“Leaning forward in the saddle, baton in hand, the Duke was to symbolize leadership and power...he was pleased...his baton would have been more than thirty feet above the ground.”
Visitors and courtiers annoy me, though I do not show my annoyance. I have learned how to patronize. I pretend I have nothing to do...my life is one of leisure. Then, at night, through most of the night, lamps and candles burning, Francesco and I work with my drawings and texts.
Francesco realizes that I am homesick but he does not quite realize that I am homesick for a Florence that does not exist. I don’t admit it but I am also remembering Vinci, the only home I ever had. I would like to walk into the rambling stone house and sit by a front window. I would like...but why go on?
Botteghe or ateliers have their points but they are never home. Guilds, with their rivalries, their rascalities, are continually broiling. Greedy apprentices. Raw apprentices. Rowdiness. So many crowns for this piece of work, so many soldi for this job. Dissension over models. Spats about religion. Muddy sex.
Perhaps I should have lived out my life in my vineyard. Much sun. Quietude. Animals. Olive trees in the sunset. The mistral. Peasants. Fidelity.
What delusions.
Tomorrow I look forward to working again on my Saint John. I have decided to darken the background.
I knew Sandro Botticelli well. Now that he is dead and I am far away, leaving this personal journal to a mere boy, I can write about him. We called Sandro “Our Little Barrel.” He was fat enough, to be sure. Success favored his belly. Drink gave him a pleasant stupor.
I thought his Primavera a piece of ostentation: the picture flaunts showmanship in many ways. The background is especially weak. I have shied away from gigantic canvases. A painting should not pretend to be a mural or a fresco.
However, Sandro’s illustrations for Dante have a lightness: his lines are right.