Leonardo’s Shadow

by Christopher Grey

  So Father Vicenzo was behind this visitation.

  “Gentlemen, I thank you for your honesty. I will speak to the Master again. Please give me some time to find a remedy.”

  “One week, Giacomo,” says Fazio. “One week and no more.”

  The merchants shake hands with me and then set off for their various places of work. I feel sympathy for their predicament; but to help them, however, I must first help the Master.

  If only he will let me.

  I open the refectory doors again. There he is, still staring at the Last Supper as if it will tell him what to do. Then he mounts the ladder to the top of the platform and once more begins his pacing from left to right and right to left.

  “Are you still there, boy?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be. Caterina is not well. You will have to attend to her chores until she is.”

  I am just closing the doors behind me, when he says: “And keep those infernal tradesmen away from me, Giacomo. I will not endure their complaints and demands!”

  “You won’t have to for much longer, Master,” I shout back. “If we don’t pay them within a week, they will take the matter to court.”

  He makes no reply to that, but I know he heard me.

  As I am leaving the refectory, Father Vicenzo is coming out of the church. I duck behind a statue of the young David, a clumsy piece of work that Father Vicenzo particularly admires. I wish that I, like the true David, had a slingshot; I’d put a nice round pebble in it and make a deep hole in the prior’s ugly head.

  XXVIII

  Tuesday

  Last night the Master did not return from Santa Maria, or wherever he went. I ate what was left of the potato pie Caterina made two days ago.

  This morning, Rodolfo, one of Maggio’s assistants, still wearing his carpenter’s apron, knocks at our door with a message: My master has returned to the Castle to help Maggio with further adjustments to the spring-and-coil mechanism of the flying machine, which will not release cleanly. He will stay there until the problem is remedied.

  “I’ve been working on the flying machine for weeks now, and every time I stand back and take a good look I shake my head,” Rodolfo says. “And then Bernardo Maggio asks me why I am still shaking my head, have I contracted the palsy? No, I say, I’m well, thank you, Master. And he laughs at me! I feel sure that if one of the holy fathers saw our craft, they would condemn it. But we are doing it for the Duke, aren’t we, so we are safe.”

  It’s the Duke we may not be safe from, Rodolfo.

  No, it’s the Duke I may not be safe from. He has not sent one of his men to murder me—yet—but I am sure that he has not forgotten how I failed him.

  Wednesday

  Caterina is well enough to rise. She has spent much of the day sleeping in her favorite chair by the kitchen fire, her thick red blanket wrapped around her legs. I am seated at the table, drawing with charcoal, trying to copy the way the light cast by the flames falls on her face. It is the hardest thing in the world to draw light and shade, but it is also the most important. An artist who cannot draw the difference between day and night may as well spend his time in a barrel.

  Whether the Master is working or not, I am. I spend two hours every day copying from his sketchbooks. A little more each week adds up to a lot more every month.

  In the afternoon I go to Tombi for another lesson in colors. This is my ninth.

  Thursday

  I have been experimenting with a pen made from a goose quill. The Master buys these feathers by the dozen, cuts and shapes the ends with a very sharp knife, making the points broad or fine, according to his needs. I have borrowed one of his old ones to practice with. The quill is very responsive to the force of the hand. Every stroke must be clean; the slightest pressure can change a line from thin to fat. For more shadow, you make more lines—but not too many. How much paper I have already used up, trying to obtain the right effect! We have almost run out again.

  Tomorrow I will visit Benedetti. Perhaps Emilia will be there. Please let her be there!

  Friday

  The baker Bagliotti came to our house and asked if any word had been received from the Master concerning payment. I had to tell him that no word has been received from the Master on any subject, because he is at the Castle. Very well, Bagliotti says. So be it, he says. If that’s the way it is, he says. And strides off.

  In the afternoon, I head for Benedetti’s shop. I have a surprise for Emilia. On the way I buy myself a big chunk of Maidens Promise, which is a sweet made from cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and aniseed, all hidden inside a powdered sugar coating. If you ever had doubts before, a bite into this will reassure you that Heaven really does exist. I am so eager to see Emilia, I eat the whole thing!

  And here I am, the wooden sign above the shop swinging a bit in the wind.

  BENEDETTI † PAPER MERCHANT “NEVER OUT OF STOCK”

  The door is open and inside there is paper, paper, paper everywhere! White, green, gray, yellow, light blue. Parchments, all types. Boards, bindings, blocks, and bookmaking materials. The shop has clean white walls, and the large front windows let in plenty of light. Oh, it is a marvelous sight! The shelves are stacked high with clean, fresh, fragrant, inviting paper!

  Benedetti is standing in the center of the room. The shop is shaking with buyers. Government officials in black and white robes, their medallions of office proudly displayed on their chests. Poets (I suspect, by their inky fingers) scratching their beards. Clerics. Bankers. Everyone is bantering and bartering with Benedetti, who stands firm like the captain of a galleon, directing his assistants hither and thither to satisfy his customers.

  And there is Emilia in a green dress, her dark brown hair tucked under a cloth cap, running to and fro with stacks of paper, as keen and able as any of her father’s men. By Saint Barbara, she is beautiful!

  Benedetti sees me enter.

  “Giacomo, my boy, welcome, welcome. Emilia, look who’s here!”

  But Emilia is too occupied to notice me.

  “Need some paper? I thought so. Emilia will see to you in a moment.”

  And when she has finished with her customer, she turns to me and smiles. It is a lovely smile—an invitation to dance, do somersaults, sing French chansons, and generally fall over myself like a bad tumbler.

  I’ll just smile back. That’s easier. But my lips are quivering, which makes it harder.

  “Good day, Giacomo,” she says. “I’ve been wondering when you would come by—excuse me a moment. Father, Messer Fidero wants five hundred sheets of the plain middle weight. Oh, we are so busy here today. And the Duke wants a thousand sheets printed, too.”

  “Oh? What is the announcement?”

  “It’s war, Giacomo. Haven’t you heard? War against France.”

  So it’s official. Any Frenchman living in the city will be ordered to leave. No more French wines on the tables of the rich.

  “My father tells me you are an artist, too,” she says.

  “Still a student,” I reply.

  “How much paper would you like?”

  “I’ll take whatever you can spare, Emilia.”

  And I promise to pay for every page, if my master will not paint your father.

  “Here’s a hundred sheets. It’s not our best—”

  “But, Emilia, it’s too fine for me. Give me some of—”

  “Nonsense. Take it, Giacomo, with my father’s blessing.”

  He’ll soon be cursing me when he finds out what has happened with the Last Supper. Now he is calling for her from across the room.

  “I must go. Please come and see us again,” she says.

  “Before I do, this is for you.”

  And I hand her the drawing I have been laboring over for days.

  “What, Giacomo? Oh … it’s me!”

  Thanks be to Saint Catherine, the patron saint of artists—Emilia recognizes herself!

  And now she is blushing. That is a good sign, I think. Cate
rina says blushing invites the interest of the Devil. Let him come!

  She is still looking at it, a big, beautiful smile on her face.

  “Oh, it’s very, very good. Father, look! Giacomo has drawn me!”

  “I’ll go now,” I say. But only to come back again.

  And she smiles at me some more, before running over to her father with the drawing.

  And I run all the way home, a smile on my face.

  Saturday

  Two more days until … oh Master, where are you?

  And then, just as swiftly as he disappeared, he returns.

  He tells me he has finished his work on the flying machine and left Maggio and his assistants to complete the gluing and underpinning.

  Then I remind him about the shopkeepers.

  “Master,” I say, “they are going to take us to the Court of Justice on Monday. But if you would agree to use them as models for the Disciples—”

  “Giacomo,” he says, “please. I am worn out.”

  He leans over the mantel above the fire and rests his head on his forearm. I watch him while the fire burns down to a soft glow.

  “Master, what is wrong?”

  “Wrong? Everything.” He takes his purse from his belt and holds it open for me. Empty. “After all the years of labor, I have nothing but debts and no means to repay them.”

  He throws his purse into the fire!

  “No house. No land. No reward. Curse the Duke, I say! What does he know of art? What does he care for the agony of creation? The endless time necessary to contemplate and prepare the work and, once begun, the innumerable daily labors—labors that would make Hercules himself hang his head in defeat!—before the result can be achieved. Why, Giacomo, only a fool would call himself artist; it is a life filled with hesitation before the work, uncertainty during it, and regret afterwards.”

  “Master, your art has made you famous and will be your future monument. Is that not reward enough?”

  “I have no time to think of the future, when the present demands all my attention.” He yawns and stretches. “I must rise early on the morrow and go to Santa Maria.”

  He turns away, and I follow him out of the kitchen. He plucks a book from the shelf, lights a candle from the fire, and prepares to ascend the stairs to his bed. When he is halfway up I call to him: “Master? Have you thought any more about my painting lessons?”

  I bite my tongue. You fool, Giacomo. Now is not the time—look how tired he is.

  He stops as if to reply, but continues to slowly mount the stairs, until both he and his candle have melted into the shadows.

  Later, I poke my head inside Caterina’s door. She is asleep, her breathing quiet and steady. I hold up the candle to her face; her skin is so thin I can see the blood flowing beneath it. So many broken veins on her cheeks. So many years of labor. And for what? What has been her reward for a life of faithful servitude?

  Sunday

  As still and sad a Sunday as I have ever experienced. The Master leaves the house early and does not return until very late.

  I go for a walk along the canal.

  Some winter days hang like ghosts over the streets, turning familiar paths into foreign places.

  Perhaps I’ll call at Benedetti’s house and see if Emilia is at home.

  No. I can’t do that. Not until I find the courage to tell him that the agreement we made has been forbidden by my master. And I’ll owe him the ten ducats I took. And the money for the paper. When Emilia finds out how foolish and rash I have been, how I have humiliated her father, she will never look at me again.

  Anyway, tomorrow the bailiffs will come for us, just as soon as the shopkeepers have made their complaint and the Court of Justice has sworn out the warrant for the Master’s arrest. I won’t be seeing anyone for a long, long time.

  Monday

  The Master summons me to his study. I have been praying to the Virgin for a miracle. And I get one.

  “You win, Giacomo.”

  “I do?”

  “I cannot risk an appearance in court. If I end up in jail, I can hardly finish the Last Supper, and I will not have it finished by Mich-Michel—”

  “Michelangelo?”

  “Yes. Him.”

  “Master, do you mean—?”

  “You may advise those impatient shopkeepers that I agree to paint them in return for canceling my debts. Yes, Giacomo. I will use them as my models for the Disciples.”

  Without thinking, I do a little jump and clap my hands together.

  “You will, Master?”

  “The more I think on it, the more I think of it. Why not paint the faces of our industrious Milanese? They have as much right to be on the wall of the refectory as any of the Duke’s noblemen. He wants me to decide for myself? Very well then, I will. I am resolved, Giacomo; I will use your merchants and paint the refectory wall, whether it is damp or not. We have delayed long enough. Now let us set to work!”

  My feelings precisely, Master—let us set to work!

  We have Benedetti’s agreement, and I am sure, after what they said to me outside the refectory, that I will obtain the approval of Rossi, Bagliotti, Peroni, and Fazio. That would be five, with seven to go to make up the twelve. I relate this to the Master.

  “Eleven. The face of Judas is already settled.”

  I dare not ask who he has chosen for that infamous role; whoever it is will not be content when he discovers it.

  “And our Lord?”

  “That I have not decided. If the Duke is so keen for me to finish the painting quickly, perhaps, as he once said in jest, I should use your face as the model for Jesus.”

  I cross my fingers. Oh yes, Master, choose me, choose me!

  He smiles. How that fills my heart with warmth. If he would only do it once a day, I would not need a new winter shirt.

  “You would use my face, Master? Really?”

  Or do my ears play tricks on me, as they have done before when something I badly wanted to hear turned out to be a lie?

  “We shall consider it, boy. But, for now, bring me your tradesmen and shopkeepers—bring me the whole of merchant Milan, if you must—but tell them there is to be no discussion of who sits where at the table. I am the artist and will make the artistic decisions. Are we understood?”

  “Yes, Master!”

  “Then don’t stand there gaping at me! Go your ways!”

  After all my wishing, worrying, and waiting, he changes his mind just like that.

  So I set off to find Fazio, Bagliotti, Rossi, and Peroni.

  I know I have done the right thing when the four merchants greet me and my news most enthusiastically later that same day. Not only will they clear our debts, they will each pay me ten ducats (forty ducats in my purse, God’s truth!)—and they are more than eager to tell their friends of their good fortune. That will make it easier for me to approach the other merchants and fill the remaining places.

  That night, after I have given the Master the money (he took it without a great show of thanks, which was disappointing), I sit down and count up some of the other merchants I might approach to exchange our debts for a place in the Last Supper. There are plenty to choose from. I’ve just now made a list of the most promising, along with their trades, and the goods we have not paid for.

  Bernardo Maggio. Carpenter. Master’s bed, chests, platform for Last Supper.

  Lorenzo Delitto. Goldsmith. Master’s gold cross and chain.

  Vittorio Veroli. Shoemaker. Master’s shoes and boots (various).

  Gregorio Rinnucci. Saddler. Master’s saddle with silver stirrups.

  Cesare Cabrera. Swordsmith. Master’s rapier with decorated hilt.

  Girolamo Martino. Tailor. Master’s black cloak, two jerkins, five undershirts.

  Paolo Vecchio. Tailor. Master’s other cloak (red), doublet, hose (four pairs?).

  Pierfrancesco Festa. Bookseller. Master’s books: too many to list on one page!

  But what about Tombi?

  The Master ow
es him as much as any of these merchants.

  And I owe him much more. Not only has he been teaching me about paint, he introduced me to Ottavio Assanti, who will soon restore my memory.

  But how can I offer Tombi a place in the Last Supper? I have to keep him away from the Master, who would surely pluck from him the whole truth about my pact with Assanti.

  XXIX

  I arrange for the sittings and the Master chooses Fazio to begin. They meet at the refectory, and the Master is not late, nor does he leave until he has made many sketches of the subject.

  Fazio returns the next day, and the next, and the next, until the Master has made a full-sized drawing of his face. Then he makes small holes in the outline and features of the face on the paper; when that is done he takes the drawing, pins it to the wall (not so difficult, because of the dampness), and, using a small bag filled with soot, taps it against the paper (artists call this pouncing, which makes you think of a cat jumping on a rat).

  After he has covered the drawing several times, he unpins it, and—behold! The soot has penetrated the little holes and left an outline of Fazio’s face on the wall, exactly as the Master drew it!

  (When he sees this, Fazio stands up, astonished. The Master thanks him and tells him not to sit down again, it is time for him to leave.)

  Then the Master takes his paintbrushes, oil, and colors and begins to fill in the outline. Before another few days, we have Fazio’s face, wrinkles and all, up there on the wall.

  And then the Master asks me to summon Rossi.

  The days pass, and I see little more of him than the front door opening and closing. He seems to have put aside all hesitation and doubt. I do not want to take the credit for this (not all of it, anyway), but I cannot help thinking that some of his new-found purpose may have been caused by the thought that the more he paints, the quicker he rids himself of his debts. In the meantime, the money I have given him from the shopkeepers serves to pay for our food and firewood.

  And then, one afternoon, with the Master hard at work on Bagliotti’s face, and me in attendance watching from the shadows (a blanket around my shoulders—it is so cold in here, I don’t know why the Master’s fingers don’t freeze), the refectory doors swing open. Vanni, the husband of Caterina’s friend Margareta, appears with his dog, Poppo, a scratch-haired old fleabag whose excess of girth attests to a lifetime of overindulgence by his owners.