The Medici Boy (24 page)

This is how things stood between them: Agnolo had become the supplicant, Donatello the desired one.

Nonetheless, Donatello left the
bottega
at once in pursuit of the boy.

D
ONATELLO PRETENDED NOW
and again that he needed Agnolo to pose for him: to refresh the mind, he said, to reaffirm the design. Agnolo fell in gladly with his requests.

In mid March the winter suddenly ended and mild weather settled on the city. Michelozzo had just returned from Trebbio with the plans for Cosimo’s castello and I rose to greet him at the door. In a moment Donatello left off his work and approached us joyfully, welcoming Michelozzo with a shy embrace.

“It went well?” he asked.

Michelozzo began to talk of Siena and the bronze panel for the Baptistry and I seized upon this opportunity to give them privacy while I engaged once again with Agnolo. Since my return to the
bottega
I had made daily efforts to become his confidante as well as Donatello’s.

“Your work goes well,” I said.

Agnolo relaxed his pose and sat down on the little resting stool Donatello had provided him. Agnolo was still not sure he should trust me.

“Your posing pleases him.”

“He likes to have me near at hand.”

“He is a happy man these days.”

Agnolo nodded.

“He is happy because of you.”

He covered his privy parts with his hand, casually.

“You are good for him, I think. He trusts you.”

“He asks nothing of me. I only pose for him. It is not what you think.”

I assured him once again that he posed well and that he made the master happy. I returned to my accounts, annoyed. Any stranger in the street could have him, but he would be won over by me only with the greatest patience.

Donatello returned from his talk with Michelozzo. The Feast of Herod for the Siena Font had been accepted by the Cathedral with great thanks. Final payment was to follow immediately. Donatello was in good spirits. “Make a note,” he said to me, “and let me know when the payment is made.” He rubbed his hands together and anyone seeing him at that moment would think he cared about the money when in truth it meant nothing to him.

“Our David,” he said and at once Agnolo stood and assumed the pose of David in triumph, proudly naked, his foot resting on the head of Goliath.

* * *

T
HE MESSENGER WORE
a uniform of black and silver. He was a young man with the newly fashionable long hair and short doublet. He stood at the passway door to the
bottega
and waited for someone to come to him. Pagno approached him and asked his business. He must present a summons, he said, to one Luca di Matteo of the
bottega
of Donato di Betto Bardi, Orafo e Scharpellatore of Florence. It was a summons to appear before the Ufficiali di Onestà.

I heard my name and approached them. I confirmed I was that same Luca di Matteo, at which the messenger handed me a thrice-folded card that said inside in a florid script,
Citazione
, with a time and place designated, and next to Purpose was the single word
Interrogatorio
. Pagno leaned in to read the card but I folded it quickly and asked the messenger, “When?”

“Yesterday,” he said, “but I found you neither at home nor at work, so I have been sent again today. A third time and the guards will be sent to summon you.” He seemed pleased at this bit of news.

I told Donatello I must leave, but he was by now deeply involved in shaping wax for the left arm of the David and only nodded his assent. Agnolo, naked and content, smiled at me. I could see how greatly I would be missed if I disappeared into the dark cellars of the Bargello.

The walk to the offices of the Onestà took only a few minutes and the young messenger chattered the whole way. He was new in the job, his father had arranged it through a friend, a relative of the estate manager of Rinaldo degli Albizzi. He prattled on but all I heard was the name Albizzi, the bitter enemy of the Medici.

He led me through the same doors and down the same corridors I had traveled in my search for the disappeared Agnolo. All at once we stopped before the door with a plaque that said Ufficiali di Onestà and beneath it, in smaller script, Ser Paolo Ruggiero, Conservatore di Legge. The messenger pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger, winked at me, and thumped the door soundly. Ser Paolo himself poked out his huge bald head and said, “Yes? Yes?” and beckoned me in. He waved away the messenger with the back of his hand—the young man laughed, mocking—and urged me to sit down.

I was assaulted by the stench of urine. He must be ill, I thought, with some dread disease. And so fat! In a city of fat men, he was gigantic.

He took my summons, glanced at it shortly, and went back behind his desk where he began to shuffle papers and notebooks until he found the one he wanted. Then he examined my summons carefully, compared it with the pages he had opened in his notebook, and sat back satisfied.

“You are Luca di Matteo. Also called Luca Mattei.”

I nodded.

“A common name.”

“Yes.”

“A name also held by Agnolo Mattei. No relation, you say.”

“No.”

“He claims to be your brother.”

“He is no relation. His father took money from my father to raise me.”

“A complication, but not a relation. You are a bastard then?”

“Yes.”

“You know your father?”

I gave his name and Ser Paolo nodded and wrote it down. He went on like this for some time, asking questions he had asked in his previous interview, and then he said, “There are discrepancies. You said you were visiting from Prato. You said you were an engraver. You said you were in the employ of the great Ghiberti—I underlined his name—you said you lived in a rooming house in Santa Croce. Near the Basilica.” He paused and looked hard at me. “Why so many lies? Truthful men do not lie.”

“No,” I said.

“Agnolo Mattei, that youth who you say is not your brother, has confessed to a single crime of sodomy, but he is beneath the age for punishment and besides he is self-confessed, and he has given your name as well.”

“But I am not a sodomite.”

“No. He did not say that. He said you were his brother and you worked as an assistant to Donato di Betto Bardi”—he paused significantly—“famous for his works of sculpture.”

“Yes.”

“Donato di Betto Bardi has not been denounced as a sodomite.”

“No.”

He stared at me with his squinty eyes to see my reaction.

“Is he a sodomite?”

“No. He is not a sodomite. He is a very great artisan.”

“He is, without doubt, a great artisan. That does not mean he is not a sodomite.”

“I know him well. I have worked for him for many years. I know him to be a man of honor and decency.”

“And yet he is not married, though he is a good age.”

“He is married to his work.”

“So are many great artisans, I notice.”

He paused then and looked at me hard and long. I waited.

“You are known to the great Cosimo de’ Medici.”

For a moment my heart stopped and I could not breathe. It was not good for small people to be named with the great in this way.

“The lord de’ Medici is a close friend of your master Donatello.” I continued to look at him, horrified and silent, and he went on. “You know this?” He turned toward me a little book bound in red leather. I shook my head, no. “It is a collection of foul epigrams that celebrate the sinful pleasures of sodomy.
Hermaphroditus
. . . by one Antonio Beccadelli. This Beccadelli is a sodomite. He has dedicated his book to Cosimo de’ Medici, praising him for his openness of mind and his easy acceptance of the luxuries of sin.” He leaned toward me. “And Cosimo de’ Medici has accepted the dedication.” He waited. “With pleasure, it would seem.” He waited again. “The lord Cosimo is a friend of your master Donatello, you have said it yourself.”

“I have not said it.”

“But it is true.” He sat back, satisfied. “It is true nonetheless.”

I sat there, confused, frightened.

“Do you have anything you want to say? Anything?”

I assured him I had said everything I could and should.

“But if you had information, you would offer it?” He was silent for a long moment. “I am not suggesting you become a spy. But should you see where danger lies, you would act to prevent it.”

I only looked at him.

“It would be sad to see harm come to the great Donato di Betto Bardi through his association with others who themselves are not . . . careful.”

Still I said nothing.

He dismissed me then and from the corridor outside the door I could hear the torrent of piss and the sharp cry of pain as he relieved himself.

I resolved to tell no one of this, not even Alessandra.

* * *

“H
E ASKS NOTHING
of me,” Agnolo said. “I wish he would ask.”

“Do you offer?”

He paused, silent, unsure if he should trust me. Then he decided we had become friends.

“I do offer. I offer and he says no. He says it is not like that between us.”

I listened and a great peace spread through me.

“Good,” I said, but then I thought of my
interrogatorio
with Ser Paolo and his determination to discover if Donatello was a sodomite and I went cold.

“Only take care,” I said.

* * *

D
ONATELLO ASKED ME
to stay after the others had left. He locked the door and led me to his privy chamber where he lit a rushlight and poured a cup of wine for me and another for himself.

I had been in the chamber once before, insensible, and I had glanced inside many times when the door was open, and I knew it to contain his most valued things. There were several books in Latin and even some in the native language, there were paintings by Uccello and Massolino and designs for projects too important to be left outside among the pile on his great work table—I noticed drawings for the new Medici castello—and there were projects abandoned for a time but too weighty to be abandoned for good, there were letters and contracts and a Brunelleschi crucifix. A small table stood next to a cot, and there was a stool and several jugs of wine.

Donatello sat on the cot and propped himself against the wall. I took the stool and did my best to conceal my excitement at this new intimacy. He drank his cup of wine and poured another. Finally he looked at me and said, “It is your brother, Agnolo.” He gave me a half smile. “He is driving me mad.”

“He wants to be needed,” I said.

Donatello put down the cup and covered his face with his hands. He sat that way for a long moment and then he uncovered his face and he had become an old man driven to despair.

“What can I do?” he said. And to my joy and shame he told me everything. “He does not understand. He can’t. He won’t. He is a satyr. He throws himself at me like a wanton and it is my fault, it is all my fault because of that night you know about, you remember, when I had him here on this same bed, three times over, in my lust and my rage for him. He remembers that lust and he thinks that is what I want. And I confess to you it is, I want him, but there is a love that I want still more, and he does not understand. Sometimes I ache for him, I want him so. He comes at night into my bed and he is young, and his smooth body is so yielding, and I want to take him in my arms and hold him hard, hard, until our bodies melt into one another and we are but one thing and I devour him.” He put his hand to his forehead and rubbed away the thought. “No, not devour him. Did I say devour him?” He rubbed his brow again. “That may be what I mean. I want to possess him whole.
Is
it so wrong? You have been a Franciscan brother, Luca, tell me, is it so wrong?”

“We are weak men. We know what is right but we do what is wrong.”

“Do you understand what I mean when I say I want his love and not just his body?”

I understood but, jealous, I said nothing.

“You are a good man, Luca,” he said, and I kept this in mind as he poured another cup of wine and talked on and on for hours about his love and his lust and devouring the smooth body of that damned Agnolo.

Toward midnight he fell asleep and I returned home to Alessandra who was too tired to make love with me and so I satisfied myself at the side of the bed and slept a disturbed and bitter sleep for the few hours remaining to the night.

I had in truth become Donatello’s confidante but at a great price.

* * *

“T
HERE IS NOTHING
for me to do. I stand about all day and do nothing. Caterina says I am no use to her because I do not grind the pigments well even when I’ve ground them to a powder and Pagno says I dull his chisels when I use them but when I try to sharpen them he says I chip the edges. The apprentices think I am a fool. The
garzoni
call me a
bardassa
. And Donatello fails even to see me.” He paused and looked at me, hopeful. “You are my only friend.”

In this way I became Agnolo’s confidante.

* * *

T
HE STATUE WAS
progressing beautifully. The head and neck and shoulders were the young David come alive in wax. The face expressed nothing. There was no triumph in his look, no sense of awe and horror at having killed Goliath and beheaded him. No exhaustion. No godly fear. Only that indifference Agnolo had showed in the days when he was the desired one.

“Look at me,” he said now. He had undressed and was standing at the posing platform, the living David, naked, impatient for attention.

Donatello was smoothing the wax beneath the arch of David’s chest and either did not hear or did not want to hear. I looked up from my work table and shook my head no, a message to Agnolo.

“Look at me,” he said again, and pressed hard with his foot against the marble block that served as Goliath’s head. The muscles in his leg rippled and he smiled at the effect.

“I’m working!” Donatello was in no mood for real flesh. He put down his ivory smoothing chisel and picked up a hooked awl with which to shape the nipples. He leaned in closer to his work.