'Art which has no profit for the people,' said Messer Piero, 'is merely an amusement for the rich, a distraction for the idle, a luxury for tyrants. You agree, my good sir?'
'Certainly,' assented Leonardo, and he continued, sarcastic purpose scarce visible in the twinkle of his eyes. 'Permit me, sir, to suggest a practical method of terminating our perennial debate. Let the citizens of the Florentine Republic assemble in this very chamber, and take a vote on the question whether or no my picture be moral—that is, popular. There would be great advantage in this course. The question would be settled with mathematical certainty by counting heads; for the voice of the people is, as you are aware, the voice of God.'
Soderini weighed the suggestion. He was so impressed by the virtue of the black and white balls used for voting, that it never occurred to him a mock could be made at the mystery. Presently, however, he understood, and fixing his eyes on the painter, stared in blank astonishment, almost terror. Yet he quickly recovered himself. Artists are known to be persons unreliable and devoid of common sense, and it ill behoved him to take offence at this painter fellow's gibe.
Messer Piero did not pursue the subject; in the tone of a superior addressing a dependent, he mentioned that Michelangelo Buonarroti had received an order to paint the second wall of the council chamber, and curtly took his leave. Leonardo followed him with his eyes. Sleek, grey, with crooked legs and a bent back, he seemed even more closely than usual to resemble a rat.
III
On leaving the Palazzo Vecchio Leonardo paused in the piazza before Michelangelo's 'David.' It stood as if on guard, a giant of white marble, relieved against the background of dark stone. Young, thin, naked, the veins swollen in his right hand which held the sling, his left arm was raised in front of his breast, the stone within the hand. His brows were knit, his gaze far away, like one taking aim. The curls upon his low forehead seemed already the garland of victory. Leonardo remembered the description in the Book of Kings; and seeing him stand there where Savonarola had been burned, he thought of the prophet Fra Girolamo had desired in vain, the hero for whom Machiavelli was still waiting.
In this work of his rival's Leonardo recognised the expression of a soul great as his own, but eternally opposed to it; opposed as action is to contemplation, passion to apathy, storm to tranquillity. This alien force attracted him; he felt the inevitable fascination of something new, the desire to come close to it, to study, and understand it.
Two years earlier, among the building stones of Santa Maria del Fiore, lay a huge block of white marble, spoilt by an unskilled sculptor. The best masters had refused it, thinking it no longer good for anything. It had been offered to Leonardo himself, and with his usual slowness he had meditated, measured, calculated, hesitated. Then came another, twenty-three years younger than he, who had undertaken the task without misgiving; with incredible rapidity, working by night as well as by day, he had made this giant in two years and one month. Leonardo had worked for six years at the clay of his Colossus; he dared not think how long he would have required for a marble statue like this David.
The Florentines had proclaimed Michelangelo Leonardo's rival in the art of sculpture, and the young man had not hesitated to accept his challenge. Now it seemed he was about to place himself in competition with the older master as a painter also. He had yet hardly taken a brush in his hand, but with a daring which might seem presumption, he was about to paint the second war-picture in the council chamber.