Leonardo still stared. âBut he was not. Were you, Leonardo?â He physically turned his former apprentice away from me and put his own arm over his shoulder. âWe must go home now and let these good people pass. We have much work to begin in the morning.â
Leonardo didnât budge. âShe would make an excellent subject, Andrea. Her hands are lovely. Did you see how she held them to her breast as you described Marsyasâs torture? Like a Madonna in her pity. You always say the hands convey the feelings of the heart. You should sculpt her. And her curls. Her curls look like swirling eddies under waterfallsâwhat a challenge they would be to paint!â
âYes, yes.â Verrocchio smiled and shrugged at me as if in apology for his former apprenticeâs bluntness. âCome, Leonardo, we really must go now.â
As they retreated down the street, Verrocchio kept talking. âLest you forget, Leonardo, we live by our brush and our chisel. First we must be asked to do a work and then promised money to do itâbefore we ever do a single sketch. Tomorrow, we start on a commission that will pay for my . . .â
His voice trailed off as Verrocchio and Leonardo disappeared into the dark mysteries of Florenceâs night streets.
I held up my hands in the darkness to consider them as oracles of human emotions. I had never really thought before of how much our gestures said of our feelings. Then my thoughts switched to Leonardo da Vinci, the illegitimate son of a notary, who hadnât bothered to wait until he was outof my presence to analyze my appearance. What did that say about him?
But there was little time for such musings. As Luigi and I prepared to step into the Medici stronghold, a deep voice boomed up the street. âLuigi! Wait! Let us enter together, brother.â
I froze. I was so excited to see the Medici courtyard once again. I had not been in it or embraced by its art and patrician aura since my father died. The last person I wanted to share that delight with was my crass, calculating uncle. But I plastered a smooth smile on my face before turning toward him.
Uncle Bartolomeo quickly closed the distance between us with his long, swinging stride. Lisabetta, his little pretty wife, scampered to keep up. His first spouse had died in childbirth while I was studying in Le Murate, and this new bride was kin to Lorenzoâs mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni. As I said, calculating.
Panting, Lisabetta reached for my arm to steady herself. Her face was ashen, her hand trembling. She was afraid, I realized. Poor lamb. Iâd known timid girls like this at the convent. I took her hand, as I used to my younger sistersâ to help them learn to walk. Together, like children, behind our more important husbands, we walked through the portal into the magical world of the Medici.
The inner courtyard was ablaze in torchlight. Fashioned after a Roman villa, the palace framed this large, vaultingsquare. Each floor of the palaceâs three stories had views down into it from colonnaded balconies so that visitors and residents could look again and again at the sculpture centered at its heartâan almost-life-size bronze of David, the young shepherd who felled Goliath with his slingshot. Donatello had created this depiction of the Old Testamentâs unlikely hero, the boy who won a battle against the Philistine army through cleverness rather than brawn.
David was a much-loved symbol for Florence, the little republic that defied monarchs. Cosimo deâ Medici had commissioned this statue upon returning to Florence from political exile, having outlasted and outfoxed his foes. So David was also the perfect symbol for a family that ran things through charm and favors rather than armed intimidation.
Raised on a pedestal, Donatelloâs adolescent David stood triumphant, one foot on the severed head of the giant, one hand on his hip, the fingers still curled around a stone. The
Charles Murray, Catherine Bly Cox