Chapter 3 No.3

Cloux

December 10, 1516

MEMORY . . .

MEMORY. . .

I

remember that hot, dusty afternoon in Florence. I ordered every-body out of my studio. I got up from my workbench and de-manded that they leave: the tattlers, the oafs, the bores, the faithful. I packed them off. Yelled at them. Stormed. I had work to do, work that would keep me until dawn. I had to have serenity, no ribaldry, no disgrun-tled si-lence, no questions, no interruptions of any sort.

I slammed the doors, bolted them.

A mouse scuttled across the room.

Until I resolved the perfect angles, sheet after sheet went into the making of that pelvic drawing.

Queer how memory is: I can see that messy workshop, easels, clay figures on stands, rags, canvases, frames, chisels, pigments, brushes... I can see the mouse watching me from beneath a basket. Again I sense that long afternoon, that long night... I had dried bread, cheese, and port. I remember the church bells. At dawn I slid my work into a special portfolio, then concealed it. I was often hid-ing things in those days, hiding sketches, hiding determination, hiding frustra-tions, goals.

Memory...it gives you what you want and supplies absurdities as well, like the dream that I had in Florence, recurrent: I was lying on my cot... I was dead... I was carried to a morgue and dumped there, among cadavers...blood and mould satu-rated my drawings and my writings...my canvases were being eaten by termites... how well I remember that dream.

I remember a fat Milanese who used to haunt me while I was decorating the walls and ceiling of the Sala delle Asse: he was a pompous member of the Sforza household, a great nose-picker, who had done nothing at all through his long life. While I worked, he sat, hunched in a princely brocade chair, in elegant clothes, sometimes asleep in spite of my assistants, ladders, and scaffolding.

That Sala delle Asse work was boring. Like many a commission it was com-pulsory. To arrange masses of foliage on walls and ceiling seemed absurd. Designs were refused, at the outset. The employment of immense tree trunks satisfied. As I painted, I mingled knotted cords with the foliage, intermingled branches, established a rhythm. I kept my greens from becoming monotonous. I achieved a kind of helmeted bark on the tree trunks. Before I finished, the Sala's canopy, the forest umbrella, became more meaningful.

My fat friend slept on and on.

How much did I earn? I have forgotten. Was I ever paid?

I would like to return to the castle and walk through that Sala; I would like to be alone; I would like to try to think as I thought in those days; I would like to sense my aspirations; I would sit on a bench under that deluge of foliage: I would list geology, hydraulics, painting, sculpture, geometry, anatomy, medi-cine...

Cloux

When Michelangelo showed me his cartoon for his mural in the Consejo, I complained that a scene of idling nude bathers was not the best way to depict war. He was critical of my cartoon, saying "you are more concerned with horses than men."

My objective was to show war's anguish: pain was to be sixty feet long by twenty feet wide. Twelve hundred square feet of pain. All of my draughts-man-ship went into this Anghiari conflict: I painted rage, rage against war, the rage of dying men, the rage of the wounded, my hate, my affirmation.

All of 1503 and 1504 went into my preliminary sketches. I often rode about the countryside to sketch horses, sketch riders; I sketched in the Sforza stables; the stablemen posed for me; my apprentices posed. Friends had their chance to exhibit their horses in action. Gamin posed. The militia.

So, I did not paint a wall: I painted the smash of steel against steel, the plunge of steel into flesh, the grunting of frightened horse against frightened horse, men stumbling, men falling, dying, their helmets of fear, helmets of pain...yellows, blues, greys, reds.

On Friday, June 6, 1505, I began to paint the Anghiari battle. It was my greatest challenge. Here I could render something more meaning-ful than the madonnas. Not Christ on the cross, but man on the cross. Pigment and light were to come together in harmony. The day that I began to paint was beautiful but the weather changed quickly for the worst. Some of my assistants were called away-they were ordered to attend a trial.

The wind caught me unprepared and ripped the cartoon. In a few minutes the storm took over in earnest. I laid aside my brushes and pigments and dis-missed the remaining apprentices. Half of Florence was inundated that night.

PAZZIA BESTIALISSIMA!

That is man's disease: he can not refrain from political madness. Again and again he is willing to be duped.

The central group in my Anghiari mural is the struggle for a military flag: I painted life-size horses, life-size men, life-size hatred: the central struggle fans out across the mural, expressing this futility.

I seldom eat at the King's table although I am always welcome. Sometimes it seems like a long walk to the chateau, sometimes it is raining. In the evening fif-teen courses are certainly gourmet adventures, but a little late at night.

The King often sends me three or four trays-a retinue of pages brings them to my studio, laughter and ribaldry, and then decorum as they file into the studio. Soufflés, artichokes in cream and butter sauce, crêpes, pastries, glacés, Vouvray. I am partial to grapes and someone on the royal staff hunts them up for me.

Sometimes I find five or six silver dishes with as many kinds of nuts. Francis claims that he could not survive for a month on my vegetarian diet.

Maturina fusses over almost everything the King sends:

"Now, let me see, let me see," she mutters. "You should eat this first...it's better for you that way...and these pastries, why they're much too rich for you!"

She arranges the dishes on the dining table (you must not eat in the studio); she places my chair, lights the candles, unfolds my napkin and spreads it across my lap. What a splendid old ragamuffin she is! Too bad she has lost most of her teeth; her features are leaden, her hair is twisted under a net in lumps, her arms dangle crookedly. She is bones hooked together with shrunken gut. She has been working as a servant for thirty-five years, she tells me. I've had her for fifteen years.

Cloux

The French call this place Le Clos-Luce, and it is a brightenclosure. I think of the royalty who have lived here through the years, the many mistresses who came and went. As I look across the lawn of the manor house I can see the little chapel of St. Hubert and the rooftops of the chateau; it often seems to me that I have been here before! With Francesco, Salai and Giovanni busy in the adjoining studio, I try to believe I am a young man...time is of no importance!

Salai rushed in as I worked at my easel.

"Look, look at this..."

He had found a sketch among my sketches, a sketch he made in Florence long ago, when he was about ten. It shows a bicycle. There it is on a scrap of paper, among pornographic scribbles and graffiti.

"You did pretty well, riding that thing...at first," I reminded.

"There weren't any brakes, remember?"

"Well, when I connected the chain drive to the pedals and adjusted the han-dlebars you rode it into the Arno."

"Some splash!" said Francesco, coming in with Giovanni. "You could have gotten the bicycle out of the river...it floated," reminded Giovanni.

"I couldn't get hold of it...the current was too fast!"

"It should have been made of steel, to last." I said.

"Let's make a bicycle for the King," suggested Salai. "I'll show him my drawing...no, you make one for him. I can see the courtiers riding about...we can improve on the one we made in Florence."

Cloux

Certainly a bird is an instrument performing according to mathematical laws which are within the capacity of man to understand. How does it climb, dive, spiral, hover? I asked these questions yesterday as I watched a flock of ducks along the Loire; I asked the same questions in Florence, in Milan, in Rome. If we ask questions we can eventually achieve some kind of answer. Persistence then!

Why does the heart pump a certain beat? What starts it pumping? Just when? Why, at that given moment? Does a nerve trigger it? Heart beats in the womb must be automatic.

If we understand the mechanism of the heart we may be able to help when it is damaged.

What are the essential differences between the heart of a squirrel and the heart of a man? Between the heart of a cat and a man? Between the heart of a cow and the heart of a man? Knowing the differences should help.

I must check through my anatomical drawings and compare notes and ana-lyze the results. There is so much to be learned. And it is all there, ready to be apprehended.

Amore sol la mi fa remirare... love only makes me remember; love gives me pleasure...

So it was, long ago, when I loved, when I composed a rebus every day. There was so much to sing about. I played my lira da braccio. Made notations. As a boy, I thought seriously of becoming a musician. Perhaps a troubadour. At Andrea's shop I created a silver harp, in the shape of a horse's skull. The fame of that harp took me to Milan-changed my life.

"The song of men is the remedy to pain..."

I almost believed that.

I designed drums, multiple beaters; I could change the pitch of my drums through holes in the sides...I built three portable organs... I designed glissando recorders...I made a lute for Nicolaio del Turco...I made a wind-chest con gomito for the prioress...

Perhaps I should compose some rebuses for the King.

No.

The music I hear now is not that music.

I might have spent my life in the world of music; yet, often, even as I played, I puzzled over the enigmas of ocean and mountain, the enigmas of the body, of sound: why was one sound more resonant than another; why were there echoes; why was a woman's voice unlike a man's; why were there changes in the songs of birds?

Ah, those apprentice years!

Those apprentice years!

Getting up at dawn, working before breakfast, working till late, forgetting to eat, going for a swim in the Arno, rushing back to work, forgetting to sleep; work, work, it was a beautiful thing.

I was forever gathering plants, drying them, mounting them, identifying them. I roamed alone. Good to get away from the studio. I was forever dissect-ing animals and birds. With every bird I asked: how does it propel itself? How can man go aloft? Those birds, those caged birds...it was right to hoard money, to buy them, to liberate them. I followed them, I sat with them, I ran with them, studying every possible angle.

I filled sketchbooks with sketches of the hawk in flight, the raven, another with the sparrow.

My glider, based on the studies of the hawk, flew around our workshop. Again and again we tested it, wondering why it flew.

Andrea had me working bronze...there was so much, so much. He was always encouraging. What a fine master. What a fine artist. Now with gold leaf, now with new pigments, now something in the way of a discovery with silverpoint.

He had so little money. Sometimes he went hungry. Sometimes we had to find money for him and his family. Little Lila, little Lila had to have a toy. Tony had to have crayons. Bread, milk.

Writing this journal I am attempting to indicate the important things in my life. However, I am perplexed: I can't decide what has been significant, I am trapped by small things...little things crowd the important. If life is a mural then every detail is important. As I write I am learning who I was. And the omissions, are they carelessness or are they deliberate? As for important lapses I must make an effort to fill them in, if there is time. If weariness does not overcome.

Looking back at Milan, at my first year there, I remember: no, remember is not the word: I have never forgotten that meeting at the Duke's festa: I was playing a lute; she was introduced to me; she wanted me to repeat the song; we talked. Love? That is not the right word. But is there better?

Caterina had my mother's name; that meant something to me.

I wish I could describe her as I saw her at the festa but she has become unreal through the years. I see her in the sunlight, I see her as I sketched her, I see her as she lay dead. There is no easy way to describe our love. I am unable to sepa-rate beauty from tragedy. I wish I could.

Caterina was nineteen. She was my blonde, my Leda. Was our love unique? Maybe it was rather ordinary. That does not matter. It matters that there were long brush strokes in the mind. There is no need to retouch our emotions. Cer-tainly her death and our daughter's death need no retouching.

I hear her singing one of my songs, a song I composed for her... I hear her laughing and I hear our daughter laughing, as they play together. Laughter-in memory-does not blur as words and faces blur.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...we had three years together: there was money enough: there was time enough: then Milan was besieged. Both were killed by the bombardment. But before they died, Mother visited us and for a while I had two Caterinas, two loving women, two gentlewomen. Our child was learning to walk. Not many people know of those three years.

Cloux

Today, Maturina has served me her special pasta, several kinds of bread, dried figs, camembert, her three-layered pastry, and Moselle wine. She appreciates my fondness for sweets.

I asked her to sit down with me. As usual, she declined.

"I want your company...everyone's away."

Boltraffio, Francesco, Salai and others had gone for the day. Another holiday!

"Are you homesick?"

Her sad face became a little sadder. She sat down and clasped her hands in her lap and stared at them.

"I think you should visit your people."

She nodded.

"...But I couldn't leave you."

"For a month or two?"

"It's a long, long way to Vinci...and alone!"

"Salai is returning to Florence soon..."

"But I can't..."

"You should see your family. People in Vinci would like to hear about us, how we're getting along. We have money enough."

Abruptly, hands to her face, she got up, and shuffled away. "I'm too old," she said.

Cloux

As we rode along the Loire, following the river road, Francesco and I talked:

"So you received a letter from your mother yesterday? How are things at Vaprio?"

"Quiet...everyone is well. Papa has fully recovered. Mama says that conditions are very bad in Milan...fighting in the streets...hungry mobs...looting."

"Vaprio continues to escape...I hope nothing changes that!"

"You asked me about the pigments I bought in Paris. We have a good as-sortment. I've been grinding them. We'll have a beautiful green, that laurel green you're fond of."

"I'm still partial to green. I suppose you bought the Dutch pigments..."

Our horses, side by side, kept an even pace: both from the same stable, they liked walking together: the road was familiar to them: the afternoon was sunny; shafts of light rebounded from the Loire; a pair of squirrels chittered at us; hunt-ers and their dogs passed-someone saluted us with a playful toot of his horn.

"Mama insists that we stay away from Milan...she warns us...she said that I'm to tell you."

"I understand. We're lucky to be here; Cloux is like Vaprio; beautiful coun-tryside; a sketch here, a sketch there."

"We should ride to Chambord."

"I prefer the river trip..."

"Shall we go on the river?"

"All right, Cecchino. You arrange the trip. Certainly, there's no finer chateau than Chambord. Let's spend a few days there. We can find new paintings, new marbles and bronzes...from Milan...Athens...Rome...the greatness of stolen art..."

As we left our horses at the stable, Francesco asked:

"Did I mention that the Princess de Lamballe has a son? He's my age. He wants to study painting. Do you want a Prince for a pupil?"

Cloux

The King and I talked far into the night.

Youth can be so sincere: youth can evaluate and assess: last night, on the part of others, he apologized: the Gascon archers were much on his mind...

"I have thought of them many, many times...those Gascon fools...nothing else to do...made a target of your cavello...our archers..."

Bronze for cannons...he knew about that...he searched about for a solution, as if it might be possible to cast the horse. As he saw it, he felt he had rescued me. Had he? I turned over that thought. Recompense? Was Cloux recompense? He did not say so. I think we both wished to believe it was respect, admiration. His talk made us feel awkward at times.

I had not complained: I had not mentioned the monument. Divulging his sincerity got Francis beyond his scope.

He referred to Amboise and Cloux as my home. Haven, of course. Retreat? Voluntary exile. Those thoughts could be brought in. I tried my best to avoid any embarrassing approach. Presently, he was excusing the battle of man against man. Again we were faltering. His innate shrewdness came to our rescue, and we discussed architectural changes at Amboise...

"We must do everything we can to improve it...it can never be like Chambord ...help me give it a manorial feeling...walk about with me tomorrow...let's write down some of your ideas...that stairway...the entry...we have to make it less grim...harmony..."

IL CAVELLO...the words haunted us as we said good night.

I lay down under my canopy. The bed seemed to grow immense. On one side I saw a child, a bend in a river, a hill...the bed drifted...the room changed... I saw men pouring bronze into a mould... I saw a great horse in a city square...

SALAI-He is either in studio rags or elegant, foppish; he bursts with energy (has a brisk, haughty walk); he is quick with his pigments; he is as lean-featured as a fox; he is yellow-headed, tall. He has a wonderful laugh, a tooth-spread grin. His brown eyes are spoked with yellow. A girl-chaser. My Salai will never be-come an accomplished artist. I still have to remind him to wash himself. Ai, Salaino! And will he ever quit that foreign habit, the habit of smoking?

Almost everywhere I travel I am troubled by poverty: I talk with the workers and some of them say they are hungry all of the time: I talk with them about their tools, and try to improve them. Shovels. Spades. Rakes. Forks. I have sug-gested a more efficient roasting spit-I have made detailed drawings. I have im-proved a wood-planer and a file-maker. I have designed a textile machine, a bet-ter barrow, a good water-lamp.

For most field laborers, theirs is an ox-life.

Horse, mule, donkey, ox, man...they are inextricable.

Landlord and tenant, the struggle goes on and on: they are as much at log-gerheads as pope and duke. Serfs, beggars, greed, knights, fools-pathos.

At Vaprio, I sometimes ate with a farmer and his wife, in their tiny stone farmhouse. They did not complain, yet they slept on mats, ate meat now and then, worked from dawn to sundown, shivered through the winters, saved flo-rins in a clay pot. Their hands at mealtime were the hands of old people and yet they were not old.

In the Vaprio region the people have to pay exorbitant milling fees, pay to use a common oven or wine press. Fishing rights have been stolen. For a few gentlemen there may be no wood for winter; for many others there may be no wood at all. Some want a civil war to put them on their feet.

At Vaprio, I recall a child of nine or ten: I saw her often on my visits there: she reminded me of that festa, in May, in Florence, when I fell in love with my own Beatrice, when I was eleven or twelve years old. My Beatrice was beautiful, her features delicately formed, her behavior gentle and agreeable, full of candid loveliness... I thought of her as my angel.

In those days, in Firenze, I often passed Dante's home: his wooden door had a bronze knocker, a simple braided ring. I used to imagine knocking and saying:

"Is Dante Alighieri at home?"

I expected a housekeeper to reply:

"He's been dead a hundred and fifty years, you fool!"

I would have dashed off, laughing.

Cloux

I suppose I must admit it: I am a parasite of royalty.

During forty years I have had nine royal patrons.

Each one has hindered me; each one has helped.

I could not have survived in my vineyard at San Vittore: I need artists, sculptors, apprentices, courtiers, women, princes, jousting, masques, jewelry, perfume... I need great art. I need antique art. Libraries.

Last night, at Amboise, in the garden, at the pergola, I explained some of my observations of the moon. Courtiers crowded around. A duke was there. A prin-cess. There was an earnest exchange as I passed around lunar drawings, in the lamplight and torchlight.

"The details are as accurate as I could draw them...notice the craters, pits, the rills...you see, if you keep the moon under careful observation over a period of time, you'll become aware of fixed landmarks. I made those drawings from the Coliseum...in Rome..."

Francesco has copied this. It was written in Florence, in 1508. I thought it rather interesting, so I have included it here:

For several days I have forgotten to hang my notebooks on my belt. I must see to it that I remember. Tomorrow I must write down exactly what I observed when I dissected the pigeon I found dead in front of the church.

Se sarai solo, sarai tutto tuo...

NOTE: when you sever the man's legs tomorrow afternoon, lay them on the floor beside him: measure length, diameter, muscle curvatures. Dissect each foot, and record differences. Since the man was very fat, try to discover ways of over-coming this problem.

Remember to borrow the lancet from Tomas.

I warned my new assistant: Cosimo, squeal on me and I will see to it that you never become a member of the guild.

He has threatened to write the Pope (or one of the Cardinals), and expose me. He could. He knows how to write. Now I pay him more soldi than any of the others. Blackmailer!

Ah, you Florentines, look, look! I render a skull-yours! You tremble. You are afraid of learning! For centuries you have been afraid. Afraid of yourselves, of others, of God. You are trapped in stupidity and lassitude.

Blood-how it scares you: You whimper at the sight of blood. I remove a man's guts. You are horrified. But you will batter a man to shreds on the battle-field, and show your gory sword. You will dump boiling oil on him...you will blast him with gunpowder...but you won't dissect him...you won't learn how we are made!

Sometimes kids overran my studio; maybe because I never could yell at them. They would sneak in from the street; they had to poke, to see, to talk, to giggle. One afternoon (I remember it was such a fine day, a day to chuck everything and walk out of town), five or six boys and girls came in and before I could figure out what they were up to, they rushed out with two of my models. Two or three ran toward the Arno; others ran off into the countryside. I couldn't follow both. Whooping and hollering, the kids flew their model over the river. I watched it soar away, dip, glide, plunge into the water.

When I found the other kids, in the country, they had my Red Hawk: they had it launched on a cord, and kite-like, it was climbing, spiraling, staying aloft.

Kids-I miss their laughter, their enthusiasm!

There was a time when I had dirty waifs sleeping on the studio floor. We took in two or three; then others came. Their parents had died in the plague at Santa Maria; I guess it was at Santa Maria. Those were hungry weeks for all of us; yet we somehow managed, managed to feed them, get clothes for them, find homes for them-and kept on working.

Cloux

Copied from my 1504 Florentine notebook:

As soon as we met in the Town Hall there was a big wrangle. Ten or twelve of us, bearded patriarchs and upstarts, were at odds. We must decide where Michelangelo's David was to be placed. We must situate it where it had shade part of the day, where it was protected from the weather; we must have it mounted on travertine; we must move it carefully; we must see to it...

It was lucky for us that Michelangelo was not around. He would have ex-ploded-and told us off.

We walked around Florence for several hours, fighting the heat (and each other); then, we reached our one and only mutual agreement-to go somewhere and eat.

Later, I went with Francesco to Michelangelo's studio, and we sat there, the two of us, and talked about his David, sitting on a bench facing his work. We agreed that it equaled any classical masterpiece. It was a little difficult to accept such beauty coming from such a troublemaker.

It required four days for men to move it, by windlass and rollers, to a site alongside the Town Hall: how carefully we worked, the statue suspended in a sling. Sometimes there were thirty of us at the job. A downpour drenched us. As we moved forward over slippery cobbles I thought the figure would topple. Car-gadores bellowed. Michelangelo was on hand and beat one of the cargadores with his fists, screaming at the top of his voice.

When we had David in place we arranged a party. All the Florentine artists. Michelangelo was absent.

A while ago Niccolò Machiavelli wrote me from his Tuscan farm, where he is still exiled from Florence. His disturbing thoughts linger:

"Mornings, weather permitting, I hunt or snare thrushes, reading Dante or Ovid to make the hunts more agreeable. After lunch, I visit an inn and throw dice with the yokels, to taste my malign destiny in their brutish company.

"When evening arrives I go to my library, after I have shed my muddy, every-day clothes. Now I am dressed as if about to appear at court, as an envoy from Florence. Elegantly attired I enjoy the presence of great men of the past. They receive me cordially. I talk with them, speaking confidently; they are at ease. For a few hours I lose myself: I am not afraid of poverty and death."

Familiar...the thoughts of the exile.

Yesterday, I wrote Niccolò and invited him to Cloux.

"We will be a pair of exiles. Stay with me a month or two. Amboise won't bore you. There's a superb library. The King has welcomed you. There will be no expense on your part. I will see to that."

How he helped in Florence: I remember that I owe my Anghiari commission to him. And that night Cesare strangled my friend...it was Niccolò who provided the horse.

A library.

A library can erase problems.

A library is a kind of stained glass.

Francesco and I enjoy the Cloux library. Handsome room. A fine Mantegna-in an old style frame-hangs on the far wall. Its mythological scene is pleasantly antique. The shelves hold parchments, vellums, velvet-bound books, illuminated manuscripts, scores. Francesco has turned up a score I wrote for the Medici, one I used to play.

There is a white marble table with alabaster legs where I spread out the manuscripts and books.

The librarian, keys at his waspish gut, is a defrocked Jesuit, ashen-headed, ashen-faced; he admits that he has never lifted down half of the books.

A lovely prie dieu holds a Latin volume, its pages ornamented with pastel water-color and gold leaf. The carpet is a mouse-chewed Turkish weave, red on red on red, with colorless, limp fringes.

The unchained books are in Spanish, Latin, French, Greek, Dutch, and Hun-garian-collected by King Francis' father. He loved this room. He died there.

Sitting under the green pergola at Amboise, King Francis and I sipped apéri-tifs, the afternoon warm, a lazy hunting dog at his feet.

"I don't understand how your army crossed the Alps in six or seven days."

"Five days," he corrected me.

"By the Col d'Argentière?

"Yes...do you know that Pass?"

"I have camped there. I have seen some of it when I was collecting fossils. But for an army to get through, it seems im-possible. You had cannons, horses, mules..."

"We were determined to surprise the Milanese."

We watched dragonflies circle above lily pads in a small rock-rimmed foun-tain, their orange wings on fire in the afternoon light. Near the fountain men were planting young columnar cypress. Other gardeners were spading paths be-cause the King was re-landscaping. Someone, pushing a barrow, with an enor-mous red wheel, asked the King if he could plant the roses in the circular beds already prepared.

"We had good weather," Francis said.

"Think of it...it took me almost a month to reach here."

"But you were in no hurry, Mon Père."

"Snow...mud...ice..."

"I realize."

"Did you think of Hannibal?"

"I did."

"What Pass did he use to invade Italy?"

"Some say the Mount Genevre."

"He was a great tactical genius."

"Our army was well led...but there were times when I wished we had some of Hannibal's elephants...but fog was our worst problem...morning fog, thick as an elephant's hide...maybe that fog helped us...our scouts encountered shepherds in the fog...stopped them from informing others..."

Most men fail to come to grips with nature's intricacies. When they find a fossil they are satisfied with a cursory look. As for flowers, insects, animals, birds, they turn away from them if they serve no practical purpose. And because men do not care to probe, they resent or fear my studies. I have been made to feel this through the years.

They accuse me of wizardry...alchemy...vile practices.

My studio door is banged open.

"Help me, Maestro...oh, God, help me!"

And I try... I draw out pus... I patch a hole in a rogue's leg... I sew up flesh...but the same man, when he is well, whispers lies about me :

"He steals bodies from the morgue! He steals dead men's legs...he slices men's skulls in half!"

The body's secrets, the mind's secrets...we must unlock them!

In his Amboise armory, facing the Loire, Francis showed me his trophies and gear: his new armor from Cadiz, engraved with floral patterns; his father's armor inlaid with gold and silver (from Milan); a plumed helmet with the regal sala-mander in brass and copper inlay; a circular shield inscribed AFTER DEFEAT VICTORY.

We spent a morning among spears, pikes, swords, scabbards, helmets, bows and arrows, arquebuses...standards...saddlery. The King admired a Toledo sword and a pair of antique Hungarian spurs. I was taken by an engraved dagger from Greece-Homeric lines along its shaft.

Leaning on a pike staff, Francis spoke excitedly about his conquest of Milan:

"...How we fought! Was it for twenty-eight hours or longer? I thought our cavalry would mow down the Swiss...the Swiss kept rushing toward us...it was our artillery that destroyed them...I fought on my great Conde, the chestnut you admired...he was wounded, badly wounded...I had to leave him...I had my visor smashed...my shoulder was sliced open...it was like your Anghiari... horses...men...smoke and dust...at times I couldn't see...everybody yelling...drums beating...the Venetian troops saved us...

"By God, it was terrible...sometimes I felt alone...sometimes I thought my own men would kill me."

"Is it true that 15,000 men died?"

"Yes...yes...15,000...12,000...who can count the dead? Some wounded crawl away to die...peasants began pilfering, killing...maiming...our wounded filled the Maggiore Hospital...you must have heard...the halls and loggias were filled...

"Milan was poorly defended," I said.

"The walled area of the city? Few tried to stop our entry. News of defeat had spread throughout Milan...little resistance...futile..."

I returned to my studio thoroughly disheartened: it is this repetition: city against city: pope against duke: the stupidity seems endless: what shields protect us against the fools of the world!

Yesterday, I enjoyed the King's dinner-another hundred or more guests: Cardinal Mercier, De Brosse, Ambassador to Holland, military, priests, courtiers, beautiful women. I sat opposite Francis and enjoyed his scarlet-gold suit, sewn with diamond chips. I believe he was wearing five or six rings; one of them is rather like the stone I gave Mona long ago. Francis personifies youth, hedonism, and royalty. Watching him, listening to him, I forget the tedious round of courses.

Princesse de Lamballe, sitting beside me, a lovely woman in her forties, dressed in blue and nakedness, praised the banquet:

"Francis has such wonderful chefs...the food is fresher here than in Paris...I'm so glad to get away."

"Tomorrow," the King said, leaning toward me, "all of us are leaving Am-boise...we're going to Chambord." He waved his hand, and smiled. "All of us!"

All of us meant about a thousand people, as the King headed for Chambord. I watched his retinue (I declined the invitation): I estimate that there were four hundred horsemen, two hundred mules, mounted archers, stablemen, the Chamberlain, musicians, clergy, wizards, cooks, doctors...the archers wore black and red, the musicians wore yellow and green; the King wore a hat with a yellow plume and a yellow cloak flecked with white fleur-de-lys. The musicians played oboes, trumpets, tambourines, and drums. Such discord. Away they went, pen-nants, banners, oriflammes.

Suddenly, it was quiet at Amboise.

In my studio I sat at my desk and looked down on the peacocks and some pheasants: Francesco came: we began to work: I dictated pages from my treatise regarding horses.

Francesco Melzi is a proper, thoughtful villa-man, handsome, slight, mid-dle-tall, grey-eyed, blond. He is my patient friend, my gracious friend (gra-cious to everyone): he has his father's agreeable manners. He is horseman and archer. Flutist. A painter for fifteen years, he handles chiaroscuro like a master: he is best as portraitist. No woman-chaser, he is dedicated to Latin, Greek, He-brew, French...and all of the arts. When he trims my hair and beard he likes to flatter me.

I am searching for a glass that reflects a Florentine face-not a wrinkled, bearded patriarch.

Giovanni Boltraffio-Tony-has always had wealth behind him (like Francesco); here, at Amboise, he wears satins and silks, claims that the King's tailor is "the best in the world." Tony is so enormous, so muscular, his satins often split. Blue-eyed, genial, bowing, a little too obsequious, he sometimes dabs perfume on his paint-messed hands. He has big hands, big feet, big skull-topped by curly brown hair. With him decorum comes first. He is always aware of his sedate heritage. He sings beautifully, and is an accomplished lutenist. At home he is devoted to his cathedral choir. In Amboise, he is considered a nota-ble fencer. He'd rather fence than paint. He'd rather eat than paint. He will have nothing to do with dissection. Right now, he is involved with a red-headed hussy who champions sex.

Andrea del Verrochio-tall, with not an ounce of extra meat on him...it seems to me he is still a young man, that we are at work together in his studio. But no, no, the Arno roared throughout that night, as we mourned his death. Many of us. Corpses lodged against supports of the Puente Vecchio. Plagues. Madness. Work. We cherished him, his frailty. Guild-member at twenty. Such kindness, such classic renderings in stone and bronze. We revered his Saint John, his serenity in stone.

We exhibited his sculpture in every corner of his workshop and yard. People. His Dolphin Boy. His Christ. Ghosts from his metal and chisel.

We learned how to use the abacus together; we learned about mixing oils; he taught me silverpoint and charcoal; we worked with pastels, with gold leaf.

Ai, Andrea-what a scalding rain on the night you died. We sat about, we drank wine; then, next week, we returned to our casting, our horses, busts, an-gels.

Most of the years in his studio were tranquil. There were wonderful days, when, like John in the Desert, we detected our own worth-in the mastery of his work. His home was mine. His garden was mine. His florins.

I see him painting a madonna's drapery...weeks of work, painting delicate, gilded folds...he gave me books...

He said: genius is dedication.

He also said: art and friendship.