copulation, otherwise pitiful. I have never worshipped it
as have some men—and women! As a boy it was tantalizing,
always there, always a reminder of sex, most often a
mystery. I saw copulation enjoyed before I enjoyed it
with a girl. It seemed to me that it wasn’t much fun. I
had to mature. It seems to me that the penis often has a
life of its own, as during the night when it rouses a
man, a sentiency of its own perhaps. I note that women
like the size of the penis as large as possible, but a
man wants the opposite in a woman’s organ.
The Greeks and Romans were penis worshippers. As a
fertility symbol it amuses me. I wonder how the
Egyptians regarded the penis? They have had centuries to
think about it. Young women enjoy displaying their
breasts; some men want to show their masculinity. There
is something quite amusing about these sex thoughts.
Juvenile! Life has so many serious problems: hunger,
plague, crime. The ecclesiastics laud the cross and
crucifixion; I suspect that some of their fervor is part
of the penis contemplation. With the penis there can be a
kind of holy ecstasy, for certain. I had an ivory penis
in my studio in Florence: was it African? Some thought it
Babylonian. It does not matter.
Men will always fight among themselves, sexually,
politically, socially. I have realized this for years.
Can it be that this realization urged me to fly, to
escape perversion and mediocrity? Flying can be a
celebration of the mind.
Well, sex means little to me now. Silence means more.
Friendship. Calm. Hope. Ai, those workshops of my youth
were so noisy. On crowded streets. Near alleys. Vendors
howling their wares. Mule teams. Horsemen. One of my
workshops was close to a smithy. Steel on steel mixed
with palavering.
Amboise is my silent bottega, walkways, garden,
flowers. Here I have so many of my favorites:
nasturtiums, ranunculas, roses, poppies, violets, iris,
pansies.
Maturina keeps flowers in my studio and my bedroom.
Writing in the sun along the Loire, remembering,
remembering:
I recall details of my dissections of pigeons...
Sketching, measuring, I concentrated on bone structure of
the wings, then the tail, the balancing properties of the
entire bird. Using those dimensions I calculated wing
lengths and wing widths for my glider. I laid out a
narrow area for a man to lie on, exactly between the
wings.
I constructed the glider with the aid of my
apprentices. I launched it at Mount Ceceri. Ceceri seemed
the likeliest hill since wind currents had to be strong,
and constant. Men lifted, pushed, yelled.
“Now...now!”
I dipped into the wind, slid with the wind, lifted. It
seemed to me that I hovered for a while above a big
willow. Rooftops. Then, in spite of my attempts at
balancing, the wing swung down, dropped, spun... I
crashed.
That wing measured 15' x 3' x 9'.
I can visualize Milan’s pink and red buildings, its
fortress Castello between moats, its drawbridges, the
fumbling city walls, the filthy streets. Though not as
old as Rome, I often felt Milan’s shabby antiquity. It
was a lesson in futility. So many sieges: 1497, 1500,
1512...military engagements that disrupted every fiber of
living. (There is nothing like the filth of a city under
siege.)
During the last siege, in 1515, the cannonades drove me
out of the city. In my absence my apartment—with its view
of the Alps—was looted by riffraff.
The city gates...I remember them: Porta Comasina, Porta
Romana, Porta Orientale. Near the Orientale I found a
bronze figurine, on one of my walks. Its small head had
been uncovered by a recent rain. A priest, carrying a
rice bowl.
How I worked during those Milanese years: apses,
loggias, transepts, windows, frescos! Survival jobs.
“This door needs immediate repair...place that medallion
lower...no red marble here...” I could not equal Donato
Bramante’s architectural skill. Friend, I wished him
well.
Did I spend almost three years in the Castello, in
those maddening salas, those perfumed rooms? The only
place to avoid the stench of sewage. I urged the Duke to
plan a city with upper and lower thoroughfares, a city
where there was air space to lessen the danger of plague.
Fifty thousand dead in ’09.
Sieges...death...
Milan...all focused on my cenasolo...my Maria delle
Grazie...that refectory...that was my world...those
faces, those outspread hands, that table...there is more
than one way to break bread...more than one cup.
Cloux
It is satisfying to return to my study of curvilateral
stars: evenings, after I have had supper, I begin—if
there are no royal interruptions. The cat now curls at my
feet, as I sit at my desk among my lamps.
Perhaps Michelangelo and I can become friends.
To amuse him I roll balls of paper and snap them across
the floor. He responds—with an obvious effort.
I work to reduce a segment of a circle proportionally
so I can make any number of identical segments which in
sum are equal to a segment subtended by a side of a
hexagon inscribed in the circle. I can make any number of
curvilateral stars of which the sum of the triangles is
equal to the sum of the segments subtended by the side of
a hexagon inscribed in a given circle.
I much prefer doing this to working on the plans for
the château at Romorantin.
The point of the center, where there is no movement,
suggests peace.
Cloux
April 9th
Today, I had a brief letter from Salai.
I remember the Arno at sunset, the yellow and the gold,
the yellow underneath the gold, the gold identical to
gold leaf, a metallic sunset overlaid with misty hues,
the bridges silhouetted, the darkest spans cut out of
charred steel. The force of sunlight lay between each
bridge and turned the river banks violet, the violet
merging into cobalt.
Ai, to walk there, to think there, again!
As a boy I used to fish there, but never had much luck.
Papa insisted that the tastiest fish came from the Arno.
He was a good fisherman and should have known. Maybe
fishing was better in his day. I wonder if there are any
fish in the Arno now?
Fishing or wading or splashing in the river—that was a
half century ago.
April 11th
IL CAVALLO
I solved all the construction problems in 1493.
Bronze horse. Bronze rider. Weight of horse: 185,000
pounds. Horse to measure 23 feet from hoof to mane.
Total height: 34 feet from hoof to helmet of rider.
Total weight of horse and rider: 205,000 pounds.
THE HORSE:
We began to pour the metal at night, a team of sixteen
men. We had metal from salvage. Our caldrons blazed as
the metals combined. We had our supply of wood stacked
under a thatch, another supply in a shed. As we worked
the shed ignited and burned. Shouts. Orders. Warnings.
Shortly before dawn some militiamen arrived—drums, not
sunrise. The commandante of the city fortresses—on the
Duke’s orders—requisitioned all bronze for armament. I
read the Duke’s order... I read, and stepped aside.
And the Duke lost his city, and his life. His horse.
Cloux
April 12th
ALBIERA AMADORI—My friend Albiera was as beautiful as her
name, beautiful to me, beautiful to her family, her
friends—all who knew her. In my sketches she appears as
an angelic one, an ideal woman. She was delicate. Always.
Busy with her large family, her housework, yet stealing
time for her lute. There in her garden, among her irises.
There in her garden, by her fountain. Singing as she
played. Dark hair, dark tint under her eyes. Her voice a
little frail. Perhaps she was too good for us, although
we loved her dearly.
After she died I used to visit her grave and bring or
arrange flowers. Her little bronze bust had a special
place in my studio.
“Albiera,” I hear Florentine voices calling.
Somewhere perhaps in the château garden—a bird sings
and seems to say: “Al - bi - era.”
Cloux
April 14, ’18
Tomorrow evening, Pietro Papini will play his lira da
braccio for us, music I composed in Milan, when friend
Atalante and I played and sang. Papini is Court maestro
and master of the lira. He’ll be playing his amusing
instrument—moustached mascherone on the sound box.
Good Francesco has searched through my manuscripts for
rebuses and notations, and he and Papini have put
together a song that begins:
Amore sol la mi fa remirare, la sol mi fa sollecita.
Tomorrow is my birthday.
Princess d’Arezzo will wear a gold mask I designed for
her. Pity to hide beauty behind a mask. The King is
wearing my skeleton cloak. Three dwarfs will appear as
miniature elephants. I will wear a replica of a camel’s
head. Francesco is to impersonate a Hindu seer. Countess
Benci—sixteen years old—will be naked except for silver
slippers and an Etruscan helmet of silver foil.
It will be gala!
Cloux
I did not know it was raining until one of the King’s
pages brought me a rain-spattered note, ink and coat-of-
arms smudged.
“What is it?” Francesco asked, standing by me
protectively, holding the door.
The page grinned and wiped rain off his face. Probably
he was perplexed since he could not understand Italian.
“The King is sick,” I said, reading the note. “He wants
me to come to the château and talk to him.”
“In this awful rain!”
Water was sluicing off the page’s cap.
“I won’t let you go out...in this cold rain,” protested
Maturina. “You have no umbrella...it’s being fixed.”
Francesco tugged my sleeve.
“The tunnel,” he said. “We’ll walk through the tunnel,
to the château. It’s been worked on...we’ll keep dry...
Shall we?”
So, with torches, the page, and a couple of my
servants, we entered the old shaft. Almost at once our
torches died out; there was a brisk draft; some of our
torches were wet. Somebody went back to the manor house
for candles. The passage was difficult for a tall man. I
had forgotten there were several curves. Bats annoyed us.
We had to wade across rain pools where water was oozing
in. I stumbled over bricks and stumbled over a rusty
cuirass someone had leaned against the wall.
Holding up my torch I made out crude foreign names and
initials and dates... VITELLI...was it really VITELLI? I
thought I saw 1502 on the wall. Latin names. Gascon.
1601. 1502 again. Cesare Borgia, that Papal bastard had
had Vitelli strangled on December 1, 1502. His name went
on and on, as we tramped through the tunnel.
My hatred was everywhere.
The page opened the château door, and we ascended
several flights of stairs, walked along halls, were
stopped by guards at the King’s suite.
“His Majesty is asleep now,” a guard said.
Borrowing umbrellas and raincoats, we returned to the
manor, preferring the paths and the road to the tunnel
route.
How fitfully I slept while in Cesare Borgia’s
camp...like Alexander the Great I slept with the Iliad
and a dagger under my pillow.
It was Niccolò Machiavelli who stole horses for us—made
our escape possible...horses...rain...all night the two
of us rode through the rain.
Fibonacci’s dog-eared book, Liber Abaci, still
interests me: what tattered covers, foxed pages, and
scribbled margins! Too many fingers have flipped through
this book. No matter... I have tried his famous rabbit
problem once more and then once more. I see that each
number is the sum of the two preceding numbers,
continuing ad infinitum. And it is true I can divide
Fibonacci’s number (after the fourteenth in his sequence)
by the next highest in number: it is precisely .618034 to
1.
.618034 is nature’s proportion—her golden mean: it
exists in sunflower seeds, shell spirals, spider webs,
ferns, the perfect rectangle, in playing cards, the
Parthenon’s façade.
Another night of memories, a night for murder.
Incessant wind, rain...
Vitelli...
But there was more than this young man’s death. There
was Giamina Andres da Ferrara. GAF.
The officials of Milan murdered GAF...the officials!:
They had him hung, drawn, and quartered, in the Public
Square.
GAF.
I fled to Mantua, as if I could forget in Mantua!
So much of life is fleeing.
So much is trying to forget.
Rain...
Those youthful faces...Vitelli, 24 years old...Ferrara,
33 years old...artists... good men...friends.
Perhaps there is something to be said about this remote
château, this little manor house, these woodlands, paths,
fields, this Loire; I should be able to put these things
together and say something; when I am alone here, or
alone with Francesco and Maturina, when I sit in my
studio or in the library or walk in the fields or along
the Loire, I hear something like wisdom: it seems to
suggest greater dedication, calm, calmness, like a stag
in a clearing, alert, watching.
August 15, 1518
Another summer at Cloux.
(I have not written my journal for months).
Birds—orioles and finches—are singing along the river.
Willows and birds for miles. Old trees, some of them
half-drowned by a heavy rain, seem determined to
flourish. Where the Loire widens, meadows of water form
islands.
Yesterday or the day before, Francesco and I spent most
of a morning searching for a species of frog that
interests me. We crossed and recrossed the river at
shallow points.
Close to the château, by the tenth century bridge, I
waded over slippery rock. There I fell. Old shanks!
I’ll just lie here...the pain won’t last...
“Maestro, your sketchbook is ruined...let me help you!”
I was overcome by my own weakness, by the ugliness of
my bony legs. It’s true I’m an old man!
August 20, ’18
Sometimes France becomes alive—not in the geographic
sense: it comes alive as a fresco of bogged willows, a
row of pencil-pointed cypress, a field of yellow rye, a
woodland village, a pagan altar, a tired bridge, a flock
of charcoal ravens ...these are the enchantment, along
with August cicadas and August storms.
Swans and cygnets are also there, and a knight in
armor!
I stand at my studio window: there, below me, stretches
the garden and the garden leads to the woodland and just
inside the first fringe of trees is a stag.
From the château I watch the blue water of the Loire
flowing by; the blue water changes to grey: the Seine.
I taste the antique taste of time and illusion: my
telescope focuses on wayfarers: I see them in mirrors:
years of princes, priests, soldiers, artists.
Maturina is Italy: toothless, sickly, yet eager to
carry-on! Smiling, smelling of grease and herbs, she
offers me her famous soup, her haricot beans, her red
jam, her Vinci cheese.
Behind her, as she sets my table for supper, gawks a
young Midi apprentice (a possum-faced individual). The
Midian is talking about Brussels sprouts, how her mother
used to prepare them. When she takes Maturina’s place and
her teeth fall out, she will be ready to impart her
culinary skills to someone else.
Cloux
September 14
Suddenly, Francis appeared in my studio.
He was dressed entirely in black, his suit sewn with
pin stripes of diamonds and pearls. We embraced warmly.
We had not seen each other for several weeks...
‘‘What has happened to you?” I asked, shocked by his
appearance, for his hair had been scorched and trimmed;
his forehead was livid; his cheek was scarred by burns;
his chin had been gashed.
“It happened at Romorantin,” he said, laughing loudly
at me. “Didn’t you hear about the accident?”
“I heard something about an accident but I didn’t know
it was serious. I’ve been in Paris, with Francesco. What
happened to you at the château?”
“Come, don’t take it so seriously, Mon Père. I’m all
right. The scars will disappear. My hair will grow back.
I came to talk with you, to get away from the roisterers
at the château... I need a little peace and quiet.”
“But what happened to you at Romorantin?”
“Games...we were playing games in the field alongside
the château. It was dark. I shoved a wicker basket over
my head and one of my cronies set fire to it with his
torch... I couldn’t yank off the basket.” Francis showed
me his burned fingers. “This is what I get for playing
the fool.
“Come...let’s go into the studio, where you keep your
fossils from the Alps. I want you to explain again how
you have estimated the age of the earth from your shells
and ferns. I can’t seem to grasp that the earth is as old
as you say it is.
“Look at this rock, Maestro, with the snail imbedded in
it. Where did you find it? Did you find it in the
Argentière Pass?”
“No, I found it when I climbed Monte Rosa, when I was
making notes on the quality of light among the glaciers
and snowfields. You see that snail came from the
ocean...it’s an ocean snail...”
Today the new barber trimmed my hair and beard.
He is chief barber for the King, a Corsican, red-faced,
rotund, about forty; he seems in the prime of life. As he
trimmed my beard he ranted about autonomies, puny city
against puny city.
“War is a sewer,” he kept repeating. “Man is crap...he
is great. But he must stop fighting.” All very private,
in his red-carpeted shop, mirrored, hung with dirks. One
of many small rooms along a château corridor.
As I was about to leave, he said:
“I sing...you like music, I know... I sing for you... I
am an exile too, but I sing.”
His tenor voice was at its prime. He poured out song
after song, as others gathered in the corridor and room
to hear him.
(Tomorrow, he will extract a molar for Francesco.)
As I write in my studio, rain splashes across leaded
glass and sputters on my autumn fire. I dictate.
Francesco nods at his desk; it is late, well after
midnight.
Fame, in the figure of a bird, should be
depicted as covered with little tongues
instead of feathers.
Pleasure and pain are best shown as twins,
back to back, since they are inseparable.
“No, no,” Francesco objects. “I think we should write
down important things.”
I agree.
I pick up a paper and read about
heat...fire...vapors...water sucked from the ocean.
Yes, I must discriminate. I have over a hundred
treatises to work on...the days are passing quickly.
“Let’s stop for now... I know it’s late. Tomorrow I
will arrange fifteen figures, fifteen nudes, in sequence.
On the basis of those drawings I will make various
comparisons, the horse with man, the legs of frogs with
the legs of men.”
Cloux
October 6, 1518
This is my second autumn at the château—cold, cold!
Windy. Bundled up, I walk. Maple, oak, chestnut,
pine...lightning-scarred oak, crippled pine, friends... I
walk alone or with Francesco or the King, paths for every
direction. Alone, or with Francesco, I am aware of the
past.
Tonight, at supper, by our studio fire, talking with
Francesco, I talked about my maestro, Andrea.
“I was twenty, like you, Francesco. And I was always
hungry—like you. Andrea was thirty-five then, maybe
thirty-six...twenty...thirty-six. I was lucky to have him
for maestro.”
His skill with jewelry was something to remember. I
remember his setting a fire opal in a gold brooch... I’d
been his apprentice for several months, maybe a year. Not
a word was said while he worked, an entire afternoon. A
smile, a nod...
The opal was rectangular and its blob of fire was at
its base—resembling a setting sun—the gem surrounded by
finely woven wires.
And there was a day when Andrea’s famous sphere was
polished and ready. How it glistened! How proud he was,
how proud all of us artists were! We crowded around; we
left the workshop to sing a te deum and drink wine as it
was hoisted aloft, to embellish the dome of the
cathedral.
“Verrochio...Andrea Verrochio,” we yelped.
And the copper sphere is still there, above the red
tiles, unharmed by lightning.
He was a flawless craftsman with the porphyry and
marble walls of the Medici sarcophagus. And his beautiful
putto, boy and dolphin, are loved by everyone.
F’s drawings of Andrea’s David, and his silverpoint
study of Andrea’s great bronze horse are treasures of
mine.
Well, his bottega was a place of magic...subtleties in
metal and wood.
Again it’s late. Francesco is playing cards at the
château—Parisian girls. The cat has disappeared. Lamps
need fixing on my table. Will I every finish revising
these treatises, re-arranging them?
Di me se mai fu fatta alcuna cosa.
Andrea dead at fifty-three!
Di me se mai...four words...scattered among my
mathematical papers, among my drawings: Is anything ever
done!
I was twenty...he was thirty-six...genial.
He believed art was the zenith. He asked: What do men
respect most? Laws? Writings? They respect the bronze
horse, the jeweled necklace...the alabaster vase...the
cameo...the bas-relief...great murals...antiquities!
Old thoughts now, but new then, important then.
Andrea often praised such accomplishments. How often we
talked in his small garden, trellised with wisteria and
grape, his sister, Margharita, looking after us. He had a
scar across his right cheek, a special smile because of
it. What an aura there was at his home—like nowhere else.
Simple, family accord, everyone doing his part.
I remember something Andrea said:
“When I shivered as a child, I knew an angel had passed
by.”
Cloux
Manor House
Early morning. Good light. Francesco and I worked at
our easels until lunch. Cold.
At lunch, F said:
“I lost again at cards last night... I can’t speak
French well enough to win. It’s lucky for me that
everyone’s leaving here this weekend...off for Paris.”
We talked about Paris and the King’s departure (how
desolate he would leave the château!): we talked about
the Alps. I mentioned my climbs and the fossils I
found...the caves...with shells on the floor... I showed
F my memory-sketch of huge male bison painted on the
granite walls of a cave, painted there before any
Florentine painted. I tried to find a primitive carving
on a piece of bone but couldn’t locate it: I wanted him
to realize how clever those ancient artists were.
F was interested in the avalanches, and asked me the
best season for a climb. He will ask his father to
accompany him on an Alpine trip...he’s eager to return to
his beautiful Vaprio. I certainly understand. Last month
the Melzis renewed their invitation but I lack the
strength to make another move; perhaps, in a year or two,
I might leave here without offending the King—perhaps I
can obtain a commission in Milan; then I could use the
Villa Vaprio for my base.
In the afternoon, because it was sunny and inviting, we
had our horses saddled and rode through the bois...a fox
plumed his tail in front of us... I tried to sketch on
horseback but my sorrel was very restless. What
fascinating shadows in the woodland—when the sun is low!
How to blend them.
I am confused, cold.
I wrote in my journal a day or two ago, it seems; yet,
tonight, I can’t recall the date; I seem to be in an
unknown country, not France, not Switzerland. This place
is not my place. I am somewhere by a warm fireplace fire.
What confusion. The fire stares at me.
Through the open doorway I see my canvas of St.
John...the painting assures me. Ah, the King has gone. F
has gone. It is as if I had been asleep.
An assistant and I are making and repairing brushes; we
are also grinding pigments (how hard it is to find
someone who cares to do quality work); having discovered
that my scale is inaccurate I am checking the grinding.
It is no wonder my Saint John colors blend poorly. A
faulty scale is a great hindrance.
I am troubled by the shading in John’s face: underneath
his eyes—so important.
“Patience,” I say to myself.
I have heard that admonition through the years, hollow,
utterly sadistic.
The pleasure in painting is perfection!
I have heard that.
Pleasure and perfection are illusions, friend!
An artist frames his illusions and gilds the frames and
people gape at the illusions and then foster more
illusions.
Years ago, as a youngster, I liked to sit in front of
the marble façade of Santa Maria Novella.
In the wintertime it could be a balmy spot.
Girls...but I would sit there and imagine that the twin
obelisks in front of the church were being lugged off on
the backs of their immense bronze turtles, four turtles
for each obelisk. (What mad sculptor designed turtles to
hold up obelisks!) Ai, the marble columns tottered across
the piazza; the monks and priests, with penises dangling,
dashed out of church and monastery, shrieking to heaven
for help.
Maybe it was helpful to think such ridiculous thoughts;
maybe it erased problems; there were always problems...on
Sunday no hawkers were permitted in the piazza...pigeons
took over, kids, wings, laughter.