who dared try it again. I would have done what had to be done. It is you, Leonardo, who didn’t do what you should have.”
Ludovico got to his feet, towering over the room and those present, a lord in form and substance.
“It is you who should have done your duty as a citizen. A city isn’t held up only by the strength of its outer walls, Leonardo, but also by the trust of those who live and work in it. This letter, Leonardo, works because I trust the man who sent it, and I am sure he is able to honor the request. Thanks to this trust we can trade with the whole of Europe, sell our silks in Bruges, our arms in Paris, our wool in Frankfurt. But if I didn’t trust the man who writes it, it would be scrap paper.”
Leonardo and Galeazzo remained silent as Ludovico started to walk around the room in circles, still speaking.
“A city of honest people would be an ideal city to live in, but it’s a fact that people are not honest. Show me a hundred citizens and ask me if most of them are good men, and I’ll say yes. Out of a hundred men, ninety or perhaps even more would never do any harm. But it takes only one, Leonardo, to spoil that hundred, just as
it takes only a spoonful of excrement in a barrel of wine to make it undrinkable. It’s my duty as a lord to keep those honest ninety safe and sound, not to concern myself with the one who has erred. It’s the only way to maintain trust. Now tell me, Leonardo: when you saw Rambaldo Chiti’s corpse, did you recognize him?”
“Yes, Your Lordship.”
“And was it after you recognized him that you took the decision to examine his mortal remains in order to determine the cause of his death?”
“Yes, Your Lordship.”
“Were you thinking to tell me eventually that you’d known the dead man?”
“I’m not sure, Your Lordship.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was afraid you would misinterpret my relationship with the wretched fellow. That you would think I had been and still was his accomplice and associate in the revolting business he was practicing.”
“Which is exactly what I may be thinking right now. Even more so now, as a matter of fact. I may be thinking that you were minting fake coins with your apprentice until quite recently and that, after he left, you found yourself short of money. Now tell me, Leonardo, why should I trust you?”
“For a few reasons I shall give you, if Your Lordship has the patience and benevolence to hear me out.”
It was his tone more than anything else that surprised Galeazzo. He had kept his eyes on Leonardo since the beginning of the conversation and could see that as Ludovico spoke to him he had seemed to acquire a certain serenity, a serenity he did not lose. And now he had spoken in a respectful but calm tone, like someone who not only knows he is in the right but knows he can prove that he is in the right: two things that don’t always go together.
The Measure of a Man Page 11
