The Medici Boy (38 page)

I
N THIS YEAR
, 1451, tensions between Venice and Florence grew worse and as a result we Florentines were daily less welcome in Padua. Venice closed Cosimo’s banks. Cosimo opened new ones in Milan. Venice ended all trade with Florence. Milan took up the trade that Venice left off. Threatened by the Holy Roman emperor, Cosimo decided he had no choice but to request the aid of the king of France, the ancient enemy of the emperor.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

Cosimo sent ambassadors to France and won a guarantee of trade between the Republic of Florence and the kingdom of France, conceding only that Florence would remain neutral should France some day decide to pursue its claim to the kingdom of Naples. But in the year 1452 that is exactly what France did and the king of Naples marched north against Florence to punish Cosimo for his pact with France. The Neapolitan army swept everything before it as the soldiery penetrated the countryside and harried the outlying villages, plundering and looting. All of Florence trembled under the imminent attack.

Cosimo de’ Medici, an old man of sixty-four, took to his bed, broken.

And then when all hope seemed lost, the ferocious French army appeared on the northern borders hastening south to defend the Florentine republic. The Neapolitan army fell into retreat as the citizens of Florence drew a deep breath and offered prayers of gratitude in all of its many churches. For the moment Florence was saved. Cosimo left the city for his fortified villa in the Mugello.

* * *

D
ONATELLO
’
S
J
OHN THE
Baptist possessed a soft silken glow before he painted it in brown and gold. In its silken state the statue was ethereal: here was a man no longer of this world. But painted, it became something new, unlike anything Donatello had yet done, unlike anything any of us had seen. At first glance it was supremely ugly: the portrait of a dying man whose flesh was desiccated and whose limbs were mere bone. Sunken eyes. Gaunt cheeks. What in Agnolo Mattei was the wasting of a human being became in John the Baptist the triumph of the spirit over flesh. In him humanity approached the awesome nature of divinity. Ugliness became a new kind of beauty. Weakness became a source of perfection. His statue was an act of faith: Donatello had revealed in it what happens when you draw too close to God.

Yet he did not surrender it to Palla Strozzi or to Venice. He kept it locked in his private chamber, unwilling or unable to let it go.

* * *

D
ONATELLO NOW DISCOVERED
that the Gattamelata was well advanced under the care of Pagno di Lapo and the bronze experts he had hired. It was still able, however, to receive the impress of his own hands. He sculpted a new head for Gattamelata—in a rage he had taken a hammer to the earlier head because it lacked nobility—and he made corrections in the arch of his back and the thrust of his legs and the position of the lance. He took great care too that the front left leg of the horse balanced perfectly on the canon ball beneath it. And then, finally, he turned over the many finished pieces to the care of Andrea del Caldiere who had cast the bronzes for the high altar of the Basilica.

At the same time the immense pedestal was being completed, with its mourning angels and its winged
putti
and the two great marble doors that made it both a monument and a tomb. Donatello was eager to finish the work on schedule and with a perfection worthy of the statues of the high altar. And he was eager to make amends for the time lavished on John the Baptist.

“I
AM NO
longer so ugly. Say I am not.”

“You are transformed. You are made a saint,” I said.

“In the statue, you mean.”

Donatello had brought the statue of John the Baptist from his locked chamber to examine it once more in the light of day. It stood in the great room of the
bottega
where it had been admired all through the long May afternoon.

Agnolo was contemplating the finished statue with something less than satisfaction. In the year since its completion he had indeed put on weight. He looked more his old self and he had taken on some of his old restlessness. I knew where this would lead.

“You will not go night prowling once again.”

“Never. I will die before I go back to prison.”

“Well done.”

“I have such nightmares,” Agnolo said. “No young boy is worth it.”

I thought of Franco Alessandro somewhere in Venice in exile. I could not look at Agnolo without thinking of my lost son. I offered each day a small prayer that God would be merciful to him and help him change his ways, though I understood that Franco’s ways were not his own, that somehow he could not help himself, that he was fated to be what he was. And which of us escapes our fate?

“Yet you remain restless,” I said.

“It is as if I cannot help it. As if I were possessed by the need . . .”

“The need to fuck?”

“The need to love.”

“You are a sad creature,” I said.

“But I will never suffer prison again,” he said.

I did not hate him then. He too was bound by fate.

Is one’s fate the same thing as God’s will? I wonder about this even today.

I
N LESS THAN
a year—in 1453—Florence would again face the likelihood of disaster, this time from the mercenary armies of Venice, and once again it would be God’s strange interventions that would save the Republic. In June of that year Constantinople would fall to the Turks and his holiness Pope Nicholas V would call upon all of Christendom—even Venice and Florence—to unite against the Muslim enemy. It was a fine excuse for peace and the renewal of trade. Let us unite to crush the Turks. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

* * *

I
N
S
EPTEMBER 1453
Gattamelata was mounted on its pedestal and all Padua came to marvel at it.

Donatello’s work in Padua was complete.

Mine, alas, was not.

CHAPTER
40

O
N
13 J
UNE
1453 the Operai of Padua made a great feast to celebrate the completion of the monument to Gattamelata. In truth it would be some months before we packed away all our tools but it was not too early to celebrate Donatello’s great accomplishments. An old man of sixty-seven years had achieved what many men together could not have: a new high altar for the Santo, seven statues flawlessly executed in bronze, a crucifix that would be the envy of Brunelleschi, and the largest bronze equestrian statue in the modern world. And all of it so praised that Donatello said he longed to return to Florence where he could hear some honest criticism.

The wine flowed freely long past nightfall and even after all the remaining food had been cleared away. I was light-headed though not really drunk. But Pagno was drunk and in a great sadness at the thought that he was moving toward old age and was still unmarried. We decided we should gladden ourselves by visiting the houses of pleasure in the ancient parts of the city. In a feeling of good fellowship we strolled arm in arm through the Piazza delle Erbe with all the expensive whores in their gloves and bells and high-heeled shoes until at last we penetrated the alleys down behind the Bo.

We were searching out our old favorites Stina and Katya. Stina was free and delighted to see her Rosso after so long a time but Katya was employed and so I satisfied myself with a new girl from Africa. She was lovely and untrained but we got on well and for the next hour I gave small thought to the curfew or to my account books or to my son Franco Alessandro who, for some reason, always came to mind when I was with a whore. Pagno was waiting for me—he was ever quick with his whores—and we walked back together arm in arm.

We were passing a tavern called the Porco—a haunt of sodomites—when something caught my eye. It was a gold tunic over blue and lilac parti-colored stockings dissolving rapidly into the shadows. Agnolo had been wearing just such a costume at the feast this night and now here he was, dressed like a peacock with his hair neatly done, and at his side a young boy of no more than fourteen. Pagno was given over to singing a rude drinking song and had not caught sight of Agnolo so I did not point him out. And yet I wondered, is this a trap? Has this boy been chosen to seduce Agnolo and then betray him? As a path to Donatello? It was too fantastic to consider reasonably.

“Did you see Agnolo just now, passing behind the Porco?”

Pagno laughed, drunk. “Agnolo is home with Donatello.”

“I saw him just now with a young boy.”

“He is too old for boys. He should be married. So should we all be married, but Caterina is taken and Ria Scarpetti is an Amazon. You, Luca, you have a wonderful wife. If she enters a convent I will marry her.” He thought about that for a moment and then corrected himself. “If you are dead, I mean, then I will marry her. If she will have me.” He was drunk and happy.

So I could expect no sensible response from Pagno.

“He was wrong to spoil Franco Alessandro,” Pagno said. “I told him I could never forgive him that. It was bad. Bad.”

“What are you saying? He spoiled my Franco Alessandro? But when? But how?”

“How? There is only one way, my brother. From behind.”

The blood froze in my brain and I felt my left arm begin to tremble and I could barely speak. But I must hold off the fit until I learned the truth.

“When Franco was but twelve, I think. Franco was his first boy, he told me, but it may be he was jesting. Or intended only to shock.”

I grasped him by the arm and stopped him where we stood before the Palazzo Raggione. “I’ll kill him for this,” I said, “if it is true.”

“I thought you knew, Luca. It is not as if he raped the boy. The boy was willing. Surely you know that.”

I sputtered in anger. No words came to me.

“Still it must be hard to hear your own son spoken of this way. You must forgive me, please, you are my own true brother and it is drink that has so loosened my tongue. Say you will forgive me. Say it.”

“It is Agnolo I cannot forgive. I always blamed him for the death of my two youngest. I could not have guessed this other thing.”

“It is all poison. All fucking is poison. Say you forgive me. Say it again.”

The pain in my head began to lessen and the shaking of my arm had stopped. The brain fit passed as suddenly as it had come on. I felt nauseous of a sudden and I turned to the gutter and vomited up a great quantity of wine. I was calmer now because, awful as it is to think on it, I knew it was true that my pure and beautiful young Franco—even at twelve years—was more than willing, he was eager. Why is he made so? Our God is a mysterious God.

“I forgive you,” I said, and I meant both God and Pagno.

“And I forgive you,” Pagno said, still drunk and happy.

“Perhaps he will die and we will be free of him at last,” I said.

I should have known then that we would never be free of him.

* * *

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I was quick to notice that Donatello had slept alone. There was no sign of Agnolo. Toward evening I found myself alone with Donatello in the sculpting area of the
bottega
and, as casually as I might, I asked him if he had seen Agnolo this day. He gave me a sharp look and said nothing. He went back to his carving, a
tondo
of the Virgin and Child in white marble.

“I saw him,” I said. “Late last night outside the Porco.”

“Do you frequent the Porco now?”

I chose to ignore his meaning and said. “It is more than dangerous for Agnolo to be found with a boy, even a willing boy.”

“I am an old man. I have some sixty-seven years. Do you suppose my heart stirs in anger at the thought of him with someone else?” He threw down the small-toothed chisel he held in his hand. “Do you think I am such a fool!”

“No, of course not. I . . .”

“Well, I am. My blood no longer heats like yours, like his, and my
cazzo
stays soft even at the touch of him, but I ache for him still. I am an old man, covered in shame. Let me know my shame in privacy, at last.”

I left him with his Virgin and Child. In privacy.

A
GNOLO WAS GONE
for two days and then I heard through Pagno that he had reappeared in the
bottega
. It was late in the afternoon of the second day and I lay abed in Donatello’s small house, recovering from my brain fit and seeking the calm and cool of my tiny cell. Pagno appeared at my door, cautious.

“Are you all right? Is your brain still under siege?”

“I am as cool as God’s justice,” I said.

“A frightening thought,” Pagno said. “Are you cool enough to meet with him? He has something he wants to say to you.”

“About what?”

“He wants to say it to you, not me. He looks very penitent.”

“If it is about Franco Alessandro, I will kill him.”

“I will go with you. You can kill us both.” He left my room and went next door to Donatello while I dressed.

Donatello was lying down on his bed resting and Pagno leaned in at his door. They fell silent as I came from my room and joined them.

“Agnolo is back,” I said and Donatello nodded.

“He wants to see me. He wants to tell me something. So Pagno says.”

Pagno put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “You are a good man,” he said. “I will meet you at the
bottega
.”

I was suddenly furious and turned on Donatello. “What is this ‘good man’ business? Am I to be put upon again? Am I once more to play the fool between you and Agnolo?” I did nothing to conceal my anger. It is time he knew, I thought. It is time he came to his senses. “He plays
you
for the fool,” I said. He spies on you for them! For the Ufficiali! Here in your own house!”

“Luca
mio
,” he said with that soft voice that spoke of understanding and concern. “You must try to understand. You have had so much in life and he has nothing. He has only ever had my love. Do not begrudge him.”

“Can you not rid yourself of him?” I was near tears. “Even now can you not make him go?”