Mar 24

Mar 24 Da Vinci's Last Supper - The Forgotten Tale

Da Vinci’s Last Supper - The Forgotten Tale: book excerpt

Chapter 1

A crisp breeze sloped off the snow-capped Lombardy Alps and blew into Milan, causing the daffodils Leonardo da Vinci walked past to sway in the wind as they displayed their spring splendour, while the smell from an orange grove lining his path wafted up his nostrils. His gait was long and purposeful, while his reddish-brown hair and beard, speckled with streaks of grey, flapped in the wind.

A tall man, standing head and shoulders above many of his peers, Leonardo was undeniably handsome. His appearance oft aroused envy in less attractive members of his sex, while women on the other hand had been known to swoon in his presence. His fingers were slender and calloused at the tips and when he shook your hand he did so firmly, perhaps too firmly for lesser men. Below the furrows of his forehead, Leonardo’s strikingly blue eyes could convey either the calm of wisdom, or that a riot of thought was taking place inside his extraordinary brain.

‘Irksome fools! Meddlers, peddlers and thieves!’ he muttered, the sound of which carried to none but his own ears. Clasped between Leonardo’s fingers was the source of this verbal consternation, a Ducal summons. Earlier that morning he had discussed with his senior apprentice Francesco, a polite and amiable youth, which primer to use on the ancona for the second commission of the Virgin of the Rocks. No paint had been applied to its surface, only the pin-pricked outline of a sketch.

‘I painted them perfection,’ he complained to Francesco. ‘And do those miserable monks thank me? God forbid, they do not.’

Leonardo, along with the de Predis brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista, had been commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan to paint a wood panelled ancona. The two brothers were given the minor work of the side panels with Leonardo assigned to the larger central panel. The brethren of the Confraternity were vociferous in their disapproval of Leonardo’s contribution. By a succession of court edicts, contested over a period of years, and pleas to the Duke of Milan, Leonardo finally had his hands forced into yielding up a second panel for the Confraternity. The original, the Duke kept for himself after taking a liking to its misty moodiness.

While Leonardo and Francesco discussed how best to proceed, they were interrupted by the arrival of a court official bearing a summons for Leonardo from his patron, Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, or Il Moro (The Moor) as he was better known. Il Moro was a stocky and pugnacious individual with limited education yet boundless ambition. He aspired for Milan to be the greatest city in Italy. To surpass Florence, Leonardo’s home city renowned for art and commerce; Rome (home to a corrupt papacy); and Venice, which Il Moro loathed due to its refusal to acknowledge him as the rightful ruler of Milan.

Blowing out his exasperation with each step he took in answer to his summons, Leonardo cared little for the court of Il Moro. Experience had taught him that when courtiers were polite, it served only to lure their unsuspecting victim in to some trap. He had long since reached the conclusion: for courtiers to be hostile was bad but for them to be friendly was even worse.

Clutching the summons while still complaining under his breath about the sheer inconvenience, Leonardo wound his way through Milan’s cobbled streets. He recalled that during his ten years in Milan he had received only four previous summonses from Il Moro, three of which bore the influence of some devious courtier pent on mischief.

Ordinarily he took the long way around from his studio in the south on journeys to his patron’s abode, the Castello Sforzesco, thus avoiding the Lazzaretto. Yet this morning Leonardo, walking at a fearsome pace, entered the notorious slum of Milan. His appearance registered with its superstitious inhabitants, most of whom believed him to be a necromancer and by looks, whispers, frantic gestures and gasps of surprise, notice of his arrival soon spread.

The streets of the Lazzaretto were covered with a vile layer of human excrement mixed with that of dogs and other animals. For its unfortunate inhabitants, the stench clung to them in life and only departed upon their demise. For it was death you smelt as you passed this way, the slow, relentless aroma of humanity rotting.

Food was mostly decayed before it reached these parts and along with brick, mortar, wood, glass and clothes, soon became a part of the disease that was known as the Lazzaretto. Leonardo cursed his luck that the black sludge, made worse after a night of rain, seeped its way between the toes of his sandals and splattered up the calves of his legs.

It was a commonly held belief that Leonardo was in cahoots with the Devil, an attitude fuelled by the numerous inventions Leonardo sought to find buyers for amongst the business establishment of Milan. His self-propelled cart had been widely seen in the city. Whereas the educated scoffed that such a machine could have any practical usage, commoners saw the hand of the red-horned one in building something that would put ordinary folks out of a job. To further fuel their misgivings of Leonardo’s ‘witchcraft’, there were rumours of the many outlandish props and costumes he designed for various functions at the Castello Sforzesco.

Exiting the Lazaretto, he entered the Via Castello, the main cobbled concourse that led towards the Castello Sforzesco. Proudly resplendent in red stone, the castello lay atop a hillock and was designed more after the manner of a Turkish castle than a European one. The walls were made of dark red stone but, although sturdy, they lacked the thickness of traditional castle walls seen elsewhere in Europe. A moat ran around the perimeter surrounded by high walls with oblong turrets at each corner, while an additional turret jutted out of the middle of each wall.

Veering off the path, Leonardo ambled down to the water’s edge. He sat down heavily and like a child, dangled first one foot in the moat and then the other until the filth from the Lazaretto had been expunged from his feet. Merchants lined Leonardo’s way back up the path by the Castello Sforzesco, selling fruit, vegetables and clothes of local and exotic origin for the fashionable buyer, pots and pans, chickens, livestock and numerous trinkets. Today there were special offers to be had on secret incantations to protect against leprosy, sold by a man whose skin was so grimy it was hardly an endorsement of the product he was selling.

Further along the path, hawkers dressed like Benedictines were selling ornaments of saints, supposedly blessed by the Pope. A chicken seller and an alchemist vied loudly for Leonardo’s attention. He ignored both and instead bought a red apple from an honest looking peasant woman. He had long ceased to partake of meat, frequently telling his bemused friends, ‘I do not wish my body to be a tomb for other animals.’

Leonardo’s attention was caught by a gonfalon blowing in the breeze above a turret, one emblazoned with the Sforza coat of arms. Divided into four, it showed two blue snakes wearing crowns and a man emerging from the mouths of the snakes alongside two eagles also wearing gold crowns. Leonardo passed beneath the turret and into the forecourt of the Castello Sforzesco.

The courtyard was littered with an array of smaller buildings including a high stone store house guarded by two soldiers. A kitchen, where a cart of fresh produce was being unloaded by a couple of ruddy-faced servant boys. Outside the soldiers’ dormitory, off-duty soldiers drank grappa and played cards under the midday sun. To the left of the dormitory were the stables, where eager recruits brushed down the shiny coats of proud horses. Finally, there was the magnificent Palace, with its imposing fluted colonnade, each column tall and imperious like a soldier standing to attention.

Facing Leonardo was a well-tended herb garden. Passing along its western border he breathed in the essential fragrance of Lombardy: sweet basil, thyme, rosemary and oregano. Two elderly merchants doffed their caps as he walked by. A little further down the path, a young captain was doing his best to win the admiration of a young lady who held in her hand an embroidered handkerchief. The maiden blushed appropriately at the advances of the young captain, who looked splendid in a green cape depicting his family insignia of a gold lion. While the youngsters danced their pas de deux an elderly aunt dressed in black stood at a discreet distance, hawkishly eyeing the captain’s every move. The lovers were oblivious to his presence, but the old girl caught Leonardo’s eye and winked mischievously.

Arriving at the long broad steps that led into the palace, Leonardo reluctantly took them in his stride. At the top, Il Moro’s palace guard moved aside, the blue feathers atop their blackened iron helmets blowing in the wind. Leonardo barely heeded them as he proceeded down the long stone corridor where he passed more soldiers wearing the black leggings, blue tunic and iron plated body armour of Il Moro’s private guard.

The sight of the Sala delle Asse that he himself had painted, momentarily lifted his spirits. Cast in a mid-morning sun, the woodland landscape of intricate branches wove upwards, spiralling around each other, decorating the ceiling and vault as though by some magical incantation. He gazed at the thousands of leaves that dangled from branches arching first in one direction then another. Every leaf slightly different in tone and shade as the shadow seduced each one or left them exposed to an imaginary sun that glistened off each leaf creating a cascade of greens, reds and yellows and every conceivable combination of hue in-between.

Seated opposite him, a solemn-looking fellow in his fifties in black merchant’s robes twitched nervously before rising to his feet.

‘Nasty business, the price of bread. Those Poles in Krakow are charging me hand over fist for a pound of salt and his Lordship still thinks I’m taking advantage of the good Milanese bakers. If they have to charge more for bread, don’t blame me. I’m just doing my best to make an honest living.’ Leonardo nodded his sympathies and rose from his seat just as Il Moro’s secretary was instructing an official to admit him. Leonardo strode forward and bowed before his patron.

‘With what may I assist my good Lord on this fine spring day, the lowering of the price of bread?’ Il Moro smiled at Leonardo’s unashamed impudence.

‘If only you could perform such a miracle Leonardo, the whole of Milan would be in your debt,’ replied Il Moro.

‘Indeed so,’ interjected the secretary to the Duke of Milan, attempting to sound affable when his tone of voice implied the opposite. He was a round, greasy-haired man with an equally greasy disposition. Through years of wet-nursing Il Moro through the intricacies of diplomatic protocol, he had built up a position of considerable trust from the Duke, and with it a sizable portion of envy in the hearts of Il Moro’s courtiers.

‘What I have in mind maestro Leonardo, is a new commission!’ announced Il Moro with considerable gusto. ‘A portrait of my mistress Cecilia Gallerani, in honour of her great beauty, as well as several functions she performs for my pleasure.’ A remark which caused his secretary to snigger, while several courtiers over-hearing guffawed.

‘My Lord, as you are aware, the dear brothers of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception have at your ruling an ancona of the Virgin needed from me. In addition to the new engineering plans, you have instructed me to oversee the design and construction of a new well inside the castello. I do not know when I will have time to engage the young lady in her portrait. Would it not be more appropriate if on this occasion another artist was asked?’

Il Moro rose to his feet. ‘When you have two things of rare value, it is prudent to see whether by joining them together, one can create some lasting memorial. Cecilia is a woman unlike any other in my court and, I would be bold enough to say, unlike any found in the whole of Italy. You too, Leonardo, whatever your private eccentricities, are unique.’ To emphasize his point, Il Moro stepped down from his throne and leaned forward. ‘I know how highly you prize your art, always seeking to create perfection. Therefore, I insist you paint Cecilia’s portrait.’

‘My Lord, if it pleases you, you can send the young lady to my studio at noon on Tuesday.’ Leonardo bowed and stepping backwards departed.

Cecilia Gallerani, the young lady whose portrait had been commissioned, was a fair-skinned beauty admired by both men and women alike. She had long slender limbs, a graceful figure and the face of a siren. Few women were equal in terms of their pleasing shape, graceful disposition and hospitable manner of her character. Cecilia was also a scholar. In addition to Latin and her native Tuscan dialect she was fluent in French, German and Spanish. Her keen intellect was put to good use by hosting regular gatherings of Milan’s intelligentsia. At these evenings, held once a quarter as befits the natural cycle of the seasons, the art of philosophy was regularly studied and debated.

‘To be blessed with intelligence is the greatest of all God’s gifts,’ said Cecilia on one occasion. ‘For the intelligent have a greater appreciation of the mysteries of life.’ Her listeners, all men, would murmur approval while stroking their beards and nodding benignly in the direction of this Athena who had been resurrected from antiquity for their benefit.

Cecilia’s father, Fazio Gallerani had been a former ambassador until being forced into bankruptcy. The shame of this had caused his health to fail. Not long after her father’s burial, and encouraged by her six brothers, the virginal Cecilia was brought to Il Moro’s attention. Besotted with his sixteen-year old mistress, Il Moro paraded her around court to the alarm of his advisors.

It was his secretary who gingerly approached him late one night when Cecilia had retired to bed.

‘Sire, I have spoken this night to a trusted advisor to Ercole l d’Este, and he has assured me if the Duke were to discover you have a mistress he… he would not grant the hand of his daughter Beatrice in marriage.’

‘Satan’s breath, what Duke does not have a mistress!’

‘One who wishes to be recognised as the rightful ruler of Milan.’

The secretary lowered his head, anticipating that if Il Moro were to strike him, it would be the top of his head that would take the force of the blow and not his face.

Irrespective of how reluctant she was to become a Duke’s mistress, particularly one who had recently announced his engagement to one of the most influential families in Italy, over time she found Il Moro possessed certain attractive qualities. He spoke to her with more respect than he normally showed his courtiers and allowed her to continue being tutored. Although he had never read Aristotle, Pliny or St Thomas Aquinas, if he found her engaged in a book, he would ask after its nature and listen intently to her summary of the contents.

One of Il Moro’s saving graces was that he liked music and was a fine dancer, a quality that pleased her particularly when functions were held for visiting dignitaries. Such occasions gave her an opportunity to demonstrate her linguistic skills as well as illicit any information or gossip she could later relay to Il Moro, who hoped the delicate tongue of his pretty mistress would prise from his guests what he never could. It was a game Cecilia enjoyed, with the exception of drunken foreigners who sought to seduce her.

Alone in his room, Leonardo pondered the outcome of his meeting with the Duke and, as was his custom, allowed his mind to ruminate: Is the painting of mistresses all Il Moro considers me suitable for? Will he ever commission from me a master work? Something that would stand the test of time as testimony to my superiority as an artist. His mood turned melancholy, and rather like the pitter-patter of rain that beat against his window, doubts assailed his mind.