IV
Giovanni had been sent to Florence by his uncle, Oswald Ingrim, the painter on glass (magister a vitreis), a German from Grätz, and pupil of Johann Kirchheim, the famous Strasburg master. He was to buy certain transparent and brilliant pigments which could be obtained only in the Tuscan city, and were required by Ingrim for his work in Milan Cathedral. The boy was the natural son of Reinold the lapidary, Oswald's brother, and had got the name of Boltraffio from his Lombard mother, whom Oswald asserted to be a shameless woman and the cause of his brother's ruin. Brought up by his crabbed uncle, Giovanni was a lonely and frightened child, reared on tales of unclean powers, demons, hags, sorcerers, and were-wolves. His special horror was a certain demon which, according to the North Italian tradition, appeared under the form of a woman, and was called the 'White She-devil,' or the 'Mother of the Snowy Eyebrow.' Yet even in his earliest infancy, when his uncle would silence his sobs with threats of the Diavolessa bianca, the child felt a curiosity mingling with his terror, a shrinking wish that some day he might meet the white one face to face, and behold her countenance with his own eyes.
When the boy was grown, Ingrim handed him over as pupil to Fra Benedetto the sacred painter. This was a kind and simple-minded old man, who taught that the first step in beginning a picture was to invoke God Omnipotent and the beloved Virgin, St. Luke the first Christian painter, and all the saints in Paradise; the second to put on the cloak of charity, fear, patience, and obedience; the last, to temper his colours with yelk of egg, and the juice from young fig-branches mixed with wine, and to prepare his panels of old beechwood by rubbing them with the ashes of bones—if possible the wing bones of capons. His precepts were endless and minute: Giovanni soon learned the contemptuous phrase with which he dismissed the colour known as Dragon's Blood. 'Let it lie; 'twill bring you no credit,' and Giovanni surmised that the same words had been said by Fra Benedetto's teacher, and by the teacher of his teacher before him. Constant was the smile of quiet pride with which Benedetto initiated his pupil into the secrets of his art. For instance, in the painting of youthful faces the eggs of urban hens were essential: the rural hen laying an egg with a ruddy yelk only suited for the delineation of countenances wrinkled and swarthy. Notwithstanding these subtleties, Fra Benedetto was a painter simple and innocent as a child: he prepared himself for work by fast and vigil; each time he depicted the Crucifixion his face was bathed in tears.
Giovanni loved his master, and had considered him the first of painters; this opinion had however been shaken of late. Fra Benedetto, expounding his one anatomical rule, viz., that the length of a man's body must be reckoned at eight faces and two-thirds, was used to add in the same perfunctory tone in which he spoke of Dragon's Blood: 'As for the bodies of women, we will not allude to them, for they have no proportions.' This dogma was as much an article of faith with him as these others: that all fish are dark-coloured above and bright below; or that men's ribs are fewer than women's by reason of God's method in the creation of Eve. For an allegorical representation of the elements, he drew a mole to signify earth; a fish, water; a salamander, fire; a chameleon, air; but, supposing the word 'chameleon' an augmentative of 'camel,' the simple monk showed the fluid element as a colossal camel, its jaws gaping alarmingly in its efforts to breathe. Nor were his remaining notions more accurate. Doubts therefore crept into Giovanni's mind, and a mutinous spirit, which Fra Benedetto called 'the devil of worldly knowledge.' When, shortly before his journey to Florence, the lad chanced to see certain drawings of Leonardo da Vinci's, his doubts grew with such rapidity that he was no longer able to stifle them.
To-night, here in the Tuscan city, as he lay beside the peacefully-snoring Messer Giorgio, he turned all this over in his mind for the thousandth time; but the more he thought the more puzzled he became. Then he resolved to invoke celestial aid, and full of hope, raising his eyes to the impenetrable darkness of night, he prayed thus:—
'Lord, help me and forsake me not. If Messer Leonardo be truly a godless man, in whose skill lieth temptation and sin, rid me of the thought of him; purge my mind of the memory of his drawings, and deliver me from evil. But if, while pleasing Thee and glorifying Thy name in the noble art of painting, it be yet possible to know all which is hidden from Fra Benedetto, and which I am so fain to learn (such as anatomy, perspective, and the laws of light and shade), then, O God, make strong my will, and lighten my eyes, that I may doubt no more; and permit that Messer Leonardo may receive me into his studio, and that Fra Benedetto may grant me his pardon, and may know that I am in nowise guilty in Thy sight.'
After this fervent prayer, Giovanni felt a balsam descend upon his heart: little by little confusion came upon his thoughts; he fancied himself back with his uncle, the glass-worker, and listening to the hissing of the glass as the white-hot steel was plunged into it. He saw the twisting of the leaden ribbons, which form the frames for the several pieces of coloured glass: he heard the voice of Oswald commanding more notches at the edge of the lead for the fixing of the glass; then all vanished: he rolled to his other side and slept.
And a vision came to him, which in after years he often recalled to mind. For he saw himself standing in the gloom of a vast cathedral, and before a many-coloured, Gothic window. On it was depicted the vintage of that mystic vine whereof the Saviour had said, 'My Father is the husbandman.' The naked body of the Crucified lay in the winepress, blood flowing from His wounds. Popes, cardinals, emperors were receiving it into vats and casks. The Apostles were throwing in grapes; St. Peter was treading them. In the background, prophets and patriarchs were trenching the vineyard and pruning the vines. A waggon was passing, drawn by the lion, the bull, and the eagle, driven by St. Matthew.
Such painted allegories Giovanni had seen in his uncle's workshop; nowhere such colours, dark, yet with the gleam of jewels. Chiefly he marvelled at the crimson of the Saviour's blood. From the depths of the cathedral came the faint echoing of his favourite chant:—
'O fior di castitate,
Odorifero giglio
Con gran suavitate
Sei di color vermiglio.'
But the song died away, the window glowed no longer, and the harsh voice of Antonio da Vinci shouted in his ear:—
'Flee! Flee for your life! She cometh!'
Nor did he need to inquire who, for he knew the Diavolessa bianca was behind him. A waft of icy air; and then a heavy hand, not human, had taken hold at his throat, and was choking him. He seemed to be dying, cried out, and awoke—to see Messer Giorgio standing by his side and dragging away the coverlet.
'Eh! pull yourself from your bed or they will depart without us. Arise! the hour is already past,' cried the antiquarian.
'What! Whither?' stammered Giovanni, half-asleep.
'Whither? Can you forget? To the villa of San Gervaso, to dig at the Hill of the Mill.'
'I go not thither.'
'You go not? What have I waked you for? Why have I bidden them saddle the black mule that the two of us may travel at ease? A truce to this stubbornness. Get up! Get up! Nay, then, a word in your ear, Giovannino: Messer Leonardo will be there.'
Giovanni leaped to his feet, and without another word threw on his clothes.
Presently they were in the courtyard, where all was ready for the start. Grillo was running hither and thither advising and directing. At last they set out. Other friends of Cipriano's, and among them Leonardo da Vinci, were to meet them later, by another path to San Gervaso.