shake my depression, I still visit the stables: I can
spend hours there among their warm bodies: I note ears,
nostrils, teeth, manes, tails, rumps, shoulders, hides,
colors.
Colts.
Mares.
Stallions.
Favorites!
Sickly animals become mine: I feed them, pamper them,
talk to them, comb and brush them...hostlers are
sometimes irritated... I do not care...in that stabled
world I become one with animal life.
I gather grain and fill a trough.
An old girl needs water: how grateful she is! This
beautiful pinto needs liniment.
Horses...
My drawings show their illustrious qualities, their
courage, their stamina.
Cloux
A young Parisian portrait artist visited me; he was
wearing a new grey velvet suit (in the King’s honor, he
pointed out). With arms crossed on his boyish chest he
defended his dedication to portraiture.
He examined my paintings with friendly admiration but
bristled when I said that it is not enough to paint one
thing well. I said that anyone studying a single aspect
of art for a lifetime can attain a measure of perfection!
An accomplished artist must paint nudes, seascapes,
animals, birds, plants.
Spitting into my fireplace, coughing, the fellow said:
“Do you call your Mona Lisa and your Saint John
landscapes?”
I could sense that he was annoyed by my French.
So, his handsome, goateed, disappointed face went out
in the rain—rain on his velvet suit.
And I began rethinking: why have I painted few
landscapes, seascapes (in the Dutch tradition); why have
I painted so many madonnas? I should paint deluge scenes,
glaciers, Vinci.
Rain on his velvet suit.
How can I continue my journal when it grows
increasingly difficult to write? Left hand or right hand,
I am troubled. I am troubled in other ways: I walk into
another room and can’t remember why I left my desk. Where
is that sable brush Francesco brought me from Paris? I am
unable to recall names. And F—sits there, perturbed, as I
attempt to remember. I also forget facts, and I am at a
serious loss. What is to be the outcome? As I review my
treatises, I am aware that they are worthy; it seems to
me I have an adequate grasp of language; yet. Writing is
not my métier: I prefer a silverpoint or a chalk drawing
or the infinite pleasure of oil colors. Sitting in the
cold window sun, I sip Chablis...
Francesco, wearing his newly tailored suit, continues
his portrait of a young woman—progressing nicely. He
hates to lay down his brushes. If I have a suggestion it
is a minor one; he absorbs whatever I say with pleasure.
As I stand in his room, before his easel, watching his
brush, appreciating the light, I think:
“We are moderns...we are scientific artists. The face,
a. b. c. d., responds to light on opaque pigment, as we
have determined. We realize that a shadow can distort; we
must estimate the value of each overlay...”
Then, sitting down, aware of the pleasant viridian
background in Francesco’s painting, my eyes blur: I feel
like I am falling asleep: then, the river horse, my
Magnifico, appears inside the pigment.
Yesterday, or the day before, Francesco learned that my
Leda is a copy, purchased by the King’s father, five or
six years ago.
I do not miss the dirt and stink of the botteghe or the
sink holes of Florence, Milan, and Rome. Too often they
smelled alike. Botteghe was spilled glue, dust, roaches,
flies, antique casts (how quickly they got broken),
rusted pots, rags, gold leaf (always being stolen),
sketches, frames, saws, chalk, nails, rats. Someone was
always leaving food around, wine bottles; there were
broken bottles, cracked pestles, chunks of clay, mineral
samples, stools, grease, brooms (that nobody wanted to
use), mauled papers, waste
paper...brushes...brushes...brushes.
To paint, to write, to think.
Life’s chiaroscuro!
Under chestnut trees, in the grove near the château, I
sat alone on a bench, aware of the evening’s beauty; as I
sat there, the sun became a red ball behind a string of
pines. I felt that Caterina was beside me, she and
Magnifico. I think I
stood and shoved my fingers into Magnifico’s tangled mane
as Caterina whispered to both of us. It was almost dark
but I could outline the oval of her face—her mouth and
eyes smiling. Around us, in the grove, the wind was
dropping leaves. The night promised to be cold...
Cold.
I looked at the Milky Way, as Caterina and I had in
Italy, from our bench in our small garden, while the city
slept. She said something to me about our daughter.
“Who will...”
For some reason, a reason I can not understand very
well (a fumbling reason), I have gone through some of my
luggage. I have come across some drawn work Mother made:
flowers and angels, in perfection: punto en aria. How
white the threads—after all these years! I see no lace
like hers. She was first or second at every annual festa.
And my father left me a legacy also: his is a literary
legacy of four curt letters, notary letters: our home
life, under his coercion, slowly disintegrated. Coercion
and promiscuity. Fatal combinations. But why glance at
ruins? I glance at them because they are a part of me.
Francesco has repaired my portable bathtub. Soon I will
be able to luxuriate again.
I hope there are sunny days ahead... I am reading
Aesop... Confused, I feel I am repeating myself in my
journal; I must check through my pages. Weariness says I
must stop writing and yet as I write I think of the sun
in the garden below and the peacocks below and I think of
the sun that has burned for me for many years and I think
of the shadows I have observed, the shadows of weeping
willows, the shadow of a lifted marble arm and hand, the
shadows of birds... I think of spring foliage
coming...the first spring flowers and there is a
wonderful haze in these thoughts tied in with the
sun...the haze makes me feel I am young; I am
able to climb hills, ride Magnifico; tomorrow I start a
painting of Hercules firing his arrows at the Stymphalian
birds. As I put away my journal some of that light blurs
in perspective, and I think how light bends at night when
lamps are lit.
I seem...
Cloux
The date, does it matter?
My right arm has become paralyzed. Gradually. It has
happened gradually. Now I can not manipulate my fingers.
For a while I could manipulate one or two. I hoped they
would recover. I think this affliction began on the
strenuous ride from Milan to Amboise. I think it began in
the monastery where I was stricken for a while.
The King’s physicians have tried to help...they are
trying to bring back muscular control. They have
prescribed herbs, poultices, hot concoctions. Strange,
very strange, to have a hand that hangs by my side, a
hand that does nothing, that is already dead.
Cloux
March 2, 1519
The greater one is, the greater one’s capacity for
suffering. It should be that the greater one is, the
greater is one’s capacity for courage and understanding.
Why do we suffer?
Nec spe nec metu.
Cloux
March 5
Fifty years ago...fifty!
Whether it was chiaroscuro, sfumoto, encaustic, or
other technique, I was sincere. Few days were long
enough.
Florence, fifty years ago...it was my town. I fitted
in. The place is no longer the same. The guilds are
different. The workshops are different. Most of my
friends are dead or gone. There is another kind of
politics.
A half century ago life was adventure: life was new:
friends were new, work was new: there was love. When I
was accused of homosexuality some of that libel pervaded
my thinking for years. A personal plague. How easy it was
to brand a man in those days: the “telltale” box hung on
the church door. You wrote your accusation and dropped it
in the slot and scurried off.
So much of life is focused on sex, is wasted on sex. I
have been a masturbation man. For long my body has
nothing to share with any woman or man. I am immersed in
thought. In my bed I have loneliness as mate. I patronize
no one.
One of the château gardeners, a Venetian, who has been
very friendly with me, has presented me with a caged
oriole. In a woven reed cage, painted black.
Black!
I carried the cage outdoors, into the morning mist; I
set it down. The bird fluttered, trembled. How long had
it been captive? I knelt. I could see where he had
chipped off black paint with his beak.
Black!
I opened the door.
A male, he battered the reeds with all his strength,
found the opening, and hurtled into the sky.
I have forgotten more than I can recall: perhaps this
is true of most of us who have lived a long life. Many of
the things I have forgotten I have wished to forget. I
find it hard to live and harbor grudges, but it is also
lack of wisdom to erase the mind; then it may be
necessary to experience our mistakes again: that’s being
trapped twice; a fox avoids that.
As for survival, I have survived because I found
something to discover: discovery is the key: new sinew,
new mineral, new color, new face, new canal, new lamp.
In Andrea’s studio I discovered perspective. There is
so much about perspective that eludes one—a continual
challenge.
Perspective may be the most important of all the art
disciplines. In this branch of science, the beam of light
is best explained by mathematics and physics. Since the
axioms are long I will abridge them now:
There are three branches of perspective: 1 - The first
deals with the reasons for the diminution of objects as
they recede, and is known as diminishing perspective. 2 -
The second deals with the way colors vary as they recede.
3 - The third is concerned with the way objects in a
picture must be finished in relation to their proximity.
I amplify these three in my treatise on perspective.
I have admired hands, respected them for their
capabilities. As I dissected, I marveled at their
intricacy and perfection... I admire all classes: the
feminine, the masculine, children’s hands. I made
drawings of my own hands, in the days I could squeeze the
crabprongs of a horseshoe with ease. I remember Mother’s
loving hands, Caterina’s sensual hands, Andrea’s clever,
slender fingers. There have been clay and bronze and
marble hands. The hands of beautiful women have appeared
in my dreams. I can perceive, as I write, the hands of
Christ and those of His disciples.
Perhaps there will be a few, reading this journal, who
may care to know some of my thoughts about painting:
a - All colors, when placed in the shade, seem of equal
degree of darkness. b - All colors, when placed in full
light, seldom vary from their essential hue. c - The
eyes, out-of-doors, in a illuminated atmosphere, perceive
darkness behind the windows of houses which nevertheless
are light. d - The eyes perceive and recognize objects
with greater intensity in proportion as the pupil is
dilated.
Sleep is a curious thing—resembling death.
Sometimes it is totally blank, as death must be;
sometimes we see destruction. Flames rise. Buildings
collapse. Sometimes we hear animals talk. Without moving,
they run away from us. Sometimes we fall from great
heights—without harm. Sometimes we talk to those who are
unseen. Sometimes we meet those who can’t speak. If we do
not sense death in our sleep we may sense confusion.
Confusion in black and white. Or grey. We dream of
bucolic scenes in grey, a grey stream, a grey tree, grey
boulders. We stroll through grey air, grey birds in the
sky.
Now, in color, a great hawk threatens us. Angels
appear. There is a cave with a ragged mouth. It wants to
swallow us. Now cadavers threaten. Enemies besiege us.
Now, a friend appears—a childhood friend, unchanged by
time.
Christ descends from the refectory wall—leaving a
terrible hole.
Cloux
March 4, 1519
I am writing very slowly now.
While painting The Last Supper I lived at the Santa
Maria delle Grazie some of the time, working day after
day, often sleeping on the floor, on a bench. I painted
by day and at night, with the help of lamps and candles,
placing lights on benches, on tables, on my scaffolding.
I was altering forms, changing colors, imparting greater
age to a face, lessening the impact of a gesture.
I might stay an hour, or remain for days: Ai, Matthew’s
eyes might move; Luke might raise his arm; John might
turn his head—or so it seemed. I was always there when
the light was good; during inclement weather I might
shove my key into the lock, and shut the door. A few
grapes, some nuts, bread and wine... I didn’t need much
food. With a basket or a bowl beside me on the scaf-
folding I would go on painting.
I was forty-three.
When Christ’s model became ill and finally died, I
retouched His face, imparting what I had learned while
observing the dying man. I remember: to soften the
shading I retouched with a lamp in my hand, holding it
close to His face.
As I painted there were two dead men watching me.
I discovered Judas when he was drunk. I found him in a
borghetto, slumped at a table, a big table sticky with
spilled food and wine. Flies. Sipping wine at another
table, I sketched him. So it was: I would not have to
hunt any longer. That night, although he was drunk and
unsteady, I got him to my studio and put a robe over his
rags. We talked, we ate. His name: Carlo Macchini.
Carlo came and went. He never accepted a soldi.
Came and went, usually a little drunk. Kindly.
He was an assistant baker. Hated his boss, hated his
job. Hated.
When I had completed his face in the fresco, he
contemplated it for a while, shrugged, patted me on the
shoulder, walked away...not a word... I never saw him
again.
Before I finished the fresco, Luke had died. The last I
heard about Peter was the news that he had added another
child to his big family. Ninth. As for Mark...he was
living with a prostitute. Sick. No job.
I made many sketches of each man: filled sketchbooks. I
worked them into my cartoon...slowly, slowly. I wanted
the faces to express the gravity of life; the clothes
that they wore must not distract; the food on the table
must not distract. I made the tableware similar to that
used by the monks as they ate in the room. It took me
almost a month to arrange the food and dishes. Twenty-six
hands must tell their story but not overdramatize.
I strove for simplicity: that resolution haunted me. So
many times, when rain drummed on the roof of the
refectory, as I sat alone, I heard that word: simplicity,
simplicity of color, design, shadowed by the past.
And while I painted, the beautiful refectory was
flooded by a storm: I saw water two feet deep: pigments
were washed away, brushes were lost.
Ai, I see it now: at least one of the disciples should
have had a scarred face, should have been crippled
perhaps. Life, in those Galilean days, did not let one
escape unscathed. Out of the twelve, one would have
suffered.
But there, there they are, with their Lord.
I had a brief letter from Salai today. If he had
remained, we would have made our bicycle.
Tomorrow, I...
On my birthday, my friends, Father Luco Pacioli,
Phillip, Donato Bramante, Abbaco Alberti, Peter,
Francesco, John, Toscanelli, Andrea, Luini, Credi,
friars, priests and many artists, gathered at the Grazie,
and we burned lamps and candles for the first showing of
The Last Supper. Standing on a bench, Father Luco said:
“Milan is indebted to our Leo...to him and Il Moro and
the prior and his people. We have watched the fresco come
to life. For three years we’ve seen it move along. It has
meant something special to each one of us. It is Leonardo
da Vinci’s miracle. A symbol of man’s desire for a better
life.”
How well I remember those words!
In Milan, my Salvator Mundi attracted crowds when it
was exhibited in my studio. King Louis had expressed his
public approval of the painting and the curious had to be
satisfied. Since General de Galen had come to Milan to
deliver the painting to the King, I asked his protection.
Onlookers came out of the alleys as well as the palace.
Alley folk jeered. They shouted “Christ the Juggler;”
they called Him “El Puto”...“the glassy-eyed Gascon.”
Riffraff threw mud and garbage.
I had to cover the painting...but that was
yesterday...the jeers and criticism should remain in the
past.
Here, at Amboise, at Cloux, all is respect, a respect
that originates with King Francis. Courtiers and guests
and workers often approach me in the gardens; we pass the
time of day. I get along best with the gardeners because
there are new plants and flowers to examine and sketch.
Sit me on a bench and I am lost by a bed of flowers. An
old maestro, toothless, stooped, a man from Padua, knows
how to please me with a leaf, a flower, a seed.
“These roses I grew in my own garden...what colors!”
Thinking of Jesus, here in repose, I realize the Savior
lacks an aura of gentle mysticism, the aura of my Jesus
at the supper table. The globe He holds in His hand lacks
the obvious meaning of brotherhood—the great concern of
the disciples. My Savior’s eyes are not the eyes of a
shepherd from the hills. He has a city man’s face. He is
younger than the Christ at the table. His benediction is
for all men and yet carries a sense of restraint, perhaps
a sense of doubt. Perhaps it is my own doubt, a doubt
that I feel keenly at Amboise, a doubt that seems based
on my inability to bring together the meaning inherent in
my studies, my optics, my hydraulics, my engineering
work.
Dreams...dreams...
It is evening, and the kite comes. He grips me in his
talons and helps me fly, over the Arno, over the town; he
becomes my black-brown-grey kite with wings 18 feet long,
wings of wood, cloth, wire. I hear the wind.
Francesco has been amused when I describe my experience
with the kite; however, it is too old a dream, or
experience, for me to dismiss. How many times it has
encouraged me.
As I write, I hear someone calling my name.
April 2, 1519
Again, my health is failing rapidly. I can not continue
my work with my treatises. I can not write my journal.
Sometimes I can not speak. My vision is going. Francesco
and I had begun to bring ends together; I had hoped for
days ahead because there is so much to accomplish.
At night, in my room, the walls become a mural of
Amboise, the manor house, the Loire, old bridges,
royalty, paintings, rearing horses, Francesco, wings,
rocks, caves, Galilean faces...like maddened bees.
Cloux
April 3
Yes, most of my years were years without sexual
intimacy. I experienced ecstasy but it was often bitter
later on. So, I comforted myself with sham comfort. I
gained time through my solitary living and lost time that
could have made me more human.
Yes, I had a woman for three years.
My own illegitimacy was often slammed at me...bastard
da Vinci...that stigma harms the mind.
Dedicate?
Of course, dedication...but I have explained...art,
music, sculpture, geology, mechanics...not one is
bastard.
DEDICATE:
A priest outlaws distractions. What is an artist but a
priest! Joyous children, sick children, they are part of
most married lives...that little girl on your lap,
sucking her thumb, kissing you, stroking your
beard...she...she is dead.
Here, at the château, there are hall mirrors, mirrors
in ornate frames: the artist observes himself in those
mirrors: he also sees a rusty spatula and shredded
brushes: sometimes, late afternoons, I see in those
mirrors, someone in Milan, I see her smiling, I see the
spiral of her yellow hair.
I hear her laughter.
I hear...but that is our staircase creaking. Or is it
Francesco working in his studio?
Food has become tasteless.
What is wrong with my château wine?
Maturina scolds.
I think of those hungry days as apprentice, when eating
was such a pleasure! I think of our kitchen, at Vinci.
Mother’s. Fresh bread. Milk from that blue pitcher.
Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix!
Machiavelli is here. Unexpected.
He is enroute to Paris to collect a bad debt. A man
owes him 600 livres. I have offered money. Niccolò is
proud, too proud.
He has malaria and shuffles about in a great coat
though it is warm. Last night by a studio fire he huddled
in his coat. Perhaps Dr. Pedretti can help him. We’ll see
tomorrow. As we sat by the fire, sipping wine, he railed
about politics at home—-wretched deceptions. Scoundrels!
Most of his three days have been spent in bed. In his
elegant clothes he bowed before the King. The two got
along well. Lying and vying. Francis has offered one of
his carriages for the trip to Paris.
Niccolò has lost weight. He was always skinny but now
he is a shadow of himself. He resents my paralyzed
arm...says it is God who is to blame. Then laughed—or was
it a sneer?
He thinks Amboise is a true haven.
He is wonderfully clever with his tongue, Latin, French
or Italian.
Sometimes loneliness has embittered me.
Last night I asked Francesco to come to my bedroom,
though it was late. He came and sat by my bed. He
understands my sickness; and he also knows he is going
back to his Vaprio.
It was a cold night. A fire burned in my fireplace.
Francesco wore his grey wool gown, stared at me
sleepily, flames on his thin cheek bones, on his hands,
bringing out their veins.
Cloux was forgotten as I talked of home and my mother
and my first days in Florence, at the Verrochio, first
days so different from Francesco’s first days when
Florence had more patina. I rambled on about Milan and my
paintings and the siege and Milan’s bombardment and
deaths—pell-mell thoughts. Francesco brought cups of
wine. For us this was a father/son relationship. We two
had been father and son since we left Italy, since
Francesco cared for me during the big snow at the
monastery. It pleases him that King Francis often
addresses me as “Mon Père.”
Ivory-faced madonnas...regal pomp...commissions that
failed, commissions that succeeded...my flying wing...I
was reliving my life! Francesco asked about the men who
had posed for The Last Supper. Faces, thoughts,
words...flooded. We talked about Peter and James and
Matthew; we found drawings of Jesus and He seemed real in
the firelight.
Francesco added two or three logs to the fire.
He brought in a wine bottle and refilled our glasses.
Wind gusted smoke into the room.
We talked about Paris and our trip there. I told him
that Rome was far more interesting than Paris. I related
the story of the mirror-man, at the Vatican apartment:
that story involved me in anguish. I stopped talking, to
listen to the wind.
We talked of fishing in the Loire...when?
“Tomorrow,” I suggested.
“It’s tomorrow now,” he said, laughing.
“How time gets away from us.”
“Maturina will be rattling the breakfast dishes soon.”
“Then you had better get some sleep.”
“Good night, Mon Père,” Francesco said, and laughed
that good laugh of his.
So, you won’t paint again! Where you are going you
won’t hear the pestle grinding pigment. How insignificant
my sketches, my trees, faces, water...as a boy I thought
every sketch would open up the world a little more.
It was only a month ago I made the four small bronze
horses, moulded the graceful contours of Andrea’s
face...it was only a year ago that...
I hate the body’s frailty, that dead arm! Work was
life, but no, there were hours to prowl the hills, to
climb the Alps, to sit by the sea. Maturity came during
those hours as well as during the hours of work. I
remember, while painting The Supper...
I remember a little plant in the evening light, that
frail light that shadowed the corolla. I remember a
sorrel leaf, I remember a small fern. Small? What is
small versus big? I should know.
A madonna in the evening light—her smile.
And the world shrugs.
Pigments reveal how I have erred...tell me green, tell
me saffron, tell me royalty, tell me death.
And you, red chalk, speak!
Cloux
We think we are learning how to live but we are only
learning how to die.
I, Francesco Melzi, write:
Maestro Leonardo da Vinci is dead.
He died at Cloux, in the manor house,
on May 2, 1619.
He was sixty-seven years old.
Cloux
April 4, 1519
DURING THE LAST WEEKS OF
LEONARDO DA VINCI’S LIFE,
I, FRANCESCO MELZI,
RECORDED THE MAESTRO’S THOUGHTS,
AS HE DICTATED THEM:
“Y
ou ask me what my apartment was like in Milan? It was an
apartment of tapestries and antique furniture, paintings,
mine and others. Sculptured pieces. I bought many things
at the Thieves’ Market. My Camjac tapestries covered
three walls. Made the room warmer. My paintings covered
the fourth. This was my sala. A large stained glass
window faced the street. You remember that street, of
course. Lodi Street. Western exposure. Hot in summer.
Dusty. But my apartment was on the fourth floor, had a
wide, shaded balcony. There was a small courtyard of
plants and a pair of little tiled fountains with
squirting fish. Sometimes the courtyard was a refuge.
Cypress. Old ones.