The Madonna of the Almonds (3 page)

At the moment of Filippo’s death on the battlefield of Garigliano, a great artist began his great work. At the very instant that Filippo exhaled his last breath; the master’s brush touched the canvas of what was to become his greatest painting. But it is not this artist but his pupil who concerns us – a young man of exactly the unfortunate Filippo’s age. A man who would one day be great but not yet, a man who was lazy, dissolute and given to easy pleasure, a man with talent but without morals, a man who had never cared about anything in his life, certainly not enough to lay down his life for it, as Filippo had done. On this same fateful day when God took a soldier from his mother and gave an artist the touch of divinity to imbue his work, this creature of pleasure was probably beneath His notice. This man’s name was:

‘
Bernardino Luini!
’ The shout, almost a bellow, echoed through the
studiolo
. Bernardino recognized the voice instantly. It was the voice he and his lover had both dreaded
hearing when, last night in her bedchamber, they had sported together until the dawnlight warmed the roofs of Florence. If Bernardino were honest with himself, he had to admit that the fear of the husband’s return had added a certain frisson to their coupling, for dawnlightbeauty; for all that he had met her while she was modelling for his master. Bernardino was used to the anger of husbands, or what his friends laughingly called the
‘mariti arrab
biati’
when Bernardino met them with another black eye or cut lip marring his striking beauty. But there was such venom in this voice that he instantly dropped his brushes and scanned the
studiolo
for a place to hide.

Everywhere there were canvases being oiled or stretched, frames being constructed, or apprentices finishing the work of their master. Unhappily, no ideal hiding place presented itself, until Bernardino’s eyes lit on the dais at the end of the long room. There sat his current
amour
, hands crossed virtuously, but her eyes a little shaded from her nighttime exertions. Her hair hung in dusky coils about her face, and her green gown helped her sallow complexion not at all. Had there been more time, Bernardino might have asked himself once again why his Master da Vinci was so intent on painting her – she had not even the bloom of youth, being the mother of two sons. When he, at last, was allowed to paint the entire female form he would choose a lady of passing beauty – an angel to reflect the divinity of his work…but there was no time for such speculation.
Bernardino had found his hiding place – there was a rough screen behind the model’s head, a sort of triptych that he himself had constructed. It was a covered wooden frame and Bernardino had painted on the stretched cloth, at his master’s instruction, a pastoral whimsy of the Tuscan countryside – trees, hills and a stream. Bernardino had balked at the task, he had thought himself ready to paint the human figure, but Leonardo, for some reason, seemed intent on giving his student the most menial of tasks. Bernardino was barely ever allowed to pick up a brush unless it was to paint hands. Hands, hands and more hands. For some reason Bernardino had a natural aptitude for these the most difficult of subjects, and was asked to paint them again and again. He never got a sniff of the more interesting work, unless it was to sketch out the vast charcoal cartoons that his master then completed with his greater genius. He had hoped that Leonardo would recognize his drawing talent and reward him with a commission. But now he was glad that his talent had been so little recognised, for the screen would do nicely. As he ran towards the dais the sitter widened her eyes in alarm – she too had recognised the voice and feared that confrontation was inevitable. But she need not have feared. Bernardino was a coward. He held his finger swiftly to his lips and slipped behind the screen, seconds before the
studiolo’s
double doors crashed open and Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo entered the room.

Bernardino applied his eye to the hinged crack where
one panel joined the next in his makeshift screen. One look to his Master told him that Leonardo had seen all – he always did. But, though his beard hid a great number of the great Master’s emotions, nothing concealed the raised brow as he carried on his work.

Da Vinci was not spiritual, and his disregard for religion bordered on the heretical, so it was a matter for ironic comment that, with his flowing white beard and hair, he greatly resembled the image of a God in whom he did not believe. The Master cared not if such jests were cracked upon him; he enjoyed human folly in all its manifestations, and so was particularly indulgent of Bernardino in his amorous adventures. He had favoured the boy from the first, even making him a present of his fabled scrapbook known as the
Libricciolo
; fifty pages of the finest grotesques ever drawn. Its pages displayed a wench with just two holes where her nose should be; a fellow with buboes on his neck so large it seemed he had three heads; and a poor wight with his mouth sealed up by nature so that he could only eat through his nose, with a strawlike contraption that Leonardo himself had invented. Bernardino spent hours poring over the freak-like images, and the Master nodded his approval. ‘Just so you know, Bernardino,’ he remarked, ‘when you are drawing your limpid Lombard beauties, that not all that nature creates is beautiful.’ But if the
Libricciolo
showed ugliness in its natural form, its reader was handsome enough to prompt scurrilous rumour that the boy’s beauty pleased
the Master in ways that were not merely aesthetic. Why else would Leonardo bring the boy back home to Florence with him, a boy whom he had merely apprenticed in his Milan studio, a boy who had never before left the flat disc of Lombardy, bounded by mountains at one end and lakes at the other?

Now, Bernardino could see Francesco striding down the room, with a flourish of his cloak which overturned more than one canvas. All the students turned to watch the scene, but none were curious as to the cause – all knew that the root would originate with Bernardino. The outlook in this case was not promising, for Francesco was flanked by two of his liveried men, wearing the Giocondo arms, with their swords clanking time with their footsteps. Francesco would have all the assistance of Florentine law afforded to one of its wealthier merchant citizens. The wronged husband halted before Leonardo, and that he moderated his tones only slightly marked his contempt for artists and all their kind.

‘Forgive the intrusion, Signor da Vinci,’ began Francesco in a manner which assumed the pardon already granted. ‘I seek your pupil Bernardino Luini, who has done me a great wrong.’ Bernardino saw his eyes slide over to regard his wife, where she sat motionless on her chair. Francesco reminded him of his grandmother’s cat – sleek, fat and dangerous.

Signor da Vinci deliberately painted a few more strokes
and then laid his brushes aside. He turned to face Francesco, but before he had composed his features Bernardino caught the twinkle of his eye. The Master meant to enjoy himself. ‘I am puzzled, Signor del Giocondo,’ he said. ‘My pupil is a man of three and twenty, a student in the art of painting. What harm can he have inflicted on a merchant as great as yourself?’

Francesco looked a little put out. Bernardino smiled. He knew, as da Vinci knew, that Francesco would never admit to having been cuckolded by a lowly artisan such as he. He knew also that Leonardo would only take so much interest in the affair so far as it affected his work – if del Giocondo decided to take his wife away, and the portrait could not be finished, then the Master would be seriously displeased. Therefore he would protect his model’s reputation, and by association, that of his wayward pupil too.

Francesco shifted his considerable weight and answered the question. ‘’Tis a private matter. One of…business.’

Da Vinci coughed delicately. ‘Well, Signor, I am desolate that I am unable to help you conclude your…
business
,’ here the brow arched again, ‘but I am afraid that Signor Luini is no longer here. I received a commission from his Eminence the Doge of Venice, and Bernardino has just lately gone to that state to begin the work.’

Francesco’s eyes narrowed in disbelief, till da Vinci produced a letter from the sleeve of his gown. ‘You know, perhaps, the cognizance of the Doge?’

Francesco took the proffered letter and examined the seal closely. He gruffly acknowledged the arms and made as if to open the missive until Leonardo snatched it back. ‘You will forgive me, Signore,’ he said dryly, ‘but my matters, too, are
private
.’

Francesco could do little more. He attempted to regain countenance by saying, ‘Well, as long as he is gone from my sight; for should I see him on the streets of Florence again, I will challenge him and he will die.’

Bernardino rolled his eyes unseen. For the love of Jesu, this was 1503! Three years into the new century and the man spoke as a lover from the antique days of the medieval courts! He fixed his eye on his rival and saw him extend a hand to his wife where she sat on the dais. ‘Come, madam.’

Bernardino saw his Master stiffen.

‘I pray you, madam, remain still.’ Leonardo turned to Francesco. ‘Surely, Signore, there can be no cause to remove your wife from this place? Now that the man who has offended you has gone, there can be no evil influence? Your wife has no fault in this
affair
, surely?’

This last Francesco could not publicly deny. He seemed to waver, so da Vinci turned to flattery. ‘Consider, Signore, what this portrait will do for your reputation as a patron, a lover of the visual arts?’

In point of fact, Francesco had no love for the visual arts, nor understanding of the same; but he knew that Florence’s reputation stood well amid the city states on its art and architecture,
and he felt all the importance of being a part of this. But he seemed to resist. ‘’Tis only a portrait,’ he said. ‘Not one of your great battles, or a scene from scripture or some such. None shall see it but our family circle, where it hangs in my palazzo.’

‘Nay, Signore, you are mistaken.’ Leonardo became animated by his passion for his work. ‘For this portrait will be different. It will be a showcase for my latest techniques. See how I have blended light and shadow in this wondrous
chiaroscuro
? And here at her mouth, how my brush blurs the corners to make her expression ambiguous, in a manner I call
sfumato
? Believe me, sir, your wife will be admired the world over, and in this service to her you are not only proving yourself a great patron and art lover but the greatest of
husbands
too.’

That did it. For despite his family name, Francesco had no sense of humour but a great deal of pride. How better to heal any rumoured rift with his wife than to immortalize her in this portrait? He let his proffered hand drop to his side, bowed to Leonardo and left.

Bernardino leaned his head against the wooden frame of the canvas with relief. He breathed in the sweet scents of oil and poplar, and below that something else…the sweet smell of sandalwood that his lady wore, and still deeper, the sharp spicy smell of her sex, so well remembered from yestereve. The remembrance sent a frisson to his groin and he was obliged to spend the next few moments counseling himself
against such folly – he had just escaped a skinning and must not let his lusts weaken him again. He must leave
la Signora
alone. His Master’s voice brought him to his senses. ‘You can come out now, Bernardino.’

Bernardino sheepishly emerged, to laughter and scattered applause from his colleagues. He bowed to the collective with a theatrical flourish. Leonardo raised his brow again, as if caught on a fishhook. Bernardino bowed in earnest. ‘Thank you, Signore,’ he said. ‘May I return to work, if it pleases you?’

‘You may return to work, Bernardino. But not here.’

‘What?’

‘You have enjoyed the eavesdropper’s fate of overhearing your destiny. I wish you to go to Venice and take this commission, for it was not a device which I invented to dispatch your rival, but a genuine request from the Doge.’ He pulled the letter from his sleeve once more and waved it at his pupil. ‘I think it best that you are out of the reaches of Signor Giacondo for a while.’

‘Venice?’

‘Indeed. His Eminence writes that he will pay three hundred ducats for a fresco to be painted in the church of the Frari. A Holy scene. The Virgin, angels, the usual kind of thing. I think, at last, you are ready.’

‘Figures? An entire scene? Not hands?’

Leonardo gave a rare smile. ‘Figures, yes. But hands they should have certainly, else I don’t think the Doge will pay you.’

Bernardino’s head was in a whirl. Venice. The Veneto. He knew little of the place save that it floated on water, and for this reason the women were leprous and the men had webbed feet. He was enjoying his time in Florence – it was the first time he had left his native Lombardy and was making the most of it. He had friends and…lovers here. He loved Florence. And yet – it would not be forever. A year or two might meet the case. And he was to be entrusted with full-figure work for the first time, instead of the forest of hands he had painted – interminable digits and knuckles – he hated the sight of them. And the money. He could make his fortune. And there would surely be some handsome women in that state too?

He took the letter from his Master with thanks, and took his leave affectionately. Leonardo took Bernardino’s face in his hands and looked him long in the eyes. ‘Listen to me well, Bernardino. Do not be overwhelmed by the weight of your own genius, for you have none. You are a good painter and could be a great one, but not until you begin to
feel
. If you have pangs of sorrow at your removal from this lady, if your heart bleeds, so much the better. For your work will reflect the passions that you experience and only
then
will you place those emotions on the canvas. You have my blessing.’ Warmly the Master kissed the pupil on both cheeks. Bernardino then turned to the model, whose eyes followed him closely around the room. No, she was not handsome, so there would be little for him to pine for. But, leaning close, he whispered,
because he could not help himself: ‘I hope to take my leave of you later, lady. When your husband is from home.’