Seiobo There Below (28 page)

Everything begins with the commission, with the patron, in this case Signor Bernardino di ser Angelo Tezi, the notary of Perugia who, representing the Tezi family, registers before the appropriate authorities all of the requirements relating to the commissioned picture, usually — as on this occasion as well — with the stipulation that the Virgin Mother and the two visionary saints be painted by the maestro himself, that the very best ultramarine and the very best vermiglione be used, and so on, including precisely designating the composition of the desired scene and the portrayal of the desired figures in the picture, and of course the price and the time are also registered, saying — that is writing — that for the preparation of the altarpiece the aforementioned maestro will be owed one hundred and fifty golden florins by the patron, in such and such installments, the maestro for his part consents to prepare this altarpiece in the propitious year of the turn of the century, and the delivery will be arranged by the patron, as the altarpiece is to be placed in the family chapel, Chiesa di Sant’ Agostino, and with that the entire operation began, precisely, it began with the maestro going to his own carpenter — this happened already in Perugia — and he said to him, look, Stefano, I need it from poplar, but from the very highest quality poplar, you know what kind, the dolce, moreover, the dolcissimo, that’s what I need, but cutting it so that no part of the edge of the trunk is inside it, saw it along the grain, in a word, it has to be six feet long and four and a half feet wide, yes, master Stefano replied in the carpentry workshop, so one piece, six feet wide and four and a half feet long; no, said the maestro, six feet long and four and a half feet wide, yes, the slightly thick-witted carpenter interrupted, nodding vigorously, accordingly six feet long and four and a half feet wide; yes, said the maestro, a poplar panel of those dimensions, I will be painting an altarpiece on it, in brief how much do you want, asked the maestro, so that the back will be smeared with minium to protect it from insects, and the painting side will be smoothly planed, but then go over it a little bit with the toothed plane, you understand, Stefano, that there should be completely fine little ridges running through it, so that the whole painting side will be able to absorb the size, go over the back though with the rough planer, because you know, Stefano, that then it will be easier to press in the cross-lathes, those, too, will be necessary, of course, of course, echoed the carpenter standing before the famous painter and bowing his head slightly, from oak wood however, oak, nodded master Stefano, you know, continued the maestro, it needs dovetailed grooves, or what do you call it, that’s what we call it, approved Stefano, which you can then press the cross-lathes into, but you know, the maestro admonished him, the cross-lathes should always be placed crosswise to the grain, Stefano, yes, of course, maestro Vannucci, the carpenter nodded again, everything will be just as you wish, and when do you need it by, well, by when can you have it ready, that is the question, answered the maestro, if it were ready by next Saturday, would that be good, the carpenter asked, smiling, because he knew that nobody else could complete the order as quickly, because well, if it was for him, the greatly esteemed Pietro di Vannucci — so for how much, the maestro grew impatient, six by four and a half feet, asked the carpenter, and relying on his old habit, if the talk was about money, he continually rubbed the tips of his fingers together behind his back, as if he were rummaging around in a money pouch; from poplar, mused master Stefano, and the maestro nodded at every sentence, but he didn’t say a word, and so, muttered the carpenter, with cross-lathes, Signor Vannucci appeared once again to grow impatient, and when he finally heard the price, he was completely crestfallen, and stared intently at master Stefano as if he had just cursed the Holy Mother Church, and he simply could not catch his breath — the maestro was a master of performance as well, and was capable of bargaining for a single soldo — or even one single caldera — for an entire hour, or even longer, as the situation required, so that on this occasion as well, a good half-hour went by, as they continued to bargain, and they enumerated the specifications again and again, and then the maestro stepped out of the carpenter’s workshop, having quickly concluded the deal, and having got the price down to one quarter of the original stated amount, and next Saturday quickly came around, and the panel was there with all the agreed-upon measurements and requirements, so that work could begin, the maestro entrusted Francesco — not the Francesco Bachielli, who was still working in the maestro’s workshop around the year 1495, but Francesco Bettini, who still counted as among the most inexperienced — with the initial preparatory operations, informing him to proceed with a large degree of circumspection, because from this point onward each individual phase of the work carried great significance, there were no tasks that were any less important or more important, he had to treat the tavola in such a way that if any phase of the work was completed badly, negligently, or in a heedless fashion, it would render the subsequent work meaningless, and the panel worthless, because the panel would be unusable, and the picture would be unpaintable, that is, even just the slightest negligence or lack of attention would be enough, and the commission would be gone, and that also would entail repercussions for Francesco, the withdrawal of wages, and other reprisals left unexpressed, so he should not disregard his, the maestro’s, orders, he should begin by placing the panel in a perpendicular position, so that he could have access to both the front and the back surfaces, and wash them down, rubbing thoroughly everywhere, he should wash it down, but on the back side of the panel with only a damp sponge; with this, however, Francesco — the other Francesco — could help for a while, so that in a word as he thoroughly scrubbed the back surface with the damp rag, the other at the same time would be smearing boiling vinegar onto the painting side, but they had to be very careful to do it at once, truly at the same time, for the entire thing to occur simultaneously, otherwise the panel would begin to warp toward the back, and it would be like a barrel, and that would be the end, he hoped that Francesco understood, the maestro raised his index finger warningly, and with that work could begin, so that the two Francescos did everything exactly as had been prescribed, the back surface of the panel with a damp sponge, on the painting side with warm vinegar, to open up the pores of the wood, so that then the size would be absorbed more easily into the surface of the wood, and they really did all of this at the same time, so that there was no problem at all, they could continue with the following phase, but only the next morning; the two Francescos put the tavola aside for that day to let it dry, and the next morning, when, according to custom, they placed it horizontally onto the two trestles that were set up obliquely, they looked to see if they had the right kind of bristles, and what was most important, the surface smeared with vinegar had to be completely dry, and since it was, the unpleasant operation of sizing the panel could truly commence: because even expressing it as delicately as possible, it was unpleasant due to the unmistakable stench, for if here, in the maestro’s workshop, the assistants weren’t obligated to cook it up themselves from parchment, but rather got the size from the glove-makers’, they still had to boil it, to warm it up on a so-called gentle fire, and keep it there while the work continued: and already from the mere fact that somebody brought it in from the courtyard and put it onto the fire, an infernal stink arose, there was always a great contest to see who could escape this particular task, but in this the maestro divided the work evenly among them, so that sometimes the Francescos, sometimes Aulista, sometimes Giovanni, sometimes Giannicola, sometimes the others — in the beginning the assistant who worked in the workshop in Perugia completed the task — in any event, this time the honor of applying the boiling size onto the tavola had been conferred upon the Francescos, that is to say in accordance with the instructions: employing a short hard brush of pig-bristles, and not dipping, but dabbing it into the size from above perpendicularly, so that just the tip of the brush would touch the size, then drawing it across the edge of the basin; they began to apply it to the surface of the panel, sprinkling it in circles, rubbing it in as much as they could, very thoroughly, not a single corner, detail, the tiniest little spot could not be left out, and when it was ready, when the first part had dried enough that a second nice fine layer could be applied to it, well, then it was ready, but before they got to that point they had to keep thinning the size so that it would not get too thick, and the maestro was always coming in, as he was always the one to check on things, to see if it was diluted enough, or if it was already too thick, he stuck two fingers into it, then holding them up slowly spread them apart, and if a nice film was formed, then everything was fine, and it wasn’t at all bad for the maestro to continually supervise every movement, but for the fact of the stench, namely he, Francesco, and everything around him stank dreadfully; the assistants approached him plugging up their noses, and if they came toward him, they of course repeatedly bombarded him whose turn it was — this time Francesco — asking what it was that made him stink so much, and what would his sweetheart say if he were to embrace her right now in one of the back rooms of a nearby tavern on the Borgo la Croce, because it was like that to be sure, not only around the wooden panel, but wherever he worked in the workshop became suffused with an unbearable stench, and he himself as well, or perhaps he himself the most of all, and to be sure he could only get rid of this smell with great difficulty, it remained on his hands for days, he washed them, washed them in vain, it just wouldn’t come off properly with water, in short at least a week would go by until he could somehow get rid of the stench; work went on however, and when the size was completely dry, which in this case was in two days, because just then the weather was very rainy, they began to work on the panel again, only that now this work was not for them — that is for the Francescos — but rather was entrusted to Giannicola, as the maestro said, look here, Giannicola, I know that you are already a great master in this, still it won’t hurt for you to hear one more time what you have to do, so that well, first rub down what Francesco has made very finely with the pumice stone, only then can you put on the gesso; use the cauldron for this plaster, fill it with clean water from the brook, and warm it up, warm it up, and then you start to sprinkle the plaster into it nice and slow, and with your other hand all the while mixing it and mixing it, and put in enough water so that there will be enough for it not to start to harden, in a word put in enough for it to dissolve and stay liquid, and do it nicely, sprinkle a little more water onto it, cover it well, and when you see that already the plaster doesn’t want any more water, then it’s good, but make sure that it remains at boiling point until you begin to apply the first rough layer onto the tavola . . . well, you understand, Giannicola, but in the meantime don’t forget that you have to keep working on the back surface of the panel properly with a moistened rag, and when however it is dry, in other words, the first layer of gesso grosso, then you know what you have to do: take up the drawing knife, and apply the next layer, be very careful for it to be even, over the entire surface, and really even, but I will be here for that, the maestro reassured the assistant, who of course was not reassured, but became nervous, because to have to work with the maestro standing behind his back, after so many years, would be like having to listen patiently all over again about what he had already done a hundred times, and he had already listened a hundred times, but really, why was the maestro saying this again and again, neither Giannicola nor the other assistants could ever really understand, they suspected that it was because he was dreadfully anxious about the plaster, the size, the panel, and maybe even the water in the rag with which they rubbed the back surface of the panel continuously and perhaps his boundless miserliness was the reason that he never tired of repeating the same thing one hundred times, he so was lacking in trust in them just as he never trusted anyone at all almost like a sick man, whose illness consists of an unconditional lack of trust, and maybe that was the source of everything bad in him; because he was not lacking in that either, he was not exactly considered to be an easy master, indeed, he was thought of as notorious, but still better to have him there behind one’s back, thought Giannicola, than to be without him — because that also meant that he was not coming into the workshop and that was always and unconditionally bad — in any event now here he was, and everyone was happy that the work on the Pala Tezi was proceeding and it really did look as if it would be ready in MCCCCC, and so Giannicola applied the two layers of gesso grosso, and then he began the gesso sottile, but here the plaster should only be lukewarm, Giannicola continued from here so he could show to the maestro standing behind him that he understood things, that he did not have to be taught — but one of the brand-new assistants should be instructed, you know, just be very careful, but very careful, that there are no bubbles; everything depends on how clever you are when you apply the gesso, the best is if we ask for a drop of spirits from the maestro — and the maestro was already holding out the flask — and from this, Giannicola continued, you pour out a glass and then you pour out this entire little glass into the bottom of the basin, yes, like that Giannicola praised the assistant, who completed the task quickly, the spirits, Giannicola explained to the assistant, get rid of the bubbles, but the main thing is that when you are mixing it you should almost not be mixing it, but rather let it sit for a day, for it to settle, and then you mix it again without hardly mixing it; you sprinkle the plaster until it sinks into it, then however when a little hill begins to
form in the middle, you have to stop immediately and then mix it again one more time very carefully, and make sure that it remains lukewarm, the whole thing depends on this as well, you understand, Domenico, or whatever your name is, because the base of the panel must be smooth, perfectly smooth, and that depends on whether or not you end up making bubbles, so it all depends on you, take note, Domenico, Giannicola said threateningly; then, he added, you know the rest, you know that you have to apply it with your flat heavy brush, at first rub on the initial layer, but then you should smear on the next layer right after it, don’t worry, I’ll tell you later how many layers there should be, don’t worry, I’ll be here; I’m sure about that, thought this Domenico and you could see this is what he was thinking — because Giannicola, standing behind his back with the sarcastically smiling maestro, looked at him for a moment fairly strangely, but then he let it pass — and he continued by pointing out that when the entire surface was being brushed, he should make sure not to forget that we do not begin at the edge, and at this word Giannicola strongly raised his voice, but from the inside, and first we stroke inward and only after that outward, because otherwise a spot will remain there which you will be unable to get out, well you understand, Domenico, I don’t have to explain so much to you, you’ve done it and you’ve seen it before since you’ve been here, and you’ve proven already that after you’ve finished we don’t have to go over the whole thing with the hake brush, because if you do what I say, then your gesso will be as smooth as a copper mirror, and that’s what we need here, said Giannicola, exactly, the maestro said, taking up the thread behind him, and looking directly at Giannicola, he said to him, yes, a perfectly smooth surface, but take note, that if by any chance I find even just one single bump, one single furrow, one single spot, then you’ll get such a slap in the face, Giannicola that you will rue it for the rest of your life, you understand, at which point, to Domenico’s greatest delight, Giannicola turned completely red from the chagrin of desperately wanting to somehow reply to the maestro, but not doing so, he just continued to listen to the maestro’s words in silence, who however only now noted: don’t be afraid, there won’t be any problems, I’ll be right here, and if I’m not, then call for me, always call for me if you are not certain of something, you may ask anything you want, just don’t make any mistakes, this is not painting, this is the gesso, it cannot be repaired, you yourself know best, you’ve already been working for me long enough, the maestro said this in 1495, and although actually it not had been so long ago that Giannicola di Paolo came into the maestro’s studio, he remained silent, and he would have been very pleased to take out all of his chagrin on Domenico, but instead set about to work, which, however for some unknown reason the maestro only permitted them to begin the following day, and Giannicola, instructing Domenico, prepared the gesso with him that same day, the gesso dried quickly, so that was it already possible to sand the whole thing down, and to draw a moist rag over it, very gently, but really just barely, as delicately as a breath, and the priming was completed, then came the application of the alum solution with the hake brush, as the maestro considered it to be extremely important for the base not to absorb the colors to such a degree, and there was the perfectly smooth, matte surface, and the underdrawing could begin — it’s just that it did not begin, because from that point on the maestro stood the sized tavola up against the wall, and the Tezi family was forgotten, he simply took no notice of the picture, as if he had given up on it, he was not at all interested in the fact that it was there, as if it had ceased to exist for him; sometimes still they mentioned it to him, either Aulista or Giovanni, but he just pushed the whole thing aside with an incomprehensible gesture, and just continued with what he had been saying and doing at that moment, so that accordingly the prepared panel just sat there, and then — perhaps two years or maybe a year and half later — when everyone had forgotten about it already, the maestro came into the workshop one day, but this was already in Florence, where in the meantime it had been delivered with a large shipment, saying that now the time had come for the underdrawing, and at first of course they had no idea what he was talking about, because they had forgotten about it themselves, it was only when, in the bottega in Florence, the maestro pointed to the panel leaning up against the wall that they realized that he was talking about the picture for the Sant’Agostino, but at that time there were already two who could be entrusted with the commission from the maestro, that is, Giovanni and Aulista, who had already gained serious reputations outside of the workshop as well, but in the workshop ultimately, if the maestro wanted to be fair, then he had to divide the task up between the two of them, and contrary to their expectations, since he always made capricious and erratic decisions, this time he really was just, giving one part of the underdrawing to Aulista and the other to Giovanni, and so it happened that Aulista began, the maestro entrusted the drawing to his hand, and everyone who was in the workshop immediately gathered there, and watched in great wonder over Aulista’s shoulder, because the drawing, as always, now too was wonderful, they were dazzled, especially the newly arrived apprentices — foremost among them Domenico — all would have liked to know immediately how the maestro prepared the drawing, so that as Aulista began, the maestro said to the apprentices, who were gathered in a circle, that in a good painting the drawing is of extraordinary importance, which always begins first by having to render the paper transparent, this can be acheived by using linseed oil diluted with turpentine, that is you must rub it onto the paper until it becomes translucent, transparent, and then after that you have to dry it, and then bring it out when it is time for the underdrawing, as is the case now, he motioned toward Aulista, the underdrawing, he repeated, which means that from among the previously prepared drawings you need to choose precisely the right one, just as I did at home one half-hour ago, and you place the transparent paper onto this drawing, and with a sharpened piece of charcoal, you trace it nicely, carefully, your drawing is now on the transparent paper, and then you lay some kind of carpet or a thicker piece of felt underneath it; then following the contours nicely you pierce through the paper, puncturing, densely with pinpricks, the maestro motioned to the assistants, along all of the contours of the drawing, and now all you have to do is smooth down your punctured drawing, because otherwise nothing will permeate through the tiny pinpricks; then you place it on the painting surface, and you put charcoal dust ground very fine into a fine rag so that the dust can pass through, you form the rag into a little ball, and tie it up with something, then with this tool, with the charcoal dust you transfer, through all of the tiny little pinpricks onto the panel — or onto the canvas, it depends on what you are painting — the original drawing, well then, so you understand, don’t you; the master looked around at the assistants, then he watched for a while to make sure that everything was all right with the silently working Aulista, then stating that from this point on they should watch him, and then tomorrow they themselves could give it a try to see if they could do it; he left the workshop; the precise, faint underdrawing had been ready on the tavola for a long time, but the maestro had not come in to begin painting, they didn’t dare to take the tavola down from the trestles, but they couldn’t just leave it there, they had to keep walking around it, because well, they still needed to use the trestles, and when it had became obvious that for now the work had proceeded thus far and the maestro had lost interest in it again, instead of putting it back on the painting easel, Aulista traced the lines with a fine brush, and the panel was taken down, thus freeing up the trestles; then cautiously, the entire thing was sprayed with a mixture of milk and honey so that the drawing would not be damaged, and finally they put it back against the wall facing inward, so that life could go on in the bottega in Florence, and for a good long while even the maestro himself never mentioned the Tezi altarpiece, and didn’t even ask Aulista, and chiefly did not look to see if the underdrawing was ready, or if it was, what the result was like; even then, and, when one day a half-year later — not in the morning but in the middle of the afternoon — he arrived, and there was still light in the workshop, he did not speak to anyone, but just put the long untouched panel back onto the easel, and instructed one of the Francescos to immediately take out one of the painting pots with some ultramarine prepared earlier for something else, and to break it up with the pumice stone; Francesco, of course, was greatly amazed when the master took up his cloak, wondering what the maestro could want with the ultramarine so late in the day, but he began to break up the exorbitantly expensive pigment without a word, all the while measuring out so cautiously, almost drop by drop, the egg yolk, already separated and mixed with linseed oil, and to prevent spoiling, disinfected with the juice of fresh fig buds, so that he even held his breath, and as in the case of ultramarine, the color is always best if the crystals of the pigment are left coarse, he, too, broke them up coarsely, and was ready with it relatively quickly, he poured it into a seashell, and was already giving it to the maestro, who took it without a word and began to paint with it the wondrous material of the lower garments of the Virgin Mary, their ethereal lightness, in that color at which Aulista had marveled already so many times when on occasion — if he was alone in the workshop — he turned the picture away from the wall so he could make sure that it had not been damaged by mold or something else; only Bastiano, Domenico, one of the Francescos, and he, Aulista, were in the workshop, the maestro painted, everyone went about their business silently, but so carefully as to not make a single sound, and as a matter of fact, the maestro was quickly finished with this blue, then he painted in, with a black that happened to be at hand, but originally prepared for something else, the folds and the waves, to the point of perceptibility, then he called for Aulista to come over, and for a while they looked at how the blue glimmered, then the maestro gestured for Aulista to come completely close to the picture, and pointing at the lowermost edge of the blue garment on the left side of the picture, he allowed him to paint there, onto that surface, a little more dark color, and to write there, with the finest brush — but you know, he grabbed Aulista’s shoulder, just in such a way that it almost can’t be seen, and with gold — MCCCCC, then he turned away from the easel, he took off his cloak, he handed his brushes to Bastiano so that he could wash them out with soap, and then he wasn’t even there, he left the workshop and from that point on all that happened was that the next day, or the day after that, when he came over again from the Borgo Pinti, he took the picture down from the easel, placed it again next to the wall with the colors facing inward, and no longer bothered with it, as if he had forgotten that it was there, so that in Perugia a completely new story began, not the continuation of the old one, as the whole thing started with the arrival of the four assistants, who had somehow collected themselves after the fatal exhaustion on the Via dei Priori, then in a complete state of despair they directed the coachman to the door of the leased workshop on the Piazza del Sopramura, and there to their greatest alarm the maestro himself awaited them, like some kind of ghost, but it was not a ghost, it was he himself, as for some reason, he was not willing to say more than that, essentially he himself had started off toward home on horseback on the same morning as they, with some kind of paid accompaniment, when he had sent them off on their journey in the cart, only that he went by a different route, and of course reached Perugia much more quickly than their cart, in brief, the whole thing began with him seeing the state that the assistants were in, he let them have a proper rest, and when they were rested they should come to his house in the Via Deliziosa, and report that they were ready for work, and that is how it happened, the maestro left them and they immediately collapsed onto the floor of the new bottega, and already the four of them were asleep, the locals, Girolamo, Raffaello, Sinibaldo, and Bartolomeo, together with the coachman, brought in the contents of the cart — the coachman was not in such a bad state as the others, he was cut from somewhat harder wood, as he kept saying to the local assistants — so that after the cart-load had been brought in, they led the horses to the nearby postal station and handed them over to a stable boy, then they went back into the workshop, and the coachman got something to eat and drink, and finally they let him sleep as well, and they left silently so as to come back the next day, when the coachman was already awake, but the others were still snoring like horses, so getting some work out of them, because they lay strewn across the workshop, was not really possible, they left the coachman with his wages as sent by the maestro, and they waited, they waited for these four to finally wake up, but well they just weren’t waking up, only on the following day; altogether they slept through an entire night, and an entire day, and an entire night again, however when they did wake up, all those who knew some of the others already were glad, for example, Bartolomeo knew nearly everyone from the workshop in Florence, but Aulista also knew Sinibaldo from somewhere, it was only Raffaello whom no one really knew, he was a fairly new assistant even for the Perugians, they had just heard of him of course from the maestro in Florence, he was wholly exempted from priming and the preparatory work in Perugia, because the maestro was teaching this Raffeallo exclusively how to paint, that is how to make the paints, how to take care of the brushes, and how to paint this or that — an arm, a head, a mouth, a Madonna, a Jerome, or a landscape — but frankly speaking, said the maestro, I really don’t