The Secret Supper (8 page)

“And who doesn’t know him here! That man is a prodigy. A strange prodigy, God’s most singular creature.”

“Strange?”

“Well, let us say that his behavior is somewhat anarchic. You never know if he’s coming or going, if he’s going to paint in the refectory or if he merely wishes to reflect on his work and look for new cracks in the overlay, or errors in the features of his characters. He spends the day carrying his small notebooks everywhere, making observations of everything.”

“A meticulous man—”

“Not at all. He’s disorganized and unpredictable, but he possesses an insatiable curiosity. Even as he’s working in the refectory, he’s imagining all sorts of crazy devices to better the daily life in the monastery: automatic spades to dig the garden, water pipes leading to the cells, self-cleaning pigeon towers—”

“The painting he’s working on is a Last Supper, is it not?” I interrupted.

The librarian stepped up to the magnificent granite water well that adorned the center of the hospital cloister and looked at me as though I had just fallen from the skies:

“You haven’t seen it yet, have you?” He smiled, as if well aware of my answer and pitying my condition. “What Master Leonardo is finishing in the refectory is not a Last Supper, it is the Last Supper, Father Agostino. You’ll understand what I mean when you see it with your own eyes.”

“So he’s a strange but virtuous soul.”

“You see,” he corrected, “when Master Leonardo arrived at this house three years ago and began his preparations for the Cenacolo, the prior didn’t feel that he could be trusted. In fact, in my role as archivist of Santa Maria and as the person responsible for our future scriptorium, he ordered me to write to Florence to find out if Leonardo was an artist one could trust, someone who kept his deadlines and was meticulous in his work, or whether he was one of those fortune seekers who leave everything half-finished and whom one must bring to court to get them to complete what they have started.”

“And yet, if I’m not mistaken, he had come recommended by the duke himself.”

“That is true. But, for our prior, that was not enough of a guarantee.”

“I see. Pray continue. What did you discover? Was he precise in his work or was he careless?”

“Both!”

I made a gesture to indicate my puzzlement.

“Did I not tell you he was a strange man? As a painter, he’s no doubt the most extraordinary we’ve ever seen, but he is also the most rebellious. He finds it enormously hard to finish a project on time; in fact, he’s never done so. And what is worse, he cares nothing for the instructions of his patrons. He always paints according to his whim.”

“That isn’t possible.”

“It is, Father. The brothers of San Donato’s monastery in Scopeto, close to Florence, commissioned from him a Nativity fifteen years ago—and he has still to finish it! And do you know what’s even worse? Leonardo made alterations in the scene to the very limits of what can be tolerated. Instead of painting an ordinary Adoration of the Shepherds, come to make homage to the Christ Child, Leonardo started painting something he called The Adoration of the Magi and filled it with twisted characters, horses and men gesticulating grotesquely toward the heavens, things that are nowhere described in the Gospels.”

I held back a shiver.

“Are you certain of this?”

“I never lie,” he said curtly. “But that is nothing compared to the rest.”

Nothing? If Father Alessandro’s insinuations proved themselves to be true, the Soothsayer had fallen short in his fears: that devil from Vinci had landed in Milan, leaving behind a trail of serious pictorial distortions. Some of the lapidary phrases I had read in the anonymous letters began to echo in my mind like thunder before a storm. I allowed him to continue:

“That was no ordinary Adoration. It didn’t even have a Star of Bethlehem! Don’t you think that is odd?”

“What does it tell you?”

“Me?” Father Alessandro’s cold, pale cheeks acquired a warm peach color. It made him blush that a learned man from Rome should ask him, with undisguised interest, his sincere opinion of something. “The truth is that I don’t know. Leonardo, as I’ve told you, is an unusual creature. I’m not surprised that the Inquisition should be interested in him—”

“The Inquisition?”

I felt another stab in my guts. In the short time we had known each other, Father Alessandro had developed an uncanny ability to surprise me. Or perhaps I had become more susceptible? His mention of the Holy Office made me feel guilty. How was it that I hadn’t thought of it earlier? Why had I not consulted the general archives of the Sacra Congregazione before traveling to Milan?

“Let me tell you about it,” he said with enthusiasm, as if he enjoyed searching his memory for this kind of thing. “After leaving his Adoration of the Magi unfinished, Leonardo moved to Milan, where he was engaged by the Fraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which, as you know, belongs to the Franciscans of San Francesco il Grande and with whom our prior is in constant conflict. And there, Leonardo fell into the same trouble he had encountered in Florence.”

“Again?”

“Of course. Master Leonardo was supposed to paint a triptych for the fraternity’s chapel, with the assistance of the brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista de’Predis. Between the three, they received two hundred scudi in advance for the work to come, and each of them set himself to a section of the altarpiece. The Tuscan took charge of the central panel. His task was to paint a Virgin surrounded by the prophets, while the side panels would depict a chorus of mystical angels.”

“No need to continue: he never finished his work—”

“No, not at all. This time Master Leonardo finished his part but didn’t deliver what had been asked of him. In his painting there wasn’t a single prophet to be found. Instead, he’d painted a portrait of Our Lady in a cave, with the Child Jesus and Saint John the Baptist. The impudent scoundrel assured the brothers that his painting depicted the encounter of the two infants during the Flight to Egypt. But that too is a story absent from all four Gospels!”

“And so they denounced him to the Inquisition.”

“Yes. But not for the reasons you imagine. Ludovico intervened to impede the trial, and thereby freed him from certain condemnation.”

I doubted whether I should proceed with my questioning. After all, it was he who wanted me to tell him about the riddles. But I couldn’t deny that his explanations intrigued me.

“What, then, was the accusation they made before the Inquisition?”

“That Leonardo had sought inspiration for his work in the Apocalipsis Nova.”

“I never heard of such a book.”

“It’s a heretical text written by an old friend of his, a Menorite Franciscan called João Mendes da Silva, also known as Amadeo of Portugal, who died in Milan in the same year that Leonardo finished his painting. This Amadeo published a tract in which he dared to suggest that the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist were the true protagonists of the New Testament, and not Christ.”

Apocalipsis Nova. I made a mental note of this information to add it to the future file I might open on Leonardo, accusing him of heresy.

“And how did the brothers figure out the relationship between the Apocalipsis Nova and Leonardo’s painting?”

The librarian smiled.

“It was obvious. The painting showed the Virgin next to the Child Jesus and the angel Uriel next to John the Baptist. In normal circumstances, Jesus should appear blessing his cousin, but the painting depicted the exact opposite! And the Virgin, instead of embracing her Son, was stretching her arms in a protective gesture toward the Baptist. You understand now? Leonardo had portrayed Saint John not only as receiving legitimate acknowledgment from Our Lady but blessing Christ Himself, thereby showing his superiority over the Messiah.”

I congratulated Father Alessandro enthusiastically.

“You’re a very keen observer,” I said. “You have shed light on the intelligence of this humble servant of God. I am in your debt, my brother.”

“If you ask, I shall answer. It is a promise I always keep.”

“Like fasting?”

“Yes, like fasting.”

“I admire you, Father Alessandro. I do indeed.”

The librarian beamed like a peacock, and as the light began to dissolve the shadows in the cloister, illuminating the shrouded bas-reliefs and ornaments, he dared break a certain period of reserve that, I believe, he had imposed upon himself.

“In that case, will you allow me to help you with your puzzles?”

Caught in the moment, I knew not what to answer.

12

In the following days, the other friar with whom I frequently spoke, besides Father Alessandro, was the prior’s nephew, Matteo. He was still a child but more alert and curious than others of his age. Perhaps for that reason, young Matteo had been unable to resist the temptation of approaching me and asking what life was like in Rome. The great city of Rome.

I don’t know how he imagined the pontifical palaces and the endless avenues of churches and monasteries, but in exchange for my detailed descriptions he shared with me a number of confidences that made me wary of the librarian’s good intentions.

Laughing, he told me the only thing that made his uncle, the prior, lose his temper.

“And what might that be?” I asked, intrigued.

“To find Father Alessandro and Leonardo with their sleeves rolled up, chopping lettuce in Brother Guglielmo’s kitchen.”

“Leonardo goes into the kitchen?”

My surprise puzzled him.

“He does it all the time! When my uncle wants to find him, he knows that the kitchen is his favorite hiding place. He might not dip a brush in paint for days, but he can’t stop himself from visiting us and spending hours by the hearth. Didn’t you know that Leonardo ran a tavern in Florence, where he used to be the cook?”

“No.”

“He told me so himself. It was called At the Sign of the Three Frogs, and the owners were Sandro and Leonardo.”

“Is that true?”

“Of course! He explained that he had set it up with another painter friend, Sandro Botticelli.”

“And what came of it?”

“Nothing! His customers didn’t like his vegetable stews, his anchovies wrapped around cabbage buds, or a dish they used to make out of cucumbers and lettuce leaves in the shape of frogs.”

“Does he do the same thing here?”

Matteo smiled. “My uncle won’t let him. Since he arrived at the monastery, what he likes most is trying out things with the stuff in our pantry. He says he’s looking for the menu for the Last Supper. And that the food placed on that table is as important as the portraits of the apostles…and for the past weeks, the scoundrel has been bringing his apprentices and friends to eat at a large table he laid out in the refectory, while he empties the cellars of the monastery.”

“And Father Alessandro helps him?”

“Father Alessandro?” he echoed. “He’s one of the ones who sit at the table and eat! Leonardo says he takes advantage of the situation to study their profiles and reflect on how he’ll paint what they’re eating, but no one has seen him do anything other than gorging himself on our food!”

Matteo laughed with amusement.

“The truth is,” he added, “that my uncle has written several times to the duke complaining about Leonardo’s abuses, but the duke has paid no attention to him. If this goes on, Leonardo will leave us with none of our harvest.”

13

Friday the thirteenth was never a favorite day among the Milanese. More susceptible to French superstitions than other Latin races, the day that linked the fifth day of the week with the ominous place occupied by Judas at the Last Supper table evoked for them traumatic anniversaries. Almost two centuries earlier, it was on a Friday the thirteenth, in the year 1307, that the Knights Templar were arrested in France under the orders of Philip IV, nicknamed the Fair. They were then accused of denying Christ, of spitting on His crucifix, of exchanging obscene kisses in places of worship and of adoring an extravagant idol called Baphomet. The order of the knights of the white mantles fell into such a state of disgrace that from that day onward every Friday the thirteenth was held to be a day of evil omen.

The thirteenth day of January, 1497, was no exception.

At midday, a small crowd gathered at the doors of the monastery of Santa Marta. Most of the merchants had already closed their shops of silk wares, perfumes or woolen cloths on the Piazza del Verzaro, behind the cathedral, so as not to miss the sign. They seemed impatient. The announcement that had brought them there was singularly precise: before the setting of the sun, the servant of God Veronica da Benasco would render her soul unto the Lord. She herself had prophesied it with the same assurance with which she had prophesied so many other calamities. Admitted into the presence of princes and popes, held to be a living saint by many, her latest accomplishment had been to secure her own expulsion from Ludovico il Moro’s palace barely two months ago. Gossip had it that she asked to be received by Donna Beatrice d’Este to tell her of her fatal destiny and that the duchess, in a fit of fury, ordered that she be locked up in a monastery so as never to set eyes on her again.

Marco d’Oggiono, Master Leonardo’s favorite disciple, had known her well. He had often seen Leonardo deep in conversation with her, since Leonardo enjoyed discussing with the nun her strange visions of the Virgin. Not only did he take notes of what she said but many times Marco had surprised him sketching a feature of her angelic face, her sweet gestures and her painful demeanor, which he would later attempt to transpose onto his paintings. Unfortunately, unless Sister Veronica was much mistaken, these confidences would come to an end that very Friday. Before lunchtime, Marco dragged his master to the deathbed of the nun, aware that there was very little time left.

“Thank you for agreeing to come. Sister Veronica will be happy to see you one last time,” whispered the disciple to his teacher.

Leonardo, aware of the scent of incense and oils in the small cell, admiringly observed the saintly woman’s marble face. The poor thing could hardly open her eyes.