David (23 page)

We jumped down from the cart and walked down to the water’s edge. I was entranced by the sound of the waves coming in and withdrawing over the small pebbles. The shore was dotted with clumps of seaweed in strange and marvellous shapes. When Angelo picked up one that was like a complicated arrangement of bladders and showed it to me, I smelt the salty, fishy odour of it and felt its rubbery surface.

‘Do you want to go in?’ Angelo asked.

‘In the water?’

‘Why not? It’s cool and refreshing on a hot day.’

He proceeded to strip off his boots and leggings. I was full of fear. I couldn’t swim and I didn’t know if he could either. Would I soon be having to rescue him from drowning? Surely that would end in the deaths of both of us?

‘Don’t be such a baby, Gabriele,’ he said. ‘The water is shallow near the edge – see!’

He waded into it, showing me how the sea reached only to his knees. I could see his white feet and legs distorted by the water.

I tore off my own shoes and hose and stepped in beside him. It was like walking in ice at first and then it seemed to warm as my feet got used to it. We splashed about like children in a bath, until Angelo said it was time to leave.

We walked back up to the cart, sand clinging to our wet legs, as we carried our shoes and stockings. The carter looked at us as if we were mad.

And then we were on the road again, heading back to the city and all its warring factions. It was the last happy day I ever remember having with my brother before my life changed out of all recognition.

Chapter Fifteen

The Best-known Face in Florence

I came back to Florence refreshed and feeling ready to take on the world.

Angelo teased me for having thought we’d be bringing the marble for the Apostles back to the city with us; goodness knows what effect twelve such heavy blocks would have had on our cart! It would be months before the marble reached Angelo’s studio. The cutting out of the blocks would take a time and then the transporting would have to wait till the river filled up. It would still mean a procession of a dozen carts to take them from the main road to Florence.

He was frustrated by the prospect of waiting so long and had already started to sketch ideas for a Saint Matthew. For once I was not his model. Matthew was a mixture of the younger Sangallo brother and Angelo’s imagination. But it was to be over a year before he had the chance to carve him.

And then there came a message from the Operai that they wanted a public viewing of the marble David as soon as possible.

‘You’ll have to help me, Gabriele,’ he said wildly, running his hands through his hair. ‘I’ll go to your
maestro
and get you released from your work there straight away.’

I was a bit startled but not worried; it was only what we had agreed in Carrara – just a bit sooner than I expected.

‘Why do they want a public viewing so soon?’ I asked. ‘You had two years to make it and those aren’t up yet.’

‘I know. I’ve got two months left but they want it on display next month! They told me last year I could have a bit longer – next spring in fact, so I didn’t think they would want me to show it yet. But it is nearly finished.’

These were the days when my brother took the terms of his contracts a lot more seriously than he did in later years. I’ve heard he often left work unfinished altogether, as was to be the fate of all those Apostles we had chosen the marble for. Only the Matthew got partly made.

But neither of us knew that then – or that it would be more than another year before David was on full public show.

‘The viewing is set for the twenty-third of June,’ Angelo said. ‘I think the Operai want to make it as close as possible to Saint John’s day.’

That was fair enough, since John the Baptist was a patron saint of the city but it didn’t give us long. From that day on, Angelo and I were working all the hours of all the days to get the statue ready for viewing. It couldn’t be moved, of course; it was much too big for that. The people who were coming to see it would have to invade the private studio that Angelo had constructed around the David. How he was going to hate that!

I had to tell Ser Visdomini and Leone that I would not be available for modelling until after the date set for the public viewing. They didn’t protest; Leone had enough sketches to work on his painting without me and he was putting Grazia in as Ariadne. As for her, I expect she was glad to put some distance between us.

So I was living like a monk and crawling round in awkward spaces, carefully chipping and polishing, taking few breaks, constantly thirsty from the dust and not even going out in the evenings to either the
frateschi
or the
compagnacci.
I had told Altobiondi that I was having to work extra long hours. He had no idea of what went on in a
bottega
, so raised no objections. But he promised to send me word if there were any developments.

Surprisingly, I didn’t really mind being so occupied all the time. It took my mind off so many things and I was proud to be the official assistant to the man I believed, with many others, to be the greatest sculptor in Italy.

One late afternoon, a week before the showing, when I had slipped out for a breath of fresh air, though there was little enough of that to be had in the city in June, I saw the rosy vision of Salai, lounging in the cathedral square. Starved of company, I raised my hand in greeting and he joined me.

‘Salutations,’ he said listlessly.

I wasn’t used to this version of the little devil. He didn’t look capable of causing any mischief today.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘And where is Ser Leonardo?’

‘Hah!’ he said, animated at last. ‘You may well ask! Gone to Pisa and left us all behind.’

This was unusual; Leonardo went nowhere without his little court and Salai was clearly very put out about it.

‘Pisa? What is he doing there?’

‘Moving the river, apparently,’ grumbled Salai but then looked guilty. ‘Forget I said that. It’s a military secret. Soderini has sent him there to investigate moving the Arno.’

This seemed beyond fantastic to me but I knew that his master had skills as an engineer as well as a painter. He had advised Lodovico Sforza in Milan on his defences against the French, for all the good it had done either of them. But who could move a river from its course?

Still, I did agree that Salai shouldn’t be telling me; he was far too indiscreet for Leonardo to place any faith in him.

‘He has gone on his own?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Salai, frowning, and I then understood more of his bad humour. ‘He has taken some of the men he worked with on military matters in Milan. But he didn’t want his “artistic assistants” with him.’

He sneered at the words. Clearly his nose was severely out of joint.

‘Perhaps he thought you would be bored?’ I said.

Either he liked that explanation or it was just one of his mercurial shifts of mood but Salai suddenly became more animated.

‘Enough of my grumbles,’ he said. ‘What is happening with you?’

I told him about the public viewing and he was very interested.

‘I’ll come and take a look myself,’ he said. ‘And bring the boys. My master would like me to give him a full report when he gets back.’

It wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear but if the little devil and his gang wanted to come there was nothing I could do to stop them.

The day of the viewing was a Friday and the city was preparing for a huge celebration in honour of Saint John the next day. But lots of people escaped from their workplaces to come and see the statue that the whole city now talked about as ‘The Giant’.

Angelo was as nervous as I had ever seen him. Not because he had any doubts about the sculpture; he never seemed to suffer from false modesty about his work. I think it was more that he just didn’t like having strangers in his work space. He’d had to open the doors of his private studio in the Opera del Duomo for the first time for nearly two years.

Two days before, the Sangallo brothers had helped Angelo and me to bring the statue to the upright position. It wasn’t ‘finished’ in the sense that it was ready to go on display in a public place but it was certainly impressive, even half supported by scaffolding as it was – since its plinth had not yet been made.

There was also the model for the bronze David and the Pitti Tondo in the workshop. And even though the wax figure of me as David had long been melted down, the gesso model was also there, showing how the conception had changed on its way into the marble statue.

There was a sort of grand opening first, to which Gonfaloniere Soderini came in his robes of office. His brother the Bishop had just been made a cardinal and he was puffed up with self-importance.

We had rigged up a kind of viewing platform on one side of the studio – just a rough wooden stage with steps on each side so that the viewer could look at David from closer to eye level.

‘Otherwise they’ll just look straight up into his crotch,’ Antonio da Sangallo had said.

So the Gonfaloniere had the first view of the statue that was to cause so much dissent in the city and he pronounced himself well satisfied.

‘It is well done, Maestro Buonarroti,’ he said graciously. ‘I can’t wait to see it set up and finished in its proper place.’

‘Wherever that is,’ muttered my brother.

I think everyone I knew in Florence came through Angelo’s workshop that day – from wealthy noblemen to merchants to working people. Among the first was a little knot of
frateschi
, Gianbattista to the fore. It was his name day on the morrow so he was in holiday mood; ‘seeing the Giant’ was just a part of the festivities.

But he was impressed – I could tell. I had told the cell of Savonarola followers about my brother but they had been more interested in his politics than his artistic skills. Now their eyes were opened.

‘It is magnificent,’ said Gianbattista when he climbed down from the platform. ‘It is you and yet not you – a faithful copy of the outward form but with some inner fire we haven’t seen in you, at least not yet.’

I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment but I was proud that he praised Angelo’s work. My eye was on Simonetta, who had come to the viewing with her brother. She seemed pale and as if overwhelmed by what she saw. She didn’t speak to me but passed quickly out of the door.

It was just my bad luck that the next person coming in was Grazia, with Leone. She looked at Simonetta’s colourless face in passing and looked straight at me, as if I had been responsible for upsetting another young woman. It was so unfair.

But then Leone led Grazia up on to the platform and it was her turn to be impressed. I was amused to see just how disconcerted this huge representation of me with no clothes on made her. It was left to Leone to go and congratulate the sculptor, while Grazia exchanged a few words with me.

‘Was that the woman you told me about? The one leaving just now?’ she asked.

‘What do you think of the statue?’ I asked. I didn’t think I had to answer her question.

‘I think it’s . . . it’s . . . terrifying,’ she admitted. ‘So . . . huge and naked . . . it’s almost obscene. Well, indecent anyway. How does it make you feel to see yourself on display like that?’

‘I’m used to it,’ I said. ‘I’ve been either posing for Angelo or helping him with the fine details of the statue for about two years. I have to see it through others’ eyes today.’

‘It’s a fine piece of work,’ she said. ‘But I can’t see it as a piece of art. I see it as you. And I think a lot of other people in the city will see it that way too. You won’t be an unknown person any more.’

Wolf whistles from the platform alerted me to the presence of Salai and a little gaggle of his friends. I excused myself from Grazia and mounted the steps in a hurry to stop them from causing trouble.

Salai looked me up and down appreciatively. ‘Here he is, boys,’ he said. ‘About to be the most famous . . . face . . . in Florence!’

‘Stop it,’ I said, trying hard not to blush. ‘You are absolutely not to make a scene here. Your master would be most annoyed to hear that you had behaved badly and shamed him in front of so many citizens and his fellow artist.’