Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

As Michelangelo dissects another corpse to inform his work on the David, he’s distracted and senses that someone else is in the morgue. Leonardo reveals himself, and Michelangelo notices how much his rival has aged in the past year. Leonardo speaks about how Michelangelo’s frenzied artistic drive taught him about the “urgency of doing” (187). He reveals that he knows all about the morgue, having dissected bodies there himself long before Michelangelo did. Then, Leonardo rushes out, locking the door behind him. Locked inside the morgue, Michelangelo fears what might happen if he were found next to a dissected corpse. Desperate, he chisels a rock free from the wall and pushes his way through the wet mud to the outside. When he discovers a human bone, he realizes that he passed through a grave during his escape.

Leonardo insists that he never planned to lock Michelangelo in the morgue. He jokes about it with Salaì, who spent the last year living with the friars of Santissima Annunziata. Salaì looks thinner, and his clothes are tattered, but Leonardo appreciates his “fine features and expectant brown eyes” (191). Leonardo hid his identity when he returned to the city, he explains, as he wanted to know whether people still thought of him as a traitor. Salaì reveals, however, that the Florentines don’t talk about Leonardo but about Michelangelo. Leonardo wants to find a patron to help him “rebuild [his] reputation” (192). First, he says, he’ll paint a portrait of the silk merchant’s wife, Madonna Lisa Giocondo, and then he’ll seek a project that will restore him to glory and make people forget about Michelangelo. He visits Giocondo, the silk merchant, and, by manipulating the man’s ego, secures a high price for the portrait.

He begins the portrait and arranges for Mona Lisa to sit before him. He’s “nervous” to meet her again. When she enters the room, however, she seems perturbed. Giocondo suggests that she isn’t feeling well, but Leonardo asks to speak to her in private to convince her to sit for the painting. Even though it’s improper, Giocondo agrees to leave his wife alone with Leonardo. Mona Lisa refuses to speak or even look at Leonardo, who questions her about how well she seems to know him. In particular, he’s still haunted by how she knew his profound, secret desire to fly. Eventually, she says she blames him for betraying Florence—for using the genius that she so respected to devise ways to attack Florence. She leaves, telling Michelangelo to paint her from memory, since no one will ever truly see her likeness in the painting. They’ll only recognize Leonardo’s brushstrokes, she says, just as her husband will only see what he wants to see. Leonardo promises to start the portrait. Later, he visits Machiavelli’s office and calls in a favor, asking for an opportunity to work on the defense of Florence to make up for his supposed betrayal.

As Michelangelo continues to carve his sculpture, his body becomes “one with the stone” (202). Buonarroto interrupts him, saying that all Florentines are summoned to the piazza. Michelangelo joins the crowd to hear the announcement: The pope is dead. Michelangelo knows that not even grief over the pope’s death will bring his father to forgive him. Maria, the young girl whom Buonarroto wants to marry, sings a tearful lament. Michelangelo wonders what the election of a new pope might mean for Florence and himself, though he knows that the election process is mired in corruption. Cesare Borgia, the son of the late pope, may now be even less restrained.

Mona Lisa still refuses to sit for the portrait, so Leonardo spies on her from afar, telling her that he’s doing so purely for the commission. As he watches her pray in her family chapel, Machiavelli approaches him. He has done as Leonardo asks and assures him that this isn’t a trap. Machiavelli reveals that Borgia is using his armies to threaten the College of Cardinals, demanding that they elect another Borgia as pope. Machiavelli says Soderini worries that if the next pope backs Borgia, “Florence will fall” (207). As such, the council is willing to return to Leonardo’s innovative ideas to bolster the city’s defenses if Leonardo also paints a fresco (inside the largest gathering hall in the Palazzo della Signoria) of Florence’s victory at the Battle of Anghiari. When Leonardo turns around, Mona Lisa is gone.

The College of Cardinals elects Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, a Borgia supporter, as pope, and Leonardo receives a large sum and lodgings to begin his defense plans and paint his fresco. His plans for the city’s defense involve diverting the River Arno, which runs through Florence. One day, while on the banks of the Arno, he spots Mona Lisa. He approaches her, studying her features. She’s interested in his project, so he takes her on a tour of the site. By damming the river, he explains, he can divert the water around the enemy city of Pisa, thus depriving them of their vital waterway. She’s pleased that he’s now a “hero” rather than a traitor, and she invites him to visit her the following day to paint her portrait.

Michelangelo dreams about his statue until Granacci wakes him. No one has seen the statue in months, and Granacci is awed by what Michelangelo has produced, though months of polishing remain. Michelangelo worked so hard on the statue that he made himself sick, so Granacci helps him. In addition, Granacci reveals that the new pope died after only three and a half weeks in the position. Muttering a quick prayer, Granacci notes that “some say he was poisoned” (216). No one knows what Borgia and his army will do next. Granacci tries to carry Michelangelo out of the studio in search of help, but Michelangelo fights back. He doesn’t want to be separated from the statue. He falls unconscious.

Mona Lisa sits for Leonardo. Any “real conversation” between them comes only when they’re left alone. When the servants exit the room momentarily, she asks Leonardo about Michelangelo’s health problems. Rumors suggest that Leonardo may be asked to finish the statue if Michelangelo doesn’t recover. Leonardo talks about how he chose the same model for both Jesus and Judas in his fresco The Last Supper because Leonardo barely recognized the man after “drink and sin destroyed him” (220), which made him the ideal choice for Judas. The effect of sin, he suggests, may likewise affect the Church if, as rumored, the newly elected Pope Julius poisoned his predecessor. He sits beside her, showing her his sketches, and tells her that she possesses a “spark of brilliance” (221), just like him. They also share an outsider status, he says. When they discuss impossible ambitions and his dream of flying, Leonardo steps back. He warns that he shouldn’t get too close to his subjects, lest he create a “dangerous bias” and lose his objectivity. Then, the maid returns.

Michelangelo wakes to the sound of his father’s cries. Lodovico blames himself for his son’s sickness. When they see that Michelangelo is conscious, Lodovico and Buonarroto are encouraged. They tell Michelangelo that he spent three weeks in a hospital. He remembers little more than his terrible dreams, in which he smashed his statue. For the first time, Michelangelo can detect “a father’s love” (225) in Lodovico’s words as he’s invited to return home. Michelangelo recovers over the following days. He learns that Giovansimone has banded together with friends to form a rough militia to fight Borgia’s army, should it march on Florence. Lodovico insists that Michelangelo not kill himself with work, especially for a sinfully nude statue. Michelangelo defends his statue as a celebration of God’s creation. Before Michelangelo can return home, however, Giovansimone and his friends inadvertently burn the house down. Standing before the ruins, Michelangelo decides that he must walk away from his art.

Leonardo thinks about “loss and renewal” (228) and the news that Michelangelo abandoned his statue. He thinks of Mona Lisa as “a burned-down house” (228) and wishes that he could rebuild her. He detects an immense potential within her, believing that she’s “desperate to be seen” (229), and wants to give her what she wants. Picking up his oil paints, he thinks about the palette of colors he might use to paint her and has a simple yet profound idea. He picks a small panel for the portrait, which will differ from most others of its type. While most portraits of Italian women are “symbolic representations of the Virgin Mary” (231), this one will be simpler. He’ll forgo the usual jewels, adornments, and physical symbols that identify the subject, portraying Mona Lisa in her mysterious glory. He works on the composition and begins to paint with his smallest brush so that viewers won’t notice his strokes. He wants “the world to focus on her” (232).