Mona Lisa Read online

  ALEXANDER LERNET-HOLENIA

  MONA LISA

  Translated from the German

  by Ignat Avsey

  PUSHKIN PRESS

  LONDON

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Mona Lisa

  About the Publisher

  Copyright

  MONA LISA

  the Love that moves the sun and the other stars

  Dante, The Divine Comedy,

  Paradiso, xxxiii, 145

  TOWARDS THE END OF 1502, Louis XII, King of France, summoned one of his marshals, Louis de la Trémoille, and charged him to proceed immediately to Milan, where he was to raise an army and hurry to Naples to the relief of the two French governors, de Aubigny and the Duke of Namur, who had lately suffered serious losses at the hands of the Spaniards.

  “And I trust, sir,” the King went on, “you will be able to acquit yourself of this commission with your customary prowess. You shall not be left wanting anything. I send you forth not only with my own blessing, but also hereby give you leave as you make your way through Rome to seek the Holy Father’s blessing. However, in case the Holy Father should refuse to anoint your arms, I give you full permission to urge His Holiness, with the help of those selfsame arms, to vouchsafe them his blessing. Furthermore, select as many of my noblemen as you deem fit to accompany you on your way. The flower of my nobility will be honoured and pleased to serve under you and personally to provide armour and equipment for you and your retainers. Also, you will have at your service a number of clerics whose upkeep and maintenance will devolve upon the Church. I shall take the sin of that upon myself. Additionally, I expect the good people of Amboise in Milan to cast the requisite number of ordnance, furnish the requisite number of ensigns, standards and trumpet banners, and supply a sufficient quantity of drums, kettledrums and trumpets. The cost of the undertaking is to be met from the municipal funds. You will of course have at your disposal as many horse and foot as you shall need, fed and nourished off the land, so help you God.”

  Here, while Louis appeared to ponder whether he should offer La Trémoille dominion over the sun, the waters, the air and the ground they stood on, for the upkeep of which God Himself was to be charged responsible, he bethought himself; and after staring for a while into the indeterminate middle distance past the Marshal with the vacant expression of one who at all costs refuses to talk of money, he added:

  “As I said, you shall be wanting for nothing, my dear sir. You will be showered with glory, you will lead the army to victory and the splendour of our arms will spread far and wide. One more thing, though! I trust that you will also take the opportunity of recouping the cost of this campaign. Be sure therefore that you levy from the territories for whose sake we are making such sacrifices all necessary and fitting reparations, be it in the form of direct payments or precious objects, jewels, costly tapestries and suchlike things. For this is my express wish and command.* And so,” concluded the King, “goodbye, and may God be with you!”

  With these words he extended his hand to La Trémoille, placing it as though on a cushion on the plumed hat which the Marshal held out to him; and La Trémoille, after bowing and kissing the King’s hand, took a step back. The King however mounted his horse and rode off on a stag hunt in the Forest of Senlis.

  * “Car tel est notre bon plaisir.”

  THIS SECOND ITALIAN CAMPAIGN of the French was far less successful than the first, which nine years previously was led personally by Charles VIII. In place of a Supreme Marshal de Gié, a Robert de la Marche, a Cleve, a Vendôme, Luxembourg, Foix, Urfé and other renowned leaders who shone around the Sovereign, only a few inconsequential counts and minor noblemen agreed to join La Trémoille’s ranks; instead of the countless millions in minted coin with which the cities through which Charles had marched had saved themselves from being sacked; instead of the booty of wonderful paintings, gems, jewellery, brocades and lapis lazuli with which he had laden his train of 20,000 mules—never mind that soon afterwards, together with his other effects, he lost it all to the Italians at the Battle of Fornovo—instead of all that, money flowed very sparingly into La Trémoille’s coffers, and on his second campaign the Marshal was barely able to send to Paris anything of note in the way of paintings, jewels, fabrics, alabaster statues, or to exact due tributes from the people for his Sovereign in Paris, whose express wish and command it was that he should.

  The Marshal had in addition spent many months in sharking up the necessary forces, and it was already high summer before he was able to set off on his campaign. He marched through Lombardy, crossed the Apennines and entered Tuscany. While his army, in ostrich-plumed helmets, holding aloft swaying colours, struggled towards Romagna in clouds of dust to the rattle of kettledrums, he himself, accompanied by a suite of noblemen, rode into Florence, where he planned to spend a few days before catching up with his troops with redoubled speed afterwards.

  Since, on account of the sparse French forces, there could be no talk of the 120,000 gold pieces, or anything approaching that sum, which the town had at one time yielded to Charles VIII; and since the Marshal, who had to content himself with fleecing the smaller towns, was more than glad the province had so much as let him step on its territory, he decided to concentrate on the purchase of objects of art. Da Vinci’s workshop was recommended to him particularly highly. La Trémoille, who personally found art a terrible bore and had never heard of da Vinci before, decided to pay the great painter a visit, especially since it chimed well with Louis’ express wish and command.

  Da Vinci was the natural son of a nobleman, Ser Piero, who originally came from the small town of Vinci but had later moved to Florence. After residing for a while in Milan, Venice and elsewhere, da Vinci again ended up in Florence in the house of his father, who was still alive at the time.

  It was early morning when La Trémoille set out on his visit, and the high towers of the stately houses, which loomed over the town in their hundreds and gave it the appearance of a factory with numerous chimney stacks, still cast long shadows.

  La Trémoille was accompanied by numerous members of his suite: two Donatis, related to Dante and ardent art enthusiasts, although they understood precious little of it; a Buondelmonte, an Alberighi and a Calfucci, the cream of Florentine youth, falling over one another to prove themselves worthy cicerones of the moment. A crowd of idlers followed the cavalcade. The young Florentine noblemen felt flattered to be seen in the company of the strangers, nevertheless the cries issuing from the crowd, which was busy going about its business in the cool of the morning as the riders, swaying in their saddles, their arms akimbo, rode past proudly at walking pace, were closer to curses than any kind of approbation. The point being that the political pendulum of the town had lately swung towards the demotic; the Medici had been ousted and the prevailing attitude towards foreign noblemen, from wheresoever they originated, was as resentful as against their own.

  After leaving behind the mob, the dirt and the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, the riders finally reached the quieter, more select regions of the town, and as they drew nearer to Leonardo’s house they became aware of string and wind music issuing from it as though there was a celebration in progress. It was a dance tune, which was being played and sung; all the same the laughter, the cries and stamping of the merrymakers’ feet stopped as soon as they heard the clatter of hoofs, and by the time the riders reached the house all the voices within had gone quiet.

  The house, constructed of small unhewn stones, was dominated by a watchtower close on 150 feet high. White doves nested in the embrasures of its lower reaches; round its top falcons circled. Washing hung on lines strung out on the galleries. At a distance of about fifteen paces rose the next tower
; it was rather narrow but about 180 feet in height, and there were more such towers dotted about the immediate vicinity. Practically the whole of Florence was hemmed in by these towers, disproportionately high in comparison with the houses, many of which had begun to lean over, others to crumble; some however were so high that they appeared like pillars propping up the firmament, which without them would surely have caved in as a consequence of the interminable feuding of the inhabitants. Numerous screeching falcons hovered around them as around clifftops.

  After surveying the house and its defences, the Marshal and his followers dismounted and were about to step in when a number of men with musical instruments under their arms emerged from it. Evidently they were the same ones who had just been playing. Among them were also two people, one dressed as a street performer, the other as a tightrope walker.

  They squeezed through the doorway past the noblemen and vanished into the open. The stillness into which the house was now plunged was in sharp contrast to the erstwhile cheerfulness. However, the visitors were soon surrounded by a number of servants, and on top of the steep wooden steps which led into the interior appeared Leonardo himself.

  Ser Piero’s bastard son was forty-five to fifty years old, a tall, handsome man sporting a long beard. He spoke and carried himself with dignity and utmost ease. Accustomed to the society of warlords and princes, he descended a few steps with perfect equanimity.

  “My dear sir,” La Trémoille said, doffing his hat and beginning to mount the steps, “I am the Marshal of the King of France, and would beg that you extend to me, and by implication to my Sovereign, the honour of being welcomed in your house.”

  Leonardo replied in grammatically faultless, though heavily Italianate, French:

  “My Lord”—La Trémoille was the Viscount of Thouars and held the principality of Talmond; it was more important for an artist to know him and men of his ilk than all the laws of anatomy—“my Lord, the honour and good fortune are entirely mine to greet one of the most renowned commanders of chivalric France. How is His Majesty?”

  “The King is full well, as far as I know,” La Trémoille said, entering with his suite the upper floor and surveying with admiration the apertures, characteristic of Florentine stately homes, through which, in case of attack, molten pitch was poured on the heads of people down below. “And you, my dear sir?” he continued. “How do things stand with you?”

  “Excellently well,” Leonardo replied, throwing open a door leading to a small hall. “Though I look in the keen eye of the god of War himself, I hope I may nonetheless enquire after his wellbeing.”

  “I too,” La Trémoille replied as he and his suite entered the hall and let their eyes glide admiringly over the pitch pots sunk in the blue and white mosaic of the floor, “could not feel better. What gives me the greatest pleasure, however, is to make the acquaintance of a painter who puts into shade not only Zeuxis, Protogenes and Apelles, but the fearsome Vulcan himself.”

  “Which I, however, on account of the legendary griminess of the man on whom Your Excellency has placed horns, must regard as a questionable compliment,” Leonardo replied.

  The Marshal, who’d learnt the compliments he paid to the painter from one of his priests, had never heard of Vulcan’s griminess, nor of the adultery of his wife, Aphrodite, with the god of War. The Marshal had no idea to what sooty husband and to what lady the artist referred, and whether he should perceive it as a flattery, or whether Leonardo was simply poking fun at him. He therefore cast him a sharp look and said:

  “With respect, my dear sir, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about! And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, because a gentleman is no idle chatterbox. Let us therefore speak of other things. But allow me first to introduce you to the noblemen who do me the high favour of following me into the field.”

  “Nothing would please me more,” Leonardo said.

  “Well, they are as follows,” the Marshal went on: “the Counts of Villeneuve, de Goutaut-Biron and de Jarnac, as well as Messieurs Costé de Triquerville, du Plessis, de Chauvelin and de Bridieu, then there is the Viscount of Châteaudun and the young gentleman de Bougainville, the nephew of the renowned French General du Val de Bonneval. No doubt the Florentine noblemen who’ve taken it upon themselves to conduct me to you need no introduction.”

  “Gentlemen,” Leonardo said, “I am your devoted servant,” and the cavaliers whom the Marshal mentioned bowed and remained standing, leaning on their swords in the attitude of people who were ever ready to step out of the way of anyone who should go past them. Only no one did, and an awkward pause occurred. For, after acknowledging the honour and pleasure of having made one another’s acquaintance, no one knew for a time what to say next. In the meantime servants appeared offering refreshments, and La Trémoille, casting a glance around the hall, said:

  “Would you now, my dear sir, give us the pleasure of being permitted to see your workshop?”

  “My workshop?” Leonardo answered. “But you are in my workshop now, Monseigneur.”

  This sparsely furnished hall, curtained off at the far end, was indeed Leonardo’s workshop. A few empty chairs stood near the walls and on a sideboard lay a couple of letters, poems, sketches and drawings of fortifications, canals and the like. That was all.

  For Leonardo was not only one of the most extraordinary, but perhaps for that very reason one of the most absent-minded people of his time. There are dozens of paintings which are considered more or less his, to which however he contributed no more than a few touches. Their completion he left to others.

  He attempted all manner of sculpting in bronze, stone and baked clay, but finished hardly anything, and the greater part of what he did finish was later destroyed by time. He had no end of projects on the go, practically all of which he later abandoned to preoccupy himself with anything that took his fancy, rather than with the matter in hand. Perhaps he realized that in truth nothing could ever be accomplished fully. It is certain that nothing, or almost nothing, is ever accomplished to the end, and the little that has been may, in the last analysis, be a delusion.

  “How can that be, my dear sir,” La Trémoille exclaimed, “you say this is your workshop? Upon my soul, I imagined it to be something different! When I leave a battlefield, which in a sense is my workshop, you would own that there is something of fine art in the severed heads, arms and legs which lie scattered about! So where are your paintings, your sculptures, the sketches that you are presently working on?”

  “At the moment I’m not working on anything like that,” Leonardo replied. “Or, to be more precise, I’ve not yet had the opportunity to resume my artistic endeavours. For the last two years I was the engineer of the Duke of Valentinois, and I’ve just returned from the Pisa encampment where I was charged with designing siege engines and other military equipment for the Florentine army. Since then I’ve been preoccupied with other pursuits.”

  “And if I may enquire, what would those pursuits be?”

  “I have been taking an interest in music, anatomy and a little in philosophy,” Leonardo responded. “I’ve resolved to depict the essence of love in verses and, in order to probe into the anatomical origins of the same, I too have had arms and legs lying around in my workshop—in short, I dissected the bodies of two women. The only thing is, I’ve failed to discover anything of note.”

  “I could have told you that in advance, my dear sir,” the Marshal said. “How was it at all possible that you expected to find something precisely where the only thing that one can really hope to find is lack of will! For, if even the women of Paris are as weak as water, what can you expect of two dead Italian women! Well, and what did you do next?”

  “I gave the whole thing up.”

  “That you ought not to have done either,” the Marshal remarked. “Instead you should have followed the example of all mankind, which has been preoccupied with precisely the same investigation since Adam and Eve and has still not given up. For, upon my soul, you’ve stumbled upon a wor
thy subject, if only by chance! So what are you engaged upon instead?”

  “I’m sketching a ship,” Leonardo said, “in which one can go to the bottom of the sea, and another in which one can rise into the air.”

  “Bless my soul,” the Marshal exclaimed, “that has much more promise about it, it seems to me. Not that I would exchange such ships for a good horse, but one could persuade one’s enemies to board them so that they’d either drown in the deep or fall from the sky and break their necks. Also that Valentino of yours”—meaning Cesare Borgia—“would have been grateful to you for such an invention. You ought to have presented him with one such while you were still in his service.”

  “My investigations,” Leonardo said, “led me, after my enquiries into the density and flow of water and air, to other things, and for a few days I was preoccupied with the weight of God.”

  “Well, well, how much does He weigh then?” asked the Marshal, who was beginning to suspect more and more that he was dealing with someone who was making fun of him, and he therefore resolved to adopt an equally derisive tone. “What conclusions did you manage to reach then, may I ask, my dear Sir Flibbertigibbet?”

  “None, of course,” Leonardo replied. “Nor did I seek to reach a conclusion. For who could possibly reach a conclusion of that sort, especially with regard to God! I merely enjoyed immersing myself in contemplating Him. That’s all.”

  “And,” La Trémoille asked, furrowing his brows, “did you do nothing else?”

  “On the contrary. I studied the nature of water nymphs, wood spirits, griffins and dragons, not to mention unicorns and other rare beings.”

  “Very well,” the Marshal said, “that is good and very useful indeed! But do you investigate the specifics of the more common animals?”