NIHIL'—1500-1503

320 BOOK XIII THE PURPLE BEAST—1503 361 BOOK XIV MONNA LISA GIOCONDA—1503-1506 385 BOOK XV THE HOLY INQUISITION—1506-1513 411 BOOK XVI LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO, AND RAPHAEL—1513-1515 425 BOOK XVII DEATH—THE WINGED PRECURSOR—1516-1519 437 EPILOGUE 459

---

LEONARDO DA VINCI

'Sentio rediit ab inferis Julianus.'
(I feel that Julian has risen again.)—Petrarch.

'We see the encounter of vast contraries: Man-god against God-man—Apollo Belvedere against Christ.'—Dostoievsky.

---

BOOK I
THE WHITE SHE-DEVIL—1494

'At Siena was discovered another statue of Venus, to the huge joy of the inhabitants. A great concourse, with much feasting and honour, set it up over the fountain called "Il Fonte Gaja," as an adornment....

'But great tribulation having come upon the land by reason of the Florentines, there arose one of the council, a citizen, and spake in this wise: "Fellow-citizens, since the finding of this figure we have had much evil hap, and if we consider how strictly idolatry is prohibited by our faith, what shall we think but that God hath sent us this adversity by reason of sin? I advise that we remove this image from the public square of the city, deface it, break it in pieces, and send it to be buried in the territory of the Florentines."

'All agreeing with this opinion, they confirmed it by a decree; and the thing was put into execution, and the statue was buried within our confines.' (Notes of the Florentine sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti, XVth. century.)

I

In Florence the guild of dyers had their shops hard by the Canonica of Orsanmichele. The houses were disfigured by every sort of shed, outhouse, and projection on crooked wooden supports; tiled roofs leaned so close to each other as almost to shut out the sky, and the street was dark even in the glare of noon. In the doorways below, samples of foreign woollen-stuffs were suspended, sent to Florence to be dyed with litmus-lichen, with madder, or with woad steeped in a corrosive of Tuscan alum. The street was paved roughly, and in the kennel flowed many-coloured streams, oozings from the dye vats. Shields over the portals of the principal shops, or Fondachi were blazoned with the arms of the Calimala (so the guild of dyers was named), 'on a field gules, an eagle or, upon a ball of wool argent.'

Within one of these Fondachi, among huge account-books and piles of commercial documents, sat Messer Cipriano Buonaccorsi, a worthy Florentine merchant, and Master of the Noble Guild of the Calimala.

It was a cold March evening, and damp exhaled from the choked and cumbered cellars; the old man was a-cold, and he drew his worn squirrel-mantle tightly round him. A goose-quill was stuck behind his ear, and with omniscient, though weak and myopic eyes, that seemed at once careless and attentive, he conned the parchment leaves of his ponderous ledger; debit to the left, credit to the right; divided by rectangular lines, and annotated in a round, even hand, unadorned by stops, or capitals, or Arabic numerals, which were considered frivolous innovations, impertinent in business-books. On the first page was inscribed in imposing characters: 'In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the most blessed Virgin Mary, this book is begun in the year of the Lord MCCCCLXXXXIV.'

Having corrected an error in the number of bales received in pledge, and satisfied himself as to the latest entries of podded pepper, Mecca ginger, and bundles of cinnamon, Messer Cipriano leaned wearily against the back of his chair, closed his eyes, and meditated upon an epistle he must indite for his emissary at the Wool Fair in Montpellier of France. Just then some one entered, and the old man raising his glance saw his contadino, Grillo, who rented from him certain vineyards and fields belonging to his mountain-villa of San Gervaso in the valley of the Mugnone. Grillo did obsequious reverence, tendering a basket of brown eggs, carefully packed, while at his belt clucked two fat chickens, their feet tied and their heads hanging.

'Ah, Grillo!' exclaimed Buonaccorsi, with his customary urbanity, 'has the Lord been gracious to you? Meseems, we have the spring season at last.'

'Messer Cipriano, to us old men even the spring brings no delight. Our old bones ache worse than before and cry louder for the grave. I have brought your worship eggs and young cockerels for Easter.' And he screwed up his greenish eyes, revealing innumerable small creases all round them, the effect of rude acquaintance with wind and sun. Buonaccorsi, having thanked him for the gift, turned to business.

'Well, have you the men ready at the farm? Can we get all done before day-break?'

Grillo sighed prodigiously, and meditated, leaning heavily on his staff. 'All is ready, and there are men enough. But I ask you, Messer Cipriano, were it not better we waited a little?'

'Nay, old man, you have said yourself that we must not wait, lest the matter become known.'

'True. Yet the thing is terrible. It is sin. And the days now are holy-days, days of fasting; and our work is of another sort.'

'Well, I will take the sin on my own soul. Fear naught; I will not betray you. Only tell me—shall we find what we seek?'

'Why should we not? We have signs to guide us. Did not our fathers know of the hill behind the mill at the Humid Hollow? And at night there's the Jack o' Lantern over San Giovanni. That means lots of this rubbish all round. I have heard tell that not long ago, when they were digging in the vineyard at Marignola, they drew a whole devil from out the clay.'

'A devil? What manner of devil?'

'A bronze one with horns. He had hairy legs—goat's legs—with hoofs. And a face which laughs. And he dances on one leg and snaps his fingers. 'Twas very old; all green and crumbled.'