BOOK I

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THE ROMANCE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

The Forerunner

* * * * *

By DMITRI MÉREJKOWSKI

THE DEATH OF THE GODS. Authorized English Version by HERBERT

TRENCH. 12^o $1.50

THE ROMANCE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI: THE FORERUNNER. (The

Resurrection of the Gods.) Authorized English Version edited by

HERBERT TRENCH. 12^o $1.50

THE ANTI-CHRIST. (Peter the Great and Alexis.) Translated by

HERBERT TRENCH. 12^o (_In Press._)

TOLSTOI AS MAN AND ARTIST, With an Essay on Dostoievski.

Authorized English Version.

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

New York London

* * * * *

[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI

AFTER THE PORTRAIT IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE]

Christ and Anti-Christ

THE ROMANCE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

The Forerunner

by

DIMITRI MÉREJKOWSKI

Author of "The Death of the Gods."

Exclusively Authorised Translation from the Russian of

"The Resurrection of the Gods."

By Herbert Trench

G.P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

1904

This Romance is the Second of the historical Trilogy, of which the first

volume, dealing with the times of the Emperor Julian, was the _Death of

the Gods_. The present story of the Italian Renaissance has been

published in Russia as _The Resurrection of the Gods_; in France under

the title, _The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci_. This translation is

direct from the Russian, and is the only one in the English language

which is or will be authorised by the Author.

Published, July, 1902

Reprinted, October, 1902; February, 1903; July, 1904

ST. PETERSBOURG, 3, ix, 1901.

À Monsieur Herbert Trench j'accorde l'autorisation _exclusive_ de

traduire du Russe en Anglais mon livre _La Résurrection des Dieux_.

DMITRI MÉREJKOWSKI.

CONTENTS

PAGE

BOOK I

THE WHITE SHE-DEVIL--1494 3

BOOK II

ECCE DEUS--ECCE HOMO--1494 36

BOOK III

THE POISONED FRUITS--1494 57

BOOK IV

THE WITCHES' SABBATH--1494 82

BOOK V

THY WILL BE DONE--1494 104

BOOK VI

THE DIARY OF GIOVANNI BOLTRAFFIO--1494-1495 129

BOOK VII

THE BONFIRE OF VANITIES--1496 151

BOOK VIII

THE AGE OF GOLD--1496-1497 172

BOOK IX

THE SIMILITUDES--1498-1499 210

BOOK X

CALM WATERS--1499-1500 260

BOOK XI

THERE SHALL BE WINGS--1500 300

BOOK XII

'AUT CÆSAR AUT NIHIL'--1500-1503 320

BOOK XIII

THE PURPLE BEAST--1503 361

BOOK XIV

MONNA LISA GIOCONDA--1503-1506 385

BOOK XV

THE HOLY INQUISITION--1506-1513 411

BOOK XVI

LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO, AND RAPHAEL--1513-1515 425

BOOK XVII

DEATH--THE WINGED PRECURSOR--1516-1519 437

EPILOGUE 459

LEONARDO DA VINCI

'Sentio rediit ab inferis Julianus.'

(I feel that Julian has risen again.)--PETRARCH.

'We see the encounter of vast contraries: Man-god against

God-man--Apollo Belvedere against Christ.'--DOSTOIEVSKY.

BOOK I

THE WHITE SHE-DEVIL--1494

'At Siena was discovered another statue of Venus, to the huge joy

of the inhabitants. A great concourse, with much feasting and

honour, set it up over the fountain called "Il Fonte Gaja," as an

adornment....

'But great tribulation having come upon the land by reason of the

Florentines, there arose one of the council, a citizen, and spake

in this wise: "Fellow-citizens, since the finding of this figure we

have had much evil hap, and if we consider how strictly idolatry is

prohibited by our faith, what shall we think but that God hath sent

us this adversity by reason of sin? I advise that we remove this

image from the public square of the city, deface it, break it in

pieces, and send it to be buried in the territory of the

Florentines."

'All agreeing with this opinion, they confirmed it by a decree; and

the thing was put into execution, and the statue was buried within

our confines.' (_Notes of the Florentine sculptor, Lorenzo

Ghiberti, XVth. century._)

I

In Florence the guild of dyers had their shops hard by the Canonica of

Orsanmichele. The houses were disfigured by every sort of shed,

outhouse, and projection on crooked wooden supports; tiled roofs leaned

so close to each other as almost to shut out the sky, and the street was

dark even in the glare of noon. In the doorways below, samples of

foreign woollen-stuffs were suspended, sent to Florence to be dyed with

litmus-lichen, with madder, or with woad steeped in a corrosive of

Tuscan alum. The street was paved roughly, and in the kennel flowed

many-coloured streams, oozings from the dye vats. Shields over the

portals of the principal shops, or _Fondachi_ were blazoned with the

arms of the Calimala (so the guild of dyers was named), 'on a field

gules, an eagle or, upon a ball of wool argent.'

Within one of these _Fondachi_, among huge account-books and piles of

commercial documents, sat Messer Cipriano Buonaccorsi, a worthy

Florentine merchant, and Master of the Noble Guild of the Calimala.

It was a cold March evening, and damp exhaled from the choked and

cumbered cellars; the old man was a-cold, and he drew his worn

squirrel-mantle tightly round him. A goose-quill was stuck behind his

ear, and with omniscient, though weak and myopic eyes, that seemed at

once careless and attentive, he conned the parchment leaves of his

ponderous ledger; debit to the left, credit to the right; divided by

rectangular lines, and annotated in a round, even hand, unadorned by

stops, or capitals, or Arabic numerals, which were considered frivolous

innovations, impertinent in business-books. On the first page was

inscribed in imposing characters: 'In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

and the most blessed Virgin Mary, this book is begun in the year of the

Lord MCCCCLXXXXIV.'

Having corrected an error in the number of bales received in pledge, and

satisfied himself as to the latest entries of podded pepper, Mecca

ginger, and bundles of cinnamon, Messer Cipriano leaned wearily against

the back of his chair, closed his eyes, and meditated upon an epistle he

must indite for his emissary at the Wool Fair in Montpellier of France.

Just then some one entered, and the old man raising his glance saw his

_contadino_, Grillo, who rented from him certain vineyards and fields

belonging to his mountain-villa of San Gervaso in the valley of the

Mugnone. Grillo did obsequious reverence, tendering a basket of brown

eggs, carefully packed, while at his belt clucked two fat chickens,

their feet tied and their heads hanging.

'Ah, Grillo!' exclaimed Buonaccorsi, with his customary urbanity, 'has

the Lord been gracious to you? Meseems, we have the spring season at

last.'

'Messer Cipriano, to us old men even the spring brings no delight. Our

old bones ache worse than before and cry louder for the grave. I have

brought your worship eggs and young cockerels for Easter.' And he

screwed up his greenish eyes, revealing innumerable small creases all

round them, the effect of rude acquaintance with wind and sun.

Buonaccorsi, having thanked him for the gift, turned to business.

'Well, have you the men ready at the farm? Can we get all done before

day-break?'

Grillo sighed prodigiously, and meditated, leaning heavily on his

staff. 'All is ready, and there are men enough. But I ask you, Messer

Cipriano, were it not better we waited a little?'

'Nay, old man, you have said yourself that we must not wait, lest the

matter become known.'

'True. Yet the thing is terrible. It is sin. And the days now are

holy-days, days of fasting; and our work is of another sort.'

'Well, I will take the sin on my own soul. Fear naught; I will not

betray you. Only tell me--shall we find what we seek?'

'Why should we not? We have signs to guide us. Did not our fathers know

of the hill behind the mill at the Humid Hollow? And at night there's

the Jack o' Lantern over San Giovanni. That means lots of this rubbish

all round. I have heard tell that not long ago, when they were digging

in the vineyard at Marignola, they drew a whole devil from out the

clay.'

'A devil? What manner of devil?'

'A bronze one with horns. He had hairy legs--goat's legs--with hoofs.

And a face which laughs. And he dances on one leg and snaps his fingers.

'Twas very old; all green and crumbled.'

'What did they do with it?'

'They made it into a bell for the new chapel of San Michele.'

Messer Cipriano was beside himself. 'Grillo, you should have told me of

this before!'

'Your worship had gone to Siena.'

'You should have sent after me. I would have despatched some one--I

would have come myself--I would have grudged no expense--I would have

cast ten bells for them in its place. The idiots! To make a Dancing

Faun--perhaps a real Scopas--into a bell!'

'Ay, they showed their folly. But, Messer Cipriano, be not wroth. They

are punished: for since they hung that new bell the worms have eaten the

apples, and the olives have failed. And the tone of the bell is bad.'

'How so?'

'That's not for me to say. It hasn't the proper note. It brings no joy

to the Christian heart. Somehow it sounds unmeaning. 'Tis what one might

expect: one can't get a Christian bell out of a dumb devil. Be it not

spoke to anger your worship, but, Messer Cipriano, the good Father is

right; of all this filth they dig up, no good is going to come. We must

go to work with prudence and defend ourselves with the cross and with

prayers; for the Devil is subtle and powerful and the son of a dog, and

he creeps in at one ear and out at the other. We were led into

temptation even by that stone arm which Zaccheo found at the Hill of the

Mill. 'Twas the Evil One tempted us, and we came to harm by it. Lord

defend us! 'Tis dreadful even to remember!'

'How got you it, Grillo?'

'The thing happened last autumn on the Eve of Martinmas. We were sitting

us down to sup, and the good woman had put the porridge on the table,

when my nephew Zaccheo came bursting in from his digging in the field on

the Hill of the Mill. "Master! O master!" he cried, and his face was all

drawn and changed, and his teeth chattered. "The Lord be with you, my

son!" says I, and he went on: "O Lord, master! there's a corpse creeping

out from under the pots! Go yourself, master, and see." So we crossed

ourselves and we went. By this time 'twas dark, and the moon was getting

up behind the trees. There was the old olive-stump, and beside it where

the earth was dug was some shining thing. I stooped, and saw 'twas an

arm, very white, and with round dainty fingers, like those of the city

ladies. "Good Lord," thinks I, "what sort of devilment is this?" I let

down the lantern into the hole, and that arm moved and signalled to me

with its finger! That was more than I could bear, and I cried out, and

my knees bent under me. But Monna Bonda, my grandame, whom they call a

wise woman, and who has all her life in her though she be so old, chided

me, saying, "Fool, what is it you fear? Do not your eyes tell you yon

thing is neither of the living nor of the dead, but is a stone?" And she

snatched at it and pulled it forth out of the earth. "Nay, grandame," I

bade her, "let it be; touch it not; rather let me bury it lest mischief

befall us." "Not so," quoth she; "but take we it to the church, and let

the Father exorcise it." But she deceived me, for she brought it not to

the priest, but hid it in the chimney-corner, where in her cot she keeps

gear of all sorts--rags, unguents, and herbals, and spells. And when I

made insistence, she insisted too and kept it. And from that day 'tis

very certain the old beldame hath done cures of great marvel. Is it a

toothache? she doth but touch the cheek with the idol and the swelling

is gone. She salves fevers, colics, falling sickness. If a cow is in

labour and cannot bring forth, Monna Bonda touches her with that same

stone hand, and the cow lows, and there's the calf, kicking in the

straw. The noise of these wonders has gone abroad, and the old woman has

swelled her money-chest. But no good has come of it, for Don Faustino

has not allowed me one day's peace. He speaks against me in his

preaching, in church before them all. He calls me the son of perdition

and the child of the Devil, and he declares he will tell of it to the

bishop, and will deny me the Communion. The boys run after me in the

street, and point and say, "There goes Grillo, the sorcerer, and his

grandame is a witch, and they have sold themselves to the Evil One."

Even in the night I get no rest. Meseems that stone hand rises up and

lies softly on my neck, and then of a sudden takes me by the throat and

would strangle me, till I essay to cry out, and cannot. "Bad jesting,

this," I think to myself. So at last one morning, ere it was light, the

old woman having gone forth to pick her herbs, I got up and broke open

her cot, and found the thing, and brought it to you. Lotto, the

rag-picker, would have given me ten _soldi_ for it, and of you I only

had eight; but I am ready to sacrifice not only two _soldi_, but even my

life for your worship. May the Lord give you His holy benediction, and

to Madonna Angelica, and to your sons and your grandsons!'

'It seems, then, by what you tell me, Grillo,' said Messer Cipriano

thoughtfully, 'that we shall have findings on that Hill of the Mill?'

'We are like enough to find,' said the old man with a profound sigh;

'only we may not tell Don Faustino. If he hear of it he will dress my

head without a comb; and he can do your worship a mischief, too, for he

can raise the people and not let you finish your work. Well, well--we

must pray the Lord to show us mercy! But in the meanwhile, my honoured

benefactor, do not abandon me, but say a word for me to the judge.'

'What? anent the strip of land the miller would take from you?'

'That is it, master. The miller is a cunning rascal, and he knows how

to catch the devil by the tail. I, you see, gave a heifer to the judge;

but the miller gave him a lined cow. I fear me the judge will decide for

the miller, because the suit is not yet concluded, and already the cow

has a fine bull-calf. I pr'ythee, speak for me--father that you are to

me. This which we do on the Hill of the Mill, I do only for your

kindness. There is no other I would have let bring such a sin upon my

conscience.'

'Be at ease, Grillo. I will speak for you; the judge is my friend. Now

take your steps to the kitchen, and eat and drink. To-night we will go

together to San Gervaso.'

The old man, with many reverences, went out, and Messer Cipriano betook

himself to his little chamber near the storehouse. It was a museum of

marbles and bronzes, hung on walls, arranged on benches. Medals and old

coins were assorted on cloth-covered benches; and fragments of statues,

not yet pieced together, were waiting in huge cases. Through his

trade-agents in many countries he procured antiquities from all classic

grounds; from Athens, Smyrna, Halicarnassus, Cyprus, Leucosia, Rhodes,

from the remoter Egypt, from the heart of the Levant. The Master of the

Guild of the Calimala glanced over his treasures, and then sank into

profound consideration of customs-dues on the import of fleeces; and

finally composed the letter to his factor at the Wool Fair in

Montpellier.

II

Meantime, in the hinder-part of the warehouse, heaped with bales, and

lighted only by the glimmer of a lamp before the image of the Madonna,

three lads, Dolfo, Antonio, and Giovanni were gossiping together. Dolfo,

Messer Buonaccorsi's clerk, a red-haired, snub-nosed, good-natured

youth, was entering the number of ells of cloth which Antonio da Vinci,

old for his years, with glassy eyes and thin, rough, black locks, was

rapidly measuring with the Florentine measure, called a _canna_:

Giovanni Boltraffio, a student of painting from Milan, a big boy of

nineteen, but shy and awkward, with innocent, sad, grey eyes, and an

irresolute expression, was sitting cross-legged on a made-up bale, and

listening with all his ears.

'This is what we have come to,' cried Antonio excitedly; 'digging

heathen gods out of the ground!' Then he added, dictating to Dolfo, 'of

brown Scotch faced-cloth, 32 _braccia_,[1] 6 fingers, 8 nails.' Then,

having folded the measured piece, he threw it into its place, and

raising his finger with the gesture of a menacing prophet, in imitation

of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, he cried, '_Gladius Dei super terram cito et

velociter!_ In the island of Patmos San Giovanni had a vision: he saw

the angel lay hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil,

and bind him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and

shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations

no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled. To-day Satan has

been released from his prison; to-day the thousand years are at an end;

the false gods, forerunners and followers of Antichrist, are creeping

forth from under the seal of the angel back into the world for the

temptation of men! Woe to those who live on the earth or on the sea!--Of

thin, yellow, Brabant cloth, 17 _braccia_, 4 fingers, 9 nails!'

[1] _Braccio_, a measure considerably less than a metre, still in use

in Florence.

'How think you, then, Antonio?' asked Giovanni, with alarmed and eager

interest; 'all these signs bear witness----'

'Ay, ay! You see, the hour has come. Not alone are they digging up the

old gods, but they are creating new ones in their likeness. Painters and

sculptors alike weary themselves in the service of Moloch--that is, the

Devil. They turn the House of God into the temple of Satan; in the

sacred pictures, under the guise of martyrs and saints, they paint the

gods of uncleanness, and to these the people pray; in place of John the

Baptist they give us Bacchus; for the holy Mother of God we get the

shameless Venus. The pictures should be burned with fire, and their

ashes strewn upon the wind!'

Suppressed fire flashed from the dull, dark eyes of the zealous clerk;

and Giovanni, not daring a retort, held his peace. His delicate,

childlike eyebrows contracted under the stress of thought. At last,

however, he said: 'Antonio, they tell me Messer Leonardo, your kinsman,

takes scholars into his painting-room. I have long wished----'

Antonio frowned and interrupted him. 'If you would lose your soul,

Giovanni, then go to Messer Leonardo!'

'What? Why?'

'Though he be my near kinsman, and though he have lived twenty years

longer than I, nevertheless in the Scripture it is written: "From an

heretic, after the first and second admonition, turn thou away."

Leonardo is a heretic and an infidel. His mind is darkened by Satanic

pride; he seeks to penetrate into the mysteries of nature by steeping

himself in mathematics and black magic.' Then, raising his eyes to

heaven, he repeated from Savonarola's latest discourse: '"The wisdom of

this world is foolishness with God. We know them, these learned men;

they all go to the house of the devil."'

'And have you heard, Antonio,' persisted Giovanni, still shyly, 'that

Messer Leonardo is here in Florence? He has even now arrived from

Milan.'

'For what purpose?'

'The duke has sent him to buy, if possible, pictures from the galleries

of the late Lorenzo the Magnificent.'

'Well, if he be here, then here he is. 'Tis of no moment to me,' said

Antonio, turning away; and he proceeded to measure a length of green

cloth with his _canna_.

From the church, bells rang out the call to vespers, and Dolfo stretched

himself and clapped-to the ledger with an air of relief; for this day

work was over, and the shops and the warehouses were shutting.

Giovanni stepped into the street. A narrow strip of grey sky, faintly

tinged with the roseate of evening, showed between the humid roofs: a

fine rain fell through the windless air. Suddenly from a window in a

neighbouring alley was wafted a song:--

'O vaghe montanine pastorelle

Donde venite si leggiadre e belle?'

(O shepherd-girls so fair,

Say from what mountain air

Light-footed have ye strayed?)

The voice was resonant and young: from the measured beat of the treadle

Giovanni guessed at a loom, and at a girl singing as she threw the

shuttle. He listened with vague enjoyment, and remembered that the

spring had come, and felt his heart swelling with strange emotions of

tenderness and melancholy.

'Nanna! Nanna! Where hast thou got to, thou little devil? What hath

happened to thine ears? Haste thee! The vermicelli grows cold.' After

which there was a swift clapping of wooden pattens across the floor, and

then silence.

Giovanni stood long, his eyes on the window, the gay song echoing in his

ears like the far-off beatings of some shepherd's pipe--

'O vaghe montanine pastorelle----'

Then sighing softly to himself he entered the house of the Master of the

Calimala, and mounting the winding stair, with its worm-eaten banisters,

he presented himself in the great room, which served as a library, and

in which, bending over a desk, was Giorgio Merula, the historiographer

of the Court of the Duke of Milan.

III

Merula had come to Florence on a mission from his lord, to purchase rare

books from the library of the great Lorenzo. He was lodged in the house

of Buonaccorsi, as great an enthusiast as himself for the learning and

the arts of the ancients. Journeying to Florence he had fallen into an

acquaintance with Giovanni Boltraffio at a road-side inn, and under the

pretext that he required an amanuensis, he had brought him in his

company to Messer Cipriano's house.

When Boltraffio entered, Merula was in the act of examining with

reverent attention a much-worn volume, which had the appearance of a

Missal or a Psaltery. He gingerly passed a damp sponge over the

parchment--parchment of the most delicate kind, made from the skin of a

still-born lamb; here and there he rubbed it with pumice-stone, smoothed

it with the blade of a knife and with a polisher; then holding it up to

the light, studied it afresh.

'Dainty darlings!' he murmured, sucking in his lips with delight; 'come

forth to the light of heaven! Ah, how many and how beautiful ye are!'

He raised his bald head from his work and showed a bloated, red-nosed

countenance, mobile brows, and eyes small and colourless, but brimming

with vivacity; poured wine into a cup beside him on the window-sill,

drank it, coughed, and was returning to his work when he caught sight of

Giovanni.

'Ha, little monk!' he called out merrily. 'You have been lacking to me:

"Where can my little monk be gone?" quoth I. "Fallen in love, of a

surety, with one of the fair maids of Florence." Fair enough, I warrant

you, and falling in love is no sin. Nor have I been wasting my time

neither. You never have seen such a pretty piece in your life. Will you

have me show her to you? Not I; for you'll be whispering the thing to

the four winds! And to think I bought her for a song from a Hebrew

rag-vendor! Well, well, I suppose I must show you; you only!' And

beckoning mysteriously he whispered, 'Come here with you--closer--here!'

And he pointed to a page closely covered with the angular characters of

ecclesiastical writing: praises of the Virgin, psalms, prayers,

interspersed with huge musical notation. Then he opened the book at

another page, and raised it to the light on a level with Giovanni's

eyes; the boy noticed that where Merula had scraped away the

ecclesiastical writing there emerged other characters--barely

distinguishable--not letters, but the ghosts of letters, pallid,

attenuated, faint, still lingering impressed upon the parchment.

'See you? See you?' cried Merula, triumphantly; 'is it not a darling?

Did I not tell you, little brother, 'twas a pretty piece!'

'But what is it?' asked Giovanni, astounded.

'That's what I can't yet tell you. Fragments of an antique anthology;

new riches it may be of the Hellenic muse. And, perchance, but for me

they would never have come out into God's light--would have been

entombed to the end of time under antiphons and psalms of penitence!'

And Merula explained to his pupil how some Middle Age, monkish copyist,

wishing to use the precious parchment, had expunged, as he thought, the

old Pagan writing, and scrawled his pieties over it. As the old man

spoke, the sun filled the room with its slowly dying, evening red; in

this last radiance the shade of the antique letters, the ghost of the

ancient writing, showed itself with redoubled clearness.

'You see! you see!' cried Merula in an ecstasy, 'The dead are rising

from their age-long sepulchres! It is a hymn to the Olympian gods!

Already you can decipher the first lines!'

And translating from the Greek, he read:--

'Glory to the gentle, the richly-crowned Dionysus,

Glory to thee, far-darting Phoebus, silver-bowed, terrible,

God of the flowing curls, slayer of the sons of Niobe----'

And here is a hymn to that Venus, of whom you, little monk, have such a

mighty dread:--

'Glory to thee, golden-limbed mother, Aphrodite,

Delight of the gods and of mortals.'

But here the verses broke off, hidden under the pious over-writing.

Giovanni lowered the book, and at once the traces of the old Greek

letters grew faint and confused, sinking into the yellow smoothness of

the parchment. Nothing was visible but the clear, black, greasy

characters of the monkish scribe, the penitential psalm, and the huge

square notes for the chant:--

'Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thyself from my

supplication. My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of

death are fallen upon me.'

The roseate reflection faded away, and darkness filled the room. Merula

poured wine from the earthen pitcher, drank, and offered it to his

companion.

'To my health, boy. _Vinum super omnia bonum diligamus!_ You refuse?

Well, well! as you will. I will drink for you. But what is ill with you,

little monk? You are as green as if you were drowning. Has that bigot of

an Antonio been scaring you with his prophesyings? Spit on them,

Giovanni, spit on them! A pox upon all these croakings of ill-voiced

ravens! Confess now, you have been with Antonio?'

'Ay.'

'And of what did he speak?'

'Of Antichrist, and of Messer Leonardo da Vinci.'

'So I thought! You have no speech but of Leonardo! Has he bewitched you,

simpleton? Hear me now, lad; remove that folly out of your head, and

content you as my secretary. I will show you the world; teach you

grammar, law; make you an orator and a court poet. There's the road to

riches and fame. Painting! what rubbish is that? Seneca called it a

trade--no business for a free man. Turn your eyes upon the artists; are

they not all ignorant, rude persons----'

'Nay, I have been told Messer Leonardo is a great scholar.'

'You tell me news. Where is his Latin, pr'ythee? He confounds Cicero and

Quintilian, and has not even a smack of Greek about him. A scholar you

call him, do you?'

'But,' urged Boltraffio, 'he has made wondrous machines; and his studies

of the phenomena of nature----'

'Machines! pf--f! Studies of nature! How far is that going to take you?

In my _Elegantiæ Linguæ Latinæ_ I have culled more than two thousand

turns of speech; on my soul, new, and elegance itself. Would you know

how much it cost me? But to apply wheels to machinery, and to watch the

manner of the flying of birds and the sprouting of the grass in the

fields--call you that learning? 'Tis the idleness, the vain toying of

babes.'

The old man paused: his face had grown stern. Then taking his young

friend by the arm, he continued with gravity:--

'Hearken, Giovanni; and what I say to you burn it deep into your mind.

Our teachers are the Greeks and the Romans; they have done all that the

mind of man can do upon this earth. For us there is nothing left but to

follow in their footsteps: is it not written, "The disciple is not

greater than his lord?"' He lifted his wine, and looking straight into

Giovanni's eyes with malicious mirth, all his lines and wrinkles

dissolving in one broad smile, he added:--

'O youth! youth! I look upon you, little monk, and I envy you. You are a

bud blowing in the spring, that is what you are. And you, simpleton,

contemn women, and scorn wine, and would make of yourself a hermit and a

recluse. For all that, you have a little devil there in your heart; oh,

I read you well enough, my friend, through and through to your very

soul! Some day that little devil will peep out; it is vain for you to

deny it. However glum you may be, there are those who will be merry in

your company. See, Giovanni, _carino_ you're this parchment--penitential

psalms outside, and under them a hymn to Aphrodite!'

'Messer Giorgio,' said Giovanni, 'it grows dark; were it not well I

brought the lights?'

'Why this haste, lad? It pleases me to converse in the twilight, and to

recall my lost youth.' His tongue had grown stammering and his phrases

less perspicuous. 'I know,' he muttered, 'that you are gazing at me, and

thinking, "He is drunk, the old rascal, and talking his folly." Yet I

have that here within me,' and he tapped his bald forehead complacently

and nodded. 'I speak not for boasting,' he went on, 'but inquire of the

scholars whether any have ever surpassed Merula in the elegance of his

Latin. Who was it who discovered Martial? Who read the famed inscription

on the gate of Tibur? That meant climbing till your head reeled, stones

breaking from under your feet, as you clung to a bunch of twigs and

thought to fall headlong. Whole days under the blazing sun, just to read

and to copy those few ancient letters! And the peasant maids as they

passed would cry to each other, "See yon fat quail up there seeking a

nesting place!" And I would answer them with some gallantry, and when

they had passed by would set me to my work again. Once, concealed under

the ivy and the thorns, where the stones had fallen in ruin, I found

these two sole words, "_Gloria Romanorum!_"' And as if listening to the

echo of majestic utterance too long silenced, Merula repeated in low,

awestruck tones, '"_Gloria Romanorum!_"'--Glory of the Romans!'

But then, with an uncertain wave of the hand, he added, 'By my troth!

'tis something to remember, even though the past returns no more.' And

raising his glass, he sang hoarsely the students' drinking-song:--

'Not a single jot miss I,

Not a single drop, Sir!

All my life to the cask I go,

And by the cask I'll stop, Sir.

Wine I love and singing to 't,

And the Latin Graces;

If I drink my throat'll do 't

Better than Horatius.

Vintage spins our brains about

_Dum vinum potamus_;

Lads, to Bacchus let us shout,

_Te Deum laudamus!_'

He fell a-coughing and was unable to finish. By this time it was dark,

and Giovanni could barely see his master's face. Outside it was still

raining, and the swollen and frequent drops plashed noisily in the

streaming courtyard below.

'Hear me, little monk,' stuttered Merula; 'what was it I was saying? My

wife is a handsome woman--no--that wasn't it. Have patience. Yes, I have

it now. You know the line: "_Tu regere imperio populos, Romane,

memento_." Ah! they were the giants, the lords of the universe!' Here

his voice shook, and Giovanni saw tears in his eyes. 'I repeat, giants.

While to-day--it is a scandal to speak it! but let us take this duke of

ours, Ludovico Il Moro, Duke of Milan. True it is I am paid by him, am

writing his history, am a sort of Titus Livius, and am comparing the

cowardly hare, the man of straw, to Pompey and to Cæsar; but in my soul,

Giovanni, in my soul'--He stopped, and glanced at the door with the

suspiciousness of a practised courtier; then bending closer to his

companion, he whispered, 'In the soul of old Merula the love of liberty

is not dead, and will never die. Repeat it not, but I tell you our times

are evil, evil as never before. And the men! it sickens me to see them;

rotten! mere clods of earth! And they curl up their noses, and think

themselves as the ancients. I would fain know what they are so proud of.

Hearken; an acquaintance of mine writes to me from Greece, that not many

weeks ago in the island of Chios, the convent washer-women as they were

beating the linen at dawn, found on the seashore--a god! a real ancient

god; a Triton with his fishy-tail, and fins, and scales. The silly fools

were affrighted and fled, thinking it the Devil. But when they saw him

weak and old, and it would seem sick, lying on his belly on the sand,

and warming his green scales in the sun, his hair grey, and his eyes dim

as those of a sucking babe, then they took courage, the cowardly

wretches! and came around him showering him with Christian prayers, and

beat him to death like a dog; he, the ancient deity, last of the mighty

gods of the ocean; it might be a scion of Poseidon himself!'

And the old man shook his head sorrowfully, and maudlin tears rolled

down his cheeks as he thought of the sea-monster done to death by

Christian laundresses. A servant entered bearing a candle, and closed

the shutters; with the darkness the pagan phantoms shrank away and

vanished. The pair were called to supper, but Merula was so heavy with

wine that they had to carry him to bed.

It was long before Boltraffio slept, and as he listened to the peaceful

snores of Messer Giorgio, he thought, as usual, of Leonardo da Vinci.

IV

Giovanni had been sent to Florence by his uncle, Oswald Ingrim, the

painter on glass (_magister a vitreis_), a German from Grätz, and pupil

of Johann Kirchheim, the famous Strasburg master. He was to buy certain

transparent and brilliant pigments which could be obtained only in the

Tuscan city, and were required by Ingrim for his work in Milan

Cathedral. The boy was the natural son of Reinold the lapidary, Oswald's

brother, and had got the name of Boltraffio from his Lombard mother,

whom Oswald asserted to be a shameless woman and the cause of his

brother's ruin. Brought up by his crabbed uncle, Giovanni was a lonely

and frightened child, reared on tales of unclean powers, demons, hags,

sorcerers, and were-wolves. His special horror was a certain demon

which, according to the North Italian tradition, appeared under the form

of a woman, and was called the 'White She-devil,' or the 'Mother of the

Snowy Eyebrow.' Yet even in his earliest infancy, when his uncle would

silence his sobs with threats of the _Diavolessa bianca_, the child felt

a curiosity mingling with his terror, a shrinking wish that some day he

might meet the white one face to face, and behold her countenance with

his own eyes.

When the boy was grown, Ingrim handed him over as pupil to Fra Benedetto

the sacred painter. This was a kind and simple-minded old man, who

taught that the first step in beginning a picture was to invoke God

Omnipotent and the beloved Virgin, St. Luke the first Christian painter,

and all the saints in Paradise; the second to put on the cloak of

charity, fear, patience, and obedience; the last, to temper his colours

with yelk of egg, and the juice from young fig-branches mixed with wine,

and to prepare his panels of old beechwood by rubbing them with the

ashes of bones--if possible the wing bones of capons. His precepts were

endless and minute: Giovanni soon learned the contemptuous phrase with

which he dismissed the colour known as Dragon's Blood. 'Let it lie;

'twill bring you no credit,' and Giovanni surmised that the same words

had been said by Fra Benedetto's teacher, and by the teacher of his

teacher before him. Constant was the smile of quiet pride with which

Benedetto initiated his pupil into the secrets of his art. For instance,

in the painting of youthful faces the eggs of urban hens were essential:

the rural hen laying an egg with a ruddy yelk only suited for the

delineation of countenances wrinkled and swarthy. Notwithstanding these

subtleties, Fra Benedetto was a painter simple and innocent as a child:

he prepared himself for work by fast and vigil; each time he depicted

the Crucifixion his face was bathed in tears.

Giovanni loved his master, and had considered him the first of painters;

this opinion had however been shaken of late. Fra Benedetto, expounding

his one anatomical rule, viz., that the length of a man's body must be

reckoned at eight faces and two-thirds, was used to add in the same

perfunctory tone in which he spoke of Dragon's Blood: 'As for the bodies

of women, we will not allude to them, for they have no proportions.'

This dogma was as much an article of faith with him as these others:

that all fish are dark-coloured above and bright below; or that men's

ribs are fewer than women's by reason of God's method in the creation of

Eve. For an allegorical representation of the elements, he drew a mole

to signify earth; a fish, water; a salamander, fire; a chameleon, air;

but, supposing the word 'chameleon' an augmentative of 'camel,' the

simple monk showed the fluid element as a colossal camel, its jaws

gaping alarmingly in its efforts to breathe. Nor were his remaining

notions more accurate. Doubts therefore crept into Giovanni's mind, and

a mutinous spirit, which Fra Benedetto called 'the devil of worldly

knowledge.' When, shortly before his journey to Florence, the lad

chanced to see certain drawings of Leonardo da Vinci's, his doubts grew

with such rapidity that he was no longer able to stifle them.

To-night, here in the Tuscan city, as he lay beside the

peacefully-snoring Messer Giorgio, he turned all this over in his mind

for the thousandth time; but the more he thought the more puzzled he

became. Then he resolved to invoke celestial aid, and full of hope,

raising his eyes to the impenetrable darkness of night, he prayed

thus:--

'Lord, help me and forsake me not. If Messer Leonardo be truly a godless

man, in whose skill lieth temptation and sin, rid me of the thought of

him; purge my mind of the memory of his drawings, and deliver me from

evil. But if, while pleasing Thee and glorifying Thy name in the noble

art of painting, it be yet possible to know all which is hidden from Fra

Benedetto, and which I am so fain to learn (such as anatomy,

perspective, and the laws of light and shade), then, O God, make strong

my will, and lighten my eyes, that I may doubt no more; and permit that

Messer Leonardo may receive me into his studio, and that Fra Benedetto

may grant me his pardon, and may know that I am in nowise guilty in Thy

sight.'

After this fervent prayer, Giovanni felt a balsam descend upon his

heart: little by little confusion came upon his thoughts; he fancied

himself back with his uncle, the glass-worker, and listening to the

hissing of the glass as the white-hot steel was plunged into it. He saw

the twisting of the leaden ribbons, which form the frames for the

several pieces of coloured glass: he heard the voice of Oswald

commanding more notches at the edge of the lead for the fixing of the

glass; then all vanished: he rolled to his other side and slept.

And a vision came to him, which in after years he often recalled to

mind. For he saw himself standing in the gloom of a vast cathedral, and

before a many-coloured, Gothic window. On it was depicted the vintage of

that mystic vine whereof the Saviour had said, 'My Father is the

husbandman.' The naked body of the Crucified lay in the winepress, blood

flowing from His wounds. Popes, cardinals, emperors were receiving it

into vats and casks. The Apostles were throwing in grapes; St. Peter was

treading them. In the background, prophets and patriarchs were trenching

the vineyard and pruning the vines. A waggon was passing, drawn by the

lion, the bull, and the eagle, driven by St. Matthew.

Such painted allegories Giovanni had seen in his uncle's workshop;

nowhere such colours, dark, yet with the gleam of jewels. Chiefly he

marvelled at the crimson of the Saviour's blood. From the depths of the

cathedral came the faint echoing of his favourite chant:--

'O fior di castitate,

Odorifero giglio

Con gran suavitate

Sei di color vermiglio.'

But the song died away, the window glowed no longer, and the harsh voice

of Antonio da Vinci shouted in his ear:--

'Flee! Flee for your life! _She_ cometh!'

Nor did he need to inquire who, for he knew the _Diavolessa bianca_ was

behind him. A waft of icy air; and then a heavy hand, not human, had

taken hold at his throat, and was choking him. He seemed to be dying,

cried out, and awoke--to see Messer Giorgio standing by his side and

dragging away the coverlet.

'Eh! pull yourself from your bed or they will depart without us. Arise!

the hour is already past,' cried the antiquarian.

'What! Whither?' stammered Giovanni, half-asleep.

'Whither? Can you forget? To the villa of San Gervaso, to dig at the

Hill of the Mill.'

'I go not thither.'

'You go not? What have I waked you for? Why have I bidden them saddle

the black mule that the two of us may travel at ease? A truce to this

stubbornness. Get up! Get up! Nay, then, a word in your ear, Giovannino:

Messer Leonardo will be there.'

Giovanni leaped to his feet, and without another word threw on his

clothes.

Presently they were in the courtyard, where all was ready for the start.

Grillo was running hither and thither advising and directing. At last

they set out. Other friends of Cipriano's, and among them Leonardo da

Vinci, were to meet them later, by another path to San Gervaso.

V

The rain was over, and the north wind had banished the clouds. Stars

scintillated in the moonless heaven, like little wind-blown lamps.

Resin-torches flared and fluttered, scattering sparks. The horsemen took

their way by the Via Ricasoli, past San Marco and the serrated gate of

San Gallo. Here the sentinels argued and swore, but were too sleepy to

perceive what was on foot; and presently egress was secured by a good

bribe. Outside the gate, the road followed the deep and narrow valley of

the Mugnone. After passing several meagre villages, where the streets

were even narrower than those in Florence, and the rough stone houses

were as tall as fortresses, the party emerged into an olive-grove owned

by the _contadini_ of San Gervaso. Dismounting at the junction of two

roads, they walked to the Hill of the Mill, hard by Messer Cipriano's

vineyard. Here men awaited them with spades and mattocks; and here,

behind the hill, beyond the marsh known as the Humid Hollow, the villa

walls showed shadowy white through the darkness of the trees. Tall

cypresses stood up black from the summit of the hill, and down below on

the Mugnone was the name-giving watermill.

Grillo signified where, to his thinking, they ought to dig; Merula

suggested another place; and Strocco, the gardener, swore they must go

lower down, much nearer to the Humid Hollow, because the devils always

hide themselves nearest to the slough. Cipriano, however, bade dig where

Grillo advised; the spades grated, and soon there was an odour of

new-dug earth. Giovanni shuddered, for a bat had brushed his face with

its weird pinions; but Merula clapped him on the shoulder, crying, 'Fear

nothing, little monk! we shall find no devil here. This Grillo is an

ass. Thank heaven, it's not the sort of excavation I'm used to. At Rome,

in the 45th Olympiad' (Merula scorned the Christian calendar), 'in the

days of Pope Innocent VIII., diggers from Lombardy, who were working on

the Appian Way close to the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, found an ancient

sarcophagus with the inscription, "Julia, daughter of Claudius," and in

it a body clothed in wax--a fair maid of fifteen, with the semblance of

one asleep. You would have sworn she breathed: the flush of life was on

her cheek. Multitudes flocked to the tomb and refused to leave it; for

such was Julia's beauty, as to be incredible to those who had not beheld

it. But it ill-suited the Pope that his children should adore a dead

heathen, and he caused the body to be interred secretly under the

Pincian Hill. Do you take me, lad? That was something like excavating!'

And Merula contemptuously kicked the clods which the diggers were

throwing up at his feet. Suddenly all the onlookers started, for a

jarring sound had come from one of the spades.

'Bones!' said the gardener; 'the ancient burying-place was here.'

At this moment the long-drawn howl of a dog was heard from San Gervaso,

and Giovanni thought, 'We are profaning a grave. May it prove nothing

worse!'

'Bones of a horse!' cried Strocco contemptuously, and dragged out a

mouldered, long-shaped skull.

'Grillo,' said Messer Cipriano anxiously, 'were it not better we tried

elsewhere?'

'Did I not say so?' cried Merula; and taking two of the workmen with him

he began new operations at the base of the hill. Strocco also had

detached a party to dig in the Humid Hollow.

Presently excited shouts were heard from Messer Giorgio.

'Hither all ye simpletons! Did not I know where ye should dig?'

All ran to his side; but again the treasure proved naught; the great

man's marble fragment was only an ordinary stone. They had all deserted

Grillo, who, openly humiliated, was digging alone by the light of a

broken lantern.

The wind had fallen and the air grew warmer: out of the Humid Hollow

exhaled a mist. The breath of primroses and violets mingled with the

dankness of stagnant water. Dawn was in the sky, and the cocks crowed

for the second time, signal of the departing of night.

Suddenly from the depths of the pit in which Grillo was concealed there

arose a despairing yell.

'Help! Help! I am falling! The ground has given way!'

His lantern was extinguished, and at first nothing could be seen. He was

heard struggling and panting, groaning and moaning. Lights were fetched,

and disclosed the roof of a subterranean vault broken through by

Grillo's weight. Two lads crept into the hole.

'Eh, Grillo! Where are you? Give us your hand! or are you buried alive,

poor fool?'

But Grillo seemed to have lost his voice. Heedless of a sprained arm, he

dragged himself along, kicking and struggling most strangely. At last he

burst into an ecstasy:--

'An idol! An idol! Hasten, Messer Cipriano! 'tis a magnificent idol!'

'Idiot,' said Strocco, 'you have got the head of another horse.'

'I tell you, No! There is but a hand missing. The rest is perfect--feet,

head, shoulders!' shouted Grillo beside himself.

Then the labourers descended into the pit, carefully turning over the

brickwork ruins. Giovanni, stretched on the ground, looked down into the

vault, from which came the chill of a grave, and the mouldy breath of

long-covered damp.

Messer Cipriano bade the men stand aside, and Giovanni could see in the

profundity between the walls of ancient red brick, a white and naked

body which lay like a corpse upon a bier, yet in the flaring of the

torchlight seemed rosy and warm with life.

'Venus!' cried Messer Giorgio: 'As I live, the Venus of Praxiteles! I

cry you honour, friend Cipriano! Not the dukedoms of Milan or Genoa

could bring you greater felicity!'

As for Grillo, they dug him out; and though his face was clotted with

blood, and his arm had swelled into uselessness, in his old eyes shone

the pride of a conqueror.

'Grillo! friend! beloved! benefactor! And I scorned you for a fool: and

you--you are the cleverest of men!' cried Messer Giorgio, and falling

into his arms he kissed him with deep emotion.

'Once,' he continued garrulously, 'Filippo Brunelleschi found a Hermes

in just such a vault under his own house. Doubtless the pagans, knowing

the value of these statues, hid them from the fury of the Christians,

who were exterminating the old worship.'

Grillo listened, smiling beatifically, inattentive to the pipe of the

shepherd and the bleating of sheep. He saw not that the sky shone now

with a white and watery brilliance, nor knew that from Florence the

belfries were exchanging their morning salutation.

'Gently! gently! To the right there! So! Keep it out from the wall!'

cried Messer Cipriano. 'Five silver pieces to each, if you can get it

out without breakage.'

By this time the stars had all disappeared with the exception of the orb

of Venus, which still sparkled like a diamond in the glow of day. And

slowly, slowly, with her ineffable smile, the goddess herself arose--as

once she had risen from the foam of the sea, so now she ascended from

her millennial tomb in the darkness of the earth:--

'Glory to thee, golden-limbed Aphrodite,

Delight of the gods and of mortals ...'

declaimed Merula.

But Giovanni saw her face blanched in the illumination of the white

sunlight; and himself paling with terror, the boy murmured, '_La

Diavolessa bianca!_'

He rose up and would have fled; but wonder overcame his fear. Not though

he had known himself guilty of the mortal sin which is punished with

eternal fire, could he have torn his gaze from that chaste and naked

body, from that countenance flaming with the effulgence of beauty. Never

in the days when Aphrodite was queen of the world had any worshipped her

with devouter trembling.

VI

Suddenly from the little church of San Gervaso the bells rang out, and

the whole company turned and involuntarily paused in their work, for in

the morning stillness the sound seemed irate and menacing.

'Lord have mercy on our souls!' murmured Grillo, putting his hand to his

head with a despairing gesture. 'Here is Don Faustino, and a multitude

with him! They have seen us! Look how they beat their hands and beckon.

See, they rush upon us! I am a lost man!'

At this moment arrived those friends of Messer Cipriano's, who had

intended to have been present for the excavation, but who had lost their

way. Boltraffio threw a glance at them, and, absorbed though he still

was in the new-found goddess, his attention was caught on the instant by

one of the newcomers. This personage was already inspecting the Venus,

with a cold, imperturbable composure, so different from Giovanni's

personal agitation, that the lad could not but be struck with

astonishment. He continued to gaze at the statue, but his consciousness

now was entirely for the man by his side.

'Hearken!' said Messer Cipriano after a few moments' thought, 'the villa

is not two paces distant, and the doors are strong enough for a siege.'

'Yea, verily,' cried Grillo; 'courage, brothers, we shall save her!' He

felt jealous for the image which had cost him so much, and directing the

operations himself, he contrived to get it safely transported across the

Humid Hollow. Then the statue was borne into the house; but scarcely had

it crossed the threshold, when on the hill-top appeared the threatening

figure, inflamed countenance and brandished arms of Don Faustino.

The lower part of the villa was at present uninhabited, and its great

hall was used as a storehouse for agricultural implements and great jars

of olive-oil: in one corner was a mountain of golden straw. Upon this

straw, a humble, rustic bed, Aphrodite was delicately laid to rest. But

this was no sooner accomplished and the doors barred than the latter

were assailed by blows, by shouts, and by curses loud and deep.

'Open! Open!' cried the cracked voice of Don Faustino; 'in the name of

the true and living God, I bid you open!'

Messer Cipriano mounted the stone inner staircase and surveyed the crowd

from a grated window above the hall. Seeing that the assailants were

few, he entered into parley, his face wearing his customary smile. But

the priest put his fingers in his ears, and vociferously demanded the

idol--so he named it--which had been dug out of the ground.

The Master of the Calimala now had recourse to a _ruse de guerre_.

'Beware,' he said calmly; 'I have summoned the captain of the town

guard, and in two hours the horsemen will be on you. I allow none to

enter my house by force.'

'Break down the door,' cried the priest. 'God is with us. Fear nothing!

Assault!' And snatching an axe from a gentle-faced old peasant beside

him, he battered upon the great door with all his strength.

'Don Faustino! Don Faustino!' cried the old man, feebly restraining the

furious ecclesiastic, 'we are poor folk, and we do not dig up money in

our fields. This will be our ruin; they will have us to prison!'

The mention of the redoubtable town guard had struck terror into the

rabble; and many were already deserting.

'If it had been on the church-ground, 'twere another matter,' muttered

some of them.

'The confines established by law----'

'The law? A spider's web, set to catch flies, not hornets. The law does

not exist for great folk.'

'True for you. And every man is master on his own land.'

All this time Giovanni was gazing at the rescued Venus.

The sunshine pouring through a side window seemed waking the tender body

to warmth and softness after its long imprisonment in the gloom and the

chill of the vault; the golden straw surrounding it shone like an

aureole.

Giovanni once more noted the stranger. He was on his knees beside the

statue, measuring it with his compasses, his square, and a half-circle

made of copper; on his face was the same imperturbable calm; in his

cold, blue eyes the same piercing curiosity.

'What is he doing? Who is he?' Giovanni asked himself, almost awestruck,

as he watched the quick, bold fingers exploring the limbs of the

goddess, the secrets of her beauty, all the subtleties of the marble,

too delicate for the apprehension of the eye.

At the gate of the villa the priest was still heard yelling at the

melting crowd.

'Stay, rascals! Sellers of Christ! fearful of the town guard, but

careless of Antichrist! _Ipse vero Antichristus opes malorum effodiet et

exponet_, as said the great preacher St. Anselm of Canterbury.

_Effodiet_, hear you? Antichrist shall dig up the old idols from the

earth and again bring them forth to the world.'

But none heeded him.

'He is a pestilent fellow, this Don Faustino of ours!' said the prudent

miller shaking his head; 'his life hangs by a thread, yet see how he

storms. For my part, I rejoice they have found the treasure.'

'They say the image is of silver.'

'Silver? Nay, I saw it myself, and 'tis of marble; naked and shameless.'

'Lord forgive us! Are we to soil our hands for such rubbish as that?'

'Whither art going, Zacchello?'

'To the field; to my work.'

'God go with you! And I'll to the vineyard.'

At this all the fury of the priest was let loose on his parishioners.

'Infidel dogs, abortions of Cain! would you abandon your pastor? Know ye

not, spawn of Satan, that did I not pray for you day and night, and beat

my breast with weeping and fasting, your whole sinful village would long

ere this have been sunk into the earth? But it is ended! I leave you,

shaking off the dust from my feet. Cursed be the land! Cursed the corn

and the water and the flocks; and your sons and your sons' sons. I am

your father, your shepherd no more. I renounce you! Anathema!'

VII

In the restored calm of the villa, where the goddess lay on her golden

bed, Giorgio Merula went up to the stranger who was still measuring.

'You are studying the proportions of divinity?' said the scholar

patronisingly: 'You would reduce beauty to mathematics?'

The other raised his eyes for an instant; then silently, as if he had

not heard the question, continued his work. The compasses contracted and

expanded, describing geometrical figures; quietly and firmly the

stranger put the angle measure to the fair lips of Aphrodite--lips whose

smile had struck terror into Giovanni's heart--reckoned the result, and

set it in a note-book.

'Pardon my curiosity,' insisted Merula, 'how many divisions are there?'

'This is a rough measurement,' said the unknown, unwillingly; 'generally

I divide the human face into degrees, minutes, seconds and thirds, each

division being the twelfth part of the preceding one.'

'Say you so?' cried Merula, 'meseems the last subdivision must be less

than the finest hair.'

'A third,' explained the other still grudgingly, 'is 1/48823 of the

whole face.'

Merula lifted his eyebrows with an incredulous smile. 'Well, we live and

learn. I never thought it were possible to reach such accuracy.'

'The more accurate the better,' returned his companion.

'Truly it may be so; yet, you know, in Art, in Beauty, all these

mathematical calculations--What artist in the glow of enthusiasm, of

fiery inspiration, breathed upon by God----'

'Yes, yes,' assented the unknown, evidently wearied; 'none the less I am

anxious to know----'

And stooping he measured the distance from the roots of the hair to the

chin.

'To know?' thought Giovanni. 'Can one _know_ these matters? Folly! Does

he not _feel_? understand?'

Merula, anxious to probe the other to the quick, talked on of the

ancients, and how they should be imitated. The stranger waited till he

had concluded, then said, smiling into his long golden beard:--

'He who can drink from the fountain will not drink from the cup.'

'By your leave!' shouted the scholar, 'if you call the ancients a cup,

whom do you call the fountain?'

'Nature,' said the unknown quietly.

And Merula presumptuously and provokingly continuing to prate, he

disputed no further, but assented with evasive politeness. Only in his

cold eyes weariness and reserve became more manifest. At last Messer

Giorgio, having come to the end of his argument, was reduced to silence.

Then the other pointed out certain depressions in the marble, which in

no light could be detected by the sight, yet were plain to the touch as

the hand moved over the smooth surface. '_Moltissime dolcezze_,' he

called them; and then his eye travelled over the figure, as if in one

look he would possess himself of its sum.

'And I who thought he did not feel!' said Giovanni to himself. 'Yet if

he feels, how can he measure and split it up into numbers? Who is he,

Messer Giorgio?' he whispered; 'tell me the name of this man?'

'Ha, little monk! is it you?' said Merula turning round; 'I had forgot

you. Nay, but it is your idol: can it be that you knew him not? It is

Messer Leonardo da Vinci.'

And the historian presented Giovanni to the Master.

VIII

Through the perfect stillness of early morning in the early spring, when

the grass shone emerald between the black olive-roots and the blue

iris-flowers were motionless on their slender stems, Giovanni and

Leonardo, he on horseback, the lad on foot, returned together to

Florence.

'Is this really he?' thought Giovanni, watching him and finding his

minutest gesture interesting.

He was over forty. When silent and pensive his small, keen, pale-blue

eyes, under overhanging golden eyebrows, seemed cold and piercing; yet

when he talked they took an expression of great good nature. The long,

fair beard and curling and luxuriant hair gave him an air of majesty. He

was tall and powerful in build, yet his face had a subtle charm which

was almost feminine, and his thin high voice, though pleasant, was not

manly. His hand, reining a restive steed, was very strong, yet it also

was delicate, with long, slender fingers like a woman's.

They were nearing the town walls; and the misty morning sun shone upon

the dome of the cathedral, and the quaint tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.

'This is my opportunity,' thought Boltraffio. 'I must tell him I would

fain enter his studio as a pupil.'

Just then Leonardo checked his horse and fixed his eyes on a young

falcon circling slowly and easily in the air above its quarry--some duck

or heron in the reeds of the Mugnone's bank. Presently, with a short

cry, it dropped headlong, like a stone, swooping down from the height

and disappearing behind the trees. Leonardo had followed it with his

gaze, not losing a single turn, a movement, a flap of the strong wings;

then he took his note-book from his girdle and jotted down the result of

his observation.

Boltraffio noticed that he held the pencil in his left hand; and

remembered strange tales he had heard of his writing in a mysterious

reversed hand only to be read in a mirror, from right to left, as men

write in the East. Some said he wrote thus to make an enigma of his

wicked heretical opinions about nature and about God.

'Now or never!' Giovanni was saying to himself; but all at once

Antonio's harsh words flashed across his mind: '"Go to him if you would

lose your soul: he is a sinner and an atheist."'

Smiling, Leonardo drew his attention to an almond-tree, on the crest of

a bare, wind-swept hill, very small, very feeble, very solitary, yet

already hopeful and joyous, and decking itself with pale blossoms, which

gleamed and glistened against the azure of the sunlit sky.

Boltraffio could not admire it, for his heart was heavy and perplexed.

Then Leonardo, as if guessing at his disquietude, spoke gentle words

which the young man remembered long afterwards.

'If you wish to be an artist, put away all grief and care from your

mind, save that for art itself. Let your soul be as a mirror reflecting

all objects, all colours, all movements, but itself remaining ever clear

and unmoved.'

They passed in through the gates of Florence.

IX

Boltraffio went to the cathedral, where that morning Fra Girolamo

Savonarola was to preach. As he entered, the last notes of the organ

were dying away under the resounding arches of Santa Maria del Fiore.

The throng had filled the church with suffocating heat and with the low

rustlings of unceasing small movements. Men, women, and children were

separated from each other by drawn curtains. Under the arches, slender

and narrow like arrow-heads, deep gloom and mystery reigned as in a

sleeping forest. The rays of sunlight, refracted by brilliantly coloured

glass, fell in rainbow hues upon the congregation and upon the grey

marble of the pillars. The semi-darkness surrounding the altar was

broken by the glare of candles. Mass was over and the crowd was awaiting

the preacher. All looks were fixed on the wooden pulpit.

Giovanni found a place in the crowd and listened to the whisperings of

his neighbours.

'Will he come soon?' was asked impatiently by a carpenter of low

stature, with a pale perspiring face and lank hair bound by a fillet.

'God knows!' responded a tinker, big and red-faced, but asthmatic. 'He

has with him at San Marco a certain little brother named Marufi, with a

hunchback and a stammering tongue, and 'tis he chooses the hour for his

coming. We waited four hours once, and had thought there would be no

preaching, yet in the end he came.'

'_Santo Dio Benedetto!_ And I have waited since midnight! I am blind for

sleep and for want of a crumb in my mouth. I could sit down upon

knives!'

'Did I not tell thee, Damiano, 'twas matter of patience? Even now we are

so far from the pulpit we shall hear naught.'

'Eh! We shall hear well enough. When he falls to at his shouting and his

thundering, not the deaf only but the very dead must needs hear.'

'They say now, that he prophesies.'

'Not yet! Not till he has built Noah's Ark.'

'He has built it; to the last plank. Yea, and made a parabolic

description thereof. Its length, Faith; its breadth; Charity; its

altitude, Hope. Haste, he says, haste to the Ark of Salvation, while

the doors stand wide. The day cometh when the doors will be put to, and

then many shall weep that they have not repented and have not come in

time to enter within. To-day he preaches of the Flood, the seventeenth

verse of the sixth chapter of the book of Genesis.'

'They say he has had another vision, War, Pestilence!'

'The horsedealer in Vallombrosa said that a night or two agone great

hosts fought in the sky over the city, and one could hear the clash of

swords and the dinting of armour.'

'And it is a certainty, good folk, that on the _Nunziata_ in the Chiesa

dei Servi has been seen a bloody sweat.'

'Go to! And tears run nightly from the Madonna on the Rubaconte bridge.

Lucia, my aunt, saw it herself!'

'And it means no good, rest assured. The Lord have mercy on us,

miserable sinners!'

Meanwhile, among the women, there was a disturbance. An old woman

fainted, and when lifted up, still did not recover her senses. The whole

multitude indeed was worn by the interminable waiting; the pale

carpenter seemed unable to sustain himself longer.

But suddenly a wave stirred the sea of heads, and a whisper ran through

the church.

'He is coming!'

'Nay, 'tis not he, 'tis Fra Domenico da Pescia.'

'I tell you, yea, 'tis he! He has come.'

Giovanni saw a man in the black and white Dominican habit girdled with a

rope, who slowly ascended the pulpit-stair and removed his cowl. His

face was emaciated and yellow as wax, his lips thick, his nose aquiline,

his forehead low. His left hand fell weakly on the desk, his right he

raised clutching the crucifix; and silently with burning eyes he looked

upon the trembling and expectant crowd. Profound silence reigned, in

which each man could hear the beating of his own heart. The eyes of the

monk glowed increasingly, till they were like fiery coals; but he still

kept silence, and the strain of waiting became unendurable. It seemed

that in another moment the crowd would burst into screams.

Yet the calm became deeper, more awful; till suddenly, rending the

silence, came the terrible, lacerating, superhuman cry of the friar:--

'_Ecce ego adduco aquas super terram_, Behold I bring a Flood upon the

earth!'

A shudder passed through the crowd, raising the hair from the head.

Giovanni paled; he fancied the earth quaking, the cathedral arches about

to fall. Beside him the stalwart tinker was shaking like a leaf, his

teeth chattering. The head of the feeble carpenter had sunk backward on

his shoulders as if he had received a blow, his face was shrivelled, his

eyelids closed.

What followed was not a sermon but a delirium, which took hold of these

thousands of people and shook them as a storm shakes the withered

leaves. Giovanni listened, scarcely understanding. Detached phrases

reached his ear:--

'See ye, see how the heavens have already darkened; the sun is purple,

like clotted blood. Flee! Hide yourselves! There cometh even now a rain

of brimstone and fire; a hail of fiery stones and thunderbolts. _Fuge O

Sion quae habitas apud filiam Babylonis!_ O Italy, chastisement cometh

upon chastisement. After pestilence, war; and hunger after war! Judgment

is here, judgment is there! Everywhere there is judgment. Among you the

living suffice not to carry the dead. The dead in your houses shall be

so many that the grave-diggers shall call to you to throw them out, and

shall heap them on carts, yea, to the very necks of the horses, and

shall throw them one upon the other and burn them. And then again they

shall go through the streets and cry, "Who has any dead? Who has any

dead?" And you will answer them: "I throw to you my son, I throw to you

my brother, I throw to you my husband!" And then they shall go further,

and always they shall cry: "Bring forth your dead! bring forth your

dead!" O Florence! O Rome! O Italy! Past is the time of songs and of

feasting; ye are sickened unto death. Lord, Thou art witness, that with

my words I would have averted this ruin! But I can no more. I have no

words more. I can but weep, and run over with my tears. Mercy! Mercy! O

merciful Lord! Alas! my poor people! Alas! my Florence!'

He opened his arms, and the last words had sunk to a scarcely audible

whisper. They passed over the crowd and died away, like the rustle of

wind in the leaves--a sigh of infinite pity.

Pressing his white lips on the crucifix, he knelt and burst into sobs.

The sermon was ended. The slow, heavy organ-notes rolled out, persuasive

and immense, increasingly solemn and terrible, like the sound of the

mighty ocean.

A woman's voice cried _'Misericordia!_'

And thousands of voices answered, calling one to another; and like corn

stalks bowing before the wind, the people fell upon their knees, line

upon line, wave upon wave, crowding upon, striking against each other,

like a flock of sheep panic-struck at the advance of a storm; and the

long, agonising wail of penitents upon whom pressed the terror of

immediate ruin, rose to Heaven, mingling with the pealing of music,

shaking the ground, the marble pillars, and the vaults of the cathedral.

'_Misericordia! Misericordia!_'

Giovanni also sank to his knees, sobbing. The tall tinker rolled against

him, breathing hard; the pale carpenter caught his breath and cried like

a child, moaning--

'_Misericordia!_'

And Boltraffio remembered his pride, and his love of life, his desire to

escape from Fra Benedetto, and to give himself up to the dangerous arts

of Messer Leonardo, the enemy of God; he recalled the past fearful night

on the Hill of the Mill, the recovered Venus, his sinful enthusiasm for

the heathen beauty of the 'White She-devil'; stretching forth his hands

to heaven, he mingled his voice with that of the despairing crowd, and

cried--

'Lord! Lord! have compassion on me! I have sinned before thee. Pardon,

and have mercy.'

At that moment, raising his face, wet with tears, he saw at his side the

tall, upright form of Leonardo da Vinci. The artist, leaning carelessly

against a column, held in his right hand his unfailing sketch-book; with

his left he was drawing; now and then he glanced at the pulpit as if

hoping to see once more the head of the preacher.

A stranger, and surrounded by the terrified crowd, Leonardo maintained a

superb composure. In his cool, blue eyes, on his thin lips, tightly

compressed like those of a man of minute observation, there was the same

aloofness and curiosity with which he had mathematically measured the

body of the Aphrodite. At sight of him the tears dried in Giovanni's

eyes, and the prayer was silenced upon his lips.

Leaving the church he followed the artist and asked permission to see

his sketch. Leonardo demurred, but presently handed the boy his

sketch-book. And Giovanni saw a frightful caricature; not Savonarola,

but an old and hideous devil in the dress of a monk, like the preacher

indeed, but as if disfigured by self-inflicted and torturing penance,

his pride and his desires still unsubdued. The lower jaw protruded,

wrinkles intersected the cheek, the neck was twisted and black as a

mummy's, the bushy, beetling brows, the rabid glance scarce preserved a

semblance of humanity. All that was dark, terrible, and superstitious,

all which gave Savonarola into the power of the deformed, tongue-tied

visionary Marufi, was expressed by Leonardo in this sketch; brought out

with neither anger nor pity, but with an imperturbable and impartial

clear-sightedness.

And Giovanni remembered his words: '_L'ingegno dell' pittore vuol essere

a similitudine dello specchio_. The genius of the painter should be as a

mirror, reflecting all objects, and colours, and movements, itself ever

transparent and serene.'

The pupil of Benedetto raised his eyes to the artist's face, and felt

that though threatened by eternal damnation, though he were to find in

Messer Leonardo a veritable servant of Antichrist, yet to leave him had

become impossible; an irresistible force was drawing him to this man;

woe unto him if he failed to penetrate into the very depths of this

being and of his art.

X

Two days later, Messer Cipriano having been detained by affairs in

Florence, and unable to arrange for the transport of the Venus, Grillo

burst in upon him with most unwelcome tidings. Don Faustino, it seemed,

had left San Gervaso and betaken himself to San Maurizio, the

neighbouring village. Here, having terrified the people with talk of the

chastisement of Heaven, he had collected a party by night, besieged the

villa, broken in the doors, thrashed Strocco the gardener, who had been

left in charge of the statue, and bound him hand and foot. Then the

priest had recited over the goddess an ancient prayer called '_Oratio

super effigies vasaque in loco antiqua reperta_,' in which the servant

of the Church asks God to purify all statuary, vessels, and other

objects dug out of the ground, and to convert them to the profit of

Christian souls, to the glory of the Trinity, '_ut, omni immunditia

depulsa, sint fidelibus tuis utenda per Christum dominum nostrum_.' Then

they broke up the statue of the goddess, cast the fragments into a

furnace, made of them a cement, and with it daubed the new-raised wall

of the village cemetery.

As he told this tale the old man wept for grief. But the event helped

Giovanni Boltraffio to a decision. That very day he presented himself

before Messer Leonardo and begged to be received as a pupil. Leonardo

accepted him.

A little later, tidings were brought to Florence that Charles VIII.,

Most Christian King of France, had taken the field with a countless host

for the conquering of the Two Sicilies, and probably also of Rome and

Florence. Panic spread among the citizens. They perceived that the

prophecy of Savonarola was being fulfilled. Punishment was at their

door! The sword of the Lord was drawn upon Italy!