VI
Globes, maps, compasses were there lying ready for the marking out of the meridian, which was to pass over a point three hundred and seventy Portuguese leagues to the south of the Azores and the island of Cape de Verde. This point was chosen because, according to Columbus, the 'navel of the earth' was there; the pear-like projection, the mountain reaching to the lunar sphere, which he had postulated on account of the deviation in his compass.
From the extreme western point of Portugal on the one side and the coasts of Brazil on the other, even distances were to be measured to the proposed line. Then shipmasters and astronomers were bidden to calculate how many days of sailing were equal to these distances. The Pope offered prayer, blessed the globe, and dipping a brush in red ink, drew across the Atlantic from the North Pole to the South the broad line which was to secure peace. All islands and lands to the east of this line were to belong to Spain, all to the west, to Portugal. Thus by one motion of his hand he parted the globe in halves and divided it between the Christian nations. At this moment Alexander seemed grand and majestic to Giovanni; full of the consciousness of his power, the world-swaying Cæsar-Pope, centre of two kingdoms—the earthly and the heavenly.
That same evening in his apartments in the Vatican, Cæsar Borgia gave a feast to His Holiness and the Sacred College of Cardinals, at which were present 'fifty of the fairest and most famous of the Roman cortigiane oneste;' called officially 'meretrices honestæ nuncupatæ.'
Thus was celebrated that memorable day in the annals of the Church, which had been marked by the partition of the globe.
Leonardo was present at the supper and witnessed everything. Invitations to such feasts were great favours, and could not be declined. On returning home he said to Giovanni:—
'In every man there is a god and a beast, coupled.'
Going on with his anatomical drawing, he added—
'Persons with base minds and unworthy passions do not merit so complex and beautiful a physical structure as others, of high intelligence and lofty thoughts. 'Twere enough if they had a bag with two openings, one to receive, the other to eject food; for, in plain fact, they be no more than a passage for nourishment.'
Next morning Giovanni found the Master at work on his painting 'San Gerolamo nel deserto.' In a savage den, the recluse, kneeling and gazing at the Crucified, beats his breast so vehemently that the lion at his feet looks into his eyes, and has opened his jaws in a long and pitiful moan, as if in compassion for his master.
Boltraffio remembered that other picture, white Leda embraced by the swan, the Goddess consumed by the flames of Savonarola's pyre. And as so often before, he asked himself again which of these opposed conceptions was dearest to the heart of the master? or could the two be equally dear?