The Secret Supper (14 page)

“Yes, I know. It’s too bad that he himself is still so busy with that blessed Cenacolo of his.”

“What can I tell you? Master Leonardo asked me to paint a Magdalene, and that is what I’m doing. And, coming from him, the choice should make your family proud.”

“Proud? Wasn’t Mary Magdalene a whore?” she exclaimed. “Why could he not have ordered a simple portrait of my daughter, like the one your master painted of me? Why insist on disgracing my family with an unpleasant story that has been pursuing us for centuries?”

Bernardino Luini said nothing. The Crivelli family was from a Venetian clan that had seen better days and that now, thanks to the skills of Leonardo’s workshop, hoped to find a good match for their daughter by means of a portrait that would sing her virtues. And with a Magdalene like this one, it would not be difficult to achieve their purpose. In fact, it had been their lean purse and not their spoken wishes that had allowed the Master the freedom of choice. Leonardo had not wasted his chance, and Luini made an effort not to smile as he recalled Leonardo’s cunning. Donna Lucrezia had been modeling for years in Leonardo’s bottega on Corso Magenta, lending life to some of his most notable work. If he had now decided to have Elena painted as Christ’s favorite, it was because he soon expected to initiate her in his mysteries.

Lucrezia was the last exponent of a long line of women who were thought to be the heirs of the real Mary Magdalene, a blood-line of soft-featured females who, generation after generation, inspired poets and painters, and who were not always aware of the inheritance they passed on.

Luini applied a few more brushstrokes, trying to avoid Elena’s contagious smile. After a while, he broodingly picked up the conversation.

“I think you are somewhat rash in your judgment, my lady. Mary Magdalene, Saint Mary Magdalene,” he corrected himself, “was a woman braver than most. She was named the casta meretrix, the chaste prostitute, and, unlike the disciples who, with the exception of John, fled Jerusalem when Our Lord was crucified, she accompanied Him to the very top of Golgotha. Therein lies, my lady, the reason for the skull in your daughter’s hands. Also, it was to Mary Magdalene that Christ first appeared after His resurrection, thereby showing the deep love He felt for her.”

“And why do you think He did it?”

Luini smiled with satisfaction.

“To reward her for her courage, of course. Many of us believe that it was then that the Resurrected Christ entrusted her with a great secret. Mary Magdalene had proved to Him that she was worthy of such a distinction and we artists, every time we paint her, try to come a little closer to what was then revealed.”

“Now that you say so, I believe I too have heard Master Leonardo speak of that secret, even though he avoided giving a great deal of explanations. Your master is certainly a man full of mystery.”

“Many people, my lady, consider intelligence itself to be a mystery. Perhaps one day he’ll tell us all. Or perhaps he’ll choose your daughter as his confidante—”

“Anything is possible with that man. I have known him since he arrived in Milan in 1482, and his intrigues have never ceased to surprise me. He is so unpredictable—”

Lucrezia stopped in midsentence, as if recalling old memories. Then she asked with great curiosity:

“You yourself, by chance, would not know the secret of Mary Magdalene?”

Luini looked back at his painting.

“Consider this, my lady: the true teachings of Christ to mankind could only reach us after Our Lord overcame the ordeal of His Passion and underwent His Resurrection with the help of God the Father. Only then did He become fully certain of the existence of the Kingdom of Heaven. And when He returned from the dead, whom did He first encounter? Mary Magdalene, the only one who had the strength to await His return, disobeying the orders of both the Sanhedrin and the Roman officials.”

“We women have always been braver than you men, Master Luini.”

“Or more imprudent.”

Elena remained silent, listening with amusement to the conversation, enjoying the warmth of the fire emanating from the chimney place behind her.

“I admire the tenacity of women as much as you do, my lady,” Luini said, picking up his brush once more. “That is why you should know that, from that revelation on, Mary Magdalene displayed virtues even more remarkable.”

“Did she?”

“If one day they are disclosed to you, you’ll see how faithfully they are reflected in your Elena’s face. Then you’ll be more than satisfied with this portrait.”

“Master Leonardo never spoke to me of these virtues.”

“Master Leonardo is very cautious, my lady. The virtues of Mary Magdalene are a delicate matter. They even frightened the disciples at the time of Our Lord. Not even the evangelists wished to tell us much about them!”

The countess’s eyes flashed maliciously.

“Of course! Because she was a whore!”

“Mary never wrote a single line. Women in her time didn’t,” Master Luini continued, ignoring the countess’s taunts. “Therefore, whoever wants to know more about her must follow in John’s footsteps. As I’ve told you, John the Beloved was the only one who behaved properly when Christ was crucified. Whoever admires Mary Magdalene must also admire John and hold his Gospel to be the most beautiful of the four.”

“Forgive me for insisting, but in what measure was Mary Magdalene special in the eyes of Christ, Master Luini?”

“In that He kissed her on the lips in front of His disciples.”

Donna Lucrezia gave a start.

“What are you saying?”

“Ask Leonardo. He knows the books in which these secrets are revealed. Only he knows the true features of John, of Peter, of Matthew…even of Mary Magdalene. Have you not yet seen his wonderful work at Santa Maria?”

“Yes, of course I’ve seen it,” she answered angrily, recalling once again that because of the Cenacolo it was not Leonardo who was here, in her house. “I was there a few months ago. The duke wanted to show me the progress in the work of his favorite painter, and I was dazzled by the magnificent mural. I remember that several of the faces of the apostles were not yet finished, but no one at the monastery was able to tell us when they’d be ready.”

“No one knows, that’s true,” Luini agreed. “Master Leonardo can’t find the models he wants for some of the apostles. If even with the many sinister faces at the court it’s difficult to portray the evil of Judas, imagine how complicated it is to find a pure and charismatic face like John’s. You can’t begin to guess how many faces the Master has had to examine, trying to find the right one for the Beloved Disciple! Leonardo suffers greatly every time he comes across an obstacle like this and is inevitably delayed.”

“Take my daughter to him!” the countess laughed. “Let him sit Mary Magdalene at the table in John’s place!”

Laughing, Countess Crivelli lifted herself from her couch in a cloud of scent. Majestically she approached the painter and laid a delicate hand on his shoulder.

“Enough talk for today, Master Luini. Finish the portrait as soon as possible and you’ll receive the rest of your payment. You have at least two more hours of light before sunset. Use them well.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The heels of Donna Lucrezia’s shoes resounded on the tiles and then vanished. Elena remained still, without blinking. Magnificent, her clean pink skin recently shaven by her handmaidens, she lay there for a moment and then, when she was sure that her mother had left the rooms, she jumped onto the couch.

“Yes, yes, Master Luini!” She clapped her hands, dropping the skull, which rolled down to the fireplace. “Do it! Introduce me to Leonardo! Let me meet him!”

Luini observed her from behind the canvas.

“Do you really want to meet him?” he whispered, applying a few more strokes of paint, unable to feign indifference.

“Of course I want to! You yourself said that maybe he’d reveal to me his secret—”

“I warn you, Elena: you may not at all like what you find out. He’s a man of powerful character. He seems absorbed in other things, but in fact he can see everything with a keen jeweler’s eye. He can tell how many petals are on a flower at which he has only glanced, and he studies everything in minutest detail, to the great despair of his assistants.”

The little countess would not be dissuaded.

“I like that, Master Luini. A man who cares about details!”

“Yes, yes, Elena. But, to tell you the truth, he’s not overly fond of women—”

“Oh!” A disappointed tone colored her voice. “That seems to be common among artists, isn’t that right, Master Luini?”

The painter hunched even further behind the canvas as his model stood up and displayed her beauty in full. A stifling warmth flushed his face and dried his throat.

“Why…why do you say that, Elena?”

She climbed back onto the couch and peered at him behind his easel.

“Because you’ve been painting me naked for ten days now, you and I locked up in this room, and you have made no attempt to come closer. My ladies-in-waiting tell me that it isn’t normal, and the wicked vixens are asking themselves whether you may not be a castratus.”

Luini found no words to answer. He lifted his eyes to meet hers and found himself at barely a breath’s distance from her face, inhaling the scent of jasmine, his whole skin prickling. He was never able to explain what happened afterward: the room began to spin around him, and an irresistible strange force gripped him from inside and overcame him completely. He threw the brush and paints aside and drew the little countess to him. The touch of her young body aroused him powerfully.

“Are you…” He hesitated.

She laughed.

“Not any longer.”

She bent over him and kissed him.

21

Just as the Father Prior had foreseen, The Last Supper soon became my obsession. That Saturday afternoon alone, key in hand, I visited it four times before sunset, after having ascertained that the place was empty. I believe, in fact, that it was on that day that the community began to call me Father Trottola, which means “spinning-top.” They had their reasons. Every time a monk crossed my path, he would find me as if dazed, wandering close to the refectory, a single repeated question on my lips: “Has anyone seen Master Leonardo?”

I suppose I arrived at the monastery at the very worst moment to see him. The preparation for the funeral had altered the daily habits of the city, especially those of Santa Maria delle Grazie. While Father Alessandro and I were hard at work trying to solve the Soothsayer’s riddle, the rest of the brethren were spending their time getting ready for the following day. The duchess had been dead for twelve days now and her body lay embalmed in an acacia coffin in the castle’s family chapel. Ambassadors from the kingdoms invited to the funeral strolled impatiently through the monastery and the duke’s fortress in search of information about the ceremony.

The truth be told, I remained ignorant of all this coming and going until Sunday morning, January the fifteenth, which was the feast of Saint Mauro. Donna Beatrice was to be buried in the recently finished Sforza pantheon, beneath Santa Maria’s main altar, and it was probable that the Soothsayer, who had so many times warned us against her, might decide to be present. I thanked Heaven for the morning bells that woke me. I had slept badly. I had dreamed of the twelve men of the Cenacolo chattering and moving around the Messiah. I could almost guess their dark intentions, but I felt that time was against me to unveil their secrets.

After early morning prayers, I headed toward the refectory. No doubt, this would be the only moment I would have to enjoy its comfortable solitude. I would lose myself again in Leonardo’s brightly colored brushstrokes and allow myself to imagine that his mysterious task was not to paint a wall but to rescue from it, bit by bit, with a surgeon’s precision, a magical scene carved in the plaster by the angels themselves.

I was immersed in these thoughts when, upon turning west in the Cloister of the Dead, I saw that the door protecting the refectory had been left wide open. Two men whom I had never seen before were talking at the threshold.

“Have you heard about the librarian?” I heard the one closest to me ask. He was dressed in red breeches, a striped yellow-and-white doublet, and had the face of a cherub with golden curls. At the mention of Father Alessandro, I pulled my hood over my head and, pretending to be occupied with something else, listened from a safe distance.

“The Master mentioned something,” the other man answered. He was a slim, dark youth, handsome and of an athletic build. “They say he’s very worried, and everyone fears he’ll do something rash.”

“It doesn’t surprise me. He’s been fasting too long. I think he’s losing his mind.”

“From fasting?”

“The lack of food must be giving him hallucinations. He’s obsessed about being discovered and taken away from his books. You should have seen him trembling with fear last night. He looked like a reed in the wind.”

The athletic youth cast a glance in my direction, forcing me to move on if I did not want to be discovered. I managed to hear a few last words.

“I doubt they’d dare take him away from his books. He’s carried out his obligations too well to deserve such a punishment.”

“Then you agree with me?”

“Of course. The fast will end up killing him.”

The conversation I had heard made me wary. That something as intimate, as private as Father Alessandro’s fast should be bandied about by a pair of lay youngsters from outside the community was far from normal. I later learned that the man in red breeches was Andrea Salaino, Leonardo’s favorite disciple and protégé, and that the darker one was a nobleman who was hoping to become a painter and whose name was Marco d’Oggiono. As the Father Prior had warned me, they often made use of the refectory. They would open it in order to prepare the paint mixtures for their master or to lay out his tools. But what were they doing there on a Sunday, just before Donna Beatrice’s funeral and ceremonially dressed? How was it that they spoke of Father Alessandro in such terms and so knowledgeably of his customs? And why did they seem so worried? Intrigued, I passed by them, as if headed toward the library stairs, trying not to attract their attention.