Leonardo's Swans

by Karen Essex

  “She is not too tall?” asked the diminutive Charles.

  “No, she is taller than her sister, but of normal height for a woman,” the ambassador replied.

  “Thank God for that,” the king said.

  “The courtiers of Italy call her the first lady in all the world.”

  “She sounds like a vision of perfection.”

  “Why, Your Majesty, I do believe you are in love with her very description.”

  It was true, Beatrice thought. Isabella was more beautiful and more brilliant than she. But those facts—and the French king’s possession of them—could not alter her present happiness. Not only had peace been achieved but her husband would be known as the prince who ran the French out of Italy. And that prince was once again in love with his wife. She sloughed off his rough demeanor of months before as a result of his illness. He was kind and attentive again. As a reward for her strength when he lay ill, Ludovico had commissioned Magistro Leonardo and Donato Bramante to refurbish her apartments in the Castello. Both she and the duke were anxious to return to Milan to see the results of this collaboration between the two brilliant talents, to cover their little boys with kisses, and to proclaim the peace they had achieved on behalf of their people.

  In addition to all of this, Beatrice was pregnant again. Her time with Ludovico at Vigevano had been more fruitful than she’d imagined. She tells him on the night before they leave, and he is thrilled.

  “What is your best guess, my darling? Boy or girl?” he asks.

  “You do not even have to consult the astrologer, my dear. I know it in my bones. Our two sons will have another brother.”

  Ludovico does not look as pleased as Beatrice would like. “Boys grow up to be envious of their father’s power. Girls love their father forever,” he says.

  “But you already have one perfect daughter in Bianca Giovanna,” Beatrice replies.

  “Yes, but her handsome husband has supplanted me in her heart, as it should be. It would be nice to have another daughter to love me into my old age.”

  “That is what I am here for, my lord,” Beatrice replies.

  With the peace signed, Francesco and Galeazz and their troops open the gates of Novara to escort the French out of the city. Beatrice and Ludovico ride in their wake, slowly becoming cognizant of the horror they are to witness as they overtake the fallen army. The French soldiers have no horses. “All were eaten during the siege,” Galeazz tells Beatrice when she asks him why they are being made to walk to the border. She estimates that few will actually live to see their homeland. A band of fifty or so, dressed in rags, lingers by the road, leaning on one another to sit upright. Beatrice is astonished to see the ambassador Commines helping his staff to feed a clear broth to the soldiers. She sees that most of them are too weak to swallow, broth trickling down their slack mouths, and she turns away. But the view ahead is not pleasant. Dozens, finally in possession of some food given them by Charles’s staff, simultaneously gorge and retch. Starved for so long, Beatrice imagines their bellies are rebelling against the nourishment. Young men drop as they walk, their companions too weak to look back at them much less help them along. Finally Beatrice’s party passes the entirety of the French army. As they ride away, she can hear the sounds of the men—crying, sobbing, heaving, gagging—linger in her wake.

  BEATRICE’S eyes trace the whirring path of looping golden rope twined through boughs and boughs of branches that make a painted canopy of jungle on the ceiling of her drawing room. A bower for my bower, she thinks, smiling at her own cleverness, then realizing that the Magistro had probably conceived and executed the little joke for her pleasure. Massive tree trunks shoot up from the arched curves of the walls, roots upending the layers of rocks that try to confine them, as if to say that the outbursts of nature cannot be contained. The greenery spreads like an eternal summer, sheltering the entire room in one endless grove. Each leaf, indeed, each vein in each leaf, is painstakingly delineated with precise, delicate lines. The branches, like the gold ribbon that winds through them, writhe together in an everlasting pattern like an orgy of snakes. Bits of sky—blue, violet, pink, white, gray—made with swirling brushstrokes that mimic the movement of clouds gleam through the tangle. But it’s the plaited gold ribbon that puzzles. Unending, unbroken, elusive, it slips through the vividly painted leaves, around thick bark, and then loops and loops around itself in eternal, tortuous twists. Just when Beatrice thinks that the meaning of the mural is eternity itself, the entire landscape comes to a conclusion where, it appears, the painter put down his brush.

  “It is spectacular,” Beatrice says. “Monumental. Overwhelming. But it is unfinished.”

  “Ah yes, the specialty of the Magistro,” replies Ludovico. “Another unfinished spectacle.”

  Messer Gualtieri, the treasurer, comes with the letter and the bad news. Like the boisterous roots in his mural, the Magistro has had an outburst.

  “He was standing on the scaffold,” Gualtieri begins, “touching up a portion of sky, when someone from his household arrived. I believe the boy asked for money. The Magistro threw his brush into the air and started screaming that he was not a bank, that he had creditors chasing him, and that the boy should get used to wearing woolen breeches instead of leather because they were all going to have to start economizing.”

  Gualtieri pauses. “Well. He called for some paper and wrote this.”

  Gualtieri hands Ludovico a letter on folded parchment. “He struggled over the words, Your Excellency. He wrote slowly, as if in great pain.”

  Ludovico mumbles as he reads the Magistro’s words. Beatrice leans over to read the contents for herself.

  To Your Lordship,

  I regret being in need at this time because it prevents me from obeying your every whim and desire, which has always been my greatest pleasure. I regret very much that, having called upon my skills, you find me in need of the funds of which you have promised me. And I regret, further, that because these funds have not been delivered, I must leave your service and find other means of feeding myself and my household, which at this time numbers six mouths. In the last fifty-six months, I have received from your treasury only fifty ducats. Some creditors may be put off with the usual excuses, but I had to advance the money to the priest and the processioners and the gravediggers to see my dear mother put to eternal rest in hallowed ground and with the proper rituals and holy sacraments.

  Therefore I must leave Your Lordship’s service for a time—a very sad time for me, I assure you, to be separated from my greatest desire, which is to serve you—so that I might commence to raise the money necessary to keep my household fed and in breeches. I hope and trust that this period will soon come to an end so that we might finish the projects we began in earnest. I especially look forward to executing the murals I designed of you portrayed as Fortune’s Son, driving out the decrepit hag, Poverty, with your golden wand; of your personage representing Wisdom, wearing magical spectacles that enable you to see through all lies and deceit; and of Your Excellency wearing judicial robes and pronouncing sentence on Envy. I believe that this series will present Your Lordship to his people in the manner in which his benevolence toward them and his desire for naught but their happiness and prosperity should already convey. Your Excellency is familiar with my sorrow over the fact that Bramante has been given the time and funds to complete his series of frescoes of you administering justice, whereas I have yet to have the tools of time and money delivered to me. Further, I am anxious to test the designs for the canal locks. As you know I have devoted many years to the study of the flow of water and I am completely certain of this new system of control. As for the mural of the Last Supper, I would like to finish it, but as you know, I have not been able to find an appropriate model for the face of Judas, nor have I received the compensation to resume work. I will finish this, and the portrait of your illustrious family, when the finances I raise from other commissions enable me to return to your service. At that time, I pray that the duchess
will sit for me, as I wish only to work from the subject and not from another artist’s rendering.

  Of the casting of the horse, I will say nothing, knowing what circumstances are at this time. One does wish, however, to someday complete one’s grand opus.

  Forgive me for removing myself from my greatest happiness, which is to serve and obey you.

  —Leonardo

  Ludovico throws the letter into the air. “Does he think he’s the only artist in Italy?” he screams at Gualtieri. “Where is Pietro Perugino working? Send him a letter immediately. Write to my sister-in-law and have her send old Mantegna at once. Send to all the states and find out who is available. I will not have my ambitions held hostage by the Magistro!”

  “But my Lord, why can we not simply give him the money he requires to return to our service?” Beatrice asks. It seems a simple enough request—the money to feed and clothe oneself and one’s dependents. “Why wait for another artist to travel to Milan when, for just a little money, we can persuade the Magistro to finish my rooms?”

  Ludovico’s cheeks puff wide as if he is about to blow some huge thing from his mouth. The vein, which Beatrice has seen before, jagged as a lightning bolt, appears abruptly across his brow. Beatrice wonders if he, like angry Zeus, will pull it right out of his head and throw it at her. “What? And play into his hands? This is exactly what he wants. More money so that he can procrastinate until Judgment Day and not have to finish a single thing!”

  She prays that her husband does not fall into another fit over this, but she feels she must remind him of certain realities. “I do not understand how paying the man is playing into his hands. You sound as if you are talking about a conniving lover and not a man in your service!” She has long likened the two of them to a married pair. Would the analogy never wear itself out?

  His fury is undeterred. “Do not think that you are innocent, madame,” he says. “If you had not been playing silly games with your sister over the Magistro’s attention, you might have sat for the family portrait long ago, and we would have at least one finished work for all our money. One that would bring glory to the family at that.”

  “If it pleases Your Excellency, I will sit for the Magistro immediately. I am sure that he can hide my condition. It is not yet so pronounced.” Whatever will calm her husband Beatrice will agree to at this moment, when she fears he is aggravated enough to evoke a fit, and she, pregnant, will have to govern the kingdom at a time when peace with France is fresh and tenuous.

  “How convenient. Now that you are willing, he is unavailable.”

  Was she wrong to have tried to beat Isabella at her own game? “My sister wanted the attention of my husband. If it had merely been a question of being painted by the Magistro, of course, I would never have stopped her. But my husband reserves the talents of the Magistro for painting the women he loves. I could not allow my sister to join those ranks. Not when court gossip and my own intuition whispered to me to prevent it. A strong family silences the tongues of its detractors. Don’t you see, my lord? Everything I have done since coming to this court, I have done for you.”

  She says it tenderly, waiting for the simple truth to wash over him. She would like to add and to make you love me. But she is glad that she refrained because her words do not soothe him at all. Rather, he looks at her strangely before turning away and continuing his tirade.

  “Oh, he is maddening,” Ludovico says, as if talking to the trees Leonardo painted on the walls. “Who has fed him and kept him in his fancy brocades and velvets all these years? Am I to receive no gratitude? From anyone?”

  Ludovico seems angered that Leonardo’s tangle of leaves offers him no answer. Frustrated, he walks out of the chamber, leaving his wife behind as if he had forgotten altogether that she had been with him.

  FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:

  1. Apply to Commissioners of Works at Piacenza Cathedral to make bronze doors.

  2. Design sets for production of The Danae at the home of Count Caiazzo. Ask for money to rebuild theatrical machinery from Feast of Paradise currently in storage. Test flame-resistant bodysuit for players to emerge from clouds of fire.

  3. Present brothel design to Messer Jacomo Alfeo. Convince him that a proper House of Pleasure, one based on discretion, with secret entrances to the female of one’s choice, would cause profits to soar.

  4. Test flying machine. Make new leather strap for wings. Present design to generals. (Uses: Outfit cavalry with wings to surprise the enemy in battle. Flying cavalry much more effective than one on horse. Wing all messengers, like Hermes, to deliver urgent news to princes and kings.)

  5. Present plans for weaving machine to Messer Soderini the cloth merchant.

  6. Collect remainder of money from the foundry for the system of hoists and pulleys built to lift quantities of metal.

  7. Finish masks for Count Bergamini’s ball.

  8. Make set of gold plate and eating utensils for la Contessa Bergamini that she craves for entertaining the Venetians next month.

  9. Finish bath with hot-water pipes for Duchess Isabel of Aragon.

  O human misery! Of how many things do you make yourself the slave for money?

  From: Milanese Envoy to Florence

  To: Ludovico Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan

  Re: Available Artists

  In accordance with Your Excellency’s request, I have investigated the availability of several artists of the caliber you require. Sandro de Botticelli, the most excellent master, is accomplished in panel and wall painting. His figures have a manly air that Your Highness might admire. Filippino di Frati Filippi is a disciple of Botticelli and a son of one of the great and rare masters of our time. His figures, heads in particular, are gentler and suave. Perugino, rare and singular, excels in wall painting. His faces are angelic and sweet beyond compare. I know you prefer him, but I believe the monks of the Certosa at Pavia are occupying his time. You might use your sway over them and convince them to relinquish him so that the duchess will not have to spend her confinement in unfinished rooms. Ghirlandaio is a good master in panels but even better at wall painting. He is industrious, which should provide a much-needed contrast with Magistro Leonardo. All of these masters with the exception of Filippino have proven their talents at Pope Sixtus’ chapel in Rome. Please let me know your thoughts. One must be swift in procuring the services of such men.

  “Messer Gualtieri, I’d like you to take me into the Treasure Tower,” Beatrice says, sweeping into the man’s office.

  Beatrice has made up her mind to take matters into her own hands. She does not want Botticelli or Perugino or even her sister’s beloved Andrea Mantegna to come to Milan. Which among those great men would even consider completing a project begun by the one whom they consider their master? Besides, it’s been weeks since Ludovico sent his messengers with offers to the artists and there have been thus far no replies. Beatrice wants the Magistro to finish his extraordinary canopy of leaves in her rooms, and she wants to sit for him and have him make the family portrait in the Crucifixion scene opposite the mural of Our Lord’s Last Supper. Oh, she does not want to sit for him, exactly, but she thinks that if she can get the Magistro back to work, Ludovico can no longer blame her for interfering with his ambitions. It should be simple enough, and once done, Ludovico will not be angry with her but grateful.

  She has not been to the Treasure Tower in more than a year. What with the war, there have been no occasions to collect a bucket full of jewels to adorn a gown for one ceremony or another. There have been few reasons to celebrate lately. The defeat of the French came at such a high cost that relief and not jubilation had followed. All of Italy had made great sacrifices. In fact, Beatrice has a secondary mission today. She plans to pick out a small jewel for Isabella, who selflessly allowed Francesco to pawn her entire collection of gems to outfit his soldiers for the campaign against France. Isabella has given birth to another girl, Margherita, and has seemed even more disappointed with the gender of her child this time tha
n the last. In correspondence, she does not even mention the child at all, despite Beatrice’s sincere offerings of congratulations and the gifts she has sent. Beatrice thinks she will find something lovely for Isabella, and perhaps a tiny pearl necklace for the baby too. If Isabella thinks that others are pleased with her for producing another daughter, maybe she will begin to warm to the girl herself.

  But Gualtieri does not move. “I wish to select a small gift for my sister,” Beatrice says, wondering why the man does not leap to fulfill her request, as he would normally do, but stares at her as if she has caught him in an unseemly act.

  “And then there is the matter of the Magistro,” she adds. “My husband is being rather foolish. I thought we might, just the two of us, arrange to forward a few ducats to the Florentine so that he will come straight back to work. I thought we might not trouble the duke with the matter. Leonardo frustrates my husband. I am trying to relieve him of the pressure of dealing with a temperamental artist. We do not wish to see the duke ill again, I am sure.”

  Gualtieri’s expression changes to one of sadness, if Beatrice reads him correctly. “Your Excellency, as you know, I cannot refuse any request made by you.”

  “That is correct, sir, so let us be on our mission.”