Chapter 1
This is the story of a young master, Leonardo da Vinci, and his sidekick, Tommaso, sometimes called Zoroastro, in Florence.
When Leonardo da Vinci invited me for a drink at the Inn of the She Ape, I should have known better. Nine times out of ten, I end up cleaning up his messes. This is the tale of how Leonardo da Vinci became famous. Or, more to the point, how he became infamous.
These events happened in my youth, but I remember them as if it was yesterday. Now I have time to mark them down, as I bask in the Roman sunshine; my youth spent in philandering is behind me. And if you feel I exaggerate, I swear on my son’s head I do not follow in the steps of Marco Polo, who sold a handkerchief as a broadcloth. The early years I spent with Leonardo da Vinci are fogged in the mists of time. So many tales sound outlandish, but mark my words, I was there. This is as true a story as you will ever hear of that time.
Who am I? Tommaso di Giovanni Masini from Peretola. I work with Leonardo. Sometimes I even call him—reluctantly—Master. We apprenticed together in Master Verrochio’s studio, whose real name is Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni. We met high in the air when we helped install the giant ball on the cathedral’s cupola. Leonardo and I were given tiny golden balls to mark the achievement. Lorenzo the Magnificent himself gave them to us; some say it was to remind us of his family’s heraldry—six balls, or palle.1 For a while we were called—palline piccole, little balls. Leonardo whispered something to the effect that he didn’t know the Medici had such small ones. Lorenzo may have heard this; his ugly face certainly turned red, and he looked askance at Leonardo. That may not have been the wisest thing to say. Perhaps one reason why Leonardo never gained his favour.
Everyone in Florence had a nickname. Mine was Zoroastro. Leonardo boasted that my talents were magical, like those of the Persian mage who invented magic. Sometimes he called me by my real name, Tommaso. Some people called Leonardo “Niente Finito” because he never finished a job, but that is another story. We made decorations for spectacles and entertainments for the rich merchants. He worked at his master’s studio, teaching the apprentices, and sometimes he even took up the brush. Leonardo’s imagination often exceeded his ability—he grew bored easily—but when it worked, it was wondrous. Quattrocento Florence was full of many strange characters like us. We were called artifex, a Latin word for an artist. Leonardo and I were just two of many, not so important or famous. But that was about to change.
Somewhere in Florence, a piece of paper had been slipped into the bocca, or mouth, of a tamburo, where denunciations were deposited against citizens.
It all began the night we met Leonardo’s half-brother Francesco Accattabriga, from Campo Zeppi, and his companion, the Englishman Roberto, a soldier of fortune. Francesco looked like his half-brother, a handsome enough fellow with blond hair and blue eyes like Leonardo, but he was not as bright. He was a very innocent, hayseed kind of young man like the ones you meet often in the country. He was not a warrior type, though well-built from work. On the other hand, Roberto looked as though he meant business, a soldier born and bred, with scars all over his face. A sinister-looking, cruel sort of brute. We chose to meet them at that nefarious hangout for artists and apprentices, the Inn of the She Ape. Leonardo invited me along with his new slave to make a big entrance. None of the locals took notice. They were too drunk.
Leonardo’s friends soon showed up: Baccino the tailor, full of pins, the jeweller Bartolomeo di Pasquino, the fat boy, along with the well-known sodomite Saltarelli, who oozed a reptilian charm. The only one missing was that elegant, tight-assed fellow, Leonardo Tornabuoni. Not an auspicious beginning to the night, I thought. They saw that Leonardo was with two bumpkins and soon wandered off to look for more excitement. Before they left, they all commented on the physicality of Leonardo’s slave, even touching him as if he was a calf for sale. The slave endured this, blushing. They weren’t the only people who gave him covetous looks. Half of the drinkers were eyeing him surreptitiously. Not me. My tastes run to young women.
Nor was I impressed by the out-of-town guests. Under the dim candle-light of the tavern, meant to add to the atmosphere, it was obvious the old soldier was missing his front teeth. He told us it was from a battle wound — a likely story. He probably had been hit by a strumpet he forgot to pay. What a face! It was crisscrossed with white scars that he boasted were from sword blows. He said he was called Roberto the Bold because no one could pronounce his English name. Probably one of the bastards left over from the condottiere John Hawkwood’s time.2. His young charge, the son of Leonardo’s step-father, was keen to see the world, chafing at the bit to seek his fortune as a soldier. All pimply and awkwardly enthusiastic, he was obviously a farm boy at heart. They talked of joining Charles the Bold’s army, which needed help after the recent defeat by the Swiss. I had heard stories of the Duke of Burgundy and of the short life of his soldiers.
Master Leonardo loved listening to their tales. He always had a fascination for war and soldiers. His sketch books were filled with drawings of war machines and warriors. In my opinion, the husband of his mother Caterina, the ex-soldier Antonio Accattabriga, had whet Leonardo’s appetite for warring when he was growing up. After the Volterra massacre in 1474, I no longer shared Leonardo’s love of blood and gore.
To make conversation, I joked to the two men that they had “towns to burn, women to rape and loot to steal.” The freelancer Roberto gave me an evil look with his toothless smile. Even his smile made my blood curdle. I was wishing I was someplace else where I didn’t have to listen to their family stories. Back then I was a bit of a snob. My father was rich—my natural father, that is. I was better educated than Leonardo. The idea of playing guide to the two bumpkins was annoying to me.
I could just see myself having to tell them, “Please do not piss on the walls marked with a cross; that means they are religious buildings. Yes, the best bugger boys are on the old bridge, but you must wait till dark after the butcher stalls have closed. No, you can’t carry your sword in certain places, especially around the bankers’ green benches, it makes them nervous.” I could go on ad nauseam. “What are the prices of a whore? Depends on which ones, and how long you can last. The cortigiane di candela, common courtesans, charge by the time a candle burns down. Be careful of the watch of eight—the Otto—and the morality police, they don’t take kindly to foreigners interfering with our honest women. Yes, the gates are closed at night. Yes, there is a curfew. Yes, the Florentines will exchange your foreign currency, at a loss, of course.”
April 9, 1476, began with the usual debauchery. We were all feeling the effects of the warm weather. Every man and woman wanted to join the rabbits jumping around in the fields. Easter was not far away; many were looking forward to Maundy Thursday carnival fun, after fasting for Lent. Tempers were high, stomachs were empty, and anything could happen before we celebrated Christ’s rebirth. Despite the promise of spring, though, it was a day Leonardo would remember for the rest of his life, not in a good way.
Night had fallen on the old day, and as the way time was reckoned, the new day had started with the darkness. Soon the curfew would be announced. As usual, it was not observed by most Florentines, or at least not by the present company. The mood in the inn was jubilant, drinking was copious, and men were all making boasts of their feats in battle or in bed. The Florentine new year was barely a month old. Spring was awakening the earth and men’s spirits. Easter celebrations would begin in nineteen days, on the twenty-eighth. It would soon be Leonardo’s twenty-third birthday, something he wanted to forget. My master needed cheering up.
Leonardo asked for news of Vinci and Campo Zeppi. The artist was eager to exchange family gossip; he wanted to announce the birth of his father’s heir. What would his mother, Caterina, think? His father, Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, had sired his first legitimate son. The downside of this happy event was that his father had hired a Prato wet nurse to lodge in the artist’s room. Leonardo had been kicked out, sent to his studio near the city walls. The artist could have retreated to Verrochio’s bottega, but he didn’t want the humiliation of having to bunk with the apprentice boys. His father was jubilant about his new son. “Ser” da Vinci’s first two wives had died childless. This legitimate son could follow him in his business, as the guild of notaries barred bastards from the profession. I could see that, behind Leonardo’s smile, a shadow had fallen across the artist’s path.
Leonardo’s mood was not brightened by the arrival of his fellow artist, the rotund fellow who looked like a barrel. His real name was Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, but we called him Botticelli. His painting of the Adoration of the Magi featuring the Medici was the talk of the city. The successful artist had even had the temerity to paint himself into the crowd in the painting. His face looked out of the canvas with arrogant self-satisfaction. The Adoration of the Magi had been commissioned by a lackey who wanted to curry favour with the Medici.
Everyone laughed when Botticelli ordered drinks for everyone but a small bottle for himself. He would only drink small doses, but by the end of the night, he would have consumed more than the others. He had been imbibing elsewhere and was already in his cups.
Leonardo da Vinci asked facetiously, “Botticelli, is it true? I heard you have finished a very big painting including almost everyone in Florence?”
“My dear Master Leonardo” —Botticelli puffed himself up to impress the crowded inn—“I have heard of your latest creation as well. The Annunciation?”
He added sarcastically, “They say you gave the angel a very long arm?” This made his friends and apprentices snicker. Everyone liked the confrontation amongst artists. Usually, playful barbs were exchanged in good fun. Tonight, though, the recipient was prickly.
Leonardo took offence.
“Long enough to go up your little ass,” he replied in anger. The artist often criticized Botticelli’s figures for their proportions, and Leonardo was the bigger man.
“Now, now, Leonardo. We are amongst friends. No need to embellish your endowments.”
“Would you like me to use my dirk to whittle your little endowment down to size, Master Botticelli?” retorted Leonardo with heat.
The two artists stood up, staring at each other with eyes on fire. The crowd in the inn turned around to watch the commotion.
In an attempt to quiet the play of emotions, I jumped out of my seat to put my hand around my master’s waist, intending to grab his weapon. Surreptitiously, I grabbed his knife in its sheath—some called it the vagina—then placed it in my bag. How well I knew that jests could quickly turn violent. The presence of his relative and his soldier friend primed Leonardo’s temper. Men don’t like to be embarrassed in front of their friends or family. Many a vendetta has started with lesser insults.
“Come on, fellows, better a good laugh from the stomach than a knife in the back,” I kidded them both, placing my body between them. Botticelli’s friends did likewise, pulling the artist back to his table.
Luckily, a new arrival burst into the inn to distract everyone.
Father Marsilio Ficino, the philosopher priest, who always berated Leonardo da Vinci for his ignorance of Latin and Greek, had arrived in style. He was accompanied by the usual gaggle of hangers-on who—like him—would copiously quote the Greek philosophers. Marsilio Ficino was an ugly hunchback who was basking in his recent ordination as a priest. Ficino was the darling of the Medici, who were mesmerized by his erudition. He was the king of the Medici Platonists. An intellectual sycophant. His status gave the priest protection from any prosecution for his perversions.
Marsilio Ficino looked down his long nose at us, asking, “Oh my goodness, the best artists in Florence about to tussle over who is the better? Or the best endowed?”
Ficino laughed at his own joke, having understood the mood in the inn. He asked, “Are either of you even lettered? Can you read or write Latin?”
Both artists answered Ficino’s insult. “To Hell with all philosophers! You know a lot about nothing.” Leonardo wrested my arm from its grip on him, and sat down. The drinkers all broke out in laughter. They turned back to their friends now the show was over.
Everyone knew of the long-standing feud between Leonardo and Father Marsilio Ficino. The latter had predicted that Leonardo would be forgotten while he, the philosopher, would become a legend.
Ficino’s face turned beet red at being laughed at; the artist had bested him, having poured lazzi on him in front of his admirers. It was an affront to Father Ficino’s dignity. He tried to hide his feelings by taking out a pack of tarocchi1 cards to play. Despite his deformity, he was quick-handed. After shuffling the deck, he proposed to tell the artists’ future. Leonardo hated casters of horoscopes, dismissing them as no better than quacksalvers. He especially hated overeducated buffoons. His own lack of education was a weakness that made him feel like some kind of brute, an uomo senza lettere. He gives the priest a contemptuous sneer in answer.
Over the years, I had come to understand that Leonardo preferred original thought over the rote parroting of texts. Direct experience and observation were his lodestars. Yet he knew the dangers of going against the grain. Anyone stepping beyond the bounds of Church doctrines could easily end up being burned as a heretic. Leonardo had taken to writing backwards to thwart the priests. Despite the dangers, Leonardo sought the why of things. The truth was paramount—he had no time for demons or divine intervention.
Despite his reticence with respect to magic, he was curious about the cards. They were of better quality than usual. Taking one into his long hands, he felt it, rubbing the surface, surprised it did not smear. He asked, “These were not painted by hand?”
The priest laughed, aware he had Leonardo’s attention. “No, they are made by a new German machine at the convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli2.”
Of course, when my master heard this, he got very excited. He took me aside, saying, “Go to this convent tonight and find out more about what they do. And while you are there, you can bring me back new pages for my zibaldone.” The latter was a little book in which he recorded various musings. Rifling in his pouch, he added, “Take this book to see if the sisters can make copies for me.” It was his well-thumbed edition of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.
Why didn’t Leonardo send his slave? Because he didn’t speak proper Tuscan? I had my doubts about him. He was neither dumb nor mute. When serving wine to his master, he had followed the talk at the table. Some comportments were troubling me about the boy; was he something other than he appeared? And I have never liked Leonardo ordering me around like a common servant. Ever since the arrival of the slave, a gift from his father to salve his hurt pride at being kicked out of the house, Leonardo had begun treating me with disdain. My temper was near boiling. This couldn't last. If he wanted me to continue working with him, some things would have to change.
1. Early Tarot cards.
2. Books were printed by the nuns starting from 1476.
