There was a big old sink in the corner of the workshop and I wondered about it at first, since my brother was not a great one for washing. Then one day he asked me to lower the gesso model into the sink! At first I was astonished, but after we laid it on its back, he filled the sink from the pump until the whole of the body was submerged.
I felt sorry for myself, lying there on my back with the water above my face. I was a drowned man.
The sink had a hole in it and Angelo released the plug so that just a little water ran out of it into a channel that led out into a drain.
‘You see?’ asked Angelo.
What I saw was a knee.
It was my left leg, sticking up out of the water.
‘It shows me how much to cut away from the block,’ he explained. ‘I’ll let out a little water every day, as I work on the block, then I can check all the angles and details on the statue.’
And that was the last I heard from him for some time.
He never talked much and he said even less when he was in the thick of his work. This was the first time I had been with him while he was working in marble and I soon learned to slip in and munch my bread and cheese quietly while he worked.
I had a lot to think about. I was worried that at the rate I was earning in the stonemasons’ bottega, it would be years before I could save up enough to go home and marry Rosalia. I’m now ashamed to admit that it never once crossed my mind that she might not wait for me. After my humiliation over Clarice’s marriage, once I made up my mind to return to Rosalia, I just assumed that I would be able to take up my first love where I had left off.
But that didn’t mean I had no eyes for other women.
Early one morning, crossing the great square in front of the government building, I saw a group of women behaving strangely. They were glancing all around them and then moving swiftly away from the spot where they had been standing, as if running away. I saw they had dropped flowers on the spot which I guessed was the place where Savonarola had died. One of the women was Simonetta.
There was a shout and a city official rushed over to snatch up the flowers and looked about him. I hurried over to the group of women and gave Simonetta my arm; the other two seemed to melt away. She was trembling and leaning so heavily on me for support that I felt the weight of her breast pressing against my arm.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked and she could only nod. ‘That was a risky thing to do,’ I whispered.
‘You saw me?’ she asked, her big brown eyes full of alarm.
‘Well, yes. It is broad daylight.’
I was horrified to see that she was quietly weeping. Two big tears spilled out of her eyes and she let them splash on the red tiles of the piazza without wiping her face.
‘We cannot go out after dark when we might be safer from the officials,’ she said. ‘It is scarcely safe to be out on our own in the daytime. But we grieve so for our leader that we take the risk.’
‘Let me escort you home,’ I said. ‘You are upset and have been in some danger.’
I knew it was strictly against the laws of the city to show any reverence for the place of Savonarola’s death or anything associated with him. I would be late for work but there was pleasure to be had in seeing Simonetta safely home, as well as following my conscience.
At their house, which was quite out of my way, Simonetta offered me wine and I took it. I thought again of how different she was from Clarice, as she poured my drink for me. My lady was always exquisitely dressed and her elegance and style made up for the fact that her features were quite unremarkable. But Simonetta always wore the plain, dark colours recommended by her leader, without lace or frills or any other ornament and yet she was lovely in her simplicity.
I had some very unworthy thoughts as her hand brushed mine when she passed me the cup.
‘Wait here a minute,’ she said and left the room. When she returned, she was carrying a plain wooden casket.
She opened the lid and showed me a sort of greasy dust inside. I was too stupid to guess what it was.
‘They hanged him and burned him,’ she said, ‘and then they took the ashes away and threw them in the river.’
I didn’t like to say that there must have been wood ash and the grisly remnants of the other two executed friars mixed in with Savonarola’s remains. She was clearly showing me what she considered to be a sacred relic.
‘But some of our people waded into the river further down and rescued what they could,’ she continued. ‘Only the most loyal frateschi have any.’
I suppose I was a loyal fratesco by then. I was certainly falling under the spell of this devout young woman, even though I couldn’t really share her veneration for the dead man whose ashes she believed she was holding. She was like a nun – someone who should have been out of the reach of human passions – but I couldn’t help imagining her naked in my arms. I had to get out of that house quickly, before I did something that would set her brother and the other frateschi against me.
I thanked her for the wine and for the honour of the glimpse of what was in the casket and left hurriedly. I ran all the way to my workshop, pleading a stomach upset as a reason for my lateness. And certainly I arrived feverish and trembling and could not concentrate properly on my work that morning. My brother had been right; the lusts of the flesh brought nothing but trouble.
Angelo showed me his marble reliefs as he had promised. There were two, both made from marble given to him by Lorenzo the Magnificent at the time this remarkable man had been my brother’s patron.
And the two couldn’t have been more different.
‘This was the first real work I did,’ he said, unwrapping the bundle of cloth that protected the first relief. ‘You can see it’s the work of a young and inexperienced sculptor.’
I couldn’t see that: to me it was beautiful. There was a Madonna, sitting on the corner of a flight of stairs that disappeared away into the distance on the left. She was a sturdy peasant women, like my own mother, veiling her breast with a piece of cloth; the equally sturdy Christ child seemed to have just left off from drinking her milk.
The whole was of a beautiful ivory colour, polished to a very high shine. I could have looked at it for hours.
‘How about this one?’ he asked, unwrapping another bundle. ‘I think it’s more successful.’
It was certainly very different – a mass of writhing naked male bodies, standing out from the background in contorted poses.
‘Who are they all?’ I asked.
‘It is a classical story,’ he said. ‘The Battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths.’
‘Centaurs are mythical beasts, I know,’ I said. ‘But what are Lapiths?’
‘Just men like you and me,’ he said. ‘They were celebrating the wedding of their king when the centaurs, who had been invited to join them, got drunk. One of them attempted to carry the bride off and then all hell broke loose.’
I could see that. There was such a tangle of limbs and muscles. It wouldn’t be the last time that a fight broke out at a wedding because too much wine had been consumed, and I thought Angelo had captured the moment wonderfully well.
He was pleased by my praise, I could tell.
I was spending more and more time with the frateschi at Gianbattista’s house. If I’m honest, it was as much because of the appeal of his sister as any attraction to their political views. Gianbattista didn’t seem to mind that Simonetta had shown me the sacred relic. She had told him of my protection after the incident in the Piazza della Signoria and he obviously approved.
I had passed a further test and been admitted into the inner circle. Whenever I went to one of their meetings, I lived in hope of a glimpse or a touch from the unobtainable sister. I didn’t fool myself that her family would ever consider me as a possible suitor and I didn’t even know if I wanted to be one. But putting her in the forefront of my mind blotted out the image of Clarice with her new husband and helped me to forget how long it would be before I could be back with Rosa
lia.
‘We need to find out just what they’re planning,’ said Daniele one evening.
‘Who?’ I answered absently, looking at Simonetta.
‘The compagnacci, of course,’ said Fra Paolo, looking at me as if he thought I was the village idiot. He usually did look at me that way; I wasn’t his idea of an aristocratic fratesco at all.
‘We think they are plotting to bring back Piero de’ Medici,’ said Donato.
‘But didn’t they try that once before?’ I asked. I remembered that Angelo had told me something about an attempt on the city gate some years ago.
‘What a botch that was!’ said Gianbattista. ‘It was in ’97. Piero brought a small army to one of the city gates in the south.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘The government took all his followers hostage in the city,’ said Donato. ‘More than fifty high-born compagnacci. He didn’t dare risk their lives – it would have wiped out his power base completely – so he slunk away.’
‘By August the five main conspirators were executed,’ said Daniele. ‘And one of them was the gonfaloniere of the city!’
‘Beheaded in the Bargello in the early hours of the morning,’ said Fra Paolo. ‘They say it took five blows of the axe to get old Gonfaloniere Nero’s head off.’
I thought he was taking rather a ghoulish delight in the facts of the case.
‘The compagnacci and the arrabbiati have never forgiven the city for what it did to those five,’ said Gianbattista. ‘And we believe they are planning another attempt to reinstate Piero – better organised this time.’
‘Arrabbiati is the right name for them,’ said Donato. ‘They are literally enraged by the idea that anyone would want to get rid of the de’ Medici.’
‘Why do they think so highly of the family?’ I asked. I’d never really understood.
‘Money,’ said Fra Paolo. ‘The de’ Medici made their fortune first through wool and then through banking, till they had a stranglehold on the city.’
‘My . . . friend, the sculptor,’ I said cautiously, ‘thought very highly of Lorenzo.’
‘He did some good things,’ said Daniele. ‘But he was like the rest of them in one way – he thought he had a right to rule the city.’
‘And Florence is a republic!’ said Giulio. ‘It had the right idea when it first pushed Cosimo out nearly a hundred years ago. They should never have let him back in. It’s not right to buy influence with money.’
They were beginning to whip themselves up into a sort of frenzy. Then suddenly Daniele turned to me with a serious look.
‘You could find out what they’re plotting.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. You could be our spy in the pro-Medici camp.’
‘But how?’ I protested. ‘I’m not even an aristocrat.’
‘But you know de’ Altobiondi,’ said Gianbattista quietly. ‘At least, you know his wife.’
I jumped as if stung by a bee. Was this why these men had befriended me in the first place? But if they knew what my relationship with Clarice had been, they must also know how unwelcome I would be in her husband’s house? And did Simonetta know too? I didn’t dare look at her.
‘I see we are right,’ said Daniele. ‘And we could give you the right clothes. Your face would do the rest.’
I was still fretting about my new task the next day and wondering how I could get out of my role as spy. So I was not expecting the young woman waiting for me outside my bottega. She was dressed as a servant and at first I thought she might have come from Clarice, but she would have sent Vanna, the impudent maid who had first summoned me to my lady’s house nearly six months earlier.
This one was a comely full-figured young woman of about my own age. She cast her eyes down modestly enough but I had caught a glimpse of her frank appraising stare when she called my name as I came out of the building, slapping the stone dust from my hands.
‘My master desires that you should visit him,’ she said, giving me a slip of paper with a name and address on it.
‘Why?’ I said. ‘And who is he?
‘I don’t know, sir,’ she said. ‘Andrea Visdomini merely told me to bring the message to Gabriele del Lauro at the stonecutters’ in Via del Proconsolo.’
‘And how did you know that was me?’
‘I was told . . .’ she hesitated. ‘He said . . . the young, good-looking one.’
We were both embarrassed now.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Grazia, sir,’ she said. I swear she almost curtsied.
‘Call me Gabriele,’ I said. ‘Does he want me to come now?’ I was feeling in need of a wash and hungry for my lunch.
‘After work would be soon enough, my master said,’ said Grazia. ‘Do you know the way?’
It was on the tip of my tongue to say I’d need her to come back and lead me there but I decided against it; my love life was complicated enough without pretty Grazia.
I said goodbye to her, quite reluctantly, and went to see my brother at work. He grunted when I entered to let me know he knew I was there.
I took a ladle of water and poured it over my dusty curls and whitened hands. Angelo laughed – a low rusty sound.
‘Soon no one will be able to tell the difference between you and David,’ he said.
How many times did I think of that remark in the future!
But I just munched my bread and cheese and I asked him if he had ever heard of Andrea Visdomini.
‘What do you have to do with him?’ he asked.
‘He wants to see me. I don’t know why.’
‘Well, he is a wealthy man,’ said my brother. ‘And a patron too. Maybe it was me he wanted?’
‘He told his servant to ask for me by name at the stonecutters’.’
‘Well, are you going?’
‘I suppose I must,’ I said. ‘But I’d like to know whose side he is on.’
‘Now you sound like a proper Florentine.’
I went just as I was, after work, carrying my bag of tools and as dusty as I always was at the end of any working day. Whatever he wants with me, he’ll see me as I am, I thought. Just another working man in the big city.
A manservant answered the door; no sign of luscious Grazia. He led me to a room on the piano nobile and told me to wait. My brother had been right. There were bronzes and marbles in the room that showed me Visdomini was both rich and a man of taste. I was pretty sure he would be a Medici supporter.
But the man who came into the room with a light step was not much older than me. He did not look like a wealthy patron. He was finely dressed, with lace at his wrists and a surcoat of purple brocade but he was slightly built, with long light brown hair and a pleasant high voice.
‘Ah, Gabriele!’ he said, coming forward to shake my hand as if it were as clean as his and as if he had known me all my life; he didn’t flinch at the dust.
‘But where are my manners?’ he said. ‘You must be thirsty. Your work must make you very dry, cutting stone all day.’ He sent his servant for wine and told him to bring a ewer of warm water too.
I was glad of both and somehow it didn’t feel awkward to wash and dry my hands and face in front of this rather foppish youth, even though he looked at me hungrily the whole time, as if he were a starving man and I a tasty round of cheese.
It wasn’t till the servant had taken away the water and the master himself poured me a goblet of wine that he spoke again.
‘You are an artist of some sort?’ he asked.
A feeling of disappointment settled on me; it was my brother he wanted after all.
‘Not me, sir,’ I said. ‘I just cut stone according to other men’s patterns. It is my . . . friend, Michelangelo, who is the artist.’
‘You live in his house, I believe,’ said Visdomini.
‘In his father Lodovico’s house,’ I corrected him. ‘Ser Buonarroti has a farm in Settignano where I come from. And a quarry. He has been good to my family.’
?
??Ah, so you have a patron?’
I did not know what to answer. Was this man wishing to become my patron? And what would he want in return?
‘You must be wondering why I sent for you,’ he continued. ‘I have not long come into my late father’s fortune.’
I noticed he was not in mourning.
‘He was a patron and a collector of beautiful things, a friend of the late Lorenzo de’ Medici.’
Ah, I thought. I guessed right.
‘I want to continue in his footsteps. Buying beautiful things, I mean. But I think painting is the future. Not religious paintings, although we have those in our chapel, of course. I mean the kind you can stand on an easel and display in your own home.’
I couldn’t see where he was going with this. Neither I nor my brother could paint a picture for him.
‘More wine?’ He refilled my goblet. I was trying hard not to relax too much but the combination of his excellent wine and being able to rest after a day of using all my muscles was undermining my will.
‘Do you have a painter that you, er, help?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Visdomini. ‘Another young man. He’s called Leone. He’s a wonderful artist. But he needs a subject.’
At last I felt I might have some idea what he wanted me for.
‘Would you be willing to pose for Leone?’ he asked.
I felt flustered and didn’t know what to answer. Would I be paid? Would I be able to keep my clothes on? Standing naked in front of my brother was one thing, but I didn’t want an unknown painter – or his patron – ogling me in the nude.
‘You have such a fine physique,’ said Visdomini. ‘I hope it doesn’t embarrass you to hear it said? You must have had it remarked on before. And that face! You could be Hercules, or Perseus or any Greek god. And, of course, you’d be well rewarded.’
Suddenly, I realised that if I came to this man’s house, I might be able to find out what the frateschi wanted to know without ever going near Altobiondi and his wife.