66 pages • 2-hour read
Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo
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Parts 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “1499, Milan” - Part 2: “1500”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Leonardo, December, Milan”
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. The French King already fled with his court, Salaì says, leaving Leonardo behind. As he thinks, Leonardo sketches the terrified French tourists. Salaì has packed everything. Leonardo considers his crumbling fresco and prepares to leave the chaotic city as it descends into “anarchy.” As Salaì readies the horses, Leonardo ponders a clay model for a statue that would have commemorated Il Moro’s dead father. Leonardo never finished the statue due to the war. A French soldier examines the model and, to Leonardo’s surprise, attacks the clay horse. Thinking about his body of work, Leonardo worries about what legacy he’ll leave behind. Leonardo and Salaì ride out of Milan.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary: “Michelangelo, January, Rome”
In the Vatican, 24-year-old artist Michelangelo Buonarroti attends the unveiling of his latest work, “a colossal marble statue of the Virgin Mary cradling the crucified Christ” (17) in the dilapidated St. Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo laments that the luxurious interior has fallen into disrepair. He worries about how traveling pilgrims will react to his work. The Pieta statue, based on Michelangelo’s painful memories of his mother (who died when he was young), is the product of two grueling years of work; Michelangelo, inflamed with passion for his work, often forgot to eat or sleep during this time. The crowd breaks out in weeping praise for the beautiful sculpture.
Michelangelo is relieved. He dedicated his entire life to sculpting marble, a love refined during his childhood experiences living with a family of stonecutters. Those stonecutters were like a second family, and with them, Michelangelo developed his obsession with marble sculpture. His excitement fades when the crowd falsely attributes the statue to a Milanese sculptor named Gobbo. In dizzying anger, Michelangelo decides that he must carve his name into the sculpture. Since the commissioned statue now belongs to the church, however, he must “break into the Vatican” (20). That night, he sneaks into the church and adds his signature. A priest interrupts him, but before he can catch Michelangelo, a rat distracts the priest, and Michelangelo is left alone to carve the words, “Michelangelo Buonarroti of Florence made this” (23).
The next day, he’s proud to hear the pilgrims speaking his name. He meets with his friend and banker, Jacopo Galli, who claims that Pope Alexander VI was impressed by Michelangelo’s work but laughed at the artist’s “ego in signing it” (24). The pope compared Michelangelo to his illegitimate son, Cesare Borgia, a violent and immoral man who is leading an army across Italy in a bloodthirsty rampage. The comparison upsets Michelangelo, but the possibility of working for the pope thrills him, even if the history of Rome can’t compare to the current, rundown state. Galli assures Michelangelo that word of the statue will spread, even to Michelangelo’s native Florence. Michelangelo prepares to return home.
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary: “Leonardo, Winter, Mantua”
Leonardo and Salaì show off a multi-barreled firework, launching it for Cesare Borgia, commander of the Papal Armies. Since leaving Milan, they navigated the countryside between the warring city-states of the Italian peninsula. Florence, Milan, Venice, the Papal States, and many other city-states are embroiled in a state of near-constant war. Leonardo sought refuge with his longtime friend, the Marchesa Isabella d’Este. He worked as an engineer for the city of Mantua, allowing Isabella to impress the visiting Borgia. Isabella resents Borgia’s attempts to recruit Leonardo as a wartime engineer. Speaking in private, Isabella confesses to Leonardo that she wants him to paint her. She’s pregnant with her husband’s heir, she says, and she pawned a jewel to pay Leonardo to paint her portrait. Her sister, she says, couldn’t obtain a portrait by Leonardo, but he jokes that he’s “not at liberty to discuss the private lives of [his] patrons” (30).
After they have sex, Leonardo sketches Isabella. They discuss art and science. He tells her that he wants to build a flying machine. The King of France was fascinated by this ambition and gifted Leonardo a bejeweled bird ring. Leonardo wears the priceless ring as his “good-luck charm” (32). He explains how his many disparate interests all connect to art. Flight, he suggests, would allow him to view his artistic subjects from an even greater distance, giving him more objectivity and enabling him to paint them even more effectively. Isabella mocks his need to be distant from everything and his “obsession with objectivity” (33), saying that it will deny him knowledge of love. Rather than enjoying the quiet, easy life in Mantua, Leonardo and Salaì set off for Florence. Leonardo once swore never to return there, but now the city is home to the money, creativity, and freedom befitting his ambitions.
Parts 1-2 Analysis
Oil and Marble is titled after the media that define the two main artists’ narrative arcs. However, the opening scene depicts Leonardo reckoning with the limitations of previous generations. In his youth, fresco painting was the dominant artistic form. Oil painting—such as he later uses for his portrait of Mona Lisa—became increasingly important in his oeuvre later in life, leading to the use of the word “oil” in the title. For The Last Supper, Leonardo was still clinging to the medium of the old masters from whom he learned his art, though still infusing this older artistic tradition with his relentless creativity. The fresco is beginning to crumble because Leonardo experimented with the materials and with the technique. To his audience, he may seem to be operating traditionally, but to those who pay close attention, he’s pushing the boundaries of the art form. The novel opens by revealing Leonardo’s dissatisfaction with these experiments, a dissatisfaction that pushes him technically and figuratively toward the oil, which he later uses in painting the Mona Lisa. As always, experimentation will remain characteristic of Leonardo, but the format will change.
The opening two parts of the novel create a clear juxtaposition between the artists within the world they inhabit. Michelangelo and Leonardo will soon demonstrate an intense dislike for one another that fosters the rivalry the book depicts. Though they dislike each other, they share similarities. Both are artists who find themselves beholden to a violent world and struggle with competing demands of Patriotism, Family, and Duty, one of the book’s themes. From the interruption of Leonardo’s speech about his work due to the conquering Duke, to Michelangelo’s fear of the influence of a corrupt pope and the violent Cesare Borgia, the text conveys a sense that neither artist feels entirely free to pursue his artistic endeavors. Both Michelangelo and Leonardo are forced to acclimate to the violent world around them, as wars, corruption, and politics intrude on their creative work. Leonardo is the foremost example of this, as Borgia wants to recruit his genius to build machines of war. Leonardo is willing to accept money from almost anyone who gives him free rein to experiment how he likes, yet he rejects Borgia’s offer, feeling that his bloodlust isn’t the right form of patronage for his art. Michelangelo likewise has fears about Borgia, forcing the sculptor to return home to the very city that Cesare threatens. The novel explores the artists’ attempts to create their most famous works, but the novel begins with the violent context that threatens these works and makes their creation even more notable.
In addition, Parts 1 and 2 introduce the audience to Salaì. The relationship between Leonardo and Salaì is never completely clarified, though Salaì serves as an assistant, a lover, and a friend to the older Leonardo. Regardless of his exact role in Leonardo’s life, he’s fundamentally important to Leonardo. The prominence of Salaì in Leonardo’s story illustrates one of many ways in which Leonardo defies convention. Though he was once accused of sodomy in Florence, an accusation that prompted him to desert the city in disgust, he makes only a cursory effort to hide his male lover from the world. Salaì is as prominent in the novel as he is in Leonardo’s public life, suggesting that Leonardo takes pleasure in flaunting the conventional legal discrimination against gay sexual orientation. Leonardo takes other lovers, both male and female, besides Salaì, refusing to bow to the conventional expectation of monogamy. Through his romantic life, Oil and Marble establishes Leonardo as a deliberately provocative figure who relishes opportunities to defy societal expectations. Salaì is more than a lover; his presence in Leonardo’s life is a statement of intent.
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