by Mary Hoffman
And families did one thing or the other; I suppose farming gets in your blood the way that marble does. I could imagine what it might be like struggling to raise food out of the ground but for me it would never match the sheer physical triumph of wresting workable stone out of a mountainside.
We took three days to reach Carrara, taking our time and staying the night in inns along the way. Angelo had been before – all the way from Rome when he was commissioned to carve the Pietà. How I wish I could have seen it!
That old block that was now David – or me – came originally from the same quarries. But Angelo was as excited as I was when our cart neared Carrara. As we wound slowly up the hillside, I spotted something I had never seen before or expected ever to see – the sea! I jumped up and nearly tipped the cart over.
‘When our business is done, we will go down to the shore,’ said Angelo. ‘Every man should see the sea at least once in his life.’
And then we saw them. Angelo was watching me, his lips curled in a rare smile; he had known how it would strike me.
‘They call this place “Luna” – the moon – because of the vivid whiteness of the marble it produces,’ he said.
Even I, with all my experience of cutting stone, had never seen anything quite like these mountains.
We went to lodgings Angelo had taken in the town, in a place where he had stayed before. It was in a road behind the cathedral but there was no time to explore it; Angelo had us leave at dawn the next day for the quarries. The cart took us up some very dangerous tracks in the mountainside and then we got to a point where wheels would not take us and we had to walk the last bit.
It was no problem for either of us to climb the white mountain following the newly risen sun. The day was fresh and the sky an intense blue above the white of the cliffside. I hadn’t felt this full of vitality since the day I had walked out of the city up to Fiesole in the sweltering heat of the summer before.
We stopped for a short rest and I took deep breaths of the good clean air.
‘This is good for you,’ said Angelo. ‘It will clear your head.’
‘I hope so,’ I said. Suddenly, it was not just my romantic adventures that felt sordid but the whole sorry business of spying, of pretending to be what I wasn’t – the deceit and lies.
And it was being back close to the stone that made me feel this way. Here was something you could rely on, something you could not disguise. If there was a flaw in the marble, it revealed itself. It wasn’t like the flaws in a man, which could be covered up and only later bring ruin on everyone around him.
‘You know what you said about being a sculptor’s assistant?’ I asked Angelo.
He grunted an assent.
‘I think I’d like it – if you were the sculptor,’ I said.
He clasped my hand in a rare gesture of affection.
‘I wouldn’t let you go to anyone else,’ he said.
And so our pact was made there and then, in the best place possible, surrounded by stone hacked out of the mountains. It made it more solemnly sealed than if we had been in the presence of priests or judges. I would leave the stonecutters’ bottega and go to work with my brother, first at the Opera del Duomo, where two images of me were already lying and later, as we both thought then, in his new studio.
We moved on and down into the heart of the quarry, where our work lay before us. Men were already busy cutting or hauling stone.
Angelo obviously knew the quarry overseer well. They clasped arms and were soon involved in a deep conversation about the merits of different strata of marble. When they had finished, Angelo brought the man over to meet me.
‘This is my assistant, Gabriele,’ he said. It was quite true that he had brought me on this trip to assist him, but the title had a new meaning for me now and I stood straight and proud to bear it.
The overseer looked me up and down.
‘My word, Ser Buonarotti,’ he said. ‘You have chosen well. Your Gabriele looks a strong lad.’
‘He is,’ said Angelo. ‘There is an old family connection. Gabriele is from Settignano, from a stonecutting dynasty.’
We all laughed at that and I thought I could see the overseer displaying just a touch of condescension – Carrara was the king of marble quarries, as I could see with my own eyes now, and Settignano a mere courtier in comparison.
‘What do you think of our mountains of the moon?’ he asked.
‘Like nothing I could ever have imagined,’ I replied sincerely.
‘Well, we have to do our best for Buonarroti the famous sculptor,’ he said. ‘Twelve matched blocks of the highest quality, I gather?’
‘For twelve apostles,’ said Angelo. ‘Nothing but the best. But you have already given me marble for Our Lord and His Lady so I don’t doubt you can supply me.’
‘You don’t want one with a flaw in it for Judas?’ I said without thinking.
The overseer’s mouth dropped open.
‘I would never sell Ser Buonarroti a flawed block,’ he said.
‘Take no notice of him,’ said Angelo. ‘Gabriele has some fanciful ideas. I shan’t be carving a Judas. I shall make a Matthias, the man who took the traitor’s place.’
The man seemed mollified.
‘But talking of flawed blocks,’ Angelo went on, ‘did you know I was working on that old slab that was quarried for Agostino?’
‘The one that neither he nor Rossellino could finish?’
This was no reflection on the quarryman’s work, since the block had been cut out of mountain before he was born.
‘It’s nearly finished now,’ said Angelo. ‘You must come and see it in Florence. It’s a good deal closer than Rome. I’m sorry you never saw my Pietà.’
Then we got down to serious business. All the separate quarries had different names and this one was called La Tacca Bianca, the white blow, because the first workman who ever struck his mallet into the rock found a pure white strain of marble. It was from here that the marble for Angelo’s Pietà had come.
‘You need a road here, Matteo,’ said my brother.
‘Yes, how do you get the blocks out?’ I asked.
‘You put them on a heavy sledge made of tree trunks,’ said Angelo, ‘and float them down the river.’
I looked at the riverbed, at present a dry scramble of scree and boulders.
‘You have to wait for the rains to come,’ said Matteo.
I suppose I looked disappointed.
‘You thought we would be taking the blocks back to Florence with us?’ asked Angelo.
I had. Both the older men laughed.
‘You know the secret to working with marble?’ asked Matteo and then answered his own question. ‘Patience.’
I nodded as I remembered how slowly the marble David was nearing completion after the intoxicating activity of the first few months that broke him free from the block.
They led me inside the mountain, along the sloping floor. The deposits of marble towered on either side of us, like cliffs. Or like the walls of a vast natural cathedral. Walls veined with grey, red and green where minerals had stained the rock. If you half-closed your eyes you could imagine it as a church interior with worked marble columns and floors.
The stone was cut from the roof of the quarries downwards; we could see men swarming over ladders and on wooden ledges, as sure-footed as any whose safety depended on being so. Their cries to one another echoed through the cavernous space.
‘I think this is where we will find your apostles, Ser Buonarroti,’ said Matteo, pointing upwards to a vivid slash of white rock that cut through the grey. ‘You have to have the purest of white – the marble of the moon – for statues,’ he explained to me. ‘The coloured veins are beautiful and much prized for pillars or for memorial slabs but it must be purest white for statuary.’
All three of us stood gazing up at the pure vein at the top of the quarry wall. I know I was thinking about the work that lay ahead to convert sheer rock into art and I was sure that Angelo w
as thinking something similar. But it seemed as if Matteo was thinking of more urgent practical matters.
‘Come to my shack,’ he said. ‘And I’ll write down the measurements for the blocks you need.’
After two more days of bargaining for prices, selecting areas of stone and the actual quarrymen he wanted to work on them, my brother was ready for the return journey home. But he had not forgotten his promise.
The carter, who had been having a welcome holiday, sitting and drinking in the town square, was surprised to be asked to take the coast road. It would add another half day at least to our journey. But he was not complaining. As long as he was paid, he would do whatever we asked.
I started to shiver as we approached the shore. One more bend and then there was the most frightening sight I had ever seen. Of course, I knew what the sea looked like – I had seen it in paintings. And I knew it could be different colours like marble or glass and that it might be calm or stormy.
But I didn’t know that it would smell as it did, pungent with salt, or be so noisy. Most of all I did not know – how could I? – that it would be so big. Before us stretched a whole bay, light sparkling on the water and the waves coming in, one after another, like the years of our lives.
We jumped down from the cart and walked down to the water’s edge. I was entranced by the sound of the waves coming in and withdrawing over the small pebbles. The shore was dotted with clumps of seaweed in strange and marvellous shapes. When Angelo picked up one that was like a complicated arrangement of bladders and showed it to me, I smelt the salty, fishy odour of it and felt its rubbery surface.
‘Do you want to go in?’ Angelo asked.
‘In the water?’
‘Why not? It’s cool and refreshing on a hot day.’
He proceeded to strip off his boots and leggings. I was full of fear. I couldn’t swim and I didn’t know if he could either. Would I soon be having to rescue him from drowning? Surely that would end in the deaths of both of us?
‘Don’t be such a baby, Gabriele,’ he said. ‘The water is shallow near the edge – see!’
He waded into it, showing me how the sea reached only to his knees. I could see his white feet and legs distorted by the water.
I tore off my own shoes and hose and stepped in beside him. It was like walking in ice at first and then it seemed to warm as my feet got used to it. We splashed about like children in a bath, until Angelo said it was time to leave.
We walked back up to the cart, sand clinging to our wet legs, as we carried our shoes and stockings. The carter looked at us as if we were mad.
And then we were on the road again, heading back to the city and all its warring factions. It was the last happy day I ever remember having with my brother before my life changed out of all recognition.
Chapter Fifteen
The Best-known Face in Florence
I came back to Florence refreshed and feeling ready to take on the world.
Angelo teased me for having thought we’d be bringing the marble for the Apostles back to the city with us; goodness knows what effect twelve such heavy blocks would have had on our cart! It would be months before the marble reached Angelo’s studio. The cutting out of the blocks would take a time and then the transporting would have to wait till the river filled up. It would still mean a procession of a dozen carts to take them from the main road to Florence.
He was frustrated by the prospect of waiting so long and had already started to sketch ideas for a Saint Matthew. For once I was not his model. Matthew was a mixture of the younger Sangallo brother and Angelo’s imagination. But it was to be over a year before he had the chance to carve him.
And then there came a message from the Operai that they wanted a public viewing of the marble David as soon as possible.
‘You’ll have to help me, Gabriele,’ he said wildly, running his hands through his hair. ‘I’ll go to your maestro and get you released from your work there straight away.’
I was a bit startled but not worried; it was only what we had agreed in Carrara – just a bit sooner than I expected.
‘Why do they want a public viewing so soon?’ I asked. ‘You had two years to make it and those aren’t up yet.’
‘I know. I’ve got two months left but they want it on display next month! They told me last year I could have a bit longer – next spring in fact, so I didn’t think they would want me to show it yet. But it is nearly finished.’
These were the days when my brother took the terms of his contracts a lot more seriously than he did in later years. I’ve heard he often left work unfinished altogether, as was to be the fate of all those Apostles we had chosen the marble for. Only the Matthew got partly made.
But neither of us knew that then – or that it would be more than another year before David was on full public show.
‘The viewing is set for the twenty-third of June,’ Angelo said. ‘I think the Operai want to make it as close as possible to Saint John’s day.’
That was fair enough, since John the Baptist was a patron saint of the city but it didn’t give us long. From that day on, Angelo and I were working all the hours of all the days to get the statue ready for viewing. It couldn’t be moved, of course; it was much too big for that. The people who were coming to see it would have to invade the private studio that Angelo had constructed around the David. How he was going to hate that!
I had to tell Ser Visdomini and Leone that I would not be available for modelling until after the date set for the public viewing. They didn’t protest; Leone had enough sketches to work on his painting without me and he was putting Grazia in as Ariadne. As for her, I expect she was glad to put some distance between us.
So I was living like a monk and crawling round in awkward spaces, carefully chipping and polishing, taking few breaks, constantly thirsty from the dust and not even going out in the evenings to either the frateschi or the compagnacci. I had told Altobiondi that I was having to work extra long hours. He had no idea of what went on in a bottega, so raised no objections. But he promised to send me word if there were any developments.
Surprisingly, I didn’t really mind being so occupied all the time. It took my mind off so many things and I was proud to be the official assistant to the man I believed, with many others, to be the greatest sculptor in Italy.
One late afternoon, a week before the showing, when I had slipped out for a breath of fresh air, though there was little enough of that to be had in the city in June, I saw the rosy vision of Salai, lounging in the cathedral square. Starved of company, I raised my hand in greeting and he joined me.
‘Salutations,’ he said listlessly.
I wasn’t used to this version of the little devil. He didn’t look capable of causing any mischief today.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘And where is Ser Leonardo?’
‘Hah!’ he said, animated at last. ‘You may well ask! Gone to Pisa and left us all behind.’
This was unusual; Leonardo went nowhere without his little court and Salai was clearly very put out about it.
‘Pisa? What is he doing there?’
‘Moving the river, apparently,’ grumbled Salai but then looked guilty. ‘Forget I said that. It’s a military secret. Soderini has sent him there to investigate moving the Arno.’
This seemed beyond fantastic to me but I knew that his master had skills as an engineer as well as a painter. He had advised Lodovico Sforza in Milan on his defences against the French, for all the good it had done either of them. But who could move a river from its course?
Still, I did agree that Salai shouldn’t be telling me; he was far too indiscreet for Leonardo to place any faith in him.
‘He has gone on his own?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Salai, frowning, and I then understood more of his bad humour. ‘He has taken some of the men he worked with on military matters in Milan. But he didn’t want his “artistic assistants” with him.’
He sneered at the words. Clearly his nose was severe
ly out of joint.
‘Perhaps he thought you would be bored?’ I said.
Either he liked that explanation or it was just one of his mercurial shifts of mood but Salai suddenly became more animated.
‘Enough of my grumbles,’ he said. ‘What is happening with you?’
I told him about the public viewing and he was very interested.
‘I’ll come and take a look myself,’ he said. ‘And bring the boys. My master would like me to give him a full report when he gets back.’
It wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear but if the little devil and his gang wanted to come there was nothing I could do to stop them.
The day of the viewing was a Friday and the city was preparing for a huge celebration in honour of Saint John the next day. But lots of people escaped from their workplaces to come and see the statue that the whole city now talked about as ‘The Giant’.
Angelo was as nervous as I had ever seen him. Not because he had any doubts about the sculpture; he never seemed to suffer from false modesty about his work. I think it was more that he just didn’t like having strangers in his work space. He’d had to open the doors of his private studio in the Opera del Duomo for the first time for nearly two years.
Two days before, the Sangallo brothers had helped Angelo and me to bring the statue to the upright position. It wasn’t ‘finished’ in the sense that it was ready to go on display in a public place but it was certainly impressive, even half supported by scaffolding as it was – since its plinth had not yet been made.
There was also the model for the bronze David and the Pitti Tondo in the workshop. And even though the wax figure of me as David had long been melted down, the gesso model was also there, showing how the conception had changed on its way into the marble statue.
There was a sort of grand opening first, to which Gonfaloniere Soderini came in his robes of office. His brother the Bishop had just been made a cardinal and he was puffed up with self-importance.
