X
Leonardo in his quiet workshop was occupied with the machine for the elevation of the Holy Nail. Zoroastro was making a casket, all glass and gold, in which the relic was to be displayed. Giovanni Boltraffio was sitting in a dark corner watching the Master.
Gradually, however, Leonardo had forgotten his machine, his thoughts having wandered to theories as to the transmission of force by means of blocks and levers. He had made a complicated calculation in which the mathematical law (the inner principle of reason) had explained to him the mechanical law (the outer principle of nature); two great secrets were thus fused into one still greater secret.
'Man,' thought he, 'will never invent anything so perfect, as doth Nature, which of necessity so disposeth her laws that every effect is straitly bound up with its cause.'
In face of the infinite abyss into which he was directing his penetrating gaze, his soul was filled with that sense of overwhelming wonder which has no likeness to the other sentiments of men. On the margin of the paper, covered with the calculations for the simple machinery required for the elevation of the Holy Nail, he wrote these words which echoed in his heart like a prayer:——
'O mirabile giustizia di te, Primo Motore! tu non hai voluto mancare a nessuna potenza l'ordine e qualità de suoi necessari effetti!' (O admirable justice of Thee, Prime Mover! To no force hast Thou permitted lack of the order and quality of its necessary effects!)
But the artist's meditations were interrupted by a furious knocking at the outer door, together with chanting of psalms, and the objurgations and yells of an inflamed rabble. Giovanni and Zoroastro were rushing to see what had happened, when Maturina the cook, with dishevelled hair, burst half dressed into the room, crying:—
'Thieves! Robbers! Murderers! Holy Mother of God have mercy on us!'
'What is it?' asked Leonardo of Marco d'Oggionno, who had also entered, arquebus in hand, and was beginning to shut the shutters.
'I know not exactly. It would seem a crowd of housebreakers, egged on by monks.'
'What is their demand?'
'Only their father can understand these sons of the devil! They demand the Holy Nail.'
'I have it not. 'Tis in the sacristy in the care of Monsignor Arcimboldi.'
''Tis what I told them. But being mad as dogs in the time of the summer solstice, they hearkened not, but continued to vilify Your Worship as an infidel and a sorcerer, and the poisoner of Gian Galeazzo.'
During this colloquy the noise in the street grew apace.
'Open, or we will fire this accursed nest. In one moment, Leonardo, you shall be flayed! Demon! Antichrist!'
'Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered!' chanted Fra Timoteo to the accompaniment of Farfanicchio's stridulous whistle.
Suddenly Jacopo, the wicked little servant, ran in, sprang on the window ledge, opened the shutter, and was going to jump into the courtyard, but Leonardo held him back.
'Whither art going, child?'
'To call the guard. The captain of justice passes at this hour.'
'No, no. If they catch you they will kill you without a word spoken.'
'They shall not see me. I will get over the wall, through Aunt Trulla's garden, over the green ditch into the backyard. 'Tis as good as done! Likewise it were better they killed me than you, Master.'
And glancing back with eyes full of love and daring, the lad leaped from the window, and was off like a flash.
'For once the little devil is some use,' said Maturina shaking her head.
A stone came crashing through the window, and shrieking and wringing her hands, the fat woman fled, felt her way down the dark stairs to the cellar, and hid in a wine-cask. Marco hurried upstairs to bar the windows; Giovanni, pale, distressed, but indifferent to the peril, turned a woeful countenance to Leonardo, and fell at his feet.
'O Master, they say——I swear it is not true—nay, I believe it not—but for God's sake tell me yourself——!' and he stopped short, panting with agitation. Leonardo smiled sadly.
'You fear they speak truth that I am a murderer?'
'A word, master! a single word from your own lips!'
'But why, friend? If you can harbour a doubt, you would not believe me.'
'Oh, Messer Leonardo, I am in torture ... A word, a single word!'
Leonardo did not answer immediately; then he said in a shaking voice:—
'You also, Giovanni, with them! You, also, against me!'
Outside the blows were such that the whole house shook. Scarabullo was forcing the door with an axe. Leonardo, hearing the imprecations and the insults of the infuriated crowd, felt his heart contracted with anguish and great solitude. His chin drooped, and his glance fell on the lines just written: 'O mirabile giustizia di te, Primo Motore!'
He smiled, and with great humility repeated the words of the dying Gian Galeazzo:—
'All is well. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.'
BOOK VI
THE DIARY OF GIOVANNI BOLTRAFFIO—1494-1495
L'amore di qualunque cosa è figliuolo d'essa cognitione. L'amore à tanto più fervente, quanto la cognitione è piu certa.
Leonardo da Vinci.
(Knowledge of a thing engenders love of it; the more exact the knowledge, the more fervent the love.)
'Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.'—St. Matt. x. 16.
Giovanni's Diary
On the 25th of March 1494 I entered myself as a disciple in the studio of Messer Leonardo da Vinci, the Florentine master.
This is the order of his teaching:—perspective; the dimensions and proportions of the human body; drawings from examples by the best masters; drawings from nature.
To-day Marco d'Oggionno, my fellow-disciple, has given me a book, taken down entirely from the words of our Master. The book begins thus:—
'The purest joy is given to the body by the light of the sun; to the spirit, by the clear shining of mathematics. That is why the science of Perspective (in which the contemplation of the bright line—la linia radiosa—true solace of the eye, goes hand in hand with the clearness of mathematics—true solace of the mind) must be exalted above all other human research and science. May He who said, "I am the true Light," lend me His aid that I may know the science of Perspective—the science of His light. I divide this book into three parts: the first, the diminishing, by distance, of the size of objects; the second, the diminishing of the distinctness of the colour; the third, the diminishing of the clearness of the outline.'
The Master cares for me like a father. When he learned of my poverty, he refused to take the monthly payment agreed on.
The Master says:—
'When you shall have grasped well your Perspective, and hold in your mind the proportions of the human body, then in your walks abroad notice assiduously the postures and movements of men, how they stand, walk, talk, and quarrel; how they laugh and fight; the manner of their faces when they are doing these things, and the manner of the faces of the bystanders who want to separate the fighters; and the faces of those who look on with apathy. Set all in pencil in a note-book of coloured paper, which you should always have about you. When the booklet is filled, take another; put the first one away and keep it. In no wise destroy nor rub out these sketches; for the movements of the body are so endless that no memory could hold them all. That is why you must look on these rough sketches as your best teachers.'
I have made myself such a sketch-book.
To-day in the Vicolo dei Pattari, not far from the cathedral, I encountered my uncle, Oswald Ingrim. He told me he renounced me; and accused me of ruining my soul in the house of the heretic and the infidel.
Whenever I am heavy of heart, I have but to look on his face to grow light and gay. How wondrous are his eyes; clear, blue, pale, and cold—cold as ice. The voice, most pleasant and soft. The most cruel, the most obdurate, can by no means resist his persuasiveness. He sits at his work-table, immersed in thoughts, parting and smoothing his golden beard, long and soft as the silk of a maiden. When he talks with any one, then he partly closes one eye with a merry and kind expression; his glance from under the thick and overhanging eyebrows penetrates the very soul.
He dislikes lively colours, and new and discommoding fashions; nor does he affect perfumes. His linen is of Rhenish stuff, marvellous clean and fine. His black velvet berretto carries no plumes nor ornaments. His suiting is of black; but he wears a mantle of dark red which reaches to the knee, and hangs in straight folds, as was the old mode in Florence. His movements are easy and quiet, but notable. He is like no one else.
Shoots excellently with the bow or arbalist, rides, swims, is a master of fence with the small sword. To-day I saw him hit the highest point of the cupola of a church with a small thrown coin. Messer Leonardo, by the skill and the strength of his hand, surpassed every competitor.
He is left-handed; but with that same left hand, for all it looks delicate and soft as a woman's, he bends iron fetters and twists the tongue of a brazen bell.
While I was watching him, the child Jacopo ran in laughing and clapping his hands.
'Cripples, Messer Leonardo, monsters! Come your ways into the kitchen, I have brought you such beauties that you shall lick your fingers for joy!'
'Whence came they?'
'From the porch of Sant' Ambrogio. Beggars from Bergamo! I promised you'd give them supper if they'd let themselves be painted.'
Leaving the picture of the Virgin unfinished, Leonardo betook him to the kitchen, I following. We found two brothers, very old and swollen with dropsy, great hanging goîtres on their throats. With them was the wife of one of them, a withered little old body, whose name Ragnina (little spider) seemed very suitable.
'You see,' cried Jacopo triumphantly, 'I said you would be pleased! Don't I know exactly what you like?'
Leonardo sat down by the hobgoblin cripples, ordered wine to be brought, served it to them himself, questioned them kindly, told them absurd stories to make them laugh. At first they were restive and suspicious, not understanding why they had been brought in. But when he related an anecdote about a dead Jew, whom his compatriots, to evade the law forbidding the burial of Hebrews within the confines of Bologna, had cut in pieces, pickled, spiced, and sent to Venice where he was eaten by a Florentine Christian, the Little Spider was like to burst with laughter. Soon all three were tipsy, and laughing and talking and making the most horrible faces. I was disgusted and looked away; but Leonardo watched them with deep and eager curiosity; and when their hideousness had reached its height, took out his sketch-book and drew with the same delighted attention that he had lavished on the smile of the Virgin.
In the evening he showed me a whole collection of caricatures; grotesques not only of men but also of beasts—terrible shapes, like those which haunt sick men in their delirium, the human and the bestial compounded to make one shudder. The muzzle of a porcupine, its quills bristling, its under lip pendent, loose, and thin as a rag, displaying in a human grin two long white teeth like almonds; an old woman, her nose spread and hairy, and scarce bigger than a mole, her lips monstrously thick, like those squat and viscid fungi which grow out of withered trunks.
Cesare da Sesto tells me that sometimes the Master, having met some monstrosity in the street, will follow it for a whole day. Great deformity, he says, is as rare as great beauty; only mediocrity is negligible.
Marco d'Oggionno works like an ox, and carries out all the teacher's rules; the more he tries the less is his success. He is endowed with an invincible constancy. He thinks patience and labour shall possess all things; nor doth he despair of some day becoming a great painter.
He takes also, more than any of us, rare delight in the master's inventions. One of these days he carried his note-book to the Piazza del Broletto, and according to the Master's system he made the required indexed notes of those faces which struck him chiefly in the crowd. But on reaching home he could in no wise translate his notes into a living face. Likewise did he fail in the use of Leonardo's spoon for measuring out colour. His shadows remain thick and unnatural, just as his faces are wooden and devoid of all charm. Marco accounts for this by some small failure in his obedience to the rules. Cesare da Sesto ridicules him.
'This most excellent Marco,' he says, 'is a martyr in the cause of science. His example shows that all these measures and rules be worth nothing. To know how infants are born does not suffice to beget one. Leonardo deceiveth himself and others; he teaches one thing and performs another. When he paints he follows no rule save that of inspiration; yet he is not content to be a great artist, but would be a man of science also. I fear lest, coursing two hares, he run down neither.'
It may be that in this mockery of Cesare's there is a modicum of truth; but no love for the Master. Leonardo hearkens to him, praises his intelligence, and never is wroth with him.
I am watching how he works at his Cenacolo. Betimes, before sunrise, he goes to the convent refectory, and paints till the shadows close in on him, nor does the brush fall from his hands, nor does he remember food and drink. Sometimes he lets whole weeks go by in which he touches not his paints. Sometimes he will stand for two hours on the scaffold before the picture examining it and criticising what he has done. At other times I have known him rush forth in the mid-day heat through the blazing streets, being drawn by some viewless power to the monastery; he will mount his scaffold, do two touches or mayhap three, and rush away at once.
He is working at the countenance of the Apostle John. To-day he should have completed it. Instead he remained at home with the child Jacopo, watching the flight of hornets, wasps, and flies. So absorbed is he in studying the construction of their bodies that 'twould seem on it depended the destiny of the human race. Having perceived that the hind legs of flies serve them as a rudder, he experienced greater pleasure than if he had found the secret of perpetual felicity. He thinks the discovery useful, and like to serve his apparatus for flight. Poor Apostle John!
To-day there is a new distraction, and the flies are abandoned. The Master is working on a design, beautiful and wondrous delicate, which is to form the coat-of-arms of an academy not yet existing outside the brain of the duke. The device is a square containing a crown of cords, geometrically intertwined, in knots without beginning or end. I could not restrain myself, but reminded him of the unfinished apostle. He shrugged his shoulders, and without raising his eyes from the crown of cords, he said through his closed teeth:—
'Patience! time enough! The head of John will not run away!'
I begin to comprehend Cesare's malice!
The duke has entrusted to him the construction within the palace of hearing-tubes concealed in the thickness of the walls, after the fashion of the Ear of Dionysius. Leonardo began with ardour, but now has cooled and catches at every pretext for laying the work aside. The duke hurries him and is wroth; this morning he summoned him several times to the palace, but the Master is occupied with experiments on vegetables. He has cut away the roots from a pumpkin, leaving but one small shoot, which he assiduously drenches with water. To his great joy the plant has not withered. 'The mother,'says he, 'nourishes well her children.' Sixty little oblong pumpkins have formed.
Cesare says Leonardo is the greatest of the libertines. He has written a hundred and twenty volumes on matters of natural science, but all in fragments, in dispersed notes on flying leaves; and he keeps a MS. of over five thousand pages in such disorder that he himself cannot find anything in it.
Coming into my little room, he said: 'Giovanni, have you noticed that small rooms dispose the mind to profundity, large ones to breadth? And have you observed how the images of things, seen through the shadow of rain, are clearer than in the sunlight?'
Two days of work on the head of John the Apostle. But, alas! something has been lost through flies, pumpkins, cats, and the ear of Dionysius. He has again failed to complete the head, and now, disgusted with his paint-box, retired into geometry. He says that the odour of the paint nauseates him, and the sight of the brushes. Thus the days pass; at the caprice of chance, and submitting to the will of God, we, as it were, lie in port waiting for a wind. Fortunately he has forgotten the flying-machine or we should starve.
What to others appears perfection is to him teeming with error. He aims at the highest, at the unattainable, at what is for ever beyond the reach of the hand of man. Therefore his productions rest incomplete.
Andrea Salaino has fallen sick. The Master nurses him, sits up at night, watches by his pillow; but no one dare speak to him of medicine. Marco d'Oggionno surreptitiously introduced a pill-box, but Leonardo found it, and cast it from the window. Andrea himself desired to be bled, and spoke of a most skilled phlebotomist of his acquaintance; but the Master grew properly indignant, speaking of all doctors with epithets most injurious.
'Heed rather to preserve than to cure your health; and beware of physicians.' He added with a smile, good-natured yet malicious, 'Every man scrapes up his money only to give it to them, the destroyers of lives.'
The Master has taken in hand a treatise on painting; the Lord knows when he will finish it. Latterly he has been much busied (I likewise, helping him) with aerial and line perspective, both in light and shade, and he has given me discourses and fugitive thoughts upon art. I will now write down such as I can remember of the noblest of sciences; and may those into whose hands these pages shall fall, remember in their prayers the soul of the great Florentine master, Leonardo da Vinci, and the soul of Giovanni Boltraffio, his humble disciple.
The Master says 'All which is beautiful, even humanly beautiful, dies, except in art. (Cosa bella mortal passa e non d'arte.)
'He who despises painting despises the philosophical and refined contemplation of the world. Painting is the grandchild of Nature and the kinswoman of God.'
'Il pittore deve essere universale. O painter, be thy variety infinite as the phenomena of Nature! Carrying on what God has begun, seek to multiply, not the works of men's hands, but those of the eternal hands of God. Imitate no one; let thy every work be a new phenomenon of Nature.'
'For him who is master of the fundamental natural laws; for him who knows, it is easy to be universal; because all bodies, whether of men or of beasts, are really formed on the same principles.'
'Take heed lest in thee the greed for gold suffocate the love of art; and remember that the conquest of glory excels the glory of conquest. The memory of the rich perishes with them, the memory of the wise endures for ever; because science and wisdom are the legitimate children of their father, and money is but his bastard. Love glory, and be not fearful of poverty. Consider how many philosophers have laid down the wealth to which they were born, that they might enrich their souls with virtue, and have lived content in misery.'
'Knowledge rejuvenates the soul, and lightens the burden of old age. Therefore gather wisdom, that thou mayest gather sweets for thine age.'
'There is a generation of painters who, to hide their meagre knowledge, shelter themselves behind the beauty of gold and azure, and say they give not of their best because of the scanty payment they receive, and that they could surpass any man were they as well rewarded as he. O fools! what hinders them to make something beautiful, and to say, "This picture is such a price, and this other is less, and this, third least of all; showing that they have work for every price?"'
'Not infrequently the lust for gold brings even the good masters down to the level of craftsmen. Thus my countryman and comrade, Perugino the Florentine, arrived at such rapidity of execution, that once he replied to his wife, who called him to dinner, "Serve the soup while I paint one more saint!"'
'The artist who has no mistrust of himself will never attain to the supreme heights of art. Well for thee if thy work be higher, ill for thee if it equal, woe to thee if it fall below, thine own estimation! Pitiful is that artificer who, persuaded that he has produced a masterpiece, questions wonderingly how God can have helped him to such purpose.'
'Listen with long suffering to the criticisms which men pass on your picture; and weigh their words to see if, perchance, they, faulting it, be in the right. If they be right, correct; if they be wrong, feign deafness; or if they be persons worthy of notice, show them their error. The judgment of an enemy is often nearer the truth than the judgment of a friend; hatred is often profounder than love. The intellect of him who hates, sees and penetrates better than the intellect of him who loves. A true friend is like thyself; but an enemy resembles thee not, and in this is his strength. Hatred throws light. Remember this, and despise not the criticisms of thine enemy.'
'Bright colours captivate the vulgar, but the true artist seeks not to please the vulgar, but the elect. His pride and his aim is not in the dazzling by colour, but in the performance of a miracle, namely, that by the play of light and shadow, things which are flat should appear round. He who neglecting the shadows, sacrifices them to the splendour of tinting, is like the vain babbler who sacrifices significance for sounding and furious words.'
'Above all, beware of coarse, sharp outlines. The shadows on a young and delicate body should be neither dead nor stony, but light, evasive, and transparent like air; for the human body is itself transparent, as you can convince yourself by looking through your fingers at the sun. Too brilliant a light gives not good shadows; wherefore be wary of it. Observe the tenderness and charm on the faces of men and women as they pass along the shadowed street between the dark walls of the houses under twilight on clouded days. This is the most perfect light; your shadow, gradually vanishing into the light, will fade like smoke—like a soft music. Remember that between the light and the dark there is something which participates in both; a bright shadow or a dark light. Seek for it, O painter! for therein lies the secret of captivation—of charm.'
These words he spoke, and raising his hands as if wishing to imprint the lesson on our memories, he repeated, with indescribable emphasis, 'Reject coarse and heavy outlines; confound your shadows in the light, letting them vanish little by little, like smoke; like a tender music.'
Cesare, who was listening attentively, raised his eyes and smiled, as if about to dispute; nevertheless he remained silent.
Later, speaking on another topic, Leonardo said:—
'Falsehood is so shameful that even in praising God it dishonours Him. Truth is so excellent that in speaking of the vile it ennobles. Between truth and falsehood there is a difference no less than between light and darkness.'
Here Cesare, suddenly struck by an idea, fixed scrutinising eyes on the Master.
'How?' he said. 'Yet, Master, have you not told us that between the darkness and the light there exists an intermediary, something which participates in both, and is, as it were, bright shadow and dark light. Then, between truth and lie—but no, 'tis absurd. Master, your metaphor lands me in great temptation! For the painter who, you say, seeks enslaving charm in the compounding of light and shadow, may rightly seek also the twilight between true and false.'
At first Leonardo frowned, and seemed indignant that one of his pupils should exhibit such an obsession; then he replied smiling:—
'Tempt me not! Get thee behind me, Satan!'
I had expected a different answer; to my thinking, Cesare's words merited better than an idle jest. In me, at any rate they excited a tumult of strange and tormenting ideas.
To-night I beheld him, standing in the rain in a close and fetid alley, absorbed in the contemplation of certain spots of dampness on a stone. He stood there a long while, and the urchins in the street nudged each other and mocked him. I asked him what he beheld in the stone.
'Giovanni,' he said, 'see the splendid monstrous figure! Chimera, with her jaws wide; and beside her an angel with flying hair and airy flight, fleeing from the monster. The caprice of chance has produced a picture worthy of a great artist.'
He traced with his finger the outline of the damp spot, and to my amazement I recognised that what he said was true.
'Many,' he said, 'think this habit of mine an absurdity; but experience has taught me how useful it is for the education of the fancy. I have taken from such things what I wanted, and brought them to completeness. Listen to far-off bells; you can find in their confused clang the very names and words you lack.'
For tears the eyebrows contract; for laughter they expand.
The Master goes gladly with those condemned to death, watching in their faces the degrees of their agony and terror; and the very executioners wonder at him, when he makes a study of the last quivering of the muscles.
'Nay, Giovanni, you understand not the man he is!' cried Cesare. 'He will lift a worm from the path lest his foot crush it; but if his own mother were a-dying he would watch the contracting of her eyebrows, the wrinkling of her forehead, the drooping of the corners of the mouth.'
'Note the expression and the gestures of deaf-mutes.'
'When you watch persons, do it without letting them know; so shall their movements, their laughter, and their tears be more natural.'
'An artist whose own hands are angular and bony, is apt to depict people with angular and bony hands; for every man likes the faces and the bodies which resemble his own. The ugly painter will choose ugly models, and vice versâ. Let not the men and the women whom you paint seem your blood-brothers either in beauty or in deformity. This is a fault which attaches to many Italian artists. In painting there is no error more treacherous. I consider the temptation arises from the fact that the soul makes the body which belongs to it. Of old it shaped and fashioned it in its own likeness; and now when again it is called upon to fashion a new body with brushes and paint, it yearns to reproduce the shape in which it has long had its habitation.'
The Master tells us, ''Tis not experience, the mother of all arts and sciences, which deceives men, but imagination, which promises them what experience cannot give. Experience is not to blame, but our own vain and senseless lusts. Experience would have us aim at the possible, and not strive ignorantly for what we can never obtain; lest we become the prey of despair.'
When we were alone Cesare repeated these words, and cried as in disgust:—
'Hypocrisy and lies!'
'How has he lied?' asked I.
'Not to aim at the impossible! not to follow the unattainable! Well, it may be some one will believe his words, but 'twill not be I nor you! I have penetrated to his inmost soul.'
'And what see you there, Cesare?'
'All his life through, he has done nothing but aim at the impossible, nothing but follow the unattainable! What else is he about in this machine to turn men into birds, in that other to set them in water like fish? And the chimerical monsters he finds in the spots on walls and in the outline of the clouds; and the mystic charm of divine faces seen in angelic visions—whence does he derive all this? From experience? from his diagram of noses, and his ladle for measuring out paint? Why does he deceive himself? Why lie? His mechanical studies are for the performance of a miracle; for raising himself into heaven by flight, for using natural forces to do that which is against Nature. He stretches out towards God or devil, he cares not which, provided 'tis something unexampled, beyond possibility. The less is his faith, the greater is his quenchless curiosity.'
These words of Cesare's have filled my soul with anxiety. For several days I have thought them over: I would fain forget them, but I cannot.
To-day, however, the Master, as if in answer to my doubts, has said to me:—
'A little knowledge puffs up; great knowledge makes humble. Blasted ears raise proud heads; those full of grain bow down.'
'Then,' asked Cesare with his accustomed ironic smile, 'how happed it that Lucifer, prince of the cherubim, and renowned for wisdom, was moved by wisdom not to humility, but to pride that cast him into hell?'
Leonardo did not answer at once; presently he told us this fable.
'Once a drop of water aspired to reach the sky. Winged by fire, it rose up in fine steam. But mounted on high it met air still finer and very cold, and the fire deserted it. Then it shivered and grew heavy, and, its presumption changing into terror, fell as rain. And cast down from heaven it fell upon the earth, and was drunk up by dryness; and for long time it was shut up in prison underground, and there did penance for its sin.'
He added no more, but I thought I understood.
The longer I live with him the less I know him. To-day he has again been playing like a child. And such strange pranks! Before going to bed I was sitting in my chamber reading my favourite book, The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, when suddenly a cry rang through the house from our old woman, the kind and faithful Maturina—
'Fire! Help! Help! Fire!'
I rushed out. An appallingly thick white smoke filled the Master's studio. He was there himself, standing among clouds like some ancient magi, and illumined by unearthly blue flames. His face was merry, and he looked jovially at the pale and terrified Maturina, and at Marco, who had rushed in with two buckets of water, to empty over the drawings and manuscripts strewing the table. Leonardo, however, stopped him, saying it was all a jest. Smoke and flames came from a heated brazier containing a powder of frankincense and resin. I cannot say which took the greater pleasure in the joke, Leonardo or the little scamp, that jackanapes Jacopo. Only a good man could laugh as does Leonardo! I swear it is not true what Cesare says of him! The Master set down in his note-book the effect produced by terror upon Maturina's wrinkles.
He speaks scarce at all of women. Once, however, he said that men maltreat them even as they do their beasts. He ridicules the platonic love which is the fashion; and when a certain youth read to him a peevish sonnet in the manner of Petrarch, he replied in three lines, about Petrarch's loving Laura merely to season his own daily food.
Cesare says that Leonardo has so wasted himself on mechanics and geometry that he has had no time for love of women. But he adds, depend upon it he is no Galahad; he must certainly have embraced a woman at least once, out of mere curiosity.
I should never have talked to Cesare about Leonardo. We seem to watch him like spies, and Cesare finds a malevolent pleasure in detecting new blots in his character. And what does Cesare want with me? Why does he poison my mind?
We now frequently visit a scurvy little tavern by the Cantarana Canal, just beyond the Porta Vercellina. We talk for hours over a half-flagon of sour wine, amid the oaths of boatmen who finger filthy cards and lay plots together for extortion. To-day Cesare asked me if I knew that at Florence Leonardo had been accused of immorality. I could not believe my ears, and thought him raving or drunken. Then he told me the story in detail. When Leonardo was twenty-four years of age, and his master, the famous Florentine, Andrea Verrocchio, forty—an anonymous charge against them both was put into one of those round wooden boxes called tamburi, which hang on the pillars in the churches, most notably in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. In April 'the guardians of the night and of monasteries' inquired into the matter, and acquitted the accused on the condition, however, that the charge should be repeated. The fresh accusation was made in June, and they both were finally acquitted. Nothing more was heard of the accusation; but Leonardo soon left Verrocchio and Florence, and came hither to Milan.
'Oh, doubtless, 'tis an abominable calumny,' said Cesare with his meaning smile; 'though, friend Giovanni, you do not yet know what contradictions nestle in his heart. 'Tis a labyrinth so intricate that even the devil would lose himself therein. He certainly appears chaste, but——'
I had started to my feet, probably pale enough, and cried:—
'How dare you, Cesare?'
'What the devil is the matter with you? Calm yourself. I will say no more. I was a hundred miles from that construction——'
'What are you insinuating? Speak out!'
'What folly is this? Why so hot? Is it worth the separating of two such friends as we? Rather let us drink. To your health, sir. In vino veritas.'
And we drank and resumed our talk.
But no, no! this suffices! I will forget it; I will abstain from speaking of the Master with this man. Cesare is not his enemy alone, but also mine. He is a bad fellow.
Now I feel nauseated. It is odious to see the hideous delight some men feel when they have thrown mud upon the great.
The Master says: 'Thy strength, O painter, is in solitude! When you are alone you belong wholly to yourself (Se tu sarai solo tu sarai tutto tuo), but if you have even one companion then you are only half your own; possibly less than half if your friend be indiscreet. If you have many friends, you fall deeper into the same slough. And if you say, "I will withdraw myself, and practise the contemplation of Nature," you will not succeed, for you will be lending one ear to the chatterings of your friends, and inasmuch as no man can serve two masters, you will perform ill the duties of a friend, and still worse the observances of art. And if you say, "I will withdraw beyond the reach of their voices," then you will be reckoned a madman, and you practically end by being alone.
'But if you must have company, let it be that of the painters and scholars in your studio; all other friendships will be to your detriment. Remember, O painter, that your strength is in solitude!'
Leonardo consorts not with women, because his soul must be absolutely free.
Sometimes Andrea Salaino complains that our existence alternates between the monotony of hard work and the tedium of inaction; and he declares that the pupils of other Masters lead a gayer life. He is as fond of fine clothes as a maid, and would like the noise of feastings and merriment and the fire of amorous eyes.
Leonardo to-day, having overheard the reproaches and laments of his favourite, stroked his long curls affectionately, and said smiling:—
'Be of good cheer, lad. I'll take you to the next feast at the castle. Meantime, shall I tell you a fable?'
Andrea clapped his hands like a child, and threw himself at the Master's feet, all attention. Leonardo began:—
'Once upon a time a large stone, lately washed up by the stream, lay in a retired place high up above the road and surrounded by trees, moss, flowers, and grasses. Looking down on his road he saw a number of stones like himself, and he said, "What profit have I here among these short-lived plants? I will descend among my kinsmen and live with stones like myself." Thereupon he rolled himself down to the road, and took a place amongst his brothers. And the wheels of heavy wains ground him, and the hoof of the ass, and the nailed boot of the pedestrian. Then he lifted himself a little, and thought he should breathe more freely; but, lo! became bespattered with mud, and the droppings of animals; and his former fair retreat in the garden of flowers seemed to him a paradise. Thus it is, Andrea, with those who leave their meditation and plunge into city disquiet.'
The master permits harm to no living creatures, not even to plants. Zoroastro tells me that from an early age he has abjured meat, and says that the time shall come when all men such as he will be content with a vegetable diet, and will think on the murder of animals as now they think on the murder of men.
To-day we passed by a butcher's shop, and he pointed to the dead carcases of calves and oxen and pigs, and said with disgust:—'Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs.' And then added sorrowfully: 'We live by the death of others. We are burial-places.'
God forgive me, I have again been with Cesare to that accursed tavern! We spoke of the Master's compassionateness for animals.
'You refer, Giovanni, to his eating no flesh?'
'It may be so. I know——'
'You know nothing! Messer Leonardo is not moved by goodness, but by the love of singularity.'
'What mean you by that?'
'Peace. Let us not quarrel. Wait, and I will show you certain of his drawings—i' faith, very interesting drawings.'
So upon our return we crept, thief-like, into the Master's studio. Cesare rummaged till he had found a certain concealed sketch-book which he showed to me. My conscience pricked me; nevertheless I looked with interest.
They were drawings of colossal bombards, explosive balls, many-barrelled guns, and such like engines of war, executed with no less delicacy than he lavished on the divine countenances of his Madonnas. Especially do I remember one bomb, half a braccio in diameter, called 'Fragilità,' the construction of which Cesare explained to me. It was cast of bronze, the hollow within being filled with layers of gypsum. Leonardo had written on the margin beside the sketch:—
'Most beautiful bomb. Very useful. After leaving the gun it ignites while one might pronounce an Ave Maria.'
'Ave Maria!' cried Cesare. 'How does this use of a Christian prayer please you, my friend? You see the breed of his inventions! And have you heard his definition of war?'
'No.'
'"Pazzia bestialissima, the most brutal of madnesses." A pretty definition, methinks, for the inventor of these engines. Here is your holy man who eats no flesh, who lifts a worm from the path lest a boot should tread on it! Both one and the other simultaneously! to-day a devil, to-morrow a saint. A Janus, with one face toward Christ, the other towards Antichrist. Which is the true Leonardo, which the false! Who can say? And he does it all with a light heart, with a mystic seductive grace. He is at play.'
I listened in silence, a chill like the chill of death piercing my heart.
'Eh? What is the matter, friend Giovanni? Quite chapfallen? You take it overmuch to heart. Oh, you'll soon be used to it, just as I am. And now let us go back to the Tartaruga d'oro, and sing:—
"Dum vinum potamus
Fratelli cantiamo
A Bacco sià onore!
Te deum laudamus."'
I said no word, but fled from him.
To-day Marco d'Oggionno said to the Master:—
'Messer Leonardo, they accuse us of too scanty church-going, and of work on holy days as on others.'
'Let bigots talk at leisure, and heed them not,' answered Leonardo. 'The study of Nature is well-pleasing to God, and is akin to prayer. Learning the laws of Nature, we magnify the first Inventor, the Designer of the world; and we learn to love Him, for great love of God results from great knowledge. Who knows little, loves little. If you love the Creator for the favour you expect of Him, and not for His most high goodness and strength, wherein do you excel the dog who licks his master's hand in the hope of dainties? But reflect how that worthy beast, the dog, would adore his master could he comprehend his reason and his soul! Remember, children, love is the daughter of knowledge; and the deeper the knowledge of God the greater the fervency of love. Wherefore in the Scripture it is written, "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves."'
'But who,' retorted Cesare, 'can combine the sweetness of the dove with the cunning of the serpent? To my thinking we must choose between the two.'
'Not so,' cried Leonardo; 'there must be a fusion. I tell you perfect knowledge of the Universe and perfect love of God are one thing and the same.'
How fain would I return to thy silent and holy cell, O Fra Benedetto! Tell thee all my grief, and fall upon thy breast, that thou mightest pity me and remove from my soul this burden, O beloved father! O gentle shepherd, who dost abide by the word of Christ—'Blessed are the poor in spirit!'
At times the Master's face is so peaceful and innocent, so full of dovelike harmlessness, that I am ready to pardon all, to believe all, to trust him with my very soul. Then of a sudden the subtle lines of his lips take on an expression so incomprehensible, something which so inspires me with fear, that I seem to be looking through the transparency of water into the profundity of the abyss. There is in his soul some impenetrable mystery; and I recall one of his sayings:—
'Very deep rivers flow underground.'
The Duke Gian Galeazzo is dead; and they say that Leonardo has been the occasion of his death by means of poisoned fruit. God is my witness, that 'tis not of my own will I lend an ear unto this terrible accusation, and that I would fain reject it out of hand. Yet there stands ever before my eyes that vision of the tree, with its leaves distilling dew, and its fatal fruit maturing in the greenish mist, lit by the moon, pregnant with terror and death. Oh, that I had never seen it!
'"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."'
Out of the depths I cry unto thee, O Lord! Lord hear my voice; let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! Like the thief upon the Cross, I confess Thy name: Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.
Leonardo has begun to work on the countenance of the Christ.
The duke has commanded him to construct an engine for raising the Holy Nail. With mathematical accuracy he weighs in a scale the instrument of the Passion of the Saviour, as if it were a fragment of old iron; so many ounces, so many grains. To him it is only a figure among figures; a part among parts of a lifting machine; ropes, wheels, levers, and pulleys.
Says the apostle, 'Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time.'
To-night a crowd of people demanding the Holy Nail surrounded our house, crying, 'Sorcerer! infidel! poisoner! Antichrist!' Amused, Leonardo listened to the howl of the mob, and when Marco would have discharged his arquebus at them, it was the Master who restrained him.
The Master did not change from his impenetrable serenity, and when I fell at his feet supplicating a word, a single word, to dispel my doubts—and I swear by God I should have believed him—he would not or could not speak.
Little Jacopo, stealing out, evaded the crowd, and having met the guard of the captain of justice, led them to the house: and at the instant when the doors were giving way under the weight and the blows of the crowd, soldiers took them in the rear, and the rioters scattered. Jacopo is wounded, struck on the head by a stone, and like to die.
To-day I assisted in the cathedral at the Feast of the most Holy Nail. At the moment recommended by the astrologers it was raised on high. Leonardo's machine acted without a hitch: neither rope nor pulley was visible. Through clouds of incense the round casket with the crystal sides and the golden rays in which the nail was set, rose of itself like the rising sun. 'Twas a triumph of mechanics! The choir sang:—
'Confixa clavis viscera
Tendens manus vestigia
Redemptionis gratia,
Hic immolata est Hostia.'
Then the casket was arrested and lodged in a dark niche above the high altar, surrounded by five ever-flaming lamps.
The Archbishop intoned:—
'O Crux benedicta quae sola fuisti digna portare Regem cælorum et Dominum, Alleluia!'
The whole assembled multitude fell on their knees repeating Alleluia!
And the usurper of the throne of Milan, Ludovico the assassin, prostrated himself with the rest, and weeping, raised his hands to the Holy Nail.
After which the populace was glutted with wine, with the flesh of beasts, with five thousand measures of pease, and six hundredweight of salt. Forgetting their murdered lord, they feasted and drank, and cried—'Viva Il Moro! Viva il Chiodo!'
Bellincioni has composed some hexameters, in which we learn that by virtue of the ancient nail of iron the age of gold shall be renewed.
After leaving the cathedral the duke came to Leonardo and embraced him; kissing his lips, calling him his Archimedes, and, thanking him for the beautiful machine, he promised to present him with a pure-blooded Barbary mare and two thousand imperial ducats. Then condescendingly tapping him on the shoulder, he said, 'Now you'll have time to finish the head of your Christ.'
'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.'
I can no longer endure my torment; I perish; I become crazed! My reason loses itself in the duplicity of these thoughts.
Fly, fly, ere it be too late!
I rose in the night-time, tied up my clothes and my books in a bundle, took a thick stick, felt my way through the darkness to the studio, where I left on the table the thirty florins which I owe for the last six months' teaching—I have sold my mother's emerald ring to do this—and without leave-takings, abandoned Leonardo's house for ever.
Fra Benedetto tells me that from the time I left him he has not ceased to pray for me; and he has had a revelation in his sleep that God has brought me back into the true path. He is faring to Florence to visit his sick brother, a Dominican in the monastery of San Marco, where Fra Girolamo Savonarola is prior.
Praise and thanksgiving unto Thee, O Lord! Thou hast brought me out of the shadow of death, from the mouth of the pit. I renounce to-day the wisdom of this world, upon which is the seal of the dragon with the seven heads, the beast which walketh in darkness, which is Antichrist. I renounce the fruit of the poisonous tree of knowledge, the pride of vain understanding, of that wisdom which is inimical to God, of whom the Devil is the father.
I renounce every aspiration after the enchantments of the world. I renounce all that is not subordinated to Thy glory, Thy will, Thy wisdom, O Christ!
Illumine my soul with Thy light, deliver me from fatal duplicity of thought; make sure my footsteps in Thy paths, and shelter me under the shadow of Thy wings.
My soul, praise the Lord! I will praise the Lord so long as I have my being; I will yet sing praises unto my God.
Two days hence, Fra Benedetto and I go to Florence. I desire, with the blessing of this my second father, to enter as novice in the Convent of San Marco, under the guidance of the holy and elect Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
Here ends the diary of Giovanni Boltraffio.
BOOK VII
THE BONFIRE OF VANITIES—1496
'Dov' è più sentimento, li è più, ne' martiri, gran martire.'
Leonardo da Vinci.(He who feels most, is the greatest of the martyrs.)
'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.'
St. James i. 8.