Farewell Thoughts

Peter’s HomeSivan 2Peter is a descendant of a nomadic tribe. Euodia, his mother, is a gnarled woman, dark, serious. She and Peter built this house after her husband died. She had had enough of desert privation. Last night she spread a special table for my homecoming: pomegranate juice, melon, cheese, bread, nuts, chromis and another fish, clarias, my favorite. Euodia is an expert with olive oil—perhaps some are nomad recipes. At supper time she accepted me easily; Matthew and Peter were wary, afraid, shy.While we were eating, Peter said:“Master, how can it be you were crucified eight days ago... Can you say that you are well?” He brushed his hand over his yellow beard. “I couldn’t forget the terror...will you help us understand? When all of us meet will you explain? Is it faith?...”We were eating at a makeshift table under Peter’s olives; it was well after sunset and we felt the quiet of the extensive fields that make Peter’s home a retreat.Matthew, picking at his supper, nervous, kept watching my hands—I knew he was studying the scars.“I hope you never return to Jerusalem,” he exclaimed.I agreed: I agreed for several reasons: one reason was my desire to send my disciples to remote places, villages, towns.“Our work is to be carried out among our countrymen while governments interfere.”“We love you...we had nothing to do with the crucifixion,” Euodia blurted out.Love, love after crucifixion is a brilliant but black enigma: it proffers and denies. We know that love helps us forget pain; however I ask myself whether it is evil to forget evil. But I can think of resurrection as a form of love, a love beyond supplication. I take that step and realize that immortality is another form of love.Desert air pushed in as we finished our meal and we soon felt chilled. I wanted to shed my fatigue by reading but we discussed visiting the spring at Neby. I suggested we leave early if it did not rain during the night and bog the paths. At Neby I wanted to work out a plan for James, Peter and Matthew, if James joined us. When government cruelty diminishes I want Peter to preach in Rome.In my bedroom I readEcclesiastes—drowsing at times, aware of my familiar pallet, the good pillow, the candles. I was able to dismiss the imminence of departure. I put it away like a shell under sea grass.Ecclesiastesmeant more to me than weeks ago as I read and re-read passages.Rain woke me during the night—a pleasant shower smelling like spring. So, we would walk to Neby another day. Here I would be able to go on readingEcclesiastesand Peter’s copy of thePsalms. When I told Peter that Clibus had found theEcclesiastesscroll on a trip to the upper Nile they were astonished. They had never seen so ancient a scroll.ÿPeter’sSivan 5Judas is dead. He took his own life. His body was found by the daughter of Pontius Pilate. Since he was one of us we have buried him; at his grave a downpour struck us and drove us to a shelter. In a few moments the earth was flooded. I can’t recall such rain and thunder.Judas, born in Gamala, vineyard proprietor, dead at twenty-eight years. AsEcclesiastessays: “Woe unto him who is alone when he falls.”ÿStartling, on a hillside, on a hilltop, a contingent of Roman soldiers, a new encampment, white tents in rows, banners, standards, smoke. Shields flash as men drill. Camels are hobbled behind the tent town. We can make out men in half armor, men wearing helmets, men at work shoveling, men erecting a large striped tent.Is this always glory, power and death?ÿPeter’s—early morningSivan 8Shall we be like trees planted by rivers of water? Shall we mature slowly like the olive? Shall we endure two hundred years? Shall these men replant? They are humble men. Are humble men more or less successful with their lives? These men know ambition and is ambition the safe route? Verily, verily “all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” if we listen toEcclesiastes. What will evolve when the silver chord is broken? I have answered these questions in the past but I wish to answer them once more.ÿPeter’sSivan 10Sivan is a beautiful month, a month of subtle changes.I lay in deep grass yesterday. While I lay in the grass I remembered the fields around Nazareth and I remembered climbing olive trees at harvest time—how we sang and shook down the ripe fruit onto nets.Mama made the finest olive oil in Papa’s oil press, the finest in Nazareth some Nazarenes said. I hurried to fill our baskets... I wanted to gather more than anyone. I never did.Tomorrow I go to villages and will heal the sick...it is a joy, a joy rather kindred to lying in deep grass in the warm sun.I have read my journal. I will return it to Matthew’s care. Among our disciples he is the most reliable.ÿSivan 12So, as I write with my bronze stylus, I listen to the evening, familiar sounds; through my window I see the Milky Way and the great constellations and I am aware God is affirming his handiwork.I write very slowly, lingering over each letter, the square letters superior to the old script. I go on listening. The lamp burns steadily. There is no wind. There is gratitude.ÿNazarethSivan 17Father has suffered from his imprisonment. His hands tremble. After seeing me on the cross he is unable to believe that I am alive.I held out my arms to him as we stood in front of our home. He backed away.“...Father, remember how we visited together at Qumran? Remember that old long-bladed saw, how I repaired its handle three times?“Mama gave you that shirt at the Feast of Lights...”He turned and walked away, trembling.ÿWhen I was staying at the home of Gehazi, after preaching in the synagogue, after healing, Barabbas appeared. Jamnia is his village and he entered the house of Gehazi without knocking. A great tall hulk, he loomed over me; then he knelt and begged me to accept him.Dressed in goat’s skin, his face and beard wild, he seemed ill, perhaps deranged. I tried to calm him, to reason with him.“I should have been crucified,” he repeated in a hoarse voice.For a long while we remained together, talking, praying, hoping.ÿPeter’sSivan 24Patience—we need patience.Going from village to village, town to town, means walking five days, four days, two. It is a five day walk to Nazareth. It is a two day walk to the village of Gehazi. Most walks are pleasant. It can be cold, windy, hot; and when it rains there is seldom any shelter.Sometimes we travel together; sometimes we walk alone; these days I prefer my solitary walks. I am aware of close communion when alone. Patience, patience...but the calendar moves on: Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyyar, Sivan...ÿ

Peter’s Home

Sivan 2

eter is a descendant of a nomadic tribe. Euodia, his mother, is a gnarled woman, dark, serious. She and Peter built this house after her husband died. She had had enough of desert privation. Last night she spread a special table for my homecoming: pomegranate juice, melon, cheese, bread, nuts, chromis and another fish, clarias, my favorite. Euodia is an expert with olive oil—perhaps some are nomad recipes. At supper time she accepted me easily; Matthew and Peter were wary, afraid, shy.

While we were eating, Peter said:

“Master, how can it be you were crucified eight days ago... Can you say that you are well?” He brushed his hand over his yellow beard. “I couldn’t forget the terror...will you help us understand? When all of us meet will you explain? Is it faith?...”

We were eating at a makeshift table under Peter’s olives; it was well after sunset and we felt the quiet of the extensive fields that make Peter’s home a retreat.

Matthew, picking at his supper, nervous, kept watching my hands—I knew he was studying the scars.

“I hope you never return to Jerusalem,” he exclaimed.

I agreed: I agreed for several reasons: one reason was my desire to send my disciples to remote places, villages, towns.

“Our work is to be carried out among our countrymen while governments interfere.”

“We love you...we had nothing to do with the crucifixion,” Euodia blurted out.

Love, love after crucifixion is a brilliant but black enigma: it proffers and denies. We know that love helps us forget pain; however I ask myself whether it is evil to forget evil. But I can think of resurrection as a form of love, a love beyond supplication. I take that step and realize that immortality is another form of love.

Desert air pushed in as we finished our meal and we soon felt chilled. I wanted to shed my fatigue by reading but we discussed visiting the spring at Neby. I suggested we leave early if it did not rain during the night and bog the paths. At Neby I wanted to work out a plan for James, Peter and Matthew, if James joined us. When government cruelty diminishes I want Peter to preach in Rome.

In my bedroom I readEcclesiastes—drowsing at times, aware of my familiar pallet, the good pillow, the candles. I was able to dismiss the imminence of departure. I put it away like a shell under sea grass.

Ecclesiastesmeant more to me than weeks ago as I read and re-read passages.

Rain woke me during the night—a pleasant shower smelling like spring. So, we would walk to Neby another day. Here I would be able to go on readingEcclesiastesand Peter’s copy of thePsalms. When I told Peter that Clibus had found theEcclesiastesscroll on a trip to the upper Nile they were astonished. They had never seen so ancient a scroll.

Peter’s

Sivan 5

Judas is dead. He took his own life. His body was found by the daughter of Pontius Pilate. Since he was one of us we have buried him; at his grave a downpour struck us and drove us to a shelter. In a few moments the earth was flooded. I can’t recall such rain and thunder.

Judas, born in Gamala, vineyard proprietor, dead at twenty-eight years. AsEcclesiastessays: “Woe unto him who is alone when he falls.”

Startling, on a hillside, on a hilltop, a contingent of Roman soldiers, a new encampment, white tents in rows, banners, standards, smoke. Shields flash as men drill. Camels are hobbled behind the tent town. We can make out men in half armor, men wearing helmets, men at work shoveling, men erecting a large striped tent.

Is this always glory, power and death?

Peter’s—early morning

Sivan 8

Shall we be like trees planted by rivers of water? Shall we mature slowly like the olive? Shall we endure two hundred years? Shall these men replant? They are humble men. Are humble men more or less successful with their lives? These men know ambition and is ambition the safe route? Verily, verily “all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” if we listen toEcclesiastes. What will evolve when the silver chord is broken? I have answered these questions in the past but I wish to answer them once more.

Peter’s

Sivan 10

Sivan is a beautiful month, a month of subtle changes.

I lay in deep grass yesterday. While I lay in the grass I remembered the fields around Nazareth and I remembered climbing olive trees at harvest time—how we sang and shook down the ripe fruit onto nets.

Mama made the finest olive oil in Papa’s oil press, the finest in Nazareth some Nazarenes said. I hurried to fill our baskets... I wanted to gather more than anyone. I never did.

Tomorrow I go to villages and will heal the sick...it is a joy, a joy rather kindred to lying in deep grass in the warm sun.

I have read my journal. I will return it to Matthew’s care. Among our disciples he is the most reliable.

Sivan 12

So, as I write with my bronze stylus, I listen to the evening, familiar sounds; through my window I see the Milky Way and the great constellations and I am aware God is affirming his handiwork.

I write very slowly, lingering over each letter, the square letters superior to the old script. I go on listening. The lamp burns steadily. There is no wind. There is gratitude.

Nazareth

Sivan 17

Father has suffered from his imprisonment. His hands tremble. After seeing me on the cross he is unable to believe that I am alive.

I held out my arms to him as we stood in front of our home. He backed away.

“...Father, remember how we visited together at Qumran? Remember that old long-bladed saw, how I repaired its handle three times?

“Mama gave you that shirt at the Feast of Lights...”

He turned and walked away, trembling.

When I was staying at the home of Gehazi, after preaching in the synagogue, after healing, Barabbas appeared. Jamnia is his village and he entered the house of Gehazi without knocking. A great tall hulk, he loomed over me; then he knelt and begged me to accept him.

Dressed in goat’s skin, his face and beard wild, he seemed ill, perhaps deranged. I tried to calm him, to reason with him.

“I should have been crucified,” he repeated in a hoarse voice.

For a long while we remained together, talking, praying, hoping.

Peter’s

Sivan 24

Patience—we need patience.

Going from village to village, town to town, means walking five days, four days, two. It is a five day walk to Nazareth. It is a two day walk to the village of Gehazi. Most walks are pleasant. It can be cold, windy, hot; and when it rains there is seldom any shelter.

Sometimes we travel together; sometimes we walk alone; these days I prefer my solitary walks. I am aware of close communion when alone. Patience, patience...but the calendar moves on: Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyyar, Sivan...

Peter’sTammuz 3Iwill miss Peter’s little house, its rough walls, its crooked windows, its clumsy thatched roof. The floors have interested me. He found pieces in some Babylonian structure; he hauled them here in an ox cart. I have come to love this isolation, its olive trees.Today is a summer’s day.Great clouds, great sky.Peter sought me out as I sat in the bedroom reading. Again he asked for forgiveness. Kneeling by me he promised he would carry the word... “to Rome, if you wish. Teach me courage, teach me strength, teach me to be wise...”He and I have worked at the carpenter’s bench lately, in Lazarus’ shed. It took the three of us to line up a door. Of course it was very old. Laughing, we had to admit our clumsy workmanship.We are proud that there are more than seventy of us now. I send them out in pairs.ÿThe home of LazarusTammuz 8It seems to me I view mankind with a sense of compassion—a constant perception. Mine is a brief, swift looking back: I heal the sick, I renew lives... I remember the hart and the brook...man’s insatiable thirst.Children come and animals come...the ox and the donkey have been friends. A shepherd, I still follow hills, hills of resurrection they may be. Perhaps history may call me a man of righteousness. Perhaps history may not stop. I speak to history. I say, once again:“Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost...”Teach as I have taught...remind them of grace.ÿTammuz 11I leave no tomb, no crypt, no marker.Finality may not be a friend...When I leave shall I carry a handful of earth with me?James, Peter, Matthew, Mark...Mother and Father...Lazarus...Miriam... each one is mine but for how long?Peter will pick up my sandals and say:“These were his.”Father will say:“He helped me make this box.”The Godhead is before me and I struggle with delight and with astonishment.ÿTammuz 12I am entrusting my journal to Matthew. Since we have friends at the synagogue in Capernaum he will leave my journal there.Verily, verily I say: Fear God and keep His commandments. This is the duty of man.

Peter’s

Tammuz 3

will miss Peter’s little house, its rough walls, its crooked windows, its clumsy thatched roof. The floors have interested me. He found pieces in some Babylonian structure; he hauled them here in an ox cart. I have come to love this isolation, its olive trees.

Today is a summer’s day.

Great clouds, great sky.

Peter sought me out as I sat in the bedroom reading. Again he asked for forgiveness. Kneeling by me he promised he would carry the word... “to Rome, if you wish. Teach me courage, teach me strength, teach me to be wise...”

He and I have worked at the carpenter’s bench lately, in Lazarus’ shed. It took the three of us to line up a door. Of course it was very old. Laughing, we had to admit our clumsy workmanship.

We are proud that there are more than seventy of us now. I send them out in pairs.

The home of Lazarus

Tammuz 8

It seems to me I view mankind with a sense of compassion—a constant perception. Mine is a brief, swift looking back: I heal the sick, I renew lives... I remember the hart and the brook...man’s insatiable thirst.

Children come and animals come...the ox and the donkey have been friends. A shepherd, I still follow hills, hills of resurrection they may be. Perhaps history may call me a man of righteousness. Perhaps history may not stop. I speak to history. I say, once again:

“Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost...”

Teach as I have taught...remind them of grace.

Tammuz 11

I leave no tomb, no crypt, no marker.

Finality may not be a friend...

When I leave shall I carry a handful of earth with me?

James, Peter, Matthew, Mark...Mother and Father...Lazarus...Miriam... each one is mine but for how long?

Peter will pick up my sandals and say:

“These were his.”

Father will say:

“He helped me make this box.”

The Godhead is before me and I struggle with delight and with astonishment.

Tammuz 12

I am entrusting my journal to Matthew. Since we have friends at the synagogue in Capernaum he will leave my journal there.

Verily, verily I say: Fear God and keep His commandments. This is the duty of man.

ÿFarewell ThoughtsIhope these thoughts may be helpful. It is very late and lamplight flickers...Inside a man of light there is light and with this light he lights the world.The angels and the prophets will come to you and give you strength.Blessed are the ones who have heard the Father’s word and kept it in truth.Have you then discovered the beginning so that you ask the end? Where the beginning is, there the end will be.The kingdom is inside you. When you really understand you will know that you are the son of the living Father. If you do not understand yourself you will be in poverty.Split wood and I am there. Pick up a stone; there you will find me.Come to me because my yoke is easy, my lordship gentle. You will find rest.The kingdom of the Father is spread over the earth and men do not see it.Blessed are the solitary and the elect; you shall find the kingdom because you have come from it and you shall go there again.I say, whenever one is one he will be filled with light, but whenever he is divided he will be filled with darkness.Love your brother as your own soul. Guard him as the apple of your eye.There will be days when you seek and you will not find me.ÿNote:These logia appear for the first time in a journal.They are from the 4th century Coptic book,The Gospel According to Thomas,discovered in Hammadi, Egypt,quoted through the courtesyof the translator, Dr. Ray Rummers,Chairman, Department of English, Baylor University.

hope these thoughts may be helpful. It is very late and lamplight flickers...

Inside a man of light there is light and with this light he lights the world.

The angels and the prophets will come to you and give you strength.

Blessed are the ones who have heard the Father’s word and kept it in truth.

Have you then discovered the beginning so that you ask the end? Where the beginning is, there the end will be.

The kingdom is inside you. When you really understand you will know that you are the son of the living Father. If you do not understand yourself you will be in poverty.

Split wood and I am there. Pick up a stone; there you will find me.

Come to me because my yoke is easy, my lordship gentle. You will find rest.

The kingdom of the Father is spread over the earth and men do not see it.

Blessed are the solitary and the elect; you shall find the kingdom because you have come from it and you shall go there again.

I say, whenever one is one he will be filled with light, but whenever he is divided he will be filled with darkness.

Love your brother as your own soul. Guard him as the apple of your eye.

There will be days when you seek and you will not find me.

Note:

These logia appear for the first time in a journal.

They are from the 4th century Coptic book,

The Gospel According to Thomas,

discovered in Hammadi, Egypt,

quoted through the courtesy

of the translator, Dr. Ray Rummers,

Chairman, Department of English, Baylor University.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Journal“Both those who recently attempted to fly came to grief.Leonardo da Vinci also tried to fly,but, he, too, failed.”– Girolamo Cardano, 1555For ElizabethLeonardo da VinciApril 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519

Leonardo da Vinci’s Journal

“Both those who recently attempted to fly came to grief.

Leonardo da Vinci also tried to fly,

but, he, too, failed.”

– Girolamo Cardano, 1555

IllustrationsThe illustrations are originals by the author—interpretations of work by da Vinci.Leonardo’s self-portrait ................................ 225Rendering of Leonardo’s signaturein his “mirror handwriting” .................. 225Silhouette of head ........................................... 227Head of horse ................................................. 233Madonna’s hand ............................................. 243Prisoner ............................................................. 248Sforza horse ..................................................... 251Birds in flight ................................................... 261Plants and designs ........................................... 264Mona Lisa ......................................................... 278Christ’s hand .................................................... 283Bicycle ................................................................ 296Head of man ................................................... 308Glider ................................................................. 317This journal was kept by Leonardo da Vinci during the years 1516 to 1519 while he lived in France as the guest of King Francis I; there, he lived in the small residence of Cloux, near the King’s summer palace at Amboise on the Loire River. Leonardo writes of his boyhood, his mother, his friends, his easel and mural paintings, his dissections, his colossal bronze horse.He tells of his attempts at flying, his inventions... This is a codex of his mind as he divulges his art and the scope of his interests.To the end of his life he was painting, map-making, carrying out architectural commissions, arranging his treatises on perspective, anatomy, horses, flight, and the arts. His patron, King Francis, called him “Mon Père.” Da Vinci’s last years, at Cloux, near Paris, were friendly years.

Illustrations

The illustrations are originals by the author—interpretations of work by da Vinci.

Leonardo’s self-portrait ................................ 225

Rendering of Leonardo’s signaturein his “mirror handwriting” .................. 225

Silhouette of head ........................................... 227

Head of horse ................................................. 233

Madonna’s hand ............................................. 243

Prisoner ............................................................. 248

Sforza horse ..................................................... 251

Birds in flight ................................................... 261

Plants and designs ........................................... 264

Mona Lisa ......................................................... 278

Christ’s hand .................................................... 283

Bicycle ................................................................ 296

Head of man ................................................... 308

Glider ................................................................. 317

This journal was kept by Leonardo da Vinci during the years 1516 to 1519 while he lived in France as the guest of King Francis I; there, he lived in the small residence of Cloux, near the King’s summer palace at Amboise on the Loire River. Leonardo writes of his boyhood, his mother, his friends, his easel and mural paintings, his dissections, his colossal bronze horse.

He tells of his attempts at flying, his inventions... This is a codex of his mind as he divulges his art and the scope of his interests.

To the end of his life he was painting, map-making, carrying out architectural commissions, arranging his treatises on perspective, anatomy, horses, flight, and the arts. His patron, King Francis, called him “Mon Père.” Da Vinci’s last years, at Cloux, near Paris, were friendly years.

1516

ClouxDecember 10, 1516MEMORY . . .MEMORY. . .Iremember that hot, dusty afternoon in Florence. I ordered everybody out of my studio. I got up from my workbench and demanded that they leave: the tattlers, the oafs, the bores, the faithful. I packed them off. Yelled at them. Stormed. I had work to do, work that would keep me until dawn. I had to have serenity, no ribaldry, no disgruntled silence, no questions, no interruptions of any sort.I slammed the doors, bolted them.A mouse scuttled across the room.Until I resolved the perfect angles, sheet after sheet went into the making of that pelvic drawing.Queer how memory is: I can see that messy workshop, easels, clay figures on stands, rags, canvases, frames, chisels, pigments, brushes... I can see the mouse watching me from beneath a basket. Again I sense that long afternoon, that long night... I had dried bread, cheese, and port. I remember the church bells. At dawn I slid my work into a special portfolio, thenconcealed it. I was often hiding things in those days, hiding sketches, hiding determination, hiding frustrations, goals.Memory...it gives you what you want and supplies absurdities as well, like the dream that I had in Florence, recurrent: I was lying on my cot... I was dead... I was carried to a morgue and dumped there, among cadavers...blood and mould saturated my drawings and my writings...my canvases were being eaten by termites... how well I remember that dream.I remember a fat Milanese who used to haunt me while I was decorating the walls and ceiling of the Sala delle Asse: he was a pompous member of the Sforza household, a great nose-picker, who had done nothing at all through his long life. While I worked, he sat, hunched in a princely brocade chair, in elegant clothes, sometimes asleep in spite of my assistants, ladders, and scaffolding.That Sala delle Asse work was boring. Like many a commission it was compulsory. To arrange masses of foliage on walls and ceiling seemed absurd. Designs were refused, at the outset. The employment of immense tree trunks satisfied. As I painted, I mingled knotted cords with the foliage, intermingled branches, established a rhythm. I kept my greens from becoming monotonous. I achieved a kind of helmeted bark on the tree trunks. Before I finished, the Sala’s canopy, the forest umbrella, became more meaningful.My fat friend slept on and on.How much did I earn? I have forgotten. Was I ever paid?I would like to return to the castle and walk through that Sala; I would like to be alone; I would like to try to think as I thought in those days; I would like to sense my aspirations; I would sit on a bench under that deluge of foliage: I would list geology, hydraulics, painting, sculpture, geometry, anatomy, medicine...ClouxWhen Michelangelo showed me his cartoon for his mural in the Consejo, I complained that a scene of idling nude bathers was not the best way to depict war. He was critical of my cartoon, saying “you are more concerned with horses than men.”My objective was to show war’s anguish: pain was to be sixty feet long by twenty feet wide. Twelve hundred square feet of pain. All of my draughtsmanship went into thisAnghiariconflict: I painted rage, rage against war, the rage of dying men, the rage of the wounded, my hate, my affirmation.All of 1503 and 1504 went into my preliminary sketches. I often rode about the countryside to sketch horses, sketch riders; I sketched in the Sforza stables; the stablemen posed for me; my apprentices posed. Friends had their chance to exhibit their horses in action. Gamin posed. The militia.So, I did not paint a wall: I painted the smash of steel against steel, the plunge of steel into flesh, the grunting of frightened horse against frightened horse, men stumbling, men falling, dying, their helmets of fear, helmets of pain...yellows, blues, greys, reds.On Friday, June 6, 1505, I began to paint the Anghiari battle. It was my greatest challenge. Here I could render something more meaningful than the madonnas. Not Christ on the cross, but man on the cross. Pigment and light were to come together in harmony. The day that I began to paint was beautiful but the weather changed quickly for the worst. Some of my assistants were called away—they were ordered to attend a trial.The wind caught me unprepared and ripped the cartoon. In a few minutes the storm took over in earnest. I laid aside my brushes and pigments and dismissed the remaining apprentices. Half of Florence was inundated that night.PAZZIA BESTIALISSIMA!That is man’s disease: he can not refrain from political madness. Again and again he is willing to be duped.The central group in myAnghiarimural is the struggle for a military flag: I painted life-size horses, life-size men, life-size hatred: the central struggle fans out across the mural, expressing this futility.I seldom eat at the King’s table although I am always welcome. Sometimes it seems like a long walk to the château, sometimes it is raining. In the evening fifteen courses are certainly gourmet adventures, but a little late at night.The King often sends me three or four trays—a retinue of pages brings them to my studio, laughter and ribaldry, and then decorum as they file into the studio. Soufflés, artichokes in cream and butter sauce, crêpes, pastries, glacés, Vouvray. I am partial to grapes and someone on the royal staff hunts them up for me.Sometimes I find five or six silver dishes with as many kinds of nuts. Francis claims that he could not survive for a month on my vegetarian diet.Maturina fusses over almost everything the King sends:“Now, let me see, let me see,” she mutters. “You should eat this first...it’s better for you that way...and these pastries, why they’re much too rich for you!”She arranges the dishes on the dining table (you must not eat in the studio); she places my chair, lights the candles, unfolds my napkin and spreads it across my lap. What a splendid old ragamuffin she is! Too bad she has lost most of her teeth; her features are leaden, her hair is twisted under a net in lumps, her arms dangle crookedly. She is bones hooked together with shrunken gut. She has been working as a servant for thirty-five years, she tells me. I’ve had her for fifteen years.ClouxThe French call this place Le Clos-Luce, and it is a brightenclosure. I think of the royalty who have lived herethrough the years, the many mistresses who came and went. As I look across the lawn of the manor house I can see the little chapel of St. Hubert and the rooftops of the château; it often seems to me that I have been here before! With Francesco, Salai and Giovanni busy in the adjoining studio, I try to believe I am a young man...time is of no importance!Salai rushed in as I worked at my easel.“Look, look at this...”He had found a sketch among my sketches, a sketch hemade in Florence long ago, when he was about ten. It shows a bicycle. Thereit is on a scrap of paper, among pornographic scribblesand graffiti.“You did pretty well, riding that thing...at first,” I reminded.“There weren’t any brakes, remember?”“Well, when I connected the chain drive to the pedals and adjusted the handlebars you rode it into the Arno.”“Some splash!” said Francesco, coming in with Giovanni. “You could have gotten the bicycle out of the river...it floated,” reminded Giovanni.“I couldn’t get hold of it...the current was too fast!”“It should have been made of steel, to last.” I said.“Let’s make a bicycle for the King,” suggested Salai. “I’ll show him my drawing...no, you make one for him. I can see the courtiers riding about...we can improve on the one we made in Florence.”ClouxCertainly a bird is an instrument performing according to mathematical laws which are within the capacity of man to understand. How does it climb, dive, spiral, hover? I asked these questions yesterday as I watched a flock of ducks along the Loire; I asked the same questions in Florence, in Milan, in Rome. If we ask questions we can eventually achieve some kind of answer. Persistence then!Why does the heart pump a certain beat? What starts it pumping? Just when? Why, at that given moment? Does a nerve trigger it? Heart beats in the womb must be automatic.If we understand the mechanism of the heart we may be able to help when it is damaged.What are the essential differences between the heart of a squirrel and the heart of a man? Between the heart of a cat and a man? Between the heart of a cow and the heart of a man? Knowing the differences should help.I must check through my anatomical drawings and compare notes and analyze theresults. There is so much to be learned. And it is all there, ready to be apprehended.Amore sol la mi fa remirare... love only makes me remember; love gives me pleasure...So it was, long ago, when I loved, when I composed a rebus every day. There was so much to sing about. I played my lira da braccio. Made notations. As a boy, I thought seriously of becoming a musician. Perhaps a troubadour. At Andrea’s shop I created a silver harp, in the shape of a horse’s skull. The fame of that harp took me to Milan—changed my life.“The song of men is the remedy to pain...”I almost believed that.I designed drums, multiple beaters; I could change the pitch of my drums through holes in the sides...I built three portable organs... I designed glissando recorders...I made a lute for Nicolaio del Turco...I made a wind-chestcon gomitofor the prioress...Perhaps I should compose some rebuses for the King.No.The music I hear now is not that music.I might have spent my life in the world of music; yet, often, even as I played, I puzzled over the enigmas of ocean and mountain,the enigmas of the body, of sound: why was one sound more resonant than another; why were there echoes; why was a woman’s voice unlike a man’s; why were there changes in the songs of birds?Ah, those apprentice years!Those apprentice years!Getting up at dawn, working before breakfast, working till late, forgetting to eat, going for a swim in the Arno, rushing back to work, forgetting to sleep; work, work, it was a beautiful thing.I was forever gathering plants, drying them, mounting them, identifying them. I roamed alone. Good to get away from the studio. I was forever dissecting animals and birds. With every bird I asked: how does it propel itself? How can man go aloft? Those birds, those caged birds...it was right to hoard money, to buy them, to liberate them. I followed them, I sat with them, I ran with them, studying every possible angle.I filled sketchbooks with sketches of the hawk in flight, the raven, another with the sparrow.My glider, based on the studies of the hawk, flew around our workshop. Again and again we tested it, wondering why it flew.Andrea had me working bronze...there was so much, so much. He was always encouraging. What a fine master. What a fine artist. Now with gold leaf, now with new pigments, now something in the way of a discovery with silverpoint.He had so little money. Sometimes he went hungry. Sometimes we had to find money for him and his family. Little Lila, little Lila had to have a toy. Tony had to have crayons. Bread, milk.Writing this journal I am attempting to indicate the important things in my life. However, I am perplexed: I can’t decide what has been significant, I am trapped by small things...little things crowd the important. If life is a mural then every detail is important. As I write I am learning who I was. And the omissions, are they carelessness or are they deliberate? As for important lapses I must make an effort to fill them in, if there is time. If weariness does not overcome.Looking back at Milan, at my first year there, I remember: no,rememberis not the word: I have never forgotten that meeting at the Duke’sfesta: I was playing a lute; she was introduced to me; she wanted me to repeat the song; we talked. Love? That is not the right word. But is there better?Caterina had my mother’s name; that meant something to me.I wish I could describe her as I saw her at thefestabut she has become unreal through the years. I see her in the sunlight, I see her as I sketched her, I see her as she lay dead. There is no easy way to describe our love. I am unable to separate beauty from tragedy. I wish I could.Caterina was nineteen. She was my blonde, my Leda. Was our love unique? Maybe it was rather ordinary. That does not matter. It matters that there were long brush strokes in the mind. There is no need to retouch our emotions. Certainly her death and our daughter’s death need no retouching.I hear her singing one of my songs, a song I composed for her... I hear her laughing and I hear our daughter laughing, as they play together. Laughter—in memory—does not blur as words and faces blur.Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...we had three years together: there was money enough: there was time enough: then Milan was besieged. Both were killed by the bombardment. But before they died, Mother visited us and for a while I had two Caterinas, two loving women, two gentlewomen. Our child was learning to walk. Not many people know of those three years.ClouxToday, Maturina has served me her special pasta, several kinds of bread, dried figs, camembert, her three-layered pastry, and Moselle wine. She appreciates my fondness for sweets.I asked her to sit down with me. As usual, she declined.“I want your company...everyone’s away.”Boltraffio, Francesco, Salai and others had gone for the day. Another holiday!“Are you homesick?”Her sad face became a little sadder. She sat down and clasped her hands in her lap and stared at them.“I think you should visit your people.”She nodded.“...But I couldn’t leave you.”“For a month or two?”“It’s a long, long way to Vinci...and alone!”“Salai is returning to Florence soon...”“But I can’t...”“You should see your family. People in Vinci would like to hear about us, how we’re getting along. We have money enough.”Abruptly, hands to her face, she got up, and shuffled away. “I’m too old,” she said.ClouxAs we rode along the Loire, following the river road, Francesco and I talked:“So you received a letter from your mother yesterday? How are things at Vaprio?”“Quiet...everyone is well. Papa has fully recovered. Mama says that conditions are very bad in Milan...fighting in the streets...hungry mobs...looting.”“Vaprio continues to escape...I hope nothing changes that!”“You asked me about the pigments I bought in Paris. We have a good assortment. I’ve been grinding them. We’ll have a beautiful green, that laurel green you’re fond of.”“I’m still partial to green. I suppose you bought the Dutch pigments...”Our horses, side by side, kept an even pace: both from the same stable, they liked walking together: the road was familiar to them: the afternoon was sunny; shafts of light rebounded from the Loire; a pair of squirrels chittered at us; hunters and their dogs passed—someone saluted us with a playful toot of his horn.“Mama insists that we stay away from Milan...she warns us...she said that I’m to tell you.”“I understand. We’re lucky to be here; Cloux is like Vaprio; beautiful countryside; a sketch here, a sketch there.”“We should ride to Chambord.”“I prefer the river trip...”“Shall we go on the river?”“All right, Cecchino. You arrange the trip. Certainly, there’s no finer château than Chambord. Let’s spend a few days there. We can find new paintings, new marbles and bronzes...from Milan...Athens...Rome...the greatness of stolen art...”As we left our horses at the stable, Francesco asked:“Did I mention that the Princess de Lamballe has a son? He’s my age. He wants to study painting. Do you want a Prince for a pupil?”ClouxThe King and I talked far into the night.Youth can be so sincere: youth can evaluate and assess: last night, on the part of others, he apologized: the Gascon archers were much on his mind...“I have thought of them many, many times...those Gascon fools...nothing else to do...made a target of yourcavello...our archers...”Bronze for cannons...he knew about that...he searched about for a solution, as if it might be possible to cast the horse. As he saw it, he felt he had rescued me. Had he? I turned over that thought. Recompense? Was Cloux recompense? He did not say so. I think we both wished to believe it was respect, admiration. His talk made us feel awkward at times.I had not complained: I had not mentioned the monument. Divulging his sincerity got Francis beyond his scope.He referred to Amboise and Cloux as my home. Haven, of course. Retreat? Voluntary exile. Those thoughts could be brought in. I tried my best to avoid any embarrassing approach. Presently, he was excusing the battle of man against man. Again we were faltering. His innate shrewdness came to our rescue, and we discussed architectural changes at Amboise...“We must do everything we can to improve it...it can never be like Chambord ...help me give it a manorial feeling...walk about with me tomorrow...let’s write down some of your ideas...that stairway...the entry...we have to make it less grim...harmony...”IL CAVELLO...the words haunted us as we said good night.I lay down under my canopy. The bed seemed to grow immense. On one side I saw a child, a bend in a river, a hill...the bed drifted...the room changed... I saw men pouring bronze into a mould... I saw a great horse in a city square...SALAI—He is either in studio rags or elegant, foppish; he bursts with energy (has a brisk, haughty walk); he is quick with his pigments; he is as lean-featured as a fox; he is yellow-headed, tall. He has a wonderful laugh, a tooth-spread grin. His brown eyes are spoked with yellow. A girl-chaser. My Salai will never become an accomplished artist. I still have to remind him to wash himself. Ai, Salaino! And will he ever quit that foreign habit, the habit of smoking?Almost everywhere I travel I am troubled by poverty: I talk with the workers and some of them say they are hungry all of the time: I talk with them about their tools, and try to improve them. Shovels. Spades. Rakes. Forks. I have suggested a more efficient roasting spit—I have made detailed drawings. I have improved a wood-planer and a file-maker. I have designed a textile machine, a better barrow, a good water-lamp.For most field laborers, theirs is an ox-life.Horse, mule, donkey, ox, man...they are inextricable.Landlord and tenant, the struggle goes on and on: they are as much at loggerheads as pope and duke. Serfs, beggars, greed, knights, fools—pathos.At Vaprio, I sometimes ate with a farmer and his wife, in their tiny stone farmhouse. They did not complain, yet they slept on mats, ate meat now and then, worked from dawn to sundown, shivered through the winters, saved florins in a clay pot. Their hands at mealtime were the hands of old people and yet they were not old.In the Vaprio region the people have to pay exorbitant milling fees, pay to use a common oven or wine press. Fishing rights have been stolen. For a few gentlemen there may be no wood for winter; for many others there may be no wood at all. Some want a civil war to put them on their feet.At Vaprio, I recall a child of nine or ten: I saw her often on my visits there: she reminded me of thatfesta, in May, in Florence, when I fell in love with my own Beatrice, when I was eleven or twelve years old. My Beatrice was beautiful, her features delicately formed, her behavior gentle and agreeable, full of candid loveliness... I thought of her as my angel.In those days, in Firenze, I often passed Dante’s home: his wooden door had a bronze knocker, a simple braided ring. I used to imagine knocking and saying:“Is Dante Alighieri at home?”I expected a housekeeper to reply:“He’s been dead a hundred and fifty years, you fool!”I would have dashed off, laughing.ClouxI suppose I must admit it: I am a parasite of royalty.During forty years I have had nine royal patrons.Each one has hindered me; each one has helped.I could not have survived in my vineyard at San Vittore: I need artists, sculptors, apprentices, courtiers, women, princes, jousting, masques, jewelry, perfume... I need great art. I need antique art. Libraries.Last night, at Amboise, in the garden, at the pergola, I explained some of my observations of the moon. Courtiers crowded around. A duke was there. A princess. There was an earnest exchange as I passed around lunar drawings, in the lamplight and torchlight.“The details are as accurate as I could draw them...notice the craters, pits, the rills...you see, if you keep the moon under careful observation over a period of time, you’ll become aware of fixed landmarks. I made those drawings from the Coliseum...in Rome...”Francesco has copied this. It was written in Florence, in 1508. I thought it rather interesting, so I have included it here:For several days I have forgotten to hang my notebooks on my belt. I must see to it that I remember. Tomorrow I must write down exactly what I observed when I dissected the pigeon I found dead in front of the church.Se sarai solo, sarai tutto tuo...NOTE: when you sever the man’s legs tomorrow afternoon, lay them on the floor beside him: measure length, diameter, muscle curvatures. Dissect each foot, and record differences. Since the man was very fat, try to discover ways of overcoming this problem.Remember to borrow the lancet from Tomas.I warned my new assistant: Cosimo, squeal on me and I will see to it that you never become a member of the guild.He has threatened to write the Pope (or one of the Cardinals), and expose me. He could. He knows how to write. Now I pay him moresoldithan any of the others. Blackmailer!Ah, you Florentines, look, look! I render a skull—yours! You tremble. You are afraid of learning! For centuries you have been afraid. Afraid of yourselves, of others, of God. You are trapped in stupidity and lassitude.Blood—how it scares you: You whimper at the sight of blood. I remove a man’s guts. You are horrified. But you will batter a man to shreds on the battlefield, and show your gory sword. You will dump boiling oil on him...you will blast him with gunpowder...but you won’t dissect him...you won’t learn how we are made!Sometimes kids overran my studio; maybe because I never could yell at them. They would sneak in from the street; they had to poke, to see, to talk, to giggle. One afternoon (I remember it was such a fine day, a day to chuck everything and walk out of town), five or six boys and girls came in and before I could figure out what they were up to, they rushed out with two of my models. Two or three ran toward the Arno; others ran off into the countryside. I couldn’t follow both. Whooping and hollering, the kids flew their model over the river. I watched it soar away, dip, glide, plunge into the water.When I found the other kids, in the country, they had my Red Hawk: they had it launched on a cord, and kite-like, it was climbing, spiraling, staying aloft.Kids—I miss their laughter, their enthusiasm!There was a time when I had dirty waifs sleeping on the studio floor. We took in two or three; then others came. Their parents had died in the plague at Santa Maria; I guess it was at Santa Maria. Those were hungry weeks for all of us; yet we somehow managed, managed to feed them, get clothes for them, find homes for them—and kept on working.ClouxCopied from my 1504 Florentine notebook:As soon as we met in the Town Hall there was a big wrangle. Ten or twelve of us, bearded patriarchs and upstarts, were at odds. We must decide where Michelangelo’sDavidwas to be placed. We must situate it where it had shade part of the day, where it was protected from the weather; we must have it mounted on travertine; we must move it carefully; we must see to it...It was lucky for us that Michelangelo was not around. He would have exploded—and told us off.We walked around Florence for several hours, fighting the heat (and each other); then, we reached our one and only mutual agreement—to go somewhere and eat.Later, I went with Francesco to Michelangelo’s studio, and we sat there, the two of us, and talked about hisDavid, sitting on a bench facing his work. We agreed that it equaled any classical masterpiece. It was a little difficult to accept such beauty coming from such a troublemaker.It required four days for men to move it, by windlass and rollers, to a site alongside the Town Hall: how carefully we worked, the statue suspended in a sling. Sometimes there were thirty of us at the job. A downpour drenched us. As we moved forward over slippery cobbles I thought the figure would topple.Cargadoresbellowed. Michelangelo was on hand and beat one of thecargadoreswith his fists, screaming at the top of his voice.When we hadDavidin place we arranged a party. All the Florentine artists. Michelangelo was absent.A while ago Niccolò Machiavelli wrote me from his Tuscan farm, where he is still exiled from Florence. His disturbing thoughts linger:“Mornings, weather permitting, I hunt or snare thrushes, reading Dante or Ovid to make the hunts more agreeable. After lunch, I visit an inn and throw dice with the yokels, to taste my malign destiny in their brutish company.“When evening arrives I go to my library, after I have shed my muddy, everyday clothes. Now I am dressed as if about to appear at court, as an envoy from Florence. Elegantly attired I enjoy the presence of great men of the past. They receive me cordially. I talk with them, speaking confidently; they are at ease. For a few hours I lose myself: I am not afraid of poverty and death.”Familiar...the thoughts of the exile.Yesterday, I wrote Niccolò and invited him to Cloux.“We will be a pair of exiles. Stay with me a month or two. Amboise won’t bore you. There’s a superb library. The King has welcomed you. There will be no expense on your part. I will see to that.”How he helped in Florence: I remember that I owe myAnghiaricommission to him. And that night Cesare strangled my friend...it was Niccolò who provided the horse.A library.A library can erase problems.A library is a kind of stained glass.Francesco and I enjoy the Cloux library. Handsome room. A fine Mantegna—in an old style frame—hangs on the far wall. Its mythological scene is pleasantly antique. The shelves hold parchments, vellums, velvet-bound books, illuminated manuscripts, scores. Francesco has turned up a score I wrote for the Medici, one I used to play.There is a white marble table with alabaster legs where I spread out the manuscripts and books.The librarian, keys at his waspish gut, is a defrocked Jesuit, ashen-headed, ashen-faced; he admits that he has never lifted down half of the books.A lovelyprie dieuholds a Latin volume, its pages ornamented with pastel watercolor and gold leaf. The carpet is a mouse-chewed Turkish weave, red on red on red, with colorless, limp fringes.The unchained books are in Spanish, Latin, French, Greek, Dutch, and Hungarian—collected by King Francis’ father. He loved this room. He died there.Sitting under the green pergola at Amboise, King Francis and I sippedapéritifs, the afternoon warm, a lazy hunting dog at his feet.“I don’t understand how your army crossed the Alps in six or seven days.”“Five days,” he corrected me.“By the Col d’Argentière?“Yes...do you know that Pass?”“I have camped there. I have seen some of it when I was collecting fossils. But for an army to get through, it seems impossible. You had cannons, horses, mules...”“We were determined to surprise the Milanese.”We watched dragonflies circle above lily pads in a small rock-rimmed fountain, their orange wings on fire in the afternoon light. Near the fountain men were planting young columnar cypress. Other gardeners were spading paths because the King was re-landscaping. Someone, pushing a barrow, with an enormous red wheel, asked the King if he could plant the roses in the circular beds already prepared.“We had good weather,” Francis said.“Think of it...it took me almost a month to reach here.”“But you were in no hurry, Mon Père.”“Snow...mud...ice...”“I realize.”“Did you think of Hannibal?”“I did.”“What Pass did he use to invade Italy?”“Some say the Mount Genevre.”“He was a great tactical genius.”“Our army was well led...but there were times when I wished we had some of Hannibal’s elephants...but fog was our worst problem...morning fog, thick as an elephant’s hide...maybe that fog helped us...our scouts encountered shepherds in the fog...stopped them from informing others...”Most men fail to come to grips with nature’s intricacies. When they find a fossil they are satisfied with a cursory look. As for flowers, insects, animals, birds, they turn away from them if they serve no practical purpose. And because men do not care to probe, they resent or fear my studies. I have been made to feel this through the years.They accuse me of wizardry...alchemy...vile practices.My studio door is banged open.“Help me, Maestro...oh, God, help me!”And I try... I draw out pus... I patch a hole in a rogue’s leg... I sew up flesh...but the same man, when he is well, whispers lies about me :“He steals bodies from the morgue! He steals dead men’s legs...he slices men’s skulls in half!”The body’s secrets, the mind’s secrets...we must unlock them!In his Amboise armory, facing the Loire, Francis showed me his trophies and gear: his new armor from Cadiz, engraved with floral patterns; his father’s armor inlaid with gold and silver (from Milan); a plumed helmet with the regal salamander in brass and copper inlay; a circular shield inscribed AFTER DEFEAT VICTORY.We spent a morning among spears, pikes, swords, scabbards, helmets, bows and arrows, arquebuses...standards...saddlery. The King admired a Toledo sword and a pair of antique Hungarian spurs. I was taken by an engraved dagger from Greece—Homeric lines along its shaft.Leaning on a pike staff, Francis spoke excitedly about his conquest of Milan:“...How we fought! Was it for twenty-eight hours or longer? I thought our cavalry would mow down the Swiss...the Swiss kept rushing toward us...it was our artillery that destroyed them...I fought on my great Conde, the chestnut you admired...he was wounded, badly wounded...I had to leave him...I had my visor smashed...my shoulder was sliced open...it was like yourAnghiari... horses...men...smoke and dust...at times I couldn’t see...everybody yelling...drums beating...the Venetian troops saved us...“By God, it was terrible...sometimes I felt alone...sometimes I thought my own men would kill me.”“Is it true that 15,000 men died?”“Yes...yes...15,000...12,000...who can count the dead? Some wounded crawl away to die...peasants began pilfering, killing...maiming...our wounded filled the Maggiore Hospital...you must have heard...the halls and loggias were filled...“Milan was poorly defended,” I said.“The walled area of the city? Few tried to stop our entry. News of defeat had spread throughout Milan...little resistance...futile...”I returned to my studio thoroughly disheartened: it is this repetition: city against city: pope against duke: the stupidity seems endless: what shields protect us against the fools of the world!Yesterday, I enjoyed the King’s dinner—another hundred or more guests: Cardinal Mercier, De Brosse, Ambassador to Holland, military, priests, courtiers, beautiful women. I sat opposite Francis and enjoyed his scarlet-gold suit, sewn with diamond chips. I believe he was wearing five or six rings; one of them is rather like the stone I gave Mona long ago. Francis personifies youth, hedonism, and royalty. Watching him, listening to him, I forget the tedious round of courses.Princesse de Lamballe, sitting beside me, a lovely woman in her forties, dressed in blue and nakedness, praised the banquet:“Francis has such wonderful chefs...the food is fresher here than in Paris...I’m so glad to get away.”“Tomorrow,” the King said, leaning toward me, “all of us are leaving Amboise...we’re going to Chambord.” He waved his hand, and smiled. “All of us!”All of us meant about a thousand people, as the King headed for Chambord. I watched his retinue (I declined the invitation): I estimate that there were four hundred horsemen, two hundred mules, mounted archers, stablemen, the Chamberlain, musicians, clergy, wizards, cooks, doctors...the archers wore black and red, the musicians wore yellow and green; the King wore a hat with a yellow plume and a yellow cloak flecked with white fleur-de-lys. The musicians played oboes, trumpets, tambourines, and drums. Such discord. Away they went, pennants, banners, oriflammes.Suddenly, it was quiet at Amboise.In my studio I sat at my desk and looked down on the peacocks and some pheasants: Francesco came: we began to work: I dictated pages from my treatise regarding horses.Francesco Melziis a proper, thoughtful villa-man, handsome, slight, middle-tall, grey-eyed, blond. He is my patient friend, my gracious friend (gracious to everyone): he has his father’s agreeable manners. He is horseman and archer. Flutist. A painter for fifteen years, he handles chiaroscuro like a master: he is best as portraitist. No woman-chaser, he is dedicated to Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French...and all of the arts. When he trims my hair and beard he likes to flatter me.I am searching for a glass that reflects a Florentine face—not a wrinkled, bearded patriarch.GiovanniBoltraffio—Tony—has always had wealth behind him (like Francesco); here, at Amboise, he wears satins and silks, claims that the King’s tailor is “the best in the world.” Tony is so enormous, so muscular, his satins often split. Blue-eyed, genial, bowing, a little too obsequious, he sometimes dabs perfume on his paint-messed hands. He has big hands, big feet, big skull—topped by curly brown hair. With him decorum comes first. He is always aware of his sedate heritage. He sings beautifully, and is an accomplished lutenist. At home he is devoted to his cathedral choir. In Amboise, he is considered a notable fencer. He’d rather fence than paint. He’d rather eat than paint. He will have nothing to do with dissection. Right now, he is involved with a red-headed hussy who champions sex.Andrea del Verrochio—tall, with not an ounce of extra meat on him...it seems to me he is still a young man, that we are at work together in his studio. But no, no, the Arno roared throughout that night, as we mourned his death. Many of us. Corpses lodged against supports of the Puente Vecchio. Plagues. Madness. Work. We cherished him, his frailty. Guild-member at twenty. Such kindness, such classic renderings in stone and bronze. We revered hisSaint John, his serenity in stone.We exhibited his sculpture in every corner of his workshop and yard. People. HisDolphin Boy. HisChrist. Ghosts from his metal and chisel.We learned how to use the abacus together; we learned about mixing oils; he taught me silverpoint and charcoal; we worked with pastels, with gold leaf.Ai, Andrea—what a scalding rain on the night you died. We sat about, we drank wine; then, next week, we returned to our casting, our horses, busts, angels.Most of the years in his studio were tranquil. There were wonderful days, when, like John in the Desert, we detected our own worth—in the mastery of his work. His home was mine. His garden was mine. His florins.I see him painting a madonna’s drapery...weeks of work, painting delicate, gilded folds...he gave me books...He said: genius is dedication.He also said: art and friendship.

Cloux

December 10, 1516

MEMORY . . .

MEMORY. . .

remember that hot, dusty afternoon in Florence. I ordered everybody out of my studio. I got up from my workbench and demanded that they leave: the tattlers, the oafs, the bores, the faithful. I packed them off. Yelled at them. Stormed. I had work to do, work that would keep me until dawn. I had to have serenity, no ribaldry, no disgruntled silence, no questions, no interruptions of any sort.

I slammed the doors, bolted them.

A mouse scuttled across the room.

Until I resolved the perfect angles, sheet after sheet went into the making of that pelvic drawing.

Queer how memory is: I can see that messy workshop, easels, clay figures on stands, rags, canvases, frames, chisels, pigments, brushes... I can see the mouse watching me from beneath a basket. Again I sense that long afternoon, that long night... I had dried bread, cheese, and port. I remember the church bells. At dawn I slid my work into a special portfolio, thenconcealed it. I was often hiding things in those days, hiding sketches, hiding determination, hiding frustrations, goals.

Memory...it gives you what you want and supplies absurdities as well, like the dream that I had in Florence, recurrent: I was lying on my cot... I was dead... I was carried to a morgue and dumped there, among cadavers...blood and mould saturated my drawings and my writings...my canvases were being eaten by termites... how well I remember that dream.

I remember a fat Milanese who used to haunt me while I was decorating the walls and ceiling of the Sala delle Asse: he was a pompous member of the Sforza household, a great nose-picker, who had done nothing at all through his long life. While I worked, he sat, hunched in a princely brocade chair, in elegant clothes, sometimes asleep in spite of my assistants, ladders, and scaffolding.

That Sala delle Asse work was boring. Like many a commission it was compulsory. To arrange masses of foliage on walls and ceiling seemed absurd. Designs were refused, at the outset. The employment of immense tree trunks satisfied. As I painted, I mingled knotted cords with the foliage, intermingled branches, established a rhythm. I kept my greens from becoming monotonous. I achieved a kind of helmeted bark on the tree trunks. Before I finished, the Sala’s canopy, the forest umbrella, became more meaningful.

My fat friend slept on and on.

How much did I earn? I have forgotten. Was I ever paid?

I would like to return to the castle and walk through that Sala; I would like to be alone; I would like to try to think as I thought in those days; I would like to sense my aspirations; I would sit on a bench under that deluge of foliage: I would list geology, hydraulics, painting, sculpture, geometry, anatomy, medicine...

Cloux

When Michelangelo showed me his cartoon for his mural in the Consejo, I complained that a scene of idling nude bathers was not the best way to depict war. He was critical of my cartoon, saying “you are more concerned with horses than men.”

My objective was to show war’s anguish: pain was to be sixty feet long by twenty feet wide. Twelve hundred square feet of pain. All of my draughtsmanship went into thisAnghiariconflict: I painted rage, rage against war, the rage of dying men, the rage of the wounded, my hate, my affirmation.

All of 1503 and 1504 went into my preliminary sketches. I often rode about the countryside to sketch horses, sketch riders; I sketched in the Sforza stables; the stablemen posed for me; my apprentices posed. Friends had their chance to exhibit their horses in action. Gamin posed. The militia.

So, I did not paint a wall: I painted the smash of steel against steel, the plunge of steel into flesh, the grunting of frightened horse against frightened horse, men stumbling, men falling, dying, their helmets of fear, helmets of pain...yellows, blues, greys, reds.

On Friday, June 6, 1505, I began to paint the Anghiari battle. It was my greatest challenge. Here I could render something more meaningful than the madonnas. Not Christ on the cross, but man on the cross. Pigment and light were to come together in harmony. The day that I began to paint was beautiful but the weather changed quickly for the worst. Some of my assistants were called away—they were ordered to attend a trial.

The wind caught me unprepared and ripped the cartoon. In a few minutes the storm took over in earnest. I laid aside my brushes and pigments and dismissed the remaining apprentices. Half of Florence was inundated that night.

PAZZIA BESTIALISSIMA!

That is man’s disease: he can not refrain from political madness. Again and again he is willing to be duped.

The central group in myAnghiarimural is the struggle for a military flag: I painted life-size horses, life-size men, life-size hatred: the central struggle fans out across the mural, expressing this futility.

I seldom eat at the King’s table although I am always welcome. Sometimes it seems like a long walk to the château, sometimes it is raining. In the evening fifteen courses are certainly gourmet adventures, but a little late at night.

The King often sends me three or four trays—a retinue of pages brings them to my studio, laughter and ribaldry, and then decorum as they file into the studio. Soufflés, artichokes in cream and butter sauce, crêpes, pastries, glacés, Vouvray. I am partial to grapes and someone on the royal staff hunts them up for me.

Sometimes I find five or six silver dishes with as many kinds of nuts. Francis claims that he could not survive for a month on my vegetarian diet.

Maturina fusses over almost everything the King sends:

“Now, let me see, let me see,” she mutters. “You should eat this first...it’s better for you that way...and these pastries, why they’re much too rich for you!”

She arranges the dishes on the dining table (you must not eat in the studio); she places my chair, lights the candles, unfolds my napkin and spreads it across my lap. What a splendid old ragamuffin she is! Too bad she has lost most of her teeth; her features are leaden, her hair is twisted under a net in lumps, her arms dangle crookedly. She is bones hooked together with shrunken gut. She has been working as a servant for thirty-five years, she tells me. I’ve had her for fifteen years.

Cloux

The French call this place Le Clos-Luce, and it is a brightenclosure. I think of the royalty who have lived herethrough the years, the many mistresses who came and went. As I look across the lawn of the manor house I can see the little chapel of St. Hubert and the rooftops of the château; it often seems to me that I have been here before! With Francesco, Salai and Giovanni busy in the adjoining studio, I try to believe I am a young man...time is of no importance!

Salai rushed in as I worked at my easel.

“Look, look at this...”

He had found a sketch among my sketches, a sketch hemade in Florence long ago, when he was about ten. It shows a bicycle. Thereit is on a scrap of paper, among pornographic scribblesand graffiti.

“You did pretty well, riding that thing...at first,” I reminded.

“There weren’t any brakes, remember?”

“Well, when I connected the chain drive to the pedals and adjusted the handlebars you rode it into the Arno.”

“Some splash!” said Francesco, coming in with Giovanni. “You could have gotten the bicycle out of the river...it floated,” reminded Giovanni.

“I couldn’t get hold of it...the current was too fast!”

“It should have been made of steel, to last.” I said.

“Let’s make a bicycle for the King,” suggested Salai. “I’ll show him my drawing...no, you make one for him. I can see the courtiers riding about...we can improve on the one we made in Florence.”

Cloux

Certainly a bird is an instrument performing according to mathematical laws which are within the capacity of man to understand. How does it climb, dive, spiral, hover? I asked these questions yesterday as I watched a flock of ducks along the Loire; I asked the same questions in Florence, in Milan, in Rome. If we ask questions we can eventually achieve some kind of answer. Persistence then!

Why does the heart pump a certain beat? What starts it pumping? Just when? Why, at that given moment? Does a nerve trigger it? Heart beats in the womb must be automatic.

If we understand the mechanism of the heart we may be able to help when it is damaged.

What are the essential differences between the heart of a squirrel and the heart of a man? Between the heart of a cat and a man? Between the heart of a cow and the heart of a man? Knowing the differences should help.

I must check through my anatomical drawings and compare notes and analyze theresults. There is so much to be learned. And it is all there, ready to be apprehended.

Amore sol la mi fa remirare... love only makes me remember; love gives me pleasure...

So it was, long ago, when I loved, when I composed a rebus every day. There was so much to sing about. I played my lira da braccio. Made notations. As a boy, I thought seriously of becoming a musician. Perhaps a troubadour. At Andrea’s shop I created a silver harp, in the shape of a horse’s skull. The fame of that harp took me to Milan—changed my life.

“The song of men is the remedy to pain...”

I almost believed that.

I designed drums, multiple beaters; I could change the pitch of my drums through holes in the sides...I built three portable organs... I designed glissando recorders...I made a lute for Nicolaio del Turco...I made a wind-chestcon gomitofor the prioress...

Perhaps I should compose some rebuses for the King.

No.

The music I hear now is not that music.

I might have spent my life in the world of music; yet, often, even as I played, I puzzled over the enigmas of ocean and mountain,the enigmas of the body, of sound: why was one sound more resonant than another; why were there echoes; why was a woman’s voice unlike a man’s; why were there changes in the songs of birds?

Ah, those apprentice years!

Those apprentice years!

Getting up at dawn, working before breakfast, working till late, forgetting to eat, going for a swim in the Arno, rushing back to work, forgetting to sleep; work, work, it was a beautiful thing.

I was forever gathering plants, drying them, mounting them, identifying them. I roamed alone. Good to get away from the studio. I was forever dissecting animals and birds. With every bird I asked: how does it propel itself? How can man go aloft? Those birds, those caged birds...it was right to hoard money, to buy them, to liberate them. I followed them, I sat with them, I ran with them, studying every possible angle.

I filled sketchbooks with sketches of the hawk in flight, the raven, another with the sparrow.

My glider, based on the studies of the hawk, flew around our workshop. Again and again we tested it, wondering why it flew.

Andrea had me working bronze...there was so much, so much. He was always encouraging. What a fine master. What a fine artist. Now with gold leaf, now with new pigments, now something in the way of a discovery with silverpoint.

He had so little money. Sometimes he went hungry. Sometimes we had to find money for him and his family. Little Lila, little Lila had to have a toy. Tony had to have crayons. Bread, milk.

Writing this journal I am attempting to indicate the important things in my life. However, I am perplexed: I can’t decide what has been significant, I am trapped by small things...little things crowd the important. If life is a mural then every detail is important. As I write I am learning who I was. And the omissions, are they carelessness or are they deliberate? As for important lapses I must make an effort to fill them in, if there is time. If weariness does not overcome.

Looking back at Milan, at my first year there, I remember: no,rememberis not the word: I have never forgotten that meeting at the Duke’sfesta: I was playing a lute; she was introduced to me; she wanted me to repeat the song; we talked. Love? That is not the right word. But is there better?

Caterina had my mother’s name; that meant something to me.

I wish I could describe her as I saw her at thefestabut she has become unreal through the years. I see her in the sunlight, I see her as I sketched her, I see her as she lay dead. There is no easy way to describe our love. I am unable to separate beauty from tragedy. I wish I could.

Caterina was nineteen. She was my blonde, my Leda. Was our love unique? Maybe it was rather ordinary. That does not matter. It matters that there were long brush strokes in the mind. There is no need to retouch our emotions. Certainly her death and our daughter’s death need no retouching.

I hear her singing one of my songs, a song I composed for her... I hear her laughing and I hear our daughter laughing, as they play together. Laughter—in memory—does not blur as words and faces blur.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...we had three years together: there was money enough: there was time enough: then Milan was besieged. Both were killed by the bombardment. But before they died, Mother visited us and for a while I had two Caterinas, two loving women, two gentlewomen. Our child was learning to walk. Not many people know of those three years.

Cloux

Today, Maturina has served me her special pasta, several kinds of bread, dried figs, camembert, her three-layered pastry, and Moselle wine. She appreciates my fondness for sweets.

I asked her to sit down with me. As usual, she declined.

“I want your company...everyone’s away.”

Boltraffio, Francesco, Salai and others had gone for the day. Another holiday!

“Are you homesick?”

Her sad face became a little sadder. She sat down and clasped her hands in her lap and stared at them.

“I think you should visit your people.”

She nodded.

“...But I couldn’t leave you.”

“For a month or two?”

“It’s a long, long way to Vinci...and alone!”

“Salai is returning to Florence soon...”

“But I can’t...”

“You should see your family. People in Vinci would like to hear about us, how we’re getting along. We have money enough.”

Abruptly, hands to her face, she got up, and shuffled away. “I’m too old,” she said.

Cloux

As we rode along the Loire, following the river road, Francesco and I talked:

“So you received a letter from your mother yesterday? How are things at Vaprio?”

“Quiet...everyone is well. Papa has fully recovered. Mama says that conditions are very bad in Milan...fighting in the streets...hungry mobs...looting.”

“Vaprio continues to escape...I hope nothing changes that!”

“You asked me about the pigments I bought in Paris. We have a good assortment. I’ve been grinding them. We’ll have a beautiful green, that laurel green you’re fond of.”

“I’m still partial to green. I suppose you bought the Dutch pigments...”

Our horses, side by side, kept an even pace: both from the same stable, they liked walking together: the road was familiar to them: the afternoon was sunny; shafts of light rebounded from the Loire; a pair of squirrels chittered at us; hunters and their dogs passed—someone saluted us with a playful toot of his horn.

“Mama insists that we stay away from Milan...she warns us...she said that I’m to tell you.”

“I understand. We’re lucky to be here; Cloux is like Vaprio; beautiful countryside; a sketch here, a sketch there.”

“We should ride to Chambord.”

“I prefer the river trip...”

“Shall we go on the river?”

“All right, Cecchino. You arrange the trip. Certainly, there’s no finer château than Chambord. Let’s spend a few days there. We can find new paintings, new marbles and bronzes...from Milan...Athens...Rome...the greatness of stolen art...”

As we left our horses at the stable, Francesco asked:

“Did I mention that the Princess de Lamballe has a son? He’s my age. He wants to study painting. Do you want a Prince for a pupil?”

Cloux

The King and I talked far into the night.

Youth can be so sincere: youth can evaluate and assess: last night, on the part of others, he apologized: the Gascon archers were much on his mind...

“I have thought of them many, many times...those Gascon fools...nothing else to do...made a target of yourcavello...our archers...”

Bronze for cannons...he knew about that...he searched about for a solution, as if it might be possible to cast the horse. As he saw it, he felt he had rescued me. Had he? I turned over that thought. Recompense? Was Cloux recompense? He did not say so. I think we both wished to believe it was respect, admiration. His talk made us feel awkward at times.

I had not complained: I had not mentioned the monument. Divulging his sincerity got Francis beyond his scope.

He referred to Amboise and Cloux as my home. Haven, of course. Retreat? Voluntary exile. Those thoughts could be brought in. I tried my best to avoid any embarrassing approach. Presently, he was excusing the battle of man against man. Again we were faltering. His innate shrewdness came to our rescue, and we discussed architectural changes at Amboise...

“We must do everything we can to improve it...it can never be like Chambord ...help me give it a manorial feeling...walk about with me tomorrow...let’s write down some of your ideas...that stairway...the entry...we have to make it less grim...harmony...”

IL CAVELLO...the words haunted us as we said good night.

I lay down under my canopy. The bed seemed to grow immense. On one side I saw a child, a bend in a river, a hill...the bed drifted...the room changed... I saw men pouring bronze into a mould... I saw a great horse in a city square...

SALAI—He is either in studio rags or elegant, foppish; he bursts with energy (has a brisk, haughty walk); he is quick with his pigments; he is as lean-featured as a fox; he is yellow-headed, tall. He has a wonderful laugh, a tooth-spread grin. His brown eyes are spoked with yellow. A girl-chaser. My Salai will never become an accomplished artist. I still have to remind him to wash himself. Ai, Salaino! And will he ever quit that foreign habit, the habit of smoking?

Almost everywhere I travel I am troubled by poverty: I talk with the workers and some of them say they are hungry all of the time: I talk with them about their tools, and try to improve them. Shovels. Spades. Rakes. Forks. I have suggested a more efficient roasting spit—I have made detailed drawings. I have improved a wood-planer and a file-maker. I have designed a textile machine, a better barrow, a good water-lamp.

For most field laborers, theirs is an ox-life.

Horse, mule, donkey, ox, man...they are inextricable.

Landlord and tenant, the struggle goes on and on: they are as much at loggerheads as pope and duke. Serfs, beggars, greed, knights, fools—pathos.

At Vaprio, I sometimes ate with a farmer and his wife, in their tiny stone farmhouse. They did not complain, yet they slept on mats, ate meat now and then, worked from dawn to sundown, shivered through the winters, saved florins in a clay pot. Their hands at mealtime were the hands of old people and yet they were not old.

In the Vaprio region the people have to pay exorbitant milling fees, pay to use a common oven or wine press. Fishing rights have been stolen. For a few gentlemen there may be no wood for winter; for many others there may be no wood at all. Some want a civil war to put them on their feet.

At Vaprio, I recall a child of nine or ten: I saw her often on my visits there: she reminded me of thatfesta, in May, in Florence, when I fell in love with my own Beatrice, when I was eleven or twelve years old. My Beatrice was beautiful, her features delicately formed, her behavior gentle and agreeable, full of candid loveliness... I thought of her as my angel.

In those days, in Firenze, I often passed Dante’s home: his wooden door had a bronze knocker, a simple braided ring. I used to imagine knocking and saying:

“Is Dante Alighieri at home?”

I expected a housekeeper to reply:

“He’s been dead a hundred and fifty years, you fool!”

I would have dashed off, laughing.

Cloux

I suppose I must admit it: I am a parasite of royalty.

During forty years I have had nine royal patrons.

Each one has hindered me; each one has helped.

I could not have survived in my vineyard at San Vittore: I need artists, sculptors, apprentices, courtiers, women, princes, jousting, masques, jewelry, perfume... I need great art. I need antique art. Libraries.

Last night, at Amboise, in the garden, at the pergola, I explained some of my observations of the moon. Courtiers crowded around. A duke was there. A princess. There was an earnest exchange as I passed around lunar drawings, in the lamplight and torchlight.

“The details are as accurate as I could draw them...notice the craters, pits, the rills...you see, if you keep the moon under careful observation over a period of time, you’ll become aware of fixed landmarks. I made those drawings from the Coliseum...in Rome...”

Francesco has copied this. It was written in Florence, in 1508. I thought it rather interesting, so I have included it here:

For several days I have forgotten to hang my notebooks on my belt. I must see to it that I remember. Tomorrow I must write down exactly what I observed when I dissected the pigeon I found dead in front of the church.

Se sarai solo, sarai tutto tuo...

NOTE: when you sever the man’s legs tomorrow afternoon, lay them on the floor beside him: measure length, diameter, muscle curvatures. Dissect each foot, and record differences. Since the man was very fat, try to discover ways of overcoming this problem.

Remember to borrow the lancet from Tomas.

I warned my new assistant: Cosimo, squeal on me and I will see to it that you never become a member of the guild.

He has threatened to write the Pope (or one of the Cardinals), and expose me. He could. He knows how to write. Now I pay him moresoldithan any of the others. Blackmailer!

Ah, you Florentines, look, look! I render a skull—yours! You tremble. You are afraid of learning! For centuries you have been afraid. Afraid of yourselves, of others, of God. You are trapped in stupidity and lassitude.

Blood—how it scares you: You whimper at the sight of blood. I remove a man’s guts. You are horrified. But you will batter a man to shreds on the battlefield, and show your gory sword. You will dump boiling oil on him...you will blast him with gunpowder...but you won’t dissect him...you won’t learn how we are made!

Sometimes kids overran my studio; maybe because I never could yell at them. They would sneak in from the street; they had to poke, to see, to talk, to giggle. One afternoon (I remember it was such a fine day, a day to chuck everything and walk out of town), five or six boys and girls came in and before I could figure out what they were up to, they rushed out with two of my models. Two or three ran toward the Arno; others ran off into the countryside. I couldn’t follow both. Whooping and hollering, the kids flew their model over the river. I watched it soar away, dip, glide, plunge into the water.

When I found the other kids, in the country, they had my Red Hawk: they had it launched on a cord, and kite-like, it was climbing, spiraling, staying aloft.

Kids—I miss their laughter, their enthusiasm!

There was a time when I had dirty waifs sleeping on the studio floor. We took in two or three; then others came. Their parents had died in the plague at Santa Maria; I guess it was at Santa Maria. Those were hungry weeks for all of us; yet we somehow managed, managed to feed them, get clothes for them, find homes for them—and kept on working.

Cloux

Copied from my 1504 Florentine notebook:

As soon as we met in the Town Hall there was a big wrangle. Ten or twelve of us, bearded patriarchs and upstarts, were at odds. We must decide where Michelangelo’sDavidwas to be placed. We must situate it where it had shade part of the day, where it was protected from the weather; we must have it mounted on travertine; we must move it carefully; we must see to it...

It was lucky for us that Michelangelo was not around. He would have exploded—and told us off.

We walked around Florence for several hours, fighting the heat (and each other); then, we reached our one and only mutual agreement—to go somewhere and eat.

Later, I went with Francesco to Michelangelo’s studio, and we sat there, the two of us, and talked about hisDavid, sitting on a bench facing his work. We agreed that it equaled any classical masterpiece. It was a little difficult to accept such beauty coming from such a troublemaker.

It required four days for men to move it, by windlass and rollers, to a site alongside the Town Hall: how carefully we worked, the statue suspended in a sling. Sometimes there were thirty of us at the job. A downpour drenched us. As we moved forward over slippery cobbles I thought the figure would topple.Cargadoresbellowed. Michelangelo was on hand and beat one of thecargadoreswith his fists, screaming at the top of his voice.

When we hadDavidin place we arranged a party. All the Florentine artists. Michelangelo was absent.

A while ago Niccolò Machiavelli wrote me from his Tuscan farm, where he is still exiled from Florence. His disturbing thoughts linger:

“Mornings, weather permitting, I hunt or snare thrushes, reading Dante or Ovid to make the hunts more agreeable. After lunch, I visit an inn and throw dice with the yokels, to taste my malign destiny in their brutish company.

“When evening arrives I go to my library, after I have shed my muddy, everyday clothes. Now I am dressed as if about to appear at court, as an envoy from Florence. Elegantly attired I enjoy the presence of great men of the past. They receive me cordially. I talk with them, speaking confidently; they are at ease. For a few hours I lose myself: I am not afraid of poverty and death.”

Familiar...the thoughts of the exile.

Yesterday, I wrote Niccolò and invited him to Cloux.

“We will be a pair of exiles. Stay with me a month or two. Amboise won’t bore you. There’s a superb library. The King has welcomed you. There will be no expense on your part. I will see to that.”

How he helped in Florence: I remember that I owe myAnghiaricommission to him. And that night Cesare strangled my friend...it was Niccolò who provided the horse.

A library.

A library can erase problems.

A library is a kind of stained glass.

Francesco and I enjoy the Cloux library. Handsome room. A fine Mantegna—in an old style frame—hangs on the far wall. Its mythological scene is pleasantly antique. The shelves hold parchments, vellums, velvet-bound books, illuminated manuscripts, scores. Francesco has turned up a score I wrote for the Medici, one I used to play.

There is a white marble table with alabaster legs where I spread out the manuscripts and books.

The librarian, keys at his waspish gut, is a defrocked Jesuit, ashen-headed, ashen-faced; he admits that he has never lifted down half of the books.

A lovelyprie dieuholds a Latin volume, its pages ornamented with pastel watercolor and gold leaf. The carpet is a mouse-chewed Turkish weave, red on red on red, with colorless, limp fringes.

The unchained books are in Spanish, Latin, French, Greek, Dutch, and Hungarian—collected by King Francis’ father. He loved this room. He died there.

Sitting under the green pergola at Amboise, King Francis and I sippedapéritifs, the afternoon warm, a lazy hunting dog at his feet.

“I don’t understand how your army crossed the Alps in six or seven days.”

“Five days,” he corrected me.

“By the Col d’Argentière?

“Yes...do you know that Pass?”

“I have camped there. I have seen some of it when I was collecting fossils. But for an army to get through, it seems impossible. You had cannons, horses, mules...”

“We were determined to surprise the Milanese.”

We watched dragonflies circle above lily pads in a small rock-rimmed fountain, their orange wings on fire in the afternoon light. Near the fountain men were planting young columnar cypress. Other gardeners were spading paths because the King was re-landscaping. Someone, pushing a barrow, with an enormous red wheel, asked the King if he could plant the roses in the circular beds already prepared.

“We had good weather,” Francis said.

“Think of it...it took me almost a month to reach here.”

“But you were in no hurry, Mon Père.”

“Snow...mud...ice...”

“I realize.”

“Did you think of Hannibal?”

“I did.”

“What Pass did he use to invade Italy?”

“Some say the Mount Genevre.”

“He was a great tactical genius.”

“Our army was well led...but there were times when I wished we had some of Hannibal’s elephants...but fog was our worst problem...morning fog, thick as an elephant’s hide...maybe that fog helped us...our scouts encountered shepherds in the fog...stopped them from informing others...”

Most men fail to come to grips with nature’s intricacies. When they find a fossil they are satisfied with a cursory look. As for flowers, insects, animals, birds, they turn away from them if they serve no practical purpose. And because men do not care to probe, they resent or fear my studies. I have been made to feel this through the years.

They accuse me of wizardry...alchemy...vile practices.

My studio door is banged open.

“Help me, Maestro...oh, God, help me!”

And I try... I draw out pus... I patch a hole in a rogue’s leg... I sew up flesh...but the same man, when he is well, whispers lies about me :

“He steals bodies from the morgue! He steals dead men’s legs...he slices men’s skulls in half!”

The body’s secrets, the mind’s secrets...we must unlock them!

In his Amboise armory, facing the Loire, Francis showed me his trophies and gear: his new armor from Cadiz, engraved with floral patterns; his father’s armor inlaid with gold and silver (from Milan); a plumed helmet with the regal salamander in brass and copper inlay; a circular shield inscribed AFTER DEFEAT VICTORY.

We spent a morning among spears, pikes, swords, scabbards, helmets, bows and arrows, arquebuses...standards...saddlery. The King admired a Toledo sword and a pair of antique Hungarian spurs. I was taken by an engraved dagger from Greece—Homeric lines along its shaft.

Leaning on a pike staff, Francis spoke excitedly about his conquest of Milan:

“...How we fought! Was it for twenty-eight hours or longer? I thought our cavalry would mow down the Swiss...the Swiss kept rushing toward us...it was our artillery that destroyed them...I fought on my great Conde, the chestnut you admired...he was wounded, badly wounded...I had to leave him...I had my visor smashed...my shoulder was sliced open...it was like yourAnghiari... horses...men...smoke and dust...at times I couldn’t see...everybody yelling...drums beating...the Venetian troops saved us...

“By God, it was terrible...sometimes I felt alone...sometimes I thought my own men would kill me.”

“Is it true that 15,000 men died?”

“Yes...yes...15,000...12,000...who can count the dead? Some wounded crawl away to die...peasants began pilfering, killing...maiming...our wounded filled the Maggiore Hospital...you must have heard...the halls and loggias were filled...

“Milan was poorly defended,” I said.

“The walled area of the city? Few tried to stop our entry. News of defeat had spread throughout Milan...little resistance...futile...”

I returned to my studio thoroughly disheartened: it is this repetition: city against city: pope against duke: the stupidity seems endless: what shields protect us against the fools of the world!

Yesterday, I enjoyed the King’s dinner—another hundred or more guests: Cardinal Mercier, De Brosse, Ambassador to Holland, military, priests, courtiers, beautiful women. I sat opposite Francis and enjoyed his scarlet-gold suit, sewn with diamond chips. I believe he was wearing five or six rings; one of them is rather like the stone I gave Mona long ago. Francis personifies youth, hedonism, and royalty. Watching him, listening to him, I forget the tedious round of courses.

Princesse de Lamballe, sitting beside me, a lovely woman in her forties, dressed in blue and nakedness, praised the banquet:

“Francis has such wonderful chefs...the food is fresher here than in Paris...I’m so glad to get away.”

“Tomorrow,” the King said, leaning toward me, “all of us are leaving Amboise...we’re going to Chambord.” He waved his hand, and smiled. “All of us!”

All of us meant about a thousand people, as the King headed for Chambord. I watched his retinue (I declined the invitation): I estimate that there were four hundred horsemen, two hundred mules, mounted archers, stablemen, the Chamberlain, musicians, clergy, wizards, cooks, doctors...the archers wore black and red, the musicians wore yellow and green; the King wore a hat with a yellow plume and a yellow cloak flecked with white fleur-de-lys. The musicians played oboes, trumpets, tambourines, and drums. Such discord. Away they went, pennants, banners, oriflammes.

Suddenly, it was quiet at Amboise.

In my studio I sat at my desk and looked down on the peacocks and some pheasants: Francesco came: we began to work: I dictated pages from my treatise regarding horses.

Francesco Melziis a proper, thoughtful villa-man, handsome, slight, middle-tall, grey-eyed, blond. He is my patient friend, my gracious friend (gracious to everyone): he has his father’s agreeable manners. He is horseman and archer. Flutist. A painter for fifteen years, he handles chiaroscuro like a master: he is best as portraitist. No woman-chaser, he is dedicated to Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French...and all of the arts. When he trims my hair and beard he likes to flatter me.

I am searching for a glass that reflects a Florentine face—not a wrinkled, bearded patriarch.

GiovanniBoltraffio—Tony—has always had wealth behind him (like Francesco); here, at Amboise, he wears satins and silks, claims that the King’s tailor is “the best in the world.” Tony is so enormous, so muscular, his satins often split. Blue-eyed, genial, bowing, a little too obsequious, he sometimes dabs perfume on his paint-messed hands. He has big hands, big feet, big skull—topped by curly brown hair. With him decorum comes first. He is always aware of his sedate heritage. He sings beautifully, and is an accomplished lutenist. At home he is devoted to his cathedral choir. In Amboise, he is considered a notable fencer. He’d rather fence than paint. He’d rather eat than paint. He will have nothing to do with dissection. Right now, he is involved with a red-headed hussy who champions sex.

Andrea del Verrochio—tall, with not an ounce of extra meat on him...it seems to me he is still a young man, that we are at work together in his studio. But no, no, the Arno roared throughout that night, as we mourned his death. Many of us. Corpses lodged against supports of the Puente Vecchio. Plagues. Madness. Work. We cherished him, his frailty. Guild-member at twenty. Such kindness, such classic renderings in stone and bronze. We revered hisSaint John, his serenity in stone.

We exhibited his sculpture in every corner of his workshop and yard. People. HisDolphin Boy. HisChrist. Ghosts from his metal and chisel.

We learned how to use the abacus together; we learned about mixing oils; he taught me silverpoint and charcoal; we worked with pastels, with gold leaf.

Ai, Andrea—what a scalding rain on the night you died. We sat about, we drank wine; then, next week, we returned to our casting, our horses, busts, angels.

Most of the years in his studio were tranquil. There were wonderful days, when, like John in the Desert, we detected our own worth—in the mastery of his work. His home was mine. His garden was mine. His florins.

I see him painting a madonna’s drapery...weeks of work, painting delicate, gilded folds...he gave me books...

He said: genius is dedication.

He also said: art and friendship.

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