LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO, AND RAPHAEL--1513-1515
_La pazienza fa contra alle ingiurie non altrimenti che si faccino
i panni contra del freddo; imperò che, se ti multiplicherai di
panni secondo la multiplicazione del freddo, esso freddo nocere non
ti potrà; similmente alle grandi ingiurie cresci la pazienza, essa
ingiurie offendere non ti potranno la tua mente._--LEONARDO DA
VINCI.
(Patience acts against insults as garments act against cold. With
the doubling of your misfortunes, put on a double cloak of
endurance.)
I
Pope Leo X., true to the traditions of the house of the Medici, posed as
patron of art and learning. When he heard of his own election he said to
his brother:--
'Let us _enjoy_ the papal power, since God has conceded it to us!'
And Fra Mariano, his favourite jester added:--
'Seek your own pleasure, Holy Father! All else is folly.'
The pope surrounded himself with poets, musicians, painters, and
scholars. A golden age had dawned for imitative men of letters, who had
one unassailable article of faith, the perfection of Cicero's prose and
of Virgil's poetry.
The shepherds of Christ's flock avoided the mention of His name, because
it was a word unknown to Cicero's _Orations_. They called nuns, vestals;
the Holy Ghost, the Inspiration of the Supreme Jove; and they requested
the Pope to include Plato in the roll of saints. Bembo, a future
cardinal, owned that he did not read the Epistles of Paul (he called
them _Epistolaccie_) lest he should spoil his style. When Francis I.
asked for the Laocoön, Leo X. replied that he would sooner give him the
head of Peter the Apostle.
The pope loved his scholars and artists, his poets and pedants; but
above all he loved his jesters. He solemnly crowned Cuerno, the
celebrated rhymster and drunkard, and was no less liberal to him than to
Raphael. He spent huge sums on feasts, though he ate sparingly himself,
being afflicted with a weak digestion, and an incurable purulent
disease; and his soul was no less sick than his body, for he suffered
from continual _ennui_.
* * * * *
When Leonardo first presented himself at the Vatican he was told that
his only hope of obtaining audience of His Holiness was to declare
himself a buffoon. He did not follow this good advice, and failed of
admission time and again. Of late he had experienced strange forebodings
which he tried to put from him as senseless and absurd. It was not
anxiety as to his affairs which oppressed him; nor was it his failure to
gain adequate recognition from Leo X. or Giuliano de' Medici. He had
been too long used to annoyances of this kind. But his vague disquiet,
his ominous apprehension, continually increased; till one radiant autumn
evening, as he was returning from the Vatican, his heart sank, under the
pressure of imminent catastrophe.
He was living in the same house where he had lived during his former
visit to Rome; one of the small detached buildings behind St. Peter's,
which had belonged to the Papal Mint. It was old and gloomy, and having
been unoccupied for several years was exceedingly damp. He entered a
large vaulted apartment with cracks on walls and ceiling, and windows
overshadowed by the wall of the adjoining house.
In the corner sat Astro the imbecile, his feet drawn up under him, his
hands busy whittling sticks, while he purred his monotonous lullaby--
Cucurlu, curlu!
Eagles and cranes
Up they flew!
Leonardo's anxiety perceptibly increased.
'What's the matter, Astro?' he asked kindly, laying his hand on the
cripple's head.
'Nothing,' said Astro, with a curious look of intelligence, 'nothing
with me. It's Giovanni. But it's all the better for him. He has flown
away.'
'Giovanni? Where is Giovanni?' cried Leonardo, suddenly realising that
his forebodings had centred on this unhappy disciple. 'Astro! I implore
you, my friend, try to remember! Where is Giovanni? I must see him at
once. Where is he? What has happened?'
'Don't you understand?' muttered Astro, vainly seeking for the right
words. 'He is up there--he has escaped--flown away. You don't
understand? I will show you then. It is better for him to have flown
away.'
He rolled himself to his feet and shuffled along on his crutches,
leading his master up the creaking stair to the attic, where the sun
burned hot on the tiled roof, and the sunset rays shone upon the
dormer-window. As they entered, startled pigeons fluttered their wings
noisily and flew away.
'There he is,' said Astro, simply, and pointed to a dark corner.
Leonardo saw the figure of Giovanni, apparently standing, very erect and
quite motionless, his widely opened eyes staring fixedly straight before
him. 'Giovanni!' cried Leonardo, with shaking voice, a cold sweat
bursting out on his forehead.
He drew nearer; saw that the face was strangely distorted; touched the
nerveless hand, and felt it cold. The body oscillated heavily to and
fro. Giovanni had hanged himself from an iron hook lately inserted for
mechanical purposes into the cross beam; and by means of a strong silken
cord, one of the attachments of the flying machine.
Astro had fallen back into his torpor, and was looking serenely out of
the window. The house stood high, and commanded a view of the tiled
roofs, the domes and towers of Rome, of the Campagna spreading like a
sea, traversed by long lines of ruined aqueducts, of the hills of Albano
and Frascati, of the clear sky where the swallows swooped and circled.
Astro watched them, and smiled, and waved his arms joyously as if
imitating their flight.
Cucurlu!
Up they flew!
Curlu!
he crooned contentedly.
Leonardo stood, still as a stone, between his two disciples, the
imbecile and the suicide.
* * * * *
A few days later he found Giovanni's diary and read it attentively.
'The white witch!' always and everywhere! May she be accursed. The last
mystery: two shall be in one. Christ and Antichrist are one. The heaven
above--the heaven below!
'No! No! This shall not, must not be! Rather, death!'
'Into thy hands I commit my spirit, O God! Be thou my Judge!'
There came an abrupt end to the entries. Leonardo understood that these
words had been penned on the day of the writer's suicide.
II
After the death of Giovanni, Leonardo wearied of his life in Rome.
Uncertainty, waiting, forced inaction enervated him. His usual
occupations, his books, machines, experiments, paintings failed in
interest.
Leo X. had not yet found time to receive him, nor to give him the order
for a painting. However, he set the artist to the mechanical task of
perfecting the coining mill for the Papal Mint. Leonardo despised no
work, however humble; he did what was required, and devised new
machinery, by means of which the coins, uneven and jagged before, were
cut perfectly true. The artist was at this time overwhelmed with debts,
and the greater part of his salary went in the payment of the interest
on his borrowings. But for the generosity of Francesco Melzi, who had
inherited property from his father, he would have been in extreme want.
In the summer of 1514 he was attacked by the malaria. It was his first
serious illness. He refused doctors and medicines, but allowed Francesco
to wait upon him. Every day he became more attached to this lad, and
felt that God had sent him a guardian angel, a prop for his old age. Men
seemed to be forgetting him, but from time to time he made attempts to
remind them of his existence. From his sick-bed he wrote to Giuliano de'
Medici with striving after the fashionable compliments which did not
come easily to his lips or pen.
III
After much rain the end of November brought sunny days, never so
beautiful as in Rome, where the decaying splendour of autumn harmonises
well with the ruined glories of the Eternal City.
One morning Leonardo went with Francesco to see the Sistine Chapel and
the frescoes of Michelangelo; a visit long purposed, but deferred as if
from a secret sense of fear.
The chapel is a long, narrow, very lofty building, with plain walls and
Gothic windows. Buonarroti had covered the ceiling and arches with
biblical scenes. Leonardo looked, and staggered, as if faint; whatever
his secret expectation, he had never thought to behold such potency of
art.
In face of the colossal figures, sublime as the visions of delirium--the
God of Sabaoth dividing light from darkness in the bosom of Chaos,
blessing the waters and plants, creating Adam from the earth, and Eve
from Adam's rib--in face of the representations of the Fall, the
Redemption and all the incidents of Scripture history; in face of the
beautiful nude youths, spirits of the elements accompanying the tragedy
of the Universe, the conflict of God and Man, with eternal dancing and
song; prophets and sibyls, terrible giants that seemed weighed down with
more than human wisdom and with more than human woe; the ancestors of
the Messiah, a long file of obscure patriarchs passing on from one to
the other the purposeless burden of life, awaiting in darkness the
coming of the unknown Redeemer;--in face of these stupendous creations
of his rival Leonardo did not measure, nor compare nor judge; he felt
himself and his work annihilated.
He enumerated his own productions; the _Cenacolo_, which was perishing,
the Colossus, which had been destroyed, the 'Battle of Anghiari,' and an
endless number of other unfinished paintings; a succession of vain
endeavours, ridiculous failures, inglorious defeats. He had spent his
life in beginning, intending, making ready; he had achieved nothing. Why
deceive himself? It was too late now; he would never accomplish
anything. His life had been expended in incredible labour; yet now at
its close he felt like the slothful servant in the parable who had
buried his talent in the earth.
Yet he was conscious that he had aimed at something higher than this
other man; to Michelangelo all was turmoil, chaos; Leonardo had seen,
and had tried to show, the eternal harmony. He remembered Monna Lisa's
parable of the mighty wind, and of the still small voice where the Lord
was; he felt that she had discerned a truth, that sooner or later the
human mind would return to the path he had shown, the path from discord
to harmony, from division to unity, from storm to quietness. The
consciousness of how entirely right he had been in theory made still
more painful to him, the consciousness of impotence in action.
They left the chapel in silence. Francesco ventured no questions; but he
fancied that the Master had suddenly aged, had become feeble and broken.
Years had apparently passed since they had entered the chapel.
Crossing the Piazza of St. Peter's, they went by the Borgo Nuovo towards
the bridge of St. Angelo. Leonardo was thinking of another rival whom he
had perhaps no less reason to fear, Raphael Sanzio. He had seen the
young painter's newly finished frescoes in the Stanze of the Vatican,
and had felt unable to decide whether the greatness of the execution
were not equalled by the poverty of the conception, the perfection of
eye and hand by the servile flattery of the princes of this world.
Julius II. had dreamed of expelling the French from Italy; therefore
Raphael had shown him watching the expulsion of Heliogabalus from the
profaned temple of the most high God. Leo X. posed as a great orator;
therefore Raphael celebrated him in the person of Leo the Great, warning
Attila to retreat from Rome. He had been taken prisoner by the French
and had escaped; Raphael represented this by the miraculous deliverance
of St. Peter. Thus he degraded his art into the nauseous incense of a
courtier's flattery.
This stranger from Urbino, this dreamy youth with the face of a sinless
angel, had managed his mundane affairs to the best advantage. He painted
the stables of Chigi the banker; made designs for the table-service of
gold which, after the entertaining of the Holy Father, the banker threw
into the Tiber, that it might never be used by any one less illustrious.
The 'fortunate boy,' as Francia called the young painter, acquired fame
and wealth as if by play. He disarmed his worst enemies by kindliness;
he was what he appeared to be, the friend of all. In everything he
succeeded. The gifts of Fortune dropped unsought into his hands. He
replaced Bramante on the architectural conclave for the building of the
new cathedral; Cardinal Bibbiena offered him his niece in marriage; it
was said he had been promised a cardinal's hat. He built a dainty
mansion in the Borgo, and furnished it with regal splendour. His
ante-chamber was crowded with official personages, and with envoys from
abroad, who either wanted their portraits painted, or desired to take
home some specimen of the great man's art. He was overwhelmed with
patrons and refused new ones. They insisted. Time was wanting to execute
his innumerable orders, and many of his pictures were chiefly painted by
his pupils. His studio became a factory where such skilful workmen as
Giulio Romano turned canvas and paint into ready-money with amazing
facility. He himself apparently desisted from the search after
perfection, and was content with popularity. He served the people, and
they accepted him enthusiastically as their chosen, their beloved, bone
of their bone, flesh of their flesh, the incarnation of their own
spirit.
The worst of it was, that in his fall he was still great; a seduction
not only to the vulgar herd, but also to the elect. He seemed unspoiled
by the glittering baubles showered on him by Fortune. He remained
innocent and pure. The _fortunato garzone_ had no consciousness of the
danger for himself and for art. For in this superficial harmony, in this
pseudo-reconciliation of discordant elements, there was greater danger
for the future than in the chaos and contradictions and wars introduced
by Michelangelo. Leonardo could see nothing beyond the work of these two
painters; after them, all seemed abysmal and void. He felt how much both
owed to himself. From him they had had their science of light and shade,
their anatomy, their perspective, their knowledge of Nature and of man.
Yes, they had grown out of him; and now the two of them, they had
destroyed him! Leonardo walked silently beside his young companion, his
eyes downcast, his head bent, his face intensely sorrowful and _old_: he
seemed in a trance.
As they approached the bridge, they had to draw aside to give room to a
cavalcade--some great man, a cardinal, perhaps, or an ambassador,
escorted by sixteen horsemen richly attired. The personage proved a
young man, sumptuously clad, riding a grey Arab with gilded and jewelled
trappings. His face seemed familiar; and suddenly Leonardo remembered
the pale shy youth in the girlish frock, daubed with paint and worn into
holes at the elbow, who eight years before had said, 'Michelangelo is
not worthy to tie the latchet of your shoe!'
Now this boy was the rival both of Leonardo and Michelangelo, and was
called 'the God of Painting'!
His face, though still boyish, innocent, and unseared by emotion, was
somewhat less of a seraph's. He was a man of the great world now; riding
from his villa in the Borgo to an interview with the pope, he was
accompanied by a troop of pupils, admirers, and friends. Indeed he never
went out with an escort of less than fifteen. His every ride seemed a
triumphal procession.
He recognised Leonardo; flushed slightly, and with quick, even
exaggerated respect, doffed his cap and bowed. His younger pupils looked
wonderingly at the old man to whom the 'Divine One' showed so much
respect; the quiet shabby old man, hugging the wall to let the cavalcade
dash by.
Leonardo's attention was caught by the man riding at Raphael's side,
apparently the most favoured of his pupils. It was Cesare da Sesto.
Leonardo gazed in amazement, scarce able to believe his eyes. Now he
understood Cesare's long absence, Francesco's clumsy explanation. The
last of his disciples, he whom he had trusted to follow in his footsteps
and carry on his method, had deserted and betrayed him. Cesare braved
his gaze without flinching; nay, it was Leonardo whose eyes fell in
confusion, as if guilty before the other of some unintended crime.
The cavalcade passed on, and the old man, leaning upon Francesco, went
his way. They crossed Hadrian's bridge, and went by the Via dei Coronari
to the Piazza Navona, where was the bird fair. Leonardo bought magpies,
finches, thrushes, pigeons, a falcon, and a young wild swan. He spent
all the money he had with him, and borrowed also of Francesco. Slung
from head to foot with cages, the quaint pair attracted general
attention. The passers-by stared curiously, the little boys ran after
them. They walked past the Pantheon and Trajan's Forum, crossed the
Esquiline, and left the town by the Porta Maggiore, following the
ancient Roman road called the Via Labicana. Presently they turned into a
narrow footpath leading into the solitude of the wild country.
Before them spread the boundless, the silent, the monotonous Campagna;
through the arches of the Claudian Aqueduct, low hills were seen,
uniform grey-green, like sea waves in the light of evening; here and
there was a solitary tower, the deserted nest of robber knights; misty
blue mountains surrounded the great plain, like the tiers of a colossal
amphitheatre.
Over the city brooded the great peace of autumn twilight. The last rays
of the sun, streaming from between heavy clouds, lay across the
landscape in broad zones of brilliance, and shone on a herd of white
cattle, which scarce turned their heads at the sound of footsteps. The
chirp of the grasshopper, the rustle of the breeze in the stalks of the
withered summer flowers, the dull sound of the distant bells, but
enforced the stillness; it seemed that here in this immense plain, so
desolate so solemn, had already been fulfilled the prophecy of the angel
who swore by him that liveth for ever and ever, there should be time no
longer. They chose a convenient hillock, and relieved themselves of the
cages; then Leonardo set the birds free.
As they flew away, with the joyous flutter and rustle of their wings, he
followed them with loving eyes. He smiled, he forgot his griefs, and was
happy as in his childhood. Only the falcon and the swan were still in
their cages; their emancipation was reserved for a later hour.
Now he and Francesco ate a frugal supper of bread, chestnuts, dried
cherries, cheese, a flask of the golden Orvieto wine. They were still
silent. Francesco glanced at his master from time to time. Leonardo's
hair was silvered and thin, his forehead lined, his deep-set eyes were
still luminous and thoughtful, but weary. Age had set its effacing
finger on the beauty of every feature. It was the face of an enfeebled,
patient Titan.
Francesco pitied him, as he pitied all persons who were lonely and
sorrowful. The Master, whom of all men he admired and loved, whom he set
above the Michelangelo and the Raphael of the people's applause, was but
a lonely and poor and despised old man, sitting on the grass among empty
bird-cages, cutting his cheese with an old broken clasp-knife, chewing
his bread with an effort because his jaws were weakened by age, his
appetite lost by recent illness. A lump rose in Francesco's throat, and
he would gladly have knelt and assured his friend of his devotion, but
he did not do so--he lacked the courage. At all times, even to those who
loved him the best, Leonardo showed something alien and unapproachable.
The modest supper ended, Leonardo rose, let loose the hawk, then opened
the last and largest cage, that one containing the wild swan. The great
white bird came out noisily, stood dazzled for a minute flapping its
wings, then flew straight towards the sun. Leonardo watched it with eyes
full of unspoken grief. It was grief for the idle dream of his whole
life, for the human wings, for the 'Great Bird' of which he had written
in his diary: 'Man shall fly like a mighty swan.'
IV
At last the Pope, yielding to the persuasions of his brother Giuliano,
ordered a small picture from Leonardo. As usual he hesitated, put off
beginning from day to day, spent his time in preliminary attempts, in
perfecting his paints, in the invention of a new varnish.
His Holiness exclaimed in mock despair--
'Alack! this dull fellow will never perform anything; he studies the end
before he has mastered the beginning.'
The saying was repeated by the courtiers, and all over the town, and it
sealed the fate of the painter. Leo, the supreme judge in matters of
art, had pronounced sentence. Hence-forward Raphael, Buonarroti, Bembo
the pedant, and Baraballo the buffoon, need fear no rivalry; the pope
had jested, and the painter's reputation was crushed. The world forgot
him, as it forgets the dead. When some one repeated Leo's witticism for
his entertainment, he smiled indifferently, as if mockery were no worse
than he had expected. That night however, he wrote in his diary:--
'Patience is to the injured what clothes are to the frozen. With keener
cold, augment your clothing and it shall not hurt you; with the increase
of humiliation, double your cloak of patience.'
* * * * *
Louis XII., King of France, died in 1515. Having no son, his crown
passed to his nearest relative, Francis of Valois, Duke of Angoulême,
who assumed the title of Francis I.
The young king at once took the field for the reconquest of Lombardy. He
crossed the Alps, appeared suddenly in Italy, gained a victory at
Marignano, deposed Il Moretto, and entered Milan in triumph. About the
same time Giuliano de' Medici left Rome for Savoy, and Leonardo, out of
favour with the Pope, determined to try his fortune with the new
sovereign. In the autumn he went to Pavia to the court of Francis. Here
the conquered were celebrating the conquest and the glory of the
conqueror, and Leonardo was at once invited to arrange the festival, his
reputation as mechanician in the time of Il Moro being remembered. He
agreed; and amongst other things constructed a lion which ran
automatically across the hall, stood rampant before the king, and opened
his breast, from which fell a shower of the white _fleurs de lys_. This
toy made Leonardo more famous than all his great works, inventions, and
discoveries. Francis was anxious to see Italian scholars and artists at
his court, but the pope refused to spare either Michelangelo or Raphael,
so Leonardo was offered a salary of seven hundred crowns and the little
château of Cloux, in Touraine, near the town of Amboise, between Tours
and Blois.
The artist accepted the offer; and in the sixty-fourth year of his life
began once more his endless wandering; left his country without hope of
return, and settled in the foreign land. He was accompanied by Francesco
Melzi, Zoroastro, and his old servants, Battista de Villanis and the fat
cook Maturina.
V
The road, especially in winter, was difficult; it led through the passes
of Piedmont and Mont Cenis. Early, while it was still dark, they left
Bardonecchia, so as to cross the Alps before nightfall. The mules
clattered their hoofs and jangled their bells as they clambered along a
narrow path skirting the ravine. Spring had descended upon the southern
valleys, but up here winter reigned supreme. The morning was just
breaking; against the faintly tinted sky the Alps shone as if lighted by
internal fire. Leonardo, wishing to see more of the mountains, left his
beast, and with Francesco followed a steeper path at a little distance
from the mule track. Perfect stillness surrounded them, only interrupted
by the distant long-drawn roar of an avalanche. They scrambled higher,
Leonardo leaning on the young man's arm. Francesco remembered the
descent of the iron-mine when the Master had carried him, now it was he
who supported the Master.
'Oh, Messer Leonardo!' he cried suddenly, pointing to the ravine below,
'look at the valley of the Dora! We see it for the last time! We are
almost at the summit, and we shall not see it again! Yon lies all
Lombardy! Italy!' he cried, his eyes wet with conflicting emotions; and
he repeated, 'Lombardy! Italy! For the last time!'
The Master's face remained unmoved. He looked, then turned silently and
pressed onward towards the snows. Forgetting his weariness, he now
walked so quickly that Francesco, who had lingered bidding farewell, was
left behind.
'Nay, Master, whither go you?' he cried. 'There is no path there; you
can ascend no higher. I pray you take heed!'
But Leonardo went on, higher and higher, his step firm and light, as if
his feet were winged.
Against the pale sky the icy masses towered one above the other; a
stupendous wall raised by God between two worlds. They beckoned to
Leonardo and drew him up and onwards. It seemed as if behind them rose
the last secret,--which alone could satisfy his soul. Divided from him
by impassable gulfs, they appeared near, almost within touch. They
looked at him as the dead look at the living; they smiled at him with
the smile of Monna Lisa.
His pale face lighted with the same glow that was shining upon the
mountains and the ice. To him the thoughts of death and of Monna Lisa
were now but one.