And so I gave my dæmon the form of this familiar genius, and in my solitude I felt him alive with a life far more intense than my own. Had I not before me by means of the lasting miracle of one of the world’s greatest revealers—had I not before me an heroic spirit, sprung from my own stock, and constituted of all the distinctive characteristics of that lineage which I was so eagerly striving to manifest in myself, and which in him appeared in such fierce relief as to be almost terrible?
There he is still before me, always the same, yet always new! Such a body is not the prison of the soul, but its faithful semblance. All the lines of the beardless face are as precise and firm as those of a deeply-chiselled bronze; the dark pallor of the skin conceals tough muscles, wont in moments of anger and desire to stand out clearly with a fierce tremor; the straight, rigid nose, the bony, narrow chin, the curved but energetically-locked lips express the boldness of the will; and his glance is like the flash of a beautiful sword coming from beneath the shadow of thick and heavy hair, violet-black in hue like the bunches of grapes on a branch in the burning sun. He stands immovable, visible from the knees upwards; but the imagination pictures at once how the strong, flexible legs will start when the enemy appears, giving a formidable impetus to the beautiful frame. “Cave, adsum”—well does the old device apply to him. He is dressed in very light armour, evidently inlaid by a most accomplished workman, and his hands are bare; pale, sensitive hands, yet with something tyrannical, almost homicidal, about their clear outlines: the left hand is resting on the Gorgon’s head on his sword-hilt, the right on the corner of a table covered with dark velvet, of which a fold is visible. Lying on the table beside the gauntlets and helmet are a statuette of Pallas and a pomegranate, whose pointed leaf and brilliant flower are growing on the same stalk as the fruit. Through the opening of a window behind his head is seen a bare landscape ending in a group of hills, over which rises a peak, standing solitary as a proud thought; and on a scroll beneath is this verse—
“Frons viridis ramo antiquo et flos igneus uno tempore (prodigium) fructus et uber inest.”
Where and by what chance did Alessandro first meet with the Florentine master, who was at that time attaining the supreme splendour of his manhood? Perhaps at one of Ludovico’s feasts, full of the marvels created by the occult arts of the Magician? Or perhaps rather at the palace of Cecilia Gallerani, where military men discussed the science of war, musicians sang, architects and painters drew, philosophers argued about natural science, and poets recited compositions of their own and of others “in the presence of this heroine,” as Bandello relates. It is here that I like to imagine their first meeting, about the time when the favourite of the Moor was already beginning to love Alessandro secretly.
What a fire of audacious intelligence and of masterful will must have been apparent in the youth, for Leonardo to be so taken with him from that very day! Perhaps Alessandro discussed with him, apart from the others, “the methods of destroying any rock or fortress not founded on stone,” and grew eager to know the formidable secrets of this fascinating creator of Madonnas, who surpassed all masters and makers of instruments of war in the novelty of his ideas. Perhaps in the course of the argument Leonardo may have uttered one of those deep sayings of his about the art of life; and looking into the eyes of the youth on whom silence had fallen, recognised in him a spirit determined to take everything that can be got out of life, an ambitious man disposed, instead of following his fate blindly, to attain the mastery for himself with the help of that science which multiplies the energies of him who possesses it and concentrates them on the attainment of his aim. And perhaps the man who was a few years later to become Cæsar Borgia’s military architect, who was invoking and waiting for some magnanimous prince to offer him unlimited means of carrying out his innumerable designs, may have perceived in this curly-headed patrician the future founder of a royal dynasty, and loved him and placed his proudest hopes in him.
I like to think that a brief entry in the commentaries of Da Vinci (who was then busy with studies for the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza) refers to the evening of this first meeting: “The penultimate day of April 1492. Messer Alessandro Cantelmo’s fine jennet: has a good neck and a very beautiful head.”
After leaving Cecilia’s palace together, they both paused for awhile in the street, still arguing; and when Leonardo noticed the jennet, he went up to look at it. As he stroked the beautiful neck, some involuntary expression escaped him regarding the terrible labour his insatiable spirit underwent in researches for the monument which the Moor desired to erect in honour of the fame of his father, the conqueror of the duchy and the vanquisher of Genoa. With a wide sweep the creative hand of the artist traced the outline of the Colossus in the air, making it visible to the youth’s inner vision. The day was sinking; the hour of spring twilight was trembling on the pinnacles of the glorious city; a company of musicians passed by singing; and the horse neighed with impatience. Then the soul of Alessandro swelled with an heroic sentiment which made him seem like a phantom of the great captain. “Ah, to set out on my conquests!” he thought, as he vaulted into the saddle. And then seeing that in reality he was only setting out on some common affair of daily life, he said suddenly, with a bitter impulse: “Seemeth it to you, Master Leonardo, that life can be of any worth to a man of my station?” And Leonardo, who did not marvel at these unexpected words: “It is everything that the eagle should take his first flight.” And perhaps the beardless horseman riding away among his men-at-arms may have seemed to him destined to be a king, “like him who in the bee-hive is born leader of the bees.”
The following morning a servant brought the jennet to the sculptor as a gift, with compliments from his master.
Thus do I imagine the beginning of their mutual liberality. The master rewarded his disciple with the true riches, since “that cannot be called riches which it is possible to lose.” Like Socrates, he preferred to have for his disciples those who had beautiful hair and were richly clothed. Like Socrates, he excelled in the art of elevating the human soul to its supreme degree of vigour. Certainly Alessandro was for a time the chosen one in that Academia Leonardo Vincii, where a noble spiritual lineage was developed little by little under teaching which drew its warmth from the central truth as from a sun which cannot be darkened. “Nothing can be loved or hated, unless first there be knowledge of that thing. The love of anything is child to the knowledge of it. The more certain the knowledge, the more fervent the love.”