I Mona Lisa Read online

Page 2


  Lisa doesn’t see it. She can’t. She stands before me and continues to study me intently, her face troubled. I stare back at her, meeting her eye. Why should I look away? Her lip curls in aversion.

  ‘This won’t do at all. I need you to at least pretend a smile, or I can’t paint,’ complains Leonardo, half-amused.

  ‘Oh, I much prefer her like this,’ I object. ‘The frown suits her.’

  Leonardo does his best to ignore me and concentrate only on the other Lisa.

  ‘Messer Leonardo, I thought you were going to paint me in profile? The pose is insolent … ’

  ‘Not at all. Her gaze is direct. Intimate,’ suggests Leonardo. There’s a note of pride in his voice.

  I may be a woman but when you stare at me, I dare to stare back, resolute. I am not like the others who have come before who glance demurely at the floor, or their coyly clasped hands, or to the side. Look at me, and I see you too. All Leonardo’s bottega know he’s painted something revolutionary. That I am a revolutionary. I am a marvel and I will change the world, but only for those who wish to see. Lisa del Giocondo is not one of them.

  How can she honestly believe that she and I still have any connection? The paper chain piecing us together snaps.

  ‘What will people think? I am looking right at them. It isn’t modest. It isn’t virtuous.’ Her voice is soft, worried.

  ‘It’s an intimate portrait to hang in your villa. No one need see it apart from your husband. I expect he will be so proud, he’ll invite all his friends and acquaintance to view it.’

  She gives a tiny smile.

  Leonardo pats her arm again. This time she doesn’t flinch. ‘But my Lisa isn’t finished. Look, her hands, her arms. The dress. All are only traced from the cartoon. I have barely begun the landscape behind her. You needn’t worry. Not yet. Not for a long while.’

  Not ever, I think. I am never, ever, going to live in the Giocondo villa. My place is here with Leonardo. I am not worried either. What Leonardo says is true. It takes him a very long time to finish anything. If he finishes them at all. I am not sure that I want to be finished and taken away from him.

  Leonardo is angry with me.

  ‘Why can’t you be kinder to Lisa?’ he chides. ‘You tease her whenever she sits for us.’

  ‘What does it matter when she can’t even hear?’ I object. ‘Only the greatest artists can hear my voce. Those with true ingegno. Lisa is ordinary. Dull.’

  Only the master himself hears my voice. At first I did not know this and unwittingly I would call out to the garzoni in the studio, tell a joke to Tommaso, or shout an insult to Salaì. I believed Salaì ignored me, and it took a little time for me to understand he could not hear. It was both a release from the pretence of courtesy and a disappointment. I was at liberty to be as rude as I wished, but every insult fell as if upon the wind. Leonardo and I wondered if ours was a unique bond formed between creator and his creation. But then one day Raphael de Santi, the painter from Urbino, came to visit the studio. I remarked to Leonardo how young Raphael was, how brilliant his drawing, and, unthinkingly, he bowed to me, and murmured his thanks.

  It appeared that Raphael could hear me too. That night, Leonardo and I decided that it seemed artists of true vision and genius, blessed with ingegno, can hear my voice. For now, it is a source of pride that only the most brilliant can hear me speak. Leonardo himself, Raphael. I wonder if there will be others. I do not care. As long as I have Leonardo, I shall never be lonely.

  Leonardo grunts, still displeased with my manners towards Madonna Lisa. He is never unkind, and he is always patient with those more stupid than himself, which is all of us.

  ‘You might be cleverer than Lisa, but your smile lacks the sweetness of hers. As does your temper.’

  ‘She is made entirely of cold and phlegm. Like a frog.’

  Leonardo sets down his brush. Tonight, his work is not going well, and I am not helping. He is drawing and redrawing my hands in charcoal. The primed white lead of my panel is full of his pentimenti, or regrets, where he has rubbed away the spolveri dots and keeps adjusting the angle of my fingers again and again. If we don’t make peace, I might end up with no hands at all. I know I ought to plead forgiveness but it sticks in my throat. I want him to devote himself to nothing except me, but he is distracted and interested in many things. His sketches and designs are scattered across the studio. Salaì saunters past and Leonardo catches his hand and places a kiss upon the tender flesh of his wrist and I’m needled by jealousy, both that he has hands and that the master wishes to kiss them. But not even Salaì can placate him, and he scrubs out my fingers again, leaving only smudged stubs.

  Perhaps there is prescience in his wretchedness tonight, as the door to the studio catches in the wind, a January squall, and in puffs Niccolò Machiavelli, master of misfortune wearing the pretence of friendship. We owe our present studio, lodgings and a new commission for a vast mural of the Battle of Anghiari in the council chamber all to Machiavelli. We are all in debt to him. I warn Leonardo again and again to be careful of Machiavelli’s barbed benevolence. His preferred currency is neither gold ducats nor florins but favours, and he takes great pleasure in demanding their repayment. I study the black hair slicked wetly to Machiavelli’s white skin, and his skull-tight smirk. Payment is due.

  ‘Leonardo! My great friend.’

  Leonardo rises from his easel and embraces him with genuine pleasure, paying no heed to my concerns. He’s glad of a distraction and Machiavelli amuses him. He is clever and witty. His mind marvellous. That it relishes in dark delights, doesn’t trouble him. Every aspect of life’s shades fascinates Leonardo.

  Machiavelli manoeuvred the Florentine Council into commissioning Leonardo, and also allowing him both studio and living quarters in the refectory at Santa Maria Novella. The Sala del Papa was built for the comfort and pleasure of visiting popes and it is suitably magnificent on the outside, with brilliant white-and-dark green-striped inlaid marble, a harmony of geometric shapes that gleams bone bright. Yet inside it is dilapidated and dingy and parts of the outer room are in poor repair. Perhaps it’s the luminous frescoes of the former Florentine rulers, the exiled Medicis, that makes the council reluctant to fix the roof as Leonardo requested and now the rain thrums in various buckets and pools on the herringbone brick floor. The rosy faces of the Medici boys stare dolefully from the walls amongst blooming rosettes of damp, the ghosts of Leonardo’s youth. Several windows leak; rivulets stain the yellow walls like tears.

  Machiavelli sees me set upon my easel, and Leonardo’s pigment-stained fingers, and scowls.

  ‘You’re messing around with Francesco del Giocondo’s wife,’ he tuts.

  ‘The boys are working on the commission,’ says Leonardo, ignoring the innuendo.

  This is mostly true. But the council are paying for the master himself. Machiavelli looks around, observing the skins of preparing vellum and bubbling vats of gum arabic, as well as the laughter from the retinue of assistants and apprentices spilling over from the large room next door. Pine logs crackle and sputter in the grate. A bowl of fat figs rests on a low table beside a large pecorino and a haunch of ham, glistening with glossy white fat. It looks posed and set up for a still life for the apprentices.

  ‘You spoil those boys,’ complains Machiavelli.

  ‘Only sometimes,’ I object. ‘In between the charm, he’s furious at their incompetence and untidiness.’

  Machiavelli ignores me. Everyone does except Leonardo.

  ‘I take pleasure in their joy,’ says Leonardo. He has no time for Machiavelli’s smug parsimony. ‘The painter is a gentleman. He wears well-cut clothes of fine fabric. He eats good food. Only then can he try to paint beauty and capture the human soul.’

  Machiavelli raises an eyebrow but voices no further objections. ‘In that case, is there anything else you need?’ he asks, solicitous as an innkeeper angling for a handsome tip.

  ‘Salaì? What’s on the list?’ calls Leonardo.

 
Salaì dances noiselessly over to them, placing down two goblets and pouring wine. ‘Towels, napkins, candlesticks, a feather mattress, a couple-ladle, lamp stands, inkwell, ink.’

  ‘You can’t get these things yourself?’ asks Machiavelli, dubious. ‘The advance I negotiated for you ought to be sufficient for ink and napkins.’

  Leonardo shrugs. ‘You offered. And I suspect this visit is going to cost me in the end. What is it that you want? You didn’t come here to do my shopping.’

  Machiavelli grins his crocodile smile. ‘I need your assistance and expertise. I’m going to divert the Arno. Take it away from Pisa and deprive the city of their route to the sea. Everyone says it’s impossible.’

  ‘And you know I like impossible things. You’re trying to tempt me.’

  ‘Of course. I wouldn’t lie to you, Leonardo.’

  Now it is Leonardo’s turn to laugh, but it’s no good. I can see he is smitten. Diverting the Arno is an engineering scheme on the scale of the gods. I sigh. Machiavelli understands how difficult Leonardo finds it to finish a painting, especially one as monumental as this great mural. But Niccolò Machiavelli can also hear the steady drum of war, and he’s sniffed a route to victory against Pisa, and he does not really care about painting or Leonardo except when it can help him realise his own endless ambition. I study Leonardo. There’s a frenzy of excitement about him.

  ‘Do you have accurate maps? What is the soil type?’ he asks.

  Machiavelli produces a folded-up document from his satchel. ‘They are not as good as anything you could draw. You must come and see it for yourself. Make new maps.

  ‘Imagine it, my friend. Florence with a canal! A triumphant city with a route to the city. At last we would be a republic to rival Venice or Rome herself. Create the designs, and I swear to you that I will see to it that they are followed.’

  Leonardo regards him with longing. He wants to believe him. He has submitted tender after tender to the grand dukes – architectural designs for duomos, or designs for machinery of war – but while his ideas amuse and are admired, he has never had anything commissioned on this vast scale. Ambition and desire flare within him. I can see it. He glows like Icarus, catching in the orb of the sun.

  ‘We will be the creators of the new Florentine Republic,’ declares Machiavelli.

  The politics of the scheme mean nothing to Leonardo. It’s the engineering wonder, the possibilities of altering the face of the earth. He is lost to this new scheme.

  ‘Leonardo! Negotiate your terms,’ I chide.

  He nods, and glances at Machiavelli. ‘I shall submit a bill for my expenses. My drawings and my travel.’

  Machiavelli grunts. ‘Of course. I take it the advance for the painting commission has gone?’

  Leonardo doesn’t answer.

  Machiavelli stands and gapes at me. ‘I don’t like the way she looks at me. It’s the way her face is just there against the background. She needs some clothes. And hands. When are you going to finish her?’

  ‘Never,’ says Salaì, appearing again to clear the glasses. ‘Because then he’ll be obliged to hand her over to Francesco del Giocondo.’

  Salaì does not like me. Until I appeared, he had no rival for Leonardo’s affection. He might not be able to hear my barbs and insults, but he senses that I am no ordinary painting. I unsettle him.

  Machiavelli scrutinises me again. ‘She’s uncanny. She might just be a face. But something about her is so lifelike.’

  He turns his back on me. He has no manners.

  ‘Oh, and here is the formal contract for the mural,’ adds Machiavelli. ‘I’ve negotiated excellent terms. A monthly stipend of fifteen florins. They’ll cover all the costs of materials, of course.’

  He pushes over a piece of paper and Leonardo signs without reading.

  ‘It’s to be completed by next February, no exception or excuse accepted. That’s not a problem?’ says Machiavelli, sly, pricking at Leonardo’s vanity.

  Leonardo waves away his concern. He always begins each work with great optimism. It slowly leaks away over time like wine from a cracked flagon.

  Salaì laughs, incredulous, and shakes his head. For once I agree with him.

  The studio without him is a summer’s day without sunshine. We are all irritable and indolent; we lack any purpose. Leonardo has left Salaì in charge, but the other assistants resist his command and squabble. Leonardo has taken on a new pupil, a slender boy of about thirteen. The rumour is we owe his father money. According to the gossip of the bottega, his father is a Lombardy nobleman but, despite the debt, still agrees to pay Leonardo five lire a month for his son. Salaì enters the sum in the accounts book. The boy has elegant clothes; his tunic is lambswool dyed a brilliant red and in the chill of the evening he produces a dapper cloak of grey velvet that even Leonardo would wear, the folds catching in the firelight. Salaì bullies him endlessly. The night after Leonardo leaves, Francesco Melzi no longer wears the cloak, but Salaì preens in it beside the hearth. Francesco sits silent, feigning indifference, hot shameful tears unshed. He understands his place in the bottego hierarchy. Alicia our maid, helped by two other serving women, comes in to clean and provide meals but is disgusted by the disorder and mutters in discontent, and shows her aversion by banging dishes and sweeping with more vigour than necessary. The piles of discarded plates. The rotting fruit.

  Salaì immediately covers over the windows with thick, rough paper as instructed – the light must be even and cool. More workmen and carpenters arrive, bringing five braccia length of elm wood ready to build a platform and a ladder and all the various devices in Leonardo’s plans so he can reach the high places along the wall where the paper for the vast preparatory cartoon for the council chamber is to be secured. The studio is rapidly becoming a building site. Salaì struts and yells, self-important as a rooster. Two of the serving women leave in tears. Leonardo would never allow this. The maestro rules not through threats but charm and tenderness. We all long to please him. A huge ream of paper arrives for the cartoon. Salaì orders the boys to begin gluing it together. The constant smell of rancid and boiling rabbit skin bubbling in the cauldron on the fire for the glue is revolting. Francesco is burned when Salaì drips glue on his wrist. I’m not certain it’s an accident. Alicia vomits from the perpetual stench. I long to complain to Salaì, and launch a volley of curses that he cannot hear, and almost as if he senses my disapproval, he lifts me off my three-legged easel and lugs me into Leonardo’s bedchamber. I object vociferously. He justifies moving me to an absent Leonardo.

  ‘It’s for her own good. The heat, steam and fat from the glue will spoil her paintwork.’

  He places me assiduously on the linen covers, although I sense that he’d prefer to hurl me down. He peers at me for a moment.

  ‘It will be good to have a few days without your supercilious look. As if you always know best. Sanctimonious hag.’ He breathes the insult under his breath as he walks out banging the door.

  I am alone and furious. I stare at the ceiling. A spider’s web is strung across the beams. My anger cools into curiosity. This is the first time I have been inside the master’s chamber and I’m thrilled to have such an intimate peek. The room bears the imprint of Leonardo, shaped to fit him like a discarded calfskin glove. The riot of papers and familiar bound notebooks. The smell of rosewater, lavender and turpentine. The cedar chest of clothes. The linen on the bed is smooth and unmarked. The down of the pillows unrumpled, musty from weeks of disuse. Leonardo has the best bed, lavishly carved with wall hangings draped from the beams. The others all sleep on mattresses, or share several to one box bed. Although, Salaì sleeps here more often than not. I picture him wrapped in the master’s arms, Leonardo toying with his curls, the naked line of his back, anointing the lobes of his ears with kisses. I am awash with envy.

  Yet while he is away, even Salaì does not dare to slumber on his bed, to dream his dreams. Leonardo will not object to me resting my head here on his pillow. It is different between he and I.
His affection for me will endure beyond a season, it is a love that transcends flesh and one day I am determined he will prefer me even to Salaì.

  Several weeks later, when Leonardo arrives back from Pisa exhilarated and exhausted, he doesn’t even notice the progress. He barely inspects the sketches. I hear him call out for me at once. I am dizzy with pleasure.

  ‘Where is Lisa? Where is my Lisa?’

  He hurls open the bedroom door, lit up with happiness to see me. I smile back.

  ‘Well, what was it like?’ I ask.

  ‘Wet. Muddy. But there are possibilities.’

  His face is flushed, but beneath the excitement he looks drained and weary, like the white lead is scraped and showing beneath the bright pigment on his cheek. He orders Francesco, who has become our little ‘Cecco’, to carry me and the easel into the studio. I’m relieved to be back amongst the crowded bottega and cannot resist smirking at Salaì, who huffs at the sight of me.

  ‘Master, will you not look at the preparatory sketches for the murals?’ he pleads.

  Leonardo kisses him lightly upon his lips and ruffles the gold of his hair, but then dismisses him with a wave. I preen.

  ‘A glass of wine. Some cheese. And, Cecco, are the colours ground and ready? Black, umber and a little lake. Bring me the measuring spoons. No. This is for my Lisa. I’m not using tempera to bind. I’m using oil. Hasn’t Salaì been teaching you properly?’ He grumbles, journey-worn and yet eager to paint me.

  ‘Leave the boy alone. He’s taken good care of me. Unlike Salaì,’ I complain, as Cecco races back with the brushes.

  Leonardo ignores my snipes about his favourite. I regard the studio with interest. The builders have finished construction of Leonardo’s scaffolding and it teeters around the edges of the room with hanging platforms and pulleys and hoists resembling great siege mechanisms. Leonardo, however, for once pays no attention. He stares only at me. He plucks at his brush and begins to mix paint, blending carefully.