by Mary Hoffman
The compagnacci saw it as the lack of respect it was and hands rested on daggers all through the service. But surely there would not be outright violence in such a sacred space? I whispered as much to my brother. He looked at me oddly.
‘Do you not know that Lorenzo and his brother were both stabbed in this very cathedral during High Mass?’ he whispered back. ‘Giuliano died and Lorenzo survived to take a terrible revenge on the Pazzi who were the assassins.’
I looked at him in horror and around me at the tense rivals listening to the words of the Mass.
‘It was before you were born,’ said Angelo. ‘I was only a baby. Perhaps Florentines have become more civilised since then.’
But I could see he didn’t believe this.
People were now going up to the altar to receive the Host. As they shuffled slowly forwards, I could see some jostling. And the frateschi were ostentatiously keeping their seats. They would not join in a Mass to commemorate a man they despised as an unelected tyrant; they just wanted to be there to crow over his disappointed supporters.
But Angelo and I went up. As we came down and stopped to light candles, Gianbattista hissed at me, ‘You are prepared to go to some lengths to keep up your pretence as a Medicean, I see.’
I looked at him coldly, feeling the eyes of the compagnacci on us and threw back my cloak just enough to rest my hand on my own dagger. Yes, it was a pretence, since I was a spy for his group but during the Mass I had felt no hate for the de’ Medici – just sadness at the passing of someone who had not been able to live up to his city’s expectations of him.
I felt a hand on my arm; it was Angelo.
‘No weapons,’ he said. ‘We are not Pazzi, to shed blood in God’s house. Let the dead rest in peace. If you have arguments to settle, do it somewhere else. This is hallowed ground.’
Gianbattista continued to glare at both of us but the moment passed.
On the cathedral steps, Altobiondi came up to us and put his arm around my shoulder, though he had to stand on tiptoe to do it.
‘Good fellow, Gabriele,’ he said. ‘We must get you some black clothes – Visdomini will organise it.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, trying not to flinch from his touch.
‘I saw the way you faced down that fellow in red. I was proud of you.’
When Epiphany came and went, Christmas was truly over and I returned to work.
‘I didn’t tell you,’ said Angelo. ‘I have a new commission.’
‘Another one?’
I was beginning to worry. Of all the works that had been commissioned since I came to Florence, he had completed only the Pitti Tondo and – almost – the marble David. The bronze for the French maréchal had not been cast; of the fifteen statues for Siena, only a handful had been made; and there were the twelve apostles whose marble blocks would be arriving soon.
‘It is a Madonna and Child in marble,’ said Angelo. He had a dreamy expression on his face, the way I remember him looking when he was sketching me for the Davids. I suppose it signalled the beginning of a new conception.
‘For the Signoria?’ I asked.
‘No, this one is for Bruges,’ he said. ‘Two wool merchants came to see my father and one of them – Alexandre – asked for me to sculpt this piece.’
‘Well, you have carved Our Lady before,’ I said, wondering if this one would also be a memory of his mother or might, as the one for Pitti had, bear my face.
‘I think it will be a sort of companion to the Rome Pietà,’ he said. ‘With the child not in her lap but standing in front of her – about to take his first steps into the world and his terrible future. It will be a vertical composition, just as the Rome one was horizontal.’
I loved to hear him talk about his work. I knew he was imagining the new statue in his mind’s eye, even as he described it, and the next stage would be feverish sketching. It was a good thing the marble David was finished.
I wondered when it would be moved out of the workshop; life was going to get a bit cramped there until the house and studio on Borgo Pinti were finished, if we had to accommodate a new full-sized marble too.
‘They’ve set the date of the inquiry for the twenty-fifth of this month,’ said Angelo, as if he had read my mind. ‘Then we will know where David is going and when we can get him there.’
‘The Signoria will not mind that you are starting something else?’ I asked.
‘Not when they see the reaction to my David,’ he said.
He was like that: not boastful but well aware of his powers. And though he didn’t like being observed while he was working, he accepted his due when the sculptures were on public view. He was at that stage when he wanted to put the marble giant behind him and reclassify it as one of the things he had already made and could feel proud of, like the Rome Pietà. But his heart was with the new work.
I worked that day on my own small marble piece: a sleeping child. I had sketched it from memory of my nephews but given it the face of little Davide. Angelo had corrected the drawings to make a shape easier for me to carve and gave me my first block of marble, on which I had drawn the lines of the child’s body.
‘I made a cupid like that once,’ he had said, showing me how to get the curving lines to flow to make the statue more lifelike.
I would dearly have loved to sketch my own son or at least see him but all that had stopped when I had become a false Medicean. Antonello de’ Altobiondi regarded me as his friend now but I never saw Davide, who would be two next month.
I started my first tentative blows with the chisel. I knew that Clarice had become pregnant with another child that she had lost: Altobiondi had worn a black rosette for a few months at that time. And now I knew, through Grazia and the women’s network, that she was about to have another. Davide would have a little sister or brother in time for his birthday. I hoped it would be another boy for him to grow up with and that it would look just like his father so that Altobiondi would transfer his affections to the new child and not caress my son so much, but I knew that was wicked of me.
The first time I went back to the frateschi after Piero’s Mass in the cathedral, Gianbattista came up and shook my hand.
‘I am sorry for what I said,’ he began. ‘I realise that you were doing what you had to, to deceive the pro-Mediceans. Daniele tells me that I was mistaken not to trust you.’
I bowed stiffly. I didn’t have to tell him that I had found all his behaviour objectionable, especially his scarlet clothes at what had been almost like a funeral.
‘Say that you forgive me and we can be friends again,’ he said.
‘We have never stopped being friends as far as I am concerned,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Simonetta would never forgive me if I drove you away from our house.’
I hid my surprise; the lovely Simonetta had spoken to her brother about me?
‘But tell us what the compagnacci are saying about Piero’s death,’ he went on. ‘They must be putting their faith in the family members in Rome now.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They were already in contact with the Cardinal and Giulio. And I think in a strange way the death of Piero frees them to deal with his brother and cousin. They know how unpopular Piero was in the city and can make a fresh start with their new candidates for ruler.’
‘The Cardinal will never be ruler in Florence,’ said Daniele. ‘Not now we have a permanent gonfaloniere. The Republic wouldn’t stand for it.’
‘You and I know that,’ I said, ‘but the Medicean party will never believe it. Not until all the family are in their graves.’
‘Maybe we should make that the case,’ said Daniele.
He had always seemed the most bloodthirsty among us but I couldn’t believe he meant that.
‘Piero left a young son and daughter,’ I said quietly.
‘Sometimes the only way to secure peace is to get rid of the causes of war,’ he said.
I didn’t want to think of two little children as a ‘cause of war’
. And it still left the Cardinal, his brother in Venice, his cousin Giulio and a whole other second branch of the family descended from Lorenzo’s great-uncle, for whom he was named. (I had become a bit of an expert on the de’ Medici family tree through my connection with de’ Altobiondi.)
‘Well, we don’t have to think about assassinating the whole family,’ said Gianbattista. ‘It will be sufficient to stop any plot to bring the Cardinal or any other de’ Medici back into the city. And Gabriele’s our man for that. This time we’ll know well in advance and our men will be in place. No one is ever going to open a gate to that family again.’
At that moment I just wished that someone would and that the coming battle would be over. I was tired of waiting for it to happen and weary of my life as a spy. But until that moment I had never wondered what would happen to me afterwards. For the first time, I realised that the danger I was in now would be much worse when my disguise was revealed – whether the de’ Medici won or not.
Chapter Eighteen
The City Decides
The flower of Florentine artists was assembled in the Opera del Duomo – and a fair few weeds in my opinion. As Angelo had told me, he wasn’t invited to be part of this grand practica to decide where his statue would be placed in the city and, of course, I couldn’t be expected to be one of the people who decided its location, as a lowly artist’s model, even though it was my face and figure that would soon be displayed for every citizen to see.
But we were not without friends to be part of the discussion. The Sangallo brothers were there and Angelo’s old friend the painter, Francesco Granacci, and since it was a public hearing we could be present in the chamber. Very little work was done in the workshop coming up to that chilly grey day, as the fate of the statue which had been part of our lives for two and a half years was to be decided.
‘And why should da Vinci have any say in the matter?’ Angelo fretted, unnecessarily polishing David’s toes for the umpteenth time. ‘Or Ghirlandaio’s brother for that matter?’
It was true that both Leonardo da Vinci and Davide Ghirlandaio, the brother of Angelo’s first master, had been invited to take part in the deliberations.
January 25th, a whole month after Christmas Day, dawned at last and Angelo was up even earlier than usual. There was time for no more than a quick splash under the water pump and for me a crust of bread grabbed from the kitchen. But I knew we would be much too early and made my brother stop at Gandini’s, where I got a much tastier pastry.
I tucked another in reserve inside my finest Medicean jerkin of black velvet.
‘How can you think of food on a day like this?’ demanded Angelo, looking at me with distaste.
‘Because I know I will be hungry if I don’t,’ I said.
He barked with laughter. ‘You do me good, Gabriele,’ he said. ‘You remind me of my younger, better, self.’
Though I knew he had never had an appetite like mine – not for anything. He was abstemious about everything except work, for which he was a glutton.
It was strange to go to the Opera del Duomo and not into our workshop but into a large formal room where I had never been. Early as the hour was, there were some people already present, but we were in good enough time to get front row seats.
The Herald led the others in – nearly thirty of them – and, when everyone had settled down, two of the Operai read out a list of rules for making contributions to the debate.
At last the Herald – Francesco Filareti – set out what he saw as the two options. (‘As if it was up to him,’ whispered Angelo. ‘Pompous ass.’)
‘As I see it,’ said Francesco, ‘we can put the David either where the Judith is now, outside the Palazzo della Signoria, or we can put it in the courtyard where Donatello’s David stands. The backward-thrusting leg of that bronze is faulty and the new David is better but myself I favour Judith’s position.’
So, either way, the statue that looked like me would usurp a bronze by Donatello. I could feel Angelo tensing when the bronze David was criticised. But the Herald had gone on to complain about the other one now, in which Judith was cutting off the head of Holofernes. I didn’t know the details but it was a story from the Bible. Still, old Francesco thought it an ill-omened piece.
‘It was placed there under an evil star,’ he said. ‘Ever since we took it from the palace of the de’ Medici, that emblem of unnatural death – the man killed by the woman – has brought us ill luck. We lost Pisa after all.’
(‘Is it more “natural” for men to kill women then?’ asked Angelo in a low voice. ‘The man knows less about art than the baker Gandini!’)
After a wood-carver had blethered on a bit, the painter Cosimo Rosselli got up and said he thought it should go on the steps of the cathedral! I thought Angelo would explode but then old Botticelli put in a word for the Duomo steps too – and placing Judith at the other corner. We had to take more seriously something proposed by Botticelli because he was still held in respect for his past achievements, and, although no one expected him to do much now he had painted a wonderful picture of the Nativity, which my brother had told me about.
But almost as soon as he’d mentioned the steps, he proposed the Loggia in the piazza instead!
This gave the older Sangallo brother his opportunity to jump in. He was polite about the Duomo suggestion but said he thought the Loggia would be far better, taking into account the survival of a marble statue standing exposed to the elements.
‘It would be better under the central arch of the Loggia,’ he said. ‘It should be under cover.’
Angelo grunted with satisfaction. So this was what he wanted.
After gaining Giuliano da Sangallo’s support, the Loggia option had a lot of voices in favour of it, but there was dispute about whether it should go in the central arch or closer to the Palazzo, which was what the Second Herald preferred.
And then Leonardo got up. There was a respectful hush.
‘I favour the position in the Loggia,’ he said. ‘But with this addition. The statue itself needs an addition – some decent ornament to befit the decorum of the solemn ceremonies the Signoria holds in the Loggia.’
My face burned and I could feel Angelo seething beside me.
(‘He wants to have you emasculated,’ he growled to me. ‘Or at least covered up and rendered harmless in the eyes of simpering young girls.’)
I didn’t like the thought of either and I especially didn’t like this suggestion coming from Leonardo! It made me feel dirty.
Then Salvestro, who was a worker in precious stones, said very sensibly that the sculptor’s own opinions should be listened to. For himself he favoured the position outside the Palazzo but ‘He who made it surely knows better than anyone the place best suited to the appearance and character of the figure.’
Filippino Lippi said virtually the same. I was fascinated to see him for Angelo had showed me some of his paintings. His father had been a great painter too and a monk but one who couldn’t keep the vow of chastity. It seemed as if the artists in the inquiry were shifting the balance in favour of the sculptor’s own views, which they knew very well were expressed in this formal setting by Sangallo.
But then Davide Ghirlandaio had to say his piece and he latched on to the idea put forward by an embroiderer. (‘An embroiderer, I ask you!’ said Angelo. ‘Maybe he wants to make you a pretty skirt to hide your nakedness with “decent ornament” – fool of a man.’)
The foolish embroiderer had suggested taking down Donatello’s marble lion, known as the Marzocco, and putting David in its place in front of the Palazzo. Ghirlandaio called it ‘the most worthy place of all’.
(‘He doesn’t think that for a moment,’ said Angelo. ‘He just knows it isn’t the place I want. The Ghirlandaio brothers haven’t forgiven me for leaving Domenico’s workshop when I was thirteen! He’s just saying that to spite me.’)
The meeting droned on with no one having anything new to add. Antonio da Sangallo said, with great tact, that he woul
d have favoured the Palazzo position if it had not been for the delicate nature of the marble. One of the Signoria musicians said it would be easier to attack the statue with a stave if it were in the Loggia and that made me very uneasy. I wasn’t the only person in the room dressed as a de’ Medici supporter; our black clothes marked us out as still in mourning for Piero and I didn’t want any of the conspirators to be given ideas about damaging the statue. I knew that they already regarded it as a hateful symbol of the Republic.
Piero di Cosimo, another painter, had the last word, agreeing with the Sangallos and saying again that the sculptor’s own opinion was the most important one to be consulted.
As the meeting broke up, I asked Angelo if he thought it had gone well.
‘As well as can be expected,’ he grunted, ‘when they consult people who know nothing of marble or chisels. They should have got a group of scalpellini like you to come from the quarry in Settignano and give their opinion.’
‘But the Sangallos did well,’ I said. ‘They were backing your ideas, weren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see my David in the central arch of the Loggia, gleaming out white against the darkness.’
‘And that’s what most people at the meeting thought,’ I said. ‘Even Leonardo.’
‘Leonardo!’ he said. ‘He wants him to wear a modesty garment!’
He seemed more annoyed by that than by anything else that had been said. And I agreed with him.
‘Mark my words, Gabriele,’ he said. ‘Just because it seems to have been decided, that doesn’t mean a thing. The real decision will be made behind closed doors. But the Sangallos did their best. Let’s find them and buy them a drink.’
Next day after work I made my way to del Giocondo’s house in the Via della Stufa. It was a few months since I had seen the portrait of his wife and I had a strong urge to know how it was progressing. This time I had no commission from the Buonarroti brothers; I was just curious to see the painting, which had caused quite a stir in the city already.
