Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

Leonardo da Vinci closely examines his fresco The Last Supper. He worries that his expensive, experimental ultramarine pigment will crumble and ruin his work. As usual, he “pushed his experiments too far” (3), but he assures himself that he’s still a renowned artist. Turning to the crowd of French tourists gathered behind him, he explains the biblical significance of the scene in which Jesus Christ dines with his disciples and reveals to them that one among them will betray him. Leonardo is 43 years old; both men and women appreciate his “good looks.” He’s fashionably dressed and well-kept. He hides his left-handedness, a sign of sin in Italy at the time and a particularly sensitive topic for Leonardo, who was “the result of [his father’s] youthful affair with a lowly house slave from Constantinople” (5).

Leonardo’s assistant, Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno (whom Leonardo nicknamed Salaì), interrupts his speech to announce that Il Moro is about to arrive. Leonardo knows that his life is at risk if Il Moro—Duke Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il Moro (the Moor) due to his dark complexion—is returning to Milan two months after being ousted from the city. The Sforza family ruled Lombardy for 50 years until the recent victory of the French military; Il Moro’s return is an ominous sign for any French person in Milan or anyone connected with the French, including Leonardo.