Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

A crowd of fashionable Florentines gathers in Leonardo’s studio, where he appears in a cloud of smoke. Amid the “kaleidoscopic atmosphere,” consummate showman Leonardo strives to raise his public profile and justify his reputation for the spectacular. Having spent a year living in an apartment in a Florentine friary, he must convince the monks to let him stay, even though his altarpiece for their church is, like so many of his works, notably unfinished. With music and a light show, he displays his preliminary sketches for the altarpiece. The notary for the Santissima Annunziata friary—a former devotee of the austere Savonarola—gives his approval, expressing hope that Leonardo will provide “a miraculous treasure for the church” (50), even though he and Leonardo have never seen eye to eye. Leonardo, recalling the notary’s criticism of him in his youth, resents this “shallow flattery.” He still believes that the notary was partly responsible for an anonymous letter, sent to authorities years earlier, that accused “[Leonardo] and five other men of sodomy” (52). Though the practice was common in Florence at the time, it carried the death sentence. Leonardo rejects the notary’s friendship and throws him out.

Returning to the crowd, Leonardo finds that the notary has taken the friars with him. Annoyed, Leonardo casts his eye instead over a stranger who is “one of the ugliest men” (53) he has ever seen; presuming that the smelly, disheveled young man is an artist, Leonardo mocks him. The newcomer introduces himself as Michelangelo. Leonardo is too preoccupied with the friars to talk to Michelangelo, who hopes to gain Leonardo’s “endorsement.” Instead, Leonardo mocks Michelangelo over the story of his commission by Piero de’ Medici to build a snowman. Granacci holds Michelangelo back to prevent a fight. Leonardo hasn’t seen the Pieta but mocks it anyway and then criticizes Michelangelo’s “greedy ambition.” Michelangelo scathingly denounces Leonardo’s illegitimacy, and, in turn, Leonardo denounces the art of sculpture as inferior to painting. Furious, Michelangelo leaves as Leonardo turns back to his crowd.

Storming out of the studio, Michelangelo bitterly considers his exchange with the brilliant bully Leonardo. He was excited to see Leonardo’s studio firsthand and can’t comprehend how his mere presence “sent Leonardo into a rage” (59). Michelangelo returns to the working-class Santa Croce neighborhood, fearing that his Pieta isn’t the artistic achievement he thought it was. He reaches the “dilapidated” front door of his family home and slips inside, surprising his father, uncle, aunt, grandmother, and two of his brothers. The Buonarrotis have a long, storied history in Florence, but the family fell on hard times after years of financial mismanagement (not least by Michelangelo’s father, Lodovico). Michelangelo’s brothers, Giovansimone and Buonarroto, are arguing, and Giovansimone wants Michelangelo to cast the vote as to which of them is the better son.

Michelangelo makes his family laugh and explains why his clothes are tattered. Giovansimone, however, already knows that Michelangelo was arrested. Lodovico threatens to throw Michelangelo out of the house; only invoking Lorenzo’s name brings relief. Next, Michelangelo is chastised for missing his stepmother’s funeral and abandoning the family by staying so long in Rome. The criticism disappoints Michelangelo, who long awaited reuniting with his family. Lodovico, however, never supported his son’s artistic ambitions, holding that a sculptor is just “a glorified stonemason” (66). He wants Michelangelo to settle down and get a real job. When his uncle praises Leonardo as an artist, Michelangelo is hurt. Later that night, he reflects on his father’s views and prays to God to imbue him with the desire to get a real job. Buonarroto confides in Michelangelo that he met a girl named Maria, but he admits that he needs a good job before they can marry. Michelangelo promises to find money to help his brother open a wool shop. He resolves to win the Duccio commission despite Leonardo.

Lying awake in bed beside Salaì, Leonardo wishes he could open up and dissect his agitation “like a corpse” (70). Instead, he examines the wings of a dead brown bat. He notices Salaì stirring and calls him over to learn, stopping Salaì from taking the coins in Leonardo’s bedroom. Leonardo explains the difficulty of finding a human corpse to dissect: He has asked at many mortuaries, but they only threatened him with arrest. Instead, he dissects animals and writes his observations in a notebook. While Leonardo studies the bat, Salaì recalls the criticisms and chatter of the partygoers. He urges Leonardo to finish his latest painting. Leonardo ignores him. Salaì tries to turn the conversation to the Duccio Stone, but Leonardo insists that he’s sure to win the competition. When Salaì refers to the “passionate” Michelangelo, Leonardo turns his entire attention to the bat. Leonardo, struck by a pang of jealousy, refuses to discuss the sculptor.

Giuseppe Vitelli, the supervisor of the Office of the Cathedral Works, has declared that the winner of the Duccio Stone commission will be announced on August 16, but everyone in Florence is certain that Leonardo will win. Nevertheless, Michelangelo works tirelessly on a design for a statue “worthy of becoming a part of Florentine history” (75), much to his father’s displeasure. On the day of the meeting at which he’ll submit his proposal, Michelangelo washes himself and dresses in new clothes so that he’s ready to compete with the “immaculately groomed” Leonardo. However, he discovers that his father stacked the family furniture against his door to trap him inside and prevent him from winning the commission. Using his stonecutting tools, he removes the small window from its frame and jumps down to the street below, muddying his clothes. He sprints to the cathedral.

The same day, Leonardo wakes up feeling “a hint of destiny” (79), sensing that the Duccio Stone will surely be his. He reveals his plans to the gathered dignitaries who will award the commission. Among them are artists, merchants, guild leaders, clergymen, city council members, and Operai officials, including Piero Soderini, a leading candidate to become the permanent head of the Republic. Leonardo presents sketches for a winged dragon and shakes Soderini’s hand; Soderini “unofficially agreed” to award the commission to Leonardo, along with the sizeable fee, a set of apartments, a team of assistants, and studio expenses, so he’s keen to seal the deal. Privately, Leonardo hopes to drag out the project and use the funding for his scientific research. Using magic tricks, Leonardo shows his plan to make his dragon statue move and breathe fire. Vitelli is pressured to hold to the vote, but Michelangelo appears and demands to present his ideas for the Duccio Stone. Some of Florence’s most senior and respected artists confirm that they’ve “withdrawn in favor of Leonardo” (82), but Michelangelo is unwilling to follow suit, since none can claim to match him in marble sculpture. Leonardo is taken aback when he sees Michelangelo’s sketches. Granacci, speaking for his friend, notes that Michelangelo “can work for cheap” (83), which catches Vitelli’s attention. Leonardo, unwilling to lower his demands, is surprised by Michelangelo’s plans to carve a colossus from the Duccio Stone without adding extra marble. Michelangelo confesses, however, that he has never actually seen the Duccio Stone, so Leonardo offers to show it to him.

Michelangelo is shocked when Leonardo points down to “a long, dirty, gray rock lying in a pool of mud” (86). This, Leonardo says, is the Duccio Stone. Michelangelo suspects that the other artists withdrew because carving something from such a ruined block seems impossible. However, he’s perturbed by Leonardo’s plan for a moving, fire-breathing statue and to add more marble. He defends his plan to carve a giant Hercules from the block. In a speech, he compares artists to lovers and insists that he’ll discover the possibilities hidden within the Duccio Stone. Against Soderini’s protests, the council awards the Duccio Stone to the less expensive and more experienced Michelangelo. Even if he fails, Vitelli reasons, it will be a “cheap mistake” compared to handing the commission to Leonardo. People cheer and congratulate Michelangelo, including Granacci and the other artists. Then, he turns to the stoic-faced Leonardo, who declares that the Duccio Stone will be “the end of [Michelangelo’s career] and the end of [his] name. Forever” (91). Suddenly, Michelangelo feels a wave of terror.

Leonardo wanders through Florence, searching for a human skull. He wishes to dissect a human body as part of his plan for the Duccio Stone but reminds himself that Michelangelo won the commission. He admires the “entrepreneurial spirit” that has come over the Florentines since his childhood. This, he believes, resulted from the proliferation of the printing press and the greater availability of knowledge. Leonardo, however, distrusts book learning, preferring to learn from experience. At a market stall, an injured goose casts his mind to the idea of flight. He consoles the caged birds and tries to free them. He sketches the fleeing birds, but when he reaches for his money, he realizes that Salaì emptied his purse. The furious bird seller threatens to cut off Leonardo’s hand in punishment until a young lady interrupts, offering to pay the fee. Leonardo has never seen her before. She pays the merchant, insisting that the money belongs to Leonardo and offers up her hand instead. The merchant is begrudgingly satisfied, and she hurries Leonardo away from the market. When he asks her name and offers to repay the money, she tells him simply to “learn to fly” (98). This, she says, would be payment enough. Then, she disappears into the crowd. Leonardo feels that he must see her again.

Michelangelo prepares the unwieldy block of marble. He struggles to imagine a figure that he could carve from the damaged stone. Though he sketches thousands of ideas, he burns them all. He continues this for weeks, in the workshop used by the men who maintain and repair Florence’s famous cathedral. His struggles create a public spectacle. Michelangelo’s family, his father in particular, barely acknowledges him. They believe that he’s bringing shame to the family. The other artists offer “unsolicited advice,” including barbed comments from Leonardo. Despite the energy that Michelangelo gives it, the Duccio Stone remains “silent.” He fears that he’ll be forgotten by history if he fails.

The Operai summon Michelangelo. He meets them inside the cathedral, where they tell him that they don’t want him to carve Hercules because Hercules is a “pagan symbol.” Michelangelo fears that they’ll take the job away from him, but they instead ask him to carve a biblical figure. In particular, they want a David, even though Florence is already home to “the two most famous David statues, carved by the two greatest masters in history” (104), Verrocchio and Donatello. Michelangelo fears that he can’t match these famous works, but the Operai insist that the statue be of David. They credit the idea to the young Chancellor Niccolo Machiavelli. Michelangelo, who knows Machiavelli by name as a talented diplomat, senses that Machiavelli and the Operai are leading him into a “trap,” manipulating him into abandoning the commission rather than withdrawing it themselves. He agrees to carve David and leaves to study Donatello’s bronze David, “the first freestanding nude statue since the Roman Empire” (105), which inspired an entirely new kind of art. Next, he studies Verrocchio’s less famous David. Michelangelo knows that Verrocchio modeled his statue after his assistant, Leonardo. Michelangelo wonders how he can “compete with such beauty” (107). When he returns to the workshop, he finds three other artists waiting for him. One is Leonardo.

Leonardo suggests that the young Michelangelo is “stumped.” As he manufactures a new set of tools, Michelangelo resents the implication that he’s “much too young to be doing this alone” (109). The others continue to offer their advice. Leonardo critiques Michelangelo’s sketches, hinting that he should “get [his] hands on a body” (110) to better learn anatomy. Michelangelo blames Leonardo for Machiavelli’s request to sculpt David, though Leonardo struggles to remember discussing the matter with the diplomat. Leonardo suggests how to fashion a workable David from the difficult stone. Michelangelo rejects the suggestion, however, revealing that he knows why Leonardo never cast the bronze sculpture for Duke Sforza: The design was unworkable, so Leonardo abandoned the project rather than reworking it. Leonardo is shocked that the young sculptor figured out the “secret flaw” of his design. Through gritted teeth, Leonardo warns Michelangelo that he should accept help from fellow artists. Michelangelo takes his hammer and chisel to the marble, cutting away the knot that Leonardo suggested could be the key to the composition. As he hammers, he unleashes his frustration that the stone won’t speak to him. Leonardo pities the effects of the tantrum, and Michelangelo angrily insists that the marble block is now definitively his. The other artists leave.

Michelangelo regrets his angry outburst. He wishes that he could work somewhere more private. To hide his work, he builds a shed around the stone. This “first work of architecture” (116) is ugly, but it keeps the prying crowd away from his work. Once he’s alone, he examines the damage he may have done to the stone. He thinks of how he’ll fit the drama and story of David into the changed block of stone. He sits at the base of the statue, waiting for it to speak to him. After three days, he visits the Santo Spirito cathedral to pray to God for guidance. Above the altar is an “uninspiring” crucifix. Father Bichiellini, prior of the Santo Spirito parish, is an old friend of Michelangelo. He praises the crucifix, which Michelangelo carved many years earlier but, looking at it now, questions his talents. Michelangelo begs the prior for help, but Bichiellini is reluctant, knowing that Michelangelo wants to inspect bodies in the priory morgue, as he did many years ago. Both remember the religious fanaticism of Florence under Girolamo Savonarola’s brief rule, when the Florentines burned works of art in great bonfires. In 1498, the Florentines turned on the excommunicated Savonarola, burning him in the town square. Many of his “teachings and terrors” (121) linger in the city, however, and dissection is still considered an abominable sin. Nevertheless, the prior relents, leading Michelangelo into the morgue. Over the next three weeks, Michelangelo returns there repeatedly to dissect bodies, but he struggles with how to contort a human body into the remaining marble of the Duccio Stone. Feeling despondent and needing to speak to the stone, he begins to carve without a plan.

For a month, Leonardo desperately searches the market for the woman who helped him. He has an “irrational urge to capture her image in paint” (125), but he can’t find her. Crossing the river, Leonardo sees Michelangelo exiting Santo Spirito at sunrise. He immediately knows that Michelangelo is dissecting bodies. He speaks to Father Bichiellini, who turns away from him at the mention of dissecting. He insists that Michelangelo, a “proper Catholic,” would never do such a thing. Leonardo leaves.

Later, Leonardo and Salaì test Leonardo’s flying machine atop Mount Ceceri, a hill outside Florence. The machine has a corkscrew wing that, Leonardo believes, will allow him to fly. He puts a bag of rocks in the pilot’s seat. The machine hurtles through the air and crashes against the hillside. Distraught, Leonardo knows that he must “design a better, stronger flying machine” (129). Salaì shouts that Borgia soldiers are approaching, so Leonardo runs, worried that they’ll think the crashing machine was an attempted attack. He trips and falls, so Salaì carries him down the hill. Leonardo sees soldiers carrying away the wreck of the flying machine. Once in Florence, Salaì tries to patch Leonardo’s wounds and then goes to fetch an apothecary. On the way, he realizes that, due to the market, none will be in their stores. Leonardo limps to the market. Feeling weak, he glimpses the “mysterious” woman again. Using the last of his energy, he grabs her skirt and begs for help. The woman’s husband intervenes, calling to his wife by the name Lisa. Just as Leonardo tells Lisa that he would like to paint her, he slips into unconsciousness.