Da Vinci's Tiger by L. M. Elliott Read Free Book Online Page A

beauty lay inside. I itched to enter.
    â€œLuigi,” I began, and reached to tug at his sleeve. But I was interrupted by two more men exiting the palazzo.
    â€œMaster Verrocchio!” Luigi hailed the older of them.
    Verrocchio! Was it the artist who’d painted that exquisite pennant of the nymph and Cupid?
    â€œSignor Niccolini,” Verrocchio greeted my husband in return. He was a round, happy-looking fellow, with a broad smile.
    â€œWhat brings you here, lingering so late?”
    â€œAh. I have the pleasure of repairing a pair of ancient sculptures the Medici brought from Rome and placed in their garden. Both portrayals of Marsyas.”
    I could tell my husband had no idea who Marsyas was and decided to help him. Full well knowing the answer, Iasked, “Marsyas? Is that the satyr who was such an excellent flute player that he foolishly challenged the great Apollo?”
    â€œIndeed.” Verrocchio turned to me with surprise. “Protect your gentle heart as you look on them, signora. One shows Marsyas in a moment of absolute agony, when he is flayed for daring to compare himself to Apollo, the god of music and manly beauty. Poor Marsyas hangs from a tree by his bound hands, his ugly face a grimace of unspeakable pain.”
    â€œOh,” I murmured. Such cruelty to capture forever in stone!
    â€œAnd what work have you been asked to do on such a . . . a mutilated figure?” Luigi asked. I had come to know my husband well enough to recognize that he was baffled by the Medici spending hard-earned florins to restore a work showing a half goat/half man being skinned alive. To him there was no reason for such expenditure. He wouldn’t understand that Marsyas was a powerful allegory, a warning against the dangers of hubris. His mind was set to ledgers and definable profits, black and white, simple tallies.
    â€œRight now I am working on its mate,” Verrocchio explained, “a very ancient work of Marsyas’s head and torso that Lorenzo has come into possession of. It is badly damaged. I have found red marble that matches the original and am working on legs and arms to replace those that were lost.” Verrocchio grew animated as he described his plans. “The red stone is laced with thin white veins. If I work carefully, I will be able to carve Marsyas’s new limbs in such a way thatthe stone’s natural white threads will look like a man’s underlying tendons as they appear after skin is torn away.”
    Luigi looked queasy. I was fascinated.
    But even as I hung on Verrocchio’s every word, I began to feel the eyes of his companion on me. Slowly, I turned my gaze toward him. He was veiled in dancing shadows. But I could tell from his form and the way he stood that he was young and athletic in build.
    â€œSignor.” I nodded at him.
    At that, the man stepped forward so torchlight spilled onto him. Tall and lithe, with broad shoulders and a small waist, he moved with a swordsman’s grace, even though clad in the typical plain smock of an artisan. His nose was prominent but finely boned, his face smooth, framed with a froth of tight, perfectly combed honey-colored curls that cascaded to his chest.
    But it was his eyes that so captivated—large, dark, and quizzical. I could not pull my own from them. I felt myself blush at his rather impertinent stare and my utter lack of decorum in not turning away from it.
    Verrocchio stopped chatting abruptly. “Donna Niccolini, forgive my lack of manners. I should have introduced Leonardo before. This is my former apprentice and now a dipintore and a member of the painters’ confraternity Compagnia di San Luca—Leonardo da Vinci.”
    Leonardo bowed, sweeping out a hand like a courtier. “My lady. I am honored.” It was a resonant, mellifluous voice.
    Verrocchio chuckled. “This one should have been borna noble,” he said. He put his hands on Leonardo’s shoulders, noting that