me his trophies and gear: his new armor from Cadiz,
engraved with floral patterns; his father’s armor inlaid
with gold and silver (from Milan); a plumed helmet with
the regal salamander in brass and copper inlay; a
circular shield inscribed AFTER DEFEAT VICTORY.
We spent a morning among spears, pikes, swords,
scabbards, helmets, bows and arrows,
arquebuses...standards...saddlery. The King admired a
Toledo sword and a pair of antique Hungarian spurs. I was
taken by an engraved dagger from Greece—Homeric lines
along its shaft.
Leaning on a pike staff, Francis spoke excitedly about
his conquest of Milan:
“...How we fought! Was it for twenty-eight hours or
longer? I thought our cavalry would mow down the
Swiss...the Swiss kept rushing toward us...it was our
artillery that destroyed them...I fought on my great
Conde, the chestnut you admired...he was wounded, badly
wounded...I had to leave him...I had my visor
smashed...my shoulder was sliced open...it was like your
Anghiari... horses...men...smoke and dust...at times I
couldn’t see...everybody yelling...drums beating...the
Venetian troops saved us...
“By God, it was terrible...sometimes I felt
alone...sometimes I thought my own men would kill me.”
“Is it true that 15,000 men died?”
“Yes...yes...15,000...12,000...who can count the dead?
Some wounded crawl away to die...peasants began
pilfering, killing...maiming...our wounded filled the
Maggiore Hospital...you must have heard...the halls and
loggias were filled...
“Milan was poorly defended,” I said.
“The walled area of the city? Few tried to stop our
entry. News of defeat had spread throughout
Milan...little resistance...futile...”
I returned to my studio thoroughly disheartened: it is
this repetition: city against city: pope against duke:
the stupidity seems endless: what shields protect us
against the fools of the world!
Yesterday, I enjoyed the King’s dinner—another hundred
or more guests: Cardinal Mercier, De Brosse, Ambassador
to Holland, military, priests, courtiers, beautiful
women. I sat opposite Francis and enjoyed his scarlet-
gold suit, sewn with diamond chips. I believe he was
wearing five or six rings; one of them is rather like the
stone I gave Mona long ago. Francis personifies youth,
hedonism, and royalty. Watching him, listening to him, I
forget the tedious round of courses.
Princesse de Lamballe, sitting beside me, a lovely
woman in her forties, dressed in blue and nakedness,
praised the banquet:
“Francis has such wonderful chefs...the food is fresher
here than in Paris...I’m so glad to get away.”
“Tomorrow,” the King said, leaning toward me, “all of
us are leaving Amboise...we’re going to Chambord.” He
waved his hand, and smiled. “All of us!”
All of us meant about a thousand people, as the King
headed for Chambord. I watched his retinue (I declined
the invitation): I estimate that there were four hundred
horsemen, two hundred mules, mounted archers, stablemen,
the Chamberlain, musicians, clergy, wizards, cooks,
doctors...the archers wore black and red, the musicians
wore yellow and green; the King wore a hat with a yellow
plume and a yellow cloak flecked with white fleur-de-lys.
The musicians played oboes, trumpets, tambourines, and
drums. Such discord. Away they went, pennants, banners,
oriflammes.
Suddenly, it was quiet at Amboise.
In my studio I sat at my desk and looked down on the
peacocks and some pheasants: Francesco came: we began to
work: I dictated pages from my treatise regarding horses.
FRANCESCO MELZI is a proper, thoughtful villa-man,
handsome, slight, middle-tall, grey-eyed, blond. He is my
patient friend, my gracious friend (gracious to
everyone): he has his father’s agreeable manners. He is
horseman and archer. Flutist. A painter for fifteen
years, he handles chiaroscuro like a master: he is best
as portraitist. No woman-chaser, he is dedicated to
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French...and all of the arts. When
he trims my hair and beard he likes to flatter me.
I am searching for a glass that reflects a Florentine
face—not a wrinkled, bearded patriarch.
GIOVANNI BOLTRAFFIO—Tony—has always had wealth behind him
(like Francesco); here, at Amboise, he wears satins and
silks, claims that the King’s tailor is “the best in the
world.” Tony is so enormous, so muscular, his satins
often split. Blue-eyed, genial, bowing, a little too
obsequious, he sometimes dabs perfume on his paint-messed
hands. He has big hands, big feet, big skull—topped by
curly brown hair. With him decorum comes first. He is
always aware of his sedate heritage. He sings
beautifully, and is an accomplished lutenist. At home he
is devoted to his cathedral choir. In Amboise, he is
considered a notable fencer. He’d rather fence than
paint. He’d rather eat than paint. He will have nothing
to do with dissection. Right now, he is involved with a
red-headed hussy who champions sex.
ANDREA DEL VERROCHIO—tall, with not an ounce of extra meat
on him...it seems to me he is still a young man, that we
are at work together in his studio. But no, no, the Arno
roared throughout that night, as we mourned his death.
Many of us. Corpses lodged against supports of the Puente
Vecchio. Plagues. Madness. Work. We cherished him, his
frailty. Guild-member at twenty. Such kindness, such
classic renderings in stone and bronze. We revered his
Saint John, his serenity in stone.
We exhibited his sculpture in every corner of his
workshop and yard. People. His Dolphin Boy. His Christ.
Ghosts from his metal and chisel.
We learned how to use the abacus together; we learned
about mixing oils; he taught me silverpoint and charcoal;
we worked with pastels, with gold leaf.
Ai, Andrea—what a scalding rain on the night you died.
We sat about, we drank wine; then, next week, we returned
to our casting, our horses, busts, angels.
Most of the years in his studio were tranquil. There
were wonderful days, when, like John in the Desert, we
detected our own worth—in the mastery of his work. His
home was mine. His garden was mine. His florins.
I see him painting a madonna’s drapery...weeks of work,
painting delicate, gilded folds...he gave me books...
He said: genius is dedication.
He also said: art and friendship.
1517
Cloux
January 6, 1517
A
fter walking along the Loire, the water grey, swallows
passing underneath the grey arches of the château bridge,
I sat where I could study the supports, estimating their
bulk and weight. No notebook. Too many unfinished
sketches and treatises. An ancient bridge and my face—
ravaged by time.
At the little chapel of Saint Hubert, which I admire so
much, so complete in itself, pigeons were flying about.
Wings again. What are the correct angles for flying?
Which wing structure can lift the most weight? How to
estimate the camber?
Rain splattered me as I walked about. A drum roll
reminded me of the thunder at Vinci. I climbed the Tour
Hurtault and was a boy again, as I watched the rain, as I
had watched it at my mother’s house. Then I used to try
to estimate the number of drops, measure them, weigh
them.
What a superb château—this Amboise! I admire its bulk,
its age. It is no wonder that kings have lived here!
Amplitude. Privacy. Gardens. The gardens tempt me to walk
on and on. Yesterday, I sketched the Tour des Minimes—
emphasizing its massive base line, the skillful masonry;
as I sketched a playful squirrel climbed a birch, flipped
from branch to branch, nibbled. I must remember to sketch
the bronze doors of the chapel. The sculptor stresses
texture in his composition. Somehow Florentine!
Wander...
I wander...
I wander alone or with Francesco.
Inside the château, if it is raining or cold or misty,
we prowl through the halls and public rooms. Halls,
rooms, people. A door opens and there is someone. A door
shuts, and you are alone with a dozen doors. Cold windows
merge into cold mirrors, a door opens. Here are
tapestries from Bruges. Someone coughs. Feminine laughter
sounds.
As I walked toward Cloux, lights blinked in window
after window; a light appeared in my studio; someone
passed carrying a torch. Maturina has a fire in my
fireplace. She has the table set for Francesco and me.
Glaring at me she scolds me for my damp clothes. “Your
cough...you know! You never think of yourself. Your
supper has been ready a long time. I’ve asked Francesco
to look after you but he forgets. Only yesterday I said
to him...”
Whenever the Egyptian sultan presented the Florentines
with a new animal, I made sketches. At one time, there
were several lions in the town’s menagerie. An old lion
had a stubby grey mane and a black splotch across his
face. Since one of his paws was crippled, he limped
badly. As he walked or stretched out in the summer sun, a
friendly ibis often pecked about in his fur. Old and
wise, he ate only two or three times a week...and
outlived younger lions. Bruno, a keeper, let me measure
him. Skull. Neck. Spine. Shoulders. Rump. Paws.
I suggested large cages for the menagerie animals but
no one listened. When I designed a cage for a lion on two
levels, with a tree in a corner, nothing came of it.
One night, in winter, a friar opened a cage and let a
sick lion go; for days the young man had tried to cure
the female. Running amok through town, she created quite
a scare until she was trapped in a cul-de-sac by some of
my apprentices. Muzzled, growling, she was returned to
her cage where she died.
It was only a few blocks from my studio to the
menagerie and I often heard the animals roar while I
worked.
Cloux.
Cage.
Our incessant feuds, wars, brutalities, our pettiness,
have rotted our minds.
For years I have heard men describe roads frozen with
sleet and dead, bloody ambuscades, military gear trapped
in mud, mules and horses floundering, desolated villages.
I have seen victory and defeat...Milan...
Pisa...Bologna... Perugia...
Surrounded by death, I have known many men who want
more and more of it. I have remembered that as I painted
my mural, my Anghiari. Some of my war sketches have been
aberrations. It would have been wiser had I confined
myself to my atelier. Among my drawings, sketches,
cartoons, models, among my plants and fossils, I should
have gone on and on painting. Who, better than I, through
my anatomical studies, know the marvels of life! Now, I
shun crossbows, guns, chariots. I have asked Francesco to
destroy those sketches.
Once again, as in Florence, as in my youth, I am
putting art foremost. I am painting.
Tomorrow, Francesco and I will go along the Loire,
sketching. If tomorrow is a rainy day we will try the
next day. I think he is overly concerned with the
problems of perspective. We will talk about the
elimination of detail.
Painter and friend, I am lucky to have Francesco, my
Cecchino!
These days, I sleep longer, but, through the years, in
Florence, in Milan, I never slept more than three or four
hours a night. There were too many plans, sketches,
paintings, bronzes, portraits, models,
commissions...three or four hours...that was enough...
Lie down, sleep...catch the dawn, the window shutters
open. Mist on the Arno. Plunge face in icy water in that
old white wash basin. Tie sketch pad onto belt. The town
is sleeping; the birds are waking up. Careful, open the
door quietly. Don’t disturb Andrea. Is that the moon,
still hanging in the sky?
I made my way to the Boboli Gardens...passed the
David...rows of crooked cypress...marble satyr...pool of
frogs...a beggar whined...
A town sleeps a thousand years every night.
Cloux
Occasionally, while playing chess, I imagine there are
no pawns; I imagine there are no knights; the good bishop
has vanished; the castle has gone; there is no stalemate;
instead, we are walking across checkered fields, Caterina
and I. Soon, we’ll sit down to supper; then, when candles
have burned low and lamps are dying down, we’ll lie in
each other’s arms.
I have never been a clever chess player: I have spoiled
games by envisioning a spiral staircase, by designing a
parachute or estimating the cost of draining a marsh
instead of planning my next move. I can cast bronze
better than tackle chess strategy.
When King Francis and I play, I know the rules—those
unwritten rules—and abide by them: the king must win.
Checkmate...what are the rules in
life...checkmate...how to play the final move?
Someday our earth may be burdened with people (but I
will not be there).
Numbers cheapen us.
Collective folly weakens us.
Man and art drift apart.
However, who can create man? For that matter, who can
create a common pigeon? Or the mangiest dog? Or a horse?
And there is such mystery in this arm, this wrist,
these fingers as I write. I would like to be able to
trace these impulses: the thought, as it takes place in
the brain, the thought as it becomes the letter L, as it
becomes da Vinci, as that word connects with another
word.
A dot becomes a sketch. A sketch becomes a tree (a tree
becomes a sketch). Must there be limitations to the
mind’s probings? Experience can shackle us. I resent
shackles. I still believe in flying.
I love the horse more than all the animals because he
gives me a sense of flying. Racing across a field, half-
naked, bareback, I was free as a boy. I was above the
earth. Galloping along a road, my cape fluttering, I was
outside myself. Trotting underneath the stars I sensed
another kind of freedom. The clopping of the horse was a
drumbeat for liberty. I was often carried away.
Nuzzling my hand, I stroked his head, thanking him for
this ecstasy.
March 2, 1517
Yesterday, a traveler, a Spaniard, a navy officer, a
guest of the King, claimed at dinner that a Spanish
explorer, Juan Ponce de León, had discovered a land, and
named it Florida. He said that Ponce de Leon discovered
it four or five years ago.
“Where is Florida? Is it an island?”
I had a page bring my maps but the Spaniard could not
locate Florida. He was ill at ease as if he had divulged
a state secret. The arrogant officer’s face still bothers
me, like the face of a diseased rat. Florida? A Spanish
name: does it have a special meaning?
“Mon Capitan was hunting for Bimini...the fountain, the
great fountain, that cures all diseases,” the officer
said, pushing aside my maps, less like a traveler than a
spoiled child.
Travel...
Francesco has never read the Travels of Marco Polo, but
he is reading the book to me; he reads in the afternoons,
maybe when the warm sun is in our western windows, maybe
at the pergola, if it is pleasant. Sometimes, when I am
tired, he reads to me by candlelight, beside my ducal
bed.
I respect Marco Polo. I believe what he wrote. He was
no millioni. He was fortunate to find a Rustichello to
record his story. Perhaps Francesco is mine. When I
visited Polo’s prison cell in Genoa someone showed me the
painstaking calendar he had chiseled into the wall beside
his cot...Chinese characters along the top section of the
calendar—a dragon underneath.
In Florence, in Andrea’s home, I read Polo’s book and
dreamed of crossing the Lop Desert on camelback; I
imagined visiting the Khan’s great cities; I dreamed of
sketching palaces, temples, courtiers. I wanted to climb
lofty mountains; I thought of mapping rivers.
I told this to Francesco; he smiled and nodded. India?
China? Tibet? For him they are words. He thinks only of
his Italy, his Vaprio. I am afraid he considers that I
have stolen years from his homeland by keeping him here.
He writes his mother and father faithfully; when there
are lapses in their correspondence he is troubled.
Alas—Salai and Tony have left me!
At Cloux they have spent less and less time at their
painting on their own or under my tutelage. They have
become infatuated by the King’s women—the prostitutes.
Finally, in desperation, I urged them to return to
Florence. Tony has serious family problems and is needed.
Salai plans to build a house for himself, on my vineyard
property. I will miss them... I will miss them! They have
been an important part of my life! Francesco is pleased
there will be no more rivalry and friction. Yet, apart
from that, ours was a sad farewell, lingering, the wind
blowing about us harshly. It was our last good-bye, I
know. I know. They promise to write to me. When are
letters alive!
NOTE—Baron Sabran visited me last week. We strolled
about the château, and he related another of his wild
boar stories as he glanced over some of my paintings. I
enjoyed his visit, his chattiness, his effort to be
friendly.
Today, I hear that he has passed away: Time...today’s
friend, tomorrow’s enemy.
Cloux
How well I remember:
I was riding with other horsemen, perhaps a dozen of
us, Duke Lorenzo on his favorite mare, both of us a
little to the front of the Medici pennants, flags, and
jousting gear. As we approached the Duke’s stables at a
canter, he leaned toward me, and said:
“He’s yours, Leonardo... I know you like him! Tell the
stable boys where you want to have him kept.”
A smile, no more.
Cheppo was a three-year-old, four-gaited, almost as
distinguished in bone and muscle as Cermonino, yet wider
across the withers. I sketched him, studied him, studied
him as I had studied Cermonino. Cheppo had a way of
shaking his mane, flopping out his upper lip—nuzzling. He
was a competent beggar: if I failed to remember a treat
he would squeeze me against the stable wall and regard me
sadly. Once I was in the saddle he was obedient, alert.
Cheppo had been Lorenzo’s favorite. Certainly no one
else could have given him more competent training than
the Duke. I was so pleased to have him and spoiled him,
until I left for Milan—never to find another his equal.
My mirror writing came naturally; it began as a boy; I
have always been ambidextrous; yet my left hand’s skill
surpasses that of the right. There were reasons for my
mirror writing: for abbreviations and symbols, the prying
of idle apprentices, the intrusion of rivals, the
circumvention of blabbers. It also satisfied me
personally—esthetically.
Tonight, I am alone, writing: the manor house is still.
It is raining hard, and has been raining hard
throughout the day. The fire in the fireplace is
comfortable. The lamps are well trimmed.
As I sat at my desk, continuing the journal, someone
tried to pry open the door lock. Metal on metal. I
waited. Again I heard the intruder. The rain beat on the
door; the door shook. I heard the lock give. Picking up a
broken easel leg I waited, in case the lock gave way. The
man outside coughed. He shuffled about, then left.
Perhaps I should get a dog.
Devotion is the best quality, human devotion and
devotion to one’s art. Certainly my devotion to
Francesco—trust and affection—has been reciprocated.
And, when I am dead, he will remember me. That is what
artists need—men who care. If there are those who care,
it is as if one’s atelier continues on and on. And, if
the apprentices think along the guidelines already laid
down, that is another continuation, another defiance.
One of these days, Francesco will return to his Vaprio,
to paint. He may set up a studio in Milan. Perhaps there
will come a time when he places a canvas and sits on his
stool and paints my beard, thinning hair, protruding
eyebrows, strange nose and strange eyes.
He will say to himself:
“That’s how the old man looked, at Cloux.
“Shall I paint on open window behind him...shall I
paint some rock formations in the distance?”
Although the King and his court go out of their way to
befriend me I could not tolerate this voluntary exile,
this foreignness, this remoteness, were it not for
Francesco. When he is away, at the château, in the
village, in Paris, traveling somewhere, I am at a loss. I
glance about: where is he? When will he return?
Often, when Cecchino comes back from one of his
rambles, he has a gift or two, a plant, a seed, a leaf, a
rock...he tells me what happened, details. He’s good at
verbal paintings. Excited sometimes. No matter. He may
have sketches to show me, charcoal, pencil, chalk.
“This is something you must take a look at,
Maestro...here, this face? Isn’t it Greek, the nose, the
forehead? And this gypsy woman, what about her? And this
fellow...ever see anyone dressed like that? And this
fountain...”
He sits on a bench beside my easel.
“We must ride to Paris...we must visit Cluny...the
churches...there’s a great Van Eyck...and Chambord...now
is the time to visit Chambord, when the court’s away...we
ought to see how your canal and irrigation jobs are
coming along...remember, Sr. Migliarotti is pretty
lazy...”
Francesco hopes to make me feel like I am thirty years
old.
It is May and I am in the Amboise garden, soaking up
the noon sun, courtiers milling about on the many paths;
yet I am alone, with my sketchbook, to write, to think.
And I am thinking about Francesco, how he arrived at my
studio in the pouring rain. Drenched. He had ridden from
Vaprio. I don’t forget that rain, that stormy Florentine
afternoon, that eager, wet face of his, his mud-spattered
horse, his servants’ horses, how they looked in the
street, as Francesco spoke to me. Cold, very cold, even
for April. Tiled roofs were choked with rain. Drowned
cobbles. Leaves and mud.
But there he was at my door, bowing, smiling.
“Maestro da Vinci...I want to be your pupil.”
That was seventeen years ago. Was he only fifteen? It
doesn’t seem possible he was so young. He was my favorite
from the start. I love Salai as a son, but this young
man, this gracious young man, is friend and ardent
disciple. Painter! When I have been his guest at Vaprio,
I am honored. Francesco’s father and mother make their
villa a place of rest. I know. I have fled there, from
the condottieri. I am always protected by the Melzis.
His illness upset the studio.
“Melzi’s sick! Francesco’s sick!”
Fever day after day, hands like ice, coma. Shivering
though his apartment was sunny. I thought he might have
malaria. The plague. I called in the best doctors; I sent
for Francesco’s father. His uncle came instead. Other
doctors came. And in his delirium, Francesco painted a
large canvas, with a flock of white birds in the sky,
carrying a blue tree. October, November—bad months for
sickness. But by December he was up, skinny, hungry,
forever hungry.
And there was his father’s gratitude to me, his uncle’s
gratitude, as if I had been the physician. That summer,
as Francesco convalesced at Vaprio, I vacationed there.
The family purchased my portrait of A Boy. That rolling
land, the swift Adda, those canals, the villa gardens
with their Roman statues and roses...roses...the women in
the gardens, picking roses. But I have written about this
before? ...I am getting forgetful.
We sketched and painted.
I remember a puppy lying in my lap as I dozed in one of
the gardens, the one with the apple trees. Good food,
good wine, summer, that was Villa Vaprio. I learned about
summer there—what summer really means.
Cloux
The King wants me to move to a spacious studio in the
château. I prefer a smaller room. Small rooms sometimes
discipline the mind. I have explained that my studio, in
the manor house, has everything essential to my work:
cupboards, cabinets, tables, shelves.
“Do you need pigment...oils...turpentine...brushes?” He
is impatient... you must want something!
We have space for our paintings. We have the right
amount of light. We have quiet. And on our mantelpiece we
have a place for my Greek and Roman antiquities—things I
collected in Campania (along with malaria): iridescent
vases, bronze and alabaster lamps, household figurines, a
few coins. I have one with a porpoise leaping. The Greeks
were master minters-designers. Francesco says he knows a
place in Paris that sells Greek antiquities. If I can
ever get there I want to purchase an ivory Venus for my
desk. We have not surpassed those ancient artisans.
Such things make a bright enclosure.
I am fortunate...I have had many friends.
I had many friends in Florence, Milan, Rome, Genoa, and
Venice. I shall name a few: Marco d’Oggiono, Vitelli,
Tomaso Masini, Amalia, Father Pacioli, Ferrera,
Machiavelli, Francesco, Mona, Cristofer, Andrea...and now
King Francis.