Leonardo's Swans
Page 27
She has had no idea that she would be spending so much time in this church while she is still living; no idea that one of the vaults would be filled so soon. But she has visited the church every day in the weeks since Bianca Giovanna has died. It happened suddenly, at Vigevano, in late November, right after the weather turned cold. The girl ate something that did not agree with her and took herself to bed. No one worried excessively over this; Bianca Giovanna was delicate of stomach, but the bouts she experienced had always been of little duration. But this time, her pains became increasingly difficult, and before a doctor could diagnose her condition, the life passed right out of her.
Galeazz, a groom for little more than a year, retreated. Ludovico was inconsolable and shut himself up alone in his quarters, closing his heart and his doors to his wife. Nor could Beatrice reach out to Isabella, for just a few weeks before the passing of Bianca Giovanna, Isabella’s second daughter, Margherita, had died in her crib. Beatrice could not go to Isabella, nor could Isabella come to Milan. Francesco had fallen dangerously ill with a fever in Calabria, where he was stationed with his army, and Isabella was bringing him back to Mantua, slowly, and in small increments.
Seven months pregnant, Beatrice has been left alone to grieve. She has longed for her husband, sending him notes and messages, asking him to let her console him, and asking him to try to console her, since she has also suffered the loss of the girl. But Ludovico has ignored her pleas, finally sending a brief note in return: Forgive me, Beatrice. You only remind me of her.
The only place Beatrice could find solace was with Bianca Giovanna herself. Every morning, she would drive her chariot to the Santa Maria delle Grazie and sit by the girl’s tomb, talking to her, asking her if she, from the spirit world, could inspire her father to open his doors, his arms, his bed again to Beatrice. The talk was that Ludovico was not grieving alone, as he had led Beatrice to believe. Supposedly, he cried late into the night in the arms of the beautiful Lucrezia Crivelli. Everyone whispered about it, in low tones, of course, if Beatrice was present. But she could not help but believe that these sotto voce mumblings were meant to be heard by her ears. It seemed that no one approved of Ludovico’s liaison, not even the pet dwarves. Mathilda let it slip while drunk that she refused to be funny in the duke’s presence, no matter how much he begged her for a little joke, in protest of his treatment of the duchess. Beatrice did not know which was more humiliating: the fact that Ludovico was consoling himself with the charms of Lucrezia while his wife was left to grieve on her own, or the kingdom’s pity of Beatrice over the duke’s treatment of her. Despite all of this, she has missed him. She wants him to return to her confidence and her bed. Together they can solve any problem, overcome any obstacle, even the obstacle of another woman’s clutches on his heart.
Beatrice has tried to take solace in the child growing in her womb, as women are supposed to do when their husband’s attention wanders, but the little baby has not comforted her. Children were one of God’s great rewards, but they did not take the place of a husband at one’s side. Beatrice’s only moments of succor were accompanied by great pain. Kneeling by the tomb of Bianca Giovanna, whispering her problems to the dead girl and making pleas to Our Lord to improve her situation, she found the only company agreeable to her.
Then, after passing a miserable Christmas, with no warning, Ludovico came out of his room on the first day of the year. He came to her apartments, not with arms outstretched to comfort her but with a plan for completing his grand improvements to the city. “I have been inspired,” he said. “We must go on, Beatrice. My little girl would have wanted us to stop our grief and return to our earthly occupations.”
It was not precisely what Beatrice had wanted to hear, but she interpreted his enthusiasm, after more than a month of his self-imposed exile from her, as a sign that things were about to improve.
“What have you in mind?” she asked.
“We shall use the Magistro’s desperate financial situation to our advantage!” he said, his eyes displaying the stirrings of life that had been absent since putting Bianca Giovanna in the vault.
Ludovico explained that there was fresh coin in the coffers, thanks to his raising taxes. They would forward the Magistro enough money to entice him back to their service, withholding the lion’s share until the mural of Our Lord’s Last Supper and the addition of the portraits of the family on the wall opposite were complete. Perhaps they might even tempt him to finish Beatrice’s apartments in time for the birth of the child. In any case, the two projects in the refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie had to be completed first because Ludovico was exhausted with the complaints from the prior about the Magistro’s procrastination. Ludovico promised that he would use whatever means necessary to coerce the Magistro into finishing the projects, but he also capitalized on the prior’s frustration by demanding that the Order of the Dominicans absorb some of the cost of the great mural, which made the prior grouse even more.
“Why can the Magistro not act in the ordinary manner of an artist, say, as Montorfano did? We agree on the contents of the mural, in this case, a painting of the Crucifixion. We forward him half of the money. He painted for a month or two. The oils dried. We approved his work. He is paid and out of our hair!” Beatrice noticed that the special frustration Ludovico reserved for the Magistro was often more intense than the ire manifested against his political enemies.
“And yet, Your Excellency, may I remind you that Montorfano’s mural is rather ordinary, or at least all the experts in your court say so. Isabella remarked on it as well. It is large and grand, and it honors the order of the Dominicans. But there is nothing of the genius on the wall.” Beatrice was thinking that both she and Leonardo had given Ludovico so much above the ordinary, and he still considered them tools to further his own ambitions. Nothing more. Ludovico regarded himself the sun and the rest of them, lesser planets.
“That is further to my point, Beatrice,” he said. “The painting of the Lord’s Last Supper is turning out to be a masterpiece. People will come from thousands of miles just to see it, to study it, to praise it.” Ludovico seemed to be bringing himself back to life with each word he said, suddenly aglow with his own thoughts. His cheeks, grown hollow in recent weeks, puffed up as they had in the past. “On the wall opposite, incorporated into the mural by Montorfano, they will see the portraits of the family under whose patronage the Magistro fulfilled his genius. At last, the world will have one of his grand works in a completed form to admire. And we will be eternally recognized as those who made it possible for this unparalleled talent to flourish. Think of it, Beatrice, we and the Magistro shall all be linked together in immortality!”
You should have married my sister, she wanted to say. For Isabella was always seeking fame and immortality. Beatrice was more concerned with the quality of their lives in the here and now.
“I will have him incorporate our heralds and coats of arms—not just mine, but yours, and those of our sons—in his mural so that forever more, all will know that it was the Sforza family who brought about, by their considerable efforts and funds, this great work!”
“Surely you do not wish for me to sit for the Magistro in this bloated condition,” she said, putting her hands on her belly.
“But Isabella sat for Mantegna when she was pregnant, and look at the result. The painting of Mount Parnassus is a masterpiece, talked about all over Italy. They are saying that Isabella looks more the goddess than Venus herself. And so shall you.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “I am already stouter than I was the last pregnancy. Let me wait until the baby has come. I’ll exercise my horse daily until I am trim again.”
“Who knows what strange inventions will be occupying the mind of the Magistro by that time? He needs money now. He is willing to work now. Let us strike. I tell you, this is our chance. They say he is making secret plans to test his flying machine. I insist that you sit for him before he throws himself off a roof and plummets to his death.”
“Ah, Beatrice. You easily tame horses that turn great warriors white with fear, but you are afraid of an artist. You make no sense, my wife.”
He smiled at her in the old way, the way that bespoke of an intimacy between them, that bespoke of his knowing her better than others did and admiring her for her uniqueness. That comment, that smile, encouraged her to agree to sit for the Magistro the very next day.
Thus, this morning she is on her way to sit for Leonardo in the refectory. Before meeting with him, Beatrice has stopped in the church to thank Bianca Giovanna for interceding with her father. Beatrice would have preferred a return to their old days of enthrallment with each other—nights of lovemaking and laughter—rather than conspiring to complete a work of art. But perhaps this bout of enthusiasm was all Bianca could instigate from the grave. Perhaps a return to the way things were would be a gradual one. With the birth of another child, Beatrice might be able to oust Lucrezia from Ludovico’s heart just as she had with Cecilia. Yes, perhaps it would all turn out well in the end.
Despite that it is a sunny day, the temperature inside the church is frigid, and Beatrice feels the chill this morning all the way inside her bones. She thinks she feels the little one inside her shiver, so her talk with Bianca is hurried. “I wish I could wrap my arms around you and save you from this awful cold, my darling girl. Remember how we used to sit close together by the fire and talk? Little saintly girl, ask Our Lord if He will allow us such moments when I join you in His heaven, for that is the only place you could possibly be.”
She always hates to leave Bianca Giovanna alone in this chilly place, with fifteen empty crypts surrounding her, but she forces herself to imagine that the girl’s spirit is not lonely, but seated near the foot of God, for that is where such a sweet soul belongs. Beatrice has the fleeting thought—or rather, hope—that she is pregnant with a girl; another beautiful little girl to replace Ludovico’s perfect daughter. A little girl would open his heart, both to the child and to the woman who gave him the child. She hesitates, wishing to turn to the altar and make a prayer that her child be a female. But if the child is not—and she has spent months thinking it is not—she does not want to insult either the baby or God, who makes such decisions. What if she angers God, questioning His judgment in sending her a child the sex of which He has chosen? Isabella had prayed for a boy, and God had taken the child from her sister when the little baby was only two months old.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to the baby, warming her cold hands on the velvet covering her stomach. “I didn’t mean to wish you away. I love you no matter what you are. Whoever you are, boy or girl, I cannot wait to see your sweet face and touch your little tiny hands and hear your angel cries.”
It occurs to her that it cannot be good for a nascent life to have spent all this time in the company of the dead, and she hurries out of the church and into the courtyard of the rectory, where she sees the Magistro finishing the last of his loaf of bread. He quickly chews, bowing to her, she thinks, to cover up the fact that he is swallowing.
“Good morning, Magistro,” she says. “Is the sky not an extraordinary blue for this cold winter’s day?”
“Your Excellency,” he says, wiping the crumbs from his beard, “the sky is not really blue. Did you know that? I have made a study of it. The blue is an illusion. The color is merely a result of the way that the sun’s rays reflect upon the water contained in the skies.”
“But if it is not really blue, then what color is it?”
“This great blue ceiling is merely covering an eternal and unfathomable darkness. As with so many things, a façade of beauty hides the dark and the unknown.”
Leonardo takes her arm, leading her toward the refectory, unaware, she thinks, of the effect his statement has had upon her. She does not think it wise for a man to make such investigations of the wonders of nature. If God wants us to see blue, then we ought to just see blue, she wants to say. The Lord would have His reasons. What good can come from revealing His secrets?
Beatrice stops Leonardo outside the double doors leading to the dining hall of the friars. “Magistro, I must ask you. Is it true that you have built a machine with wings and that you intend to fly?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. It is true.”
“But if you fail, or if the flying machine fails, will that not put an end to you? I ask you this out of concern. The duke and I have the highest regard for you. I would be remiss in my duty if I allowed a man of your talents to undo himself while in our service.”
But he only smiles at her. “I have made some preliminary tests which have left me quite optimistic. As you can see, I remain uninjured.”
“Are you not afraid that in trying to fly, you are defying God, who made the birds with wings and man earthbound?”
“Why no, Your Excellency. I believe that God Himself inspired me to create the flying machine. Even if I were trying to defy God by flying, I believe He would forgive me. Men are always acting in defiance of Our Lord, and I cannot see where He has struck too many of them down.”
They pass into the refectory, bringing a gust of cold air into the room with them. Much of Leonardo’s mural of Our Lord’s Last Supper is hidden by scaffolding, but Beatrice is happy to see that the face of Jesus is revealed. She has always taken comfort in Jesus’ face, and has sometimes of late, when visiting Bianca Giovanna’s tomb, poked her head into the refectory to gaze upon it. Eyes cast downward, palm open, Jesus is utterly serene as He announces the fact of the betrayal. He wears simple robes of scarlet and blue, the Sforza colors, a subtle tribute by the Magistro to the reigning family. His tilted head is positioned in the center of a window behind Him, so that He is framed by the bright light outside. The Magistro long ago abandoned halos in religious painting, as Isabella pointed out to her sister, but to signal Jesus’ divinity, the Magistro surrounds Him in divine light that comes from a natural source. Beatrice cannot help but think that the Magistro has intentionally given Jesus this halo of sorts. The eye of the viewer is naturally drawn to the Christ in the center, and beyond, out of the window, where the landscape has an endless horizon that seems to extend the very wall of the refectory into eternity. It is as if the Magistro is making a contrast between the finite nature of the event taking place in the picture’s scenario, and the eternal nature that is Jesus’ essence. Beatrice lets her gaze melt into that of the Lord. If Jesus could be so serene at the hour of His betrayal by someone He loved and trusted, then so can she. It is as if Our Lord is telling her to be brave in the face of this fresh pain. Look past this present drama, He seems to say, for it is temporal, whereas the love I promise you is eternal.
She will report to her husband that the Magistro is nearly finished with this great opus. She and Ludovico have visited the dining hall from time to time to gauge the Magistro’s progress—or lack of it. The first time, they arrived with Leonardo’s apprentices and his equipment, watching the prior’s astonished face as lumber for ladders and scaffolds, lengths of ropes, hoists and pulleys were brought into the room under his nose. These materials were followed by bowls of eggs for mixing the tempera, great jars of oil, ceramic pots full of pigments of every hue of every color, stones of lapis lazuli and the mortars to pound them into a powder for mixing the color blue, and dozens of palettes and brushes.
“But all of this in our dining hall?” the prior had asked. “Montorfano did not bring nearly this much!”
“You cannot expect the Magistro to cover a thirty-foot expanse of wall with just a smidgeon of paint,” Ludovico answered, as the apprentices and hired laborers carried in easels so that the mural might be copied and st
udied even as the Magistro painted it. They set up long worktables on which were spread his hundreds of studies for the various parts of the mural—heads, profiles, faces, feet, hands, noses, robes, drapery, plates, cups, even different sorts of foods, all sketched in red and black chalk. Soon the room was overtaken and the prior was demanding to know how long his clergy was to be expected to eat their meals with the strong smell of linseed that already permeated the room.
“My dear Father,” Ludovico said, “Giotto could paint a mural in ten days. How much behind him could a greater genius like our Leonardo be?
“Besides,” Ludovico added. “You are men of God, sworn to make every sacrifice to His glory. What is the sacrifice of dining in clutter compared to the sacrifice that the Savior made upon the cross for all of us?”
The prior could not counter this point and so closed his mouth—for the time being.
The Magistro, wishing to explain his conception for the mural to his patrons, ceremoniously quoted from the Gospel according to Matthew, “‘Now when the evening had come, He sat down with the Twelve. And as they did eat, He said, “Verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me.” And they were exceedingly sorrowful and began to say unto Him, “Lord, is it I?” And He replied, “He that dip his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.” ’
“The task of an artist is twofold,” the Magistro continued. “To portray the person and to portray the person’s state of mind. I shall portray each apostle and his state of mind at the moment that the Lord announces that one of them shall betray Him.”
Satisfied that the Magistro was sufficiently interested in pursuing and completing the mural, Ludovico left him alone. He and Beatrice visited the refectory some weeks later to see, to their happy surprise, that the figures were already outlined on the wall in thin black paint. Slowly, in the ensuing months, a great sweep of color began to wash over the wall, and the prior ceased to complain because he could see daily progress. Though he wanted the artist and his team of assistants and their various sloppy materials out of the dining hall, he could also foresee that the Dominicans of Santa Maria delle Grazie were going to be in possession of a great work of art.