NOTE: when you sever the man’s legs tomorrow afternoon, lay them on the floor beside him: measure length, diameter, muscle curvatures. Dissect each foot, and record differences. Since the man was very fat, try to discover ways of overcoming this problem.
Remember to borrow the lancet from Tomas.
I warned my new assistant: Cosimo, squeal on me and I will see to it that you never become a member of the guild.
He has threatened to write the Pope (or one of the Cardinals), and expose me. He could. He knows how to write. Now I pay him more soldi than any of the others. Blackmailer!
Ah, you Florentines, look, look! I render a skull—yours! You tremble. You are afraid of learning! For centuries you have been afraid. Afraid of yourselves, of others, of God. You are trapped in stupidity and lassitude.
Blood—how it scares you: You whimper at the sight of blood. I remove a man’s guts. You are horrified. But you will batter a man to shreds on the battlefield, and show your gory sword. You will dump boiling oil on him...you will blast him with gunpowder...but you won’t dissect him...you won’t learn how we are made!
Sometimes kids overran my studio; maybe because I never could yell at them. They would sneak in from the street; they had to poke, to see, to talk, to giggle. One afternoon (I remember it was such a fine day, a day to chuck everything and walk out of town), five or six boys and girls came in and before I could figure out what they were up to, they rushed out with two of my models. Two or three ran toward the Arno; others ran off into the countryside. I couldn’t follow both. Whooping and hollering, the kids flew their model over the river. I watched it soar away, dip, glide, plunge into the water.
When I found the other kids, in the country, they had my Red Hawk: they had it launched on a cord, and kite-like, it was climbing, spiraling, staying aloft.
Kids—I miss their laughter, their enthusiasm!