I imagine this happened because copper takes longer to cool than tin when they are in a pure state, and requires a higher heat in order to melt. Cooling it with water in the lying position, I cooled it more on the right side, in such a way, however, that the water evaporated quickly, and almost failed to flow over the left side. And so the tin mixed with copper retreated from the cold side, pushed away by the copper, and since copper is heavier than tin, it so happened that the right side of the horse contains more copper than the left, and that is why it is denser and thus heavier, although smaller in volume.
If you want the horse to remain solid along the joins, which need to carry the most weight, make sure they contain more copper than tin. In any case, make sure they cool down first and to do that pour water around the joins, as I tell you. Then put pipes around the form, placing many of them next to the joins, so that the water flows through them first, more than anywhere else.
I bid you farewell until we next meet, ever yours,
Leonardo.
FROM THE DESK OF GIACOMO TROTTI
To Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, ferre cito
My Most Illustrious, Respected Lord,
Hodie I spent the morning in the pleasant company of Messer Leonardo da Vinci, having been asked by the Most Illustrious Signor Lodovico to try and investigate the aforementioned Messer Leonardo in relation to his money, since he fears the French might take it away from him before or during or after the war. It seems to me that Signor Lodovico is paying close attention to the way in which Leonardo is conducting himself, and that his suspicions are not unfounded or unreasonable. He claims that ipso Leonardo is restless and anxious, and I myself have witnessed this. Even so, I do believe Ludovico is not being entirely frank cum me and that he wishes to place Leonardo sub observatione, but cannot truly believe that Leonardo has no money, whereas I believe the opposite, as I am about to tell you.
Daylight was still a long way from conquering the sky, but Giacomo Trotti had not slept that night. It was partly the cold, partly the fact that he had not been able to sleep since he had turned sixty, and partly the fact that he was tense. Tense because he thought he had realized something. Something very important. He had realized it, of that he was certain. And now he was not sure how best to act.
While I was cum the same Leonardo in the house of the Most Illustrious armorer Antonio Missaglia, the latter jested that Leonardo was quite capable of paying him cum lead. His words, verbatim, were “As long as you don’t promise to pay me with lead.” The said Leonardo suddenly turned as red as a brazier and Missaglia immediately changed the subject. I surmised that the said Misssaglia has known Leonardo for a long time and that they are very familiar with one another.
Everyone recognizes that Leonardo is skilled at many arts and sciences, tam clare quam obscure, and very talented at fusing and transmuting metals, as Your Excellency well knows.
And everyone truly did know that. He had spent the whole day with Leonardo, talking about metals, and it was clear that Leonardo was a great expert. What, however, was secret was the notebook Leonardo never parted with, always checking frantically that he had it on him, finding any excuse, from smoothing his garment to tapping his belly, to check that he still had it.
And another secret was what he was doing for Ludovico. He didn’t know what it was, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t something that could be done in broad daylight.
That day, during the customary evening interview with il Moro, he had tried asking him, in a casual manner.
“Of course, Messer Leonardo is a very absent-minded kind of person,” Trotti had said, just throwing it out there. “I wonder how he manages to walk safely in the streets.”
“I always try to have him accompanied by a person able to guide him,” il Moro had replied, smiling and shaking his head. “Otherwise, Messer Leonardo would be quite capable of getting lost between his kitchen and his bedroom.”
“Do you have him accompanied even when he goes out at night?”
“I don’t think Messer Leonardo goes out at night,” Ludovico had said, his pupils contracting. “Or rather, I hope for his sake that he doesn’t.”
Ludovico il Moro was skilled at lying, and did it naturally.
But Giacomo Trotti was an old fox.
Those two, Leonardo and Ludovico, were plotting something together. Something nobody was supposed to know about, not even Trotti.
Much fuss is made in Mediolanum about Leonardo’s knowledge and the great esteem in which Ludovico holds him, even though ipso Leonardo is reluctant to finish any kind of work and excepto redesigning Vigevano and painting a few beautiful panels, he has done nothing useful for Sforza for many years now.
Messer Leonardo complains a great deal about the fact that the Most Illustrious Ludovico pays him seldom and badly, and the reason is apparently not that Ludovico is as stingy in giving as he is lavish in praise, but that the State coffers are empty. According to the said Leonardo, the dowry required by His Highness Emperor Maximilian is so high that it has stripped the Duchy of every penny.
Nonetheless, just hodie I spoke with Messer Marquess Stanga, who said, with much disdain, that he has been ordered to provide letters of credit worth thirty thousand gold ducats for His Most Christian Majesty, the King of the French.
The lines he would have to write now were of huge importance.
They had to be clear and balanced, because the theory Trotti was submitting to the ears of Duke Ercole was extraordinary, although not impossible by the notions of the day. Quite the contrary. At the same time, it was essential to advance it with all possible caution in order to avoid being considered crazy; and in this respect, the fact of being Giacomo Trotti, and of having the reputation he had accumulated over many years of service at the side of the Estes, carried some considerable weight.
A few months earlier, Trotti had imparted the news that an unknown Genoese navigator had rigged out four caravels—since, as his colleague Annibale Gennaro had written, the world being round, it was bound to revolve—and discovered a large island inhabited by half-naked people with olive skin. Many in Ferrara had laughed, until the day it became clear that what Trotti was saying was entirely true.
Picking up his pen again, Trotti twice tried to draft the sentence he had in mind on an odd piece of paper, which he then, even with how much paper cost in those days, scrunched up and set alight with the flame of the candle. Then, sure of what he had to write, he picked up the pen yet again and resumed the letter.
It is my belief, Excellency, that it is not impossible Leonardo has discovered or is about to discover a way to transmute lead into pure gold. And this would give sufficient et item ample reason to hold him in such high esteem.
Giacomo Trotti thought again about his conversation with Ludovico, and about his reaction when he told him that Leonardo had squandered five deniers to set two nightingales free. Instead of being outraged, instead of expressing astonishment that someone who complained of having little money should throw it away so foolishly, Ludovico had laughed. He had laughed, and said something even more alarming.
“Oh, has he done it again? You’re not the first to tell me this. My dear Trotti, that’s the way Leonardo is.”
My dear Trotti, that’s the way Leonardo is. That had been the explanation. Of course. The possibility of turning lead into gold—that could be the explanation. Of so many things.
Of Leonardo’s lack of concern about his apparent shortage of money.
Of Ludovico’s poise in dealing with absurd expenses, approving a thirty-thousand-ducat loan without batting an eyelid, promising his niece in marriage to Maximilian and providing a dowry worth four hundred thousand ducats.
Trotti sighed and put the pen down.
* * *
Banks have always lent to rulers because rulers rule, and so can always pay back their loans, either in money or in concessions, such as tax reve
nues.
That was why, almost one hundred and fifty years earlier, Florentine bankers had been quite happy to bankroll the king of England, Edward III, having as a guarantee the revenues from the tax on wool. Only, the war King Edward had given new momentum was the Hundred Years’ War, which was to last at least a hundred and twenty years and would result, first and foremost, in the collapse of the wool market.
Trotti let his gaze drift over his own study and come to rest on Villani’s Chronicles, the book in which he had studied the history of Florence: aware that history sometimes repeats itself.
That was how the Florentine bankers realized they would never see a penny of the four hundred thousand florins the king owed them. Somebody else, down South, in Naples, realized it a little sooner: King Robert of Anjou, afraid of losing his savings and those of the citizens who had invested in the Florentine banks of the Bardis and the Peruzzis, immediately sent noblemen and high-ranking prelates to withdraw their deposits.
The result? A crisis. Currency no longer flowed in Florence. Merchants, artisans, and peasants could neither sell nor buy. A dark, bloodcurdling crisis from which Florence would recover only a hundred years later, after going from ninety thousand to forty-five thousand residents. Of course, in the meantime, there had been the plague, which had also done its share, but it had found the Florentines poor, hungry, and weary in spirit as well as in body.
But there had also been something else. The negotiability of shares. Public debt shares, which until then had not been transferable, became negotiable. People began to sell their debts to others, at a reduced rate, hoping they were in a position to redeem them. Because they were bigger, nastier, more arrogant.
Like Ludovico il Moro, who was a statesman and not a banker, but who played the banker with other States. He had his own debts with banks, and yet he lent money left, right, and center.
Il Moro was both a bank and a government. Like a customer paying himself to paint a picture he wanted to own. Trotti felt it wasn’t right.
* * *
Launching a war flanked by an ally who was like yourself was reassuring, for the time being. But it might be dangerous in the future. A future that he, an ambassador in the sunset of his life, had neither the duty nor the hope to imagine about, but with which a good ruler absolutely had to concern himself.
He, Giacomo Trotti, had done his duty and had written what he felt he had to write. Now it was for someone else to worry about. Someone with power, as well as the possibility and desire to keep it. Someone like Ercole, Duke of Ferrara,
to whose benevolence I always entrust myself.
Mediolano, XXI octubris 1493
Servus Jacomo Trotti
NINE
Messer Leonardo is here, Countess.”
“Ah, Messer Leonardo, welcome. I was hoping you would pay us a visit.”
“Forgive me, do forgive me. I was held up at the castle longer than I had anticipated, over some most unpleasant issues, and as you know His Lordship does not like a job to be abandoned halfway.”
Cecilia Gallerani, Countess Bergamini, took Leonardo da Vinci by the elbow and led him to the salon.
“Come in, come in. We’ll be starting the music in another hour or so, but not before His Most Christian Majesty’s envoys arrive, as they told me they would very much like to attend the performance. In the meantime, we were having a little conversation. You do know my guests this afternoon, don’t you? Father Diodato da Siena, prior of the Congregation of the Poor of Jesus . . .”
“Most honored,” Leonardo said with a slight nod at the older Jesuate, a man with a graying beard and a kind expression.
“. . . Friar Gioacchino da Brenno, of the same Congregation . . .”
“Most honored,” the artist/engineer/architect/genius continued, nodding at the younger monk, a man with thinning black hair and the face of an asshole.
“. . . and Messer Josquin des Prez.”
“Oh, such an honor, such an honor,” Leonardo replied, smiling with noticeably greater sincerity, going up to the man with open arms, and giving him an affectionate hug. “Messer Josquin, it is truly an honor to make your acquaintance, just as listening to your music is genuine relief to the soul. You are able to touch the cords of the human heart and mind like no one else.”
Josquin des Prez smiled briefly, like somebody who is accustomed to certain compliments and knows he deserves them. He was a strong, fair-haired man who bore a vague resemblance to Galeazzo Sanseverino, until you saw his hands—white, slender, and used to pen and stave paper, not at all like those of His Lordship Ludovico il Moro’s son-in-law, who was more at ease with lines of foot soldiers than lines of music.
“Please, Leonardo, do sit. What is it, Tersilla?”
“Well, Countess, I was wondering . . . if you’re about to begin one of your parlor games, might I join in? It’s been a dull day, and should the Countess permit, and if I weren’t too much of a bother . . .”
Parlor games were among the true attractions of Casa Gallerani. Word games, charades, rebuses, and riddles, the most successful of which were almost always those of Leonardo. Riddles such as “The woods will give birth to offspring that will cause their death” (the handles of shutters), which Cecilia almost always was the first to solve.
“But of course, Tersilla, of course. Only we shan’t be playing any word games or charades today, it would be inappropriate in the presence of two men of the Church. Master Josquin was just telling us how he intends to compose one of his next pieces of music. If you wish to stay and keep us company, and you, gentlemen, don’t mind . . .”
“On the contrary, we would be delighted to have Madamigella Tersilla’s company,” said Father Diodato, whose appreciation of female company was not unknown to anyone. “Sadly, I must soon take my leave of you, but would be happy to hear what Master Josquin was explaining.”
“It’s very simple,” the composer said, in a pronounced French accent. “Inspired by the word games to which the Countess has introduced me in these past weeks, I decided that in some cases it’s possible to compose a melody by taking the notes from a person’s name. The example that came to mind was that of Ercole of the House of Este, which is Hercules Dux Ferrariae in Latin. If we divide the syllables and then take the note that contains the vowel written in the syllable, in music Her-Cu-Les Dux Fer-Ra-Ri-Ae can be written as Re-Ut-Re-Ut-Re-Fa-Mi-Re. The melody contains the name of the person to whom the composition is dedicated.”
“And do you think anyone could pick up on such concealed praise?”
“It’s not really necessary to pick up on it in order to appreciate the composition,” Josquin said. “But I would say that, yes, a refined ear might pick up on it, of course.”
“What made you think of Ercole d’Este? You’re in Milan, after all. Couldn’t you do the same with the Lord of Milan?”
“Not with the same outcome. Lu-Do-Vi-Cus would become Ut-Sol-Mi-Ut,” Josquin sang in his beautiful tenor voice. “Do you hear? There’s no tension. There’s no aspiration towards a resolution, it’s almost a statement.”
“Perhaps you could try it with the true Lord of Milan,” Friar Gioacchino said sternly.
Everyone present held their breath for a moment.
Ludovico il Moro, let us recall, was not in fact Duke of Milan; the true duke was his beloved nephew, the bumbling Gian Galeazzo, son of his brother Galeazzo Maria, who’d had the terrible idea of getting himself murdered, when young Gian Galeazzo was only seven years old, by refusing to wear a surplice of chain mail because it didn’t match his new tunic—in Milan, people did insane things for the sake of fashion even as far back as the late 15th century. The Duchy was left in the incapable hands of Bona of Savoy, Ludovico’s hugely meddling and conceited sister-in-law, who was convinced she could rule after her husband’s death, in place of her young son. Ludovico had tried very hard to persuade Bona to trust him instead of listenin
g to her counsellor Cicco Simonetta. This process of persuasion had been lengthy and difficult, and at one stage had required the beheading of Simonetta, just to make sure he stopped talking when he wasn’t asked, and the imprisonment of Bona herself in the highest room of the farthest tower in the most remote corner of the castle. But in the end, il Moro’s argument had prevailed and stability returned to Milan.
There remained the specter of Gian Galeazzo, although, to be honest, he didn’t give two hoots about ruling—as long as there were wine and stallions, kindly provided by his uncle, he found life pleasant overall. All the same, he was not il Moro’s favorite topic of conversation.
Mentioning Gian Galeazzo in Countess Gallerani’s house was definitely inappropriate, far more so than word games in the presence of clerics.
“What do you mean, Brother Gioacchino?” Tersilla asked, electrified at the thought of hearing the most influential preacher of the day cause a scandal in her mistress’s house.
“I mean money, Madamigella Tersilla,” Friar Gioacchino replied. “Lucre, gold, the means that becomes an end, the devil’s excrement everybody yearns to roll in. The true Lord of Milan isn’t il Moro but money.”
“Money. Sol-do, sol-do” Leonardo said after a moment, in a grave tone. “No, it doesn’t sound right. It’s a descending fifth. It suggests a conclusion, not a beginning. It’s as ugly as tripping over a cat at the top of a staircase.”
There was a second of silence. Then Tersilla began to laugh, with a sound akin to the neighing of a horse, and her laugh was so sincere that it infected the salon, like applause spreading through a theater.
The Measure of a Man Page 13
