Signora Da Vinci (56 page)

A. For me, the Italian Renaissance was not simply an explosion of the art and architecture that most people think of when they hear the words. What my research uncovered was a “Shadow Renaissance” steeped in Platonic and Hermetic philosophy and Egyptian magic. Almost every ruler, writer, scientist or thinker in those years at least toyed with alchemy and the occult. Despite the church’s prohibitions, most of these great men (and a few women) took these views very seriously indeed. Few admitted to being outright atheists like Leonardo, but attempting to meld Christian Scripture with the pagan mysteries was extremely common, especially in educated and highly cultured circles . . . even in Rome.

Despite its importance, one finds little if anything written about the Platonic Academy and its impact on the early Italian Renaissance—as though it was a men’s social club and not an overarching philosophy that informed the lives of its members, making them especially vulnerable when Savonarola came to power. Authors—of both fiction and nonfiction—tend to ignore the implications of such towering figures as Lorenzo de Medici—one of the greatest patrons of the Academy—adhering to such heretical beliefs.

A. Lorenzo’s tie with Leonardo is pondered in some detail by historians. Some say the maestro was ignored by
Il Magnifico
, who felt the lowborn artist was “below him socially.” Others go so far as to suggest that Leonardo—like Michelangelo after him—was actually housed for a time in the Palazzo Medici and treated as a son.

While there’s little evidence that the artist lived in the Florence palace, I find it hard to believe that Lorenzo would not have held the insanely talented young man, apprentice to the family’s own court artist, Andrea Verrocchio, in very high regard.

And I believe that in 1484 Leonardo’s leave-taking from Florence for Milan, to the court of Lorenzo’s friend, Ludovico
Il Moro
, was a well-planned move, probably to protect the well-known heretic and necromancer (scandalized by his sodomy trial) from the worsening religious persecutions he would certainly have suffered had he stayed. Too, Lorenzo was such a man-of-the-people that I cannot imagine him snubbing Leonardo simply because he hadn’t been born noble.

A. As for the maestro’s sexuality, that subject, too, has mystified his biographers. When people learn I’ve written about da Vinci’s life, it’s usually the first question asked about him. Once more, his secretive nature serves him very well, for while everyone seems to have extremely strong opinions about the man, no one—biographer or historian—has conclusive evidence about whether Leonardo was straight, gay, bisexual, or asexual.

My best guess is that his sexual preferences changed according to his age, his social setting, and the emotional and political pressures brought to bear upon him. You can’t forget that sodomy was considered a burnable offense by the church in Florence, even before Savonarola arrived on the scene. As a young apprentice in Verrocchio’s bottega (Verrocchio was himself openly homosexual), Leonardo was surrounded by lots of “pretty boys,” who had little or no money to spend on whores, so homosexual behavior was perhaps more of a necessity than a choice.

The famous sodomy trial (that most people cite as proof of Leonardo’s proclivities) in which two of the others arrested were related to the Medici (and probably a means to embarrass them) proved nothing whatsoever about Leonardo, except that he caroused (or hobnobbed) with the boys of “good families.” Once he was a bit older, there was every reason to think he visited female as well as male prostitutes.

I do think the sodomy trial had an effect on Leonardo’s sexuality— putting him off it for a time. Despite charges being dropped for lack of evidence, the scandal seemed to traumatize the young, exquisitely sensitive young man. Once an outgoing, fancily clad man-about-town, he became quite reclusive and dove into his human dissections in the nether regions of Santa Maria Novella Hospital. That his professional relationship and friendship (perhaps love) with the alchemically inclined Zoroastre began to grow during this period and last through many, many years, was perhaps a result of sharing that terrible experience.

Later in life, Leonardo appeared asexual to me. While he adored having beautiful young men surrounding him as apprentices, he was so caught up in the “life of the mind” that sex may have become quite unimportant to him. Some of his writings suggest that he thought the sex act silly, the sex organs repulsive, and the only redeeming qualities the attractive faces of the participants—all that kept the human race from dying out. Even later in Leonardo’s life he carried on close friendships with several women, and it’s been suggested that any one of them might have been his lover.

Many people believe that Salai was Leonardo’s young lover. I thought a better explanation of why he might have taken in the lying, cheating ten-year-old thief, spoiled him excessively, and kept him at his side till two weeks before the maestro died was that Salai was a son he would never have considered abandoning like his own father did to him.

A. Cross-dressing in history has always interested me, especially women who have taken on the guise of men. The nearly unbelievable examples are females who have put on soldiers’ garb and gone to war for extensive periods, serving on the battlefield with male comrades, only being found out after their deaths.

Caterina, living alone as she does in my story, had it easier. It was my creative choice to have her menstrual cycle disrupted when, through misery, she lost a great deal of weight after Leonardo departed for his apprenticeship in Florence. This simplified certain parts of her existence. My favorite tidbit of historical research on the subject was the “horn” that cross-dressing women used to have a normal-looking male piss in public.

Certainly one needs readers who enjoy a “suspension of disbelief ” in this regard, but not only was Caterina’s disguise possible—such behavior was commonplace enough to have several books written about it (see my bibliography).

A. It is. Lorenzo was a famous poet in his time. His love sonnets were most highly regarded. While the objects of his adoration in his earlier poetry were the Florentine beauties Lucrezia Donati and, platonically, his brother Giuliano’s mistress, Simonetta Cattaneo, in his last thirty-seven sonnets Lorenzo fixates on anther woman—never named—but definitely not his wife, Clarice.

His lover, “my lady,” as he refers to her, provided “a beneficial touch that ennobled his life.” Under her influence he transcended suffering and achieved intense pleasure and happiness in his otherwise difficult, pain-ridden existence. We may never learn who Lorenzo’s lover was, but I like to think it was Caterina.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

GRAPE AND OLIVE COMPOTE

Friend and extraordinary epicurean Susan Jeter created this simple but spectacular recipe. It has always made for compulsive consumption and, with its ingredients as common to Italy now as they were five hundred years ago, cried out to be included in
Signora da Vinci.

 

Mix all ingredients in an ovenproof dish and bake uncovered for one hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, turning the fruit every twenty minutes with a spoon to recoat them with the oil and vinegar. Serve warm or cold with soft goat cheese on crusty bread or with crackers, or use as a side dish with fish or poultry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frank L. Bochard, “The Magus as Renaissance Man,”
Sixteenth Century Journal

Robin DiPasquale, “The Aboca Museum: Displaying the History of Herbal Medicine in Italy and Europe,” on the Web

David Melling,
Understanding Plato

E. J. Holmyard,
Alchemy

Jonathan Hughes, “Base Matter into Gold,”
History Today
, August 2005

Art Kunkin, “Practical Alchemy and Physical Mortality,”
Gnosis, A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions
#8, Summer 1988, and conversations with Art Kunkin

Francis Yates,
Renaissance and Reform
;
The Italian Contribution: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
;
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
;
The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age

 

 

Serge Bramly,
Leonardo, The Artist and the Man

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
, arranged, translated, and with an introduction by Edward MacCurdy

Leonardo da Vinci—The Complete Paintings and Drawings
, Frank Zöllner

Charles Nicholl,
Leonardo da Vinci—Flights of the Mind

Giorgio Vasari,
Vasari’s Lives of the Artists

Michael White,
Leonardo, The First Scientist

James Wyatt Cook,
The Autobiography of Lorenzo de’ Medici the Magnificent

Christopher Hibbert,
The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall

Nicholas Saladino,
Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Florentine Renaissance

Hugh Ross Williamson,
Lorenzo the Magnificent

 

Michal Levey,
Florence

Palazzo Medici, “In the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent,”
www.palazzo-medici.it/eng/ museo.htm

A. Richard Turner,
Renaissance Florence

 

Philippe Aries and George Duby,
A History of Private Life—Revelations of the Medieval World

 

Rudolph M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol,
The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe

John M. Riddle,
Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance

Valerie R. Hotchiss,
Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross-Dressing in Medieval Europe