David (9 page)

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.

‘Would I be doing it here, sir?’ I asked.

‘Why, yes, if you were agreeable,’ he said. ‘I have set Leone up with his own workshop in my courtyard. If you would be willing to pose for him two evenings a week, I would pay you . . .’

And he mentioned a sum that far exceeded what I earned at the stonecutters’
bottega
. It would more than double my income and I could put all this extra money into my savings. If I could, at the same time, find out information that would satisfy my republican friends, it seemed to me that I had nothing to lose.

‘All right,’ I said, then realised that sounded a bit ungracious. ‘I mean I would be happy to oblige you.’

He looked at me with his pale hazel eyes. I couldn’t make out what he was thinking.

But he was smiling and shaking my hand again.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ he said. ‘Come tomorrow night if you can start so soon. You will get a good supper when your work is done.’

I thought about the meagre table at Lodovico’s and calculated I could eat in their house before leaving for Visdomini’s on my evenings as an artist’s model. That would supplement my diet without digging into my savings.

What could possibly be said against such an arrangement?

Chapter Six

Mothers

The day after my first meeting with Andrea Visdomini I was astonished to find two other people in my brother’s workshop. They weren’t looking at the emerging statue; that was behind sheets. But it was still an unusual event to meet anyone else there.

‘Ha!’ said my brother. ‘Here he is – my little model.’

The two men smiled as they took my hand. I loomed over them and Angelo.

They were introduced to me as brothers, both architects, known as ‘da Sangallo’ because of a famous commission the older one had completed years before. This Giuliano, ten years older than his brother Antonio, had been another artist favoured by the great Lorenzo, and Angelo had met him as a boy at his patron’s table.

Giuliano had an intelligent beardless face, with a quick bright expression. He had come from where he was working on a new palazzo for the Gondi family. His younger brother looked a lot like him and they both seemed to be old friends of my brother. To me they were just a pair of nice old men but I could tell that Angelo thought highly of them – and that wasn’t true of many people.

‘It’s a big day today, Gabriele,’ he said. ‘We’re going to turn him over.’

It took me a while to realise that he meant the statue. That meant he had already finished the front face of it to the point he was ready to work on the back.

I suppressed a smile. My brother knew I’d be there at lunchtime with willing muscles to put to the task but he had invited only two other people to help us and the older one must have been nearly fifty!

God forgive me that I thought fifty such a great age then! But I was still a boy, only months past my nineteenth birthday and fifty seemed an unimaginable distant landmark, a bit like the Pantheon in Rome – something I had heard talked about but never imagined seeing.

I knew that Angelo had invited the Sangallo brothers for their loyalty and discretion, not their strength. He was already taking down the sheets and the brothers were rolling up their sleeves.

But all three of us were dumbstruck when we saw what Angelo had done so far. Of course, I had seen the model – had posed for it – but this was something different. Out of the marble a giant was thrusting his way. His face was mine but turned to one side, with a fixed frown that I didn’t realise I’d had. His left leg was sticking forward while the right was going to bear his weight. My brother had made clever use of the gap already roughly chipped out by an earlier hand that showed where the division between the legs would come.

As I looked at this giant image of myself, I could easily believe that the rest of him was waiting inside the marble for my brother to come along and chip him out. He looked like an outsize man who had been trapped by a flood of molten stone and only half released.

I had no idea how much progress he had made in a few weeks and that the figure would be ready for turning so soon. But I think I knew even then that it would never be placed far up on high where people would see only the front of it. Angelo was going to make this a statue you could walk round and marvel at from all angles.

‘You have caught his likeness exactly,’ said Giuliano, gesturing towards me. ‘There will be no doubt in the city who your model is.’

‘You will be called David,’ said Antonio, ‘and it will be an honour.’

He was right about the first prediction – but not about the second.

The four of us took most of my lunch break to wrestle that old block with its half-formed giant breaking out of it, till it was turned on to its white marble stomach and the rough surface was ready for my brother’s chisels. Then he broke out the wine he had brought – far superior to what we usually drank at his father’s house.

I drank deeply because I had taken most of the strain of the weight, even though we had used ropes and an ingenious pulley system that my brother told me Antonio had shown him how to make. And as far as I know Angelo used it ever afterwards for his upright figures in the round.

When I left to go back to my workshop, the three men were contemplating the block with satisfaction. I was glad to be warmed by the red wine and the exercise, because it was winter now and I had to wear a woollen jacket over my canvas shirt. I tugged it around me as I passed by Clarice’s old house.

She had moved to live with Altobiondi on the Via Tornabuoni; I knew that. Her old palazzo had to my fanciful eyes a sad, deserted look. Though, of course, stone cannot show its feelings. I was the one who felt abandoned.

My first evening at Ser Visdomini’s house was unthreatening enough. I bolted down my evening meal at Lodovico’s even less ceremoniously than usual and turned up on the Via dei Servi promptly. But the evenings had been drawing in for some time and it was already dark. I was used to roaming the streets of Florence now and always kept an ear open for footsteps behind me and a keen eye for glimpses of anyone trying to spy on me.

I was surprised when I got to his house to be introduced not only to the painter Leone but also to Visdomini’s wife. I was actually more surprised that he
had
a wife. She was a slight pretty young girl, with fair hair and a trace of a lisp; Andrea treated her as if she were his younger sister.

Leone was a burly young man with a snub nose and arm muscles like a wrestler. I was glad he wasn’t going to be an enemy. Visdomini led us to Leone’s workshop in the courtyard, leaving his pale, insubstantial wife in their grand reception room.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how completely fitted out the artist’s studio was. I caught his glance and saw that he realised just how lucky he had been to secure such a rich and discerning patron. There were low wooden tables with all that was needed to make his pigments and even an urchin to do the grinding. The boy was sitting dozing on a three-legged stool but jumped up when we came in.

And as well as canvas and paints, the room, which had both a large window and a skylight, was furnished with a velvet sofa and rich hangings and cloths for the painter to use as props. A brass ewer and bowl for water, a pewter jug of wine and a bowl of fruit completed what could have easily been a study for a
natura morta
painting.

Lucky Leone.

The room was well lit with candles in sconces but I could see that the winter evenings were not going to be the best times for sketching or painting. I hadn’t thought of that before. Perhaps Visdomini’s offer wasn’t what it seemed after all?

He soon left me with the painter and the little apprentice, who was allowed to go to bed on a straw mattress under one of the tables. Leone would not need any pigments tonight. It appeared that all he wanted to do was draw some preliminary sketches of my head.

‘You’re good at staying still,’ he said.

So I explained about posing for the little model of David. Leone was immediately fascinated.

‘You stood for the great Michelangelo?’ he said.

‘Yes, but I live in his father’s house so it was quite natural for him to ask me.’

I was quite pleased that Leone had such a high opinion of my brother. He sketched for about two hours and it wasn’t difficult to hold the pose; I could even sit while he worked. It was going to get more difficult in sessions to come but for now I was earning my money easily.

When the time was up, Leone rang a little bell and – to my delight – Grazia brought us our supper. There were meats and bread and olives and vegetables
sott’olio
, and another jug of good wine.

‘Stay and talk with us,’ said Leone, exactly what I should have liked to ask her.