TAKE NOTE:
Our
most beloved Architect and General Engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, who bears this
pass, is charged with inspecting the palaces and fortresses of our states, so
that we may maintain them according to their needs and on his advice.
It
is our order and command that all will allow the said Leonardo da Vinci free
passage, without subjecting him to any tax or toll, or other hindrance, either
on himself or his companions.
All
will welcome him with amity, and allow him to measure and examine any things he
so chooses.
To
this effect, we desire that delivered unto him should be any provisions,
materials and men that he might require, and that he be given any aid,
assistance and favour he requests.
Let
no man act contrary to this decree unless he wishes to incur our wrath.
So wrote Prince Cesare Borgia, Il Valentino, illegitimate son
of Pope Alexander VI, in the famous pass he issued to Leonardo da Vinci. And
such was the reputation of Cesare Borgia that none would dare to obstruct the
work that da Vinci undertook for him over a period of eighteen months as this
ruthless Renaissance lord captured city after city across central Italy.
It is another enigma of the great genius and polymath of the
Middle Ages. Why did Leonardo da Vinci, who indicates strongly in his writings
a love of nature and creation and an abhorrence of violence, spend almost two
years of his life in the employ of the unscrupulous warmonger Cesare Borgia?
The pass was issued in August 1502. This was shortly after
da Vinci had left Milan where he had lived and worked for approximately
seventeen years. His patron there, the Duke of Milan, for whom he had painted
The Last Supper, had been deposed by an invading French army. King Louis XII of
France claimed sovereignty over the Duchy, and, although there were indications
that the French court would have liked Leonardo to remain, at that point the
soldiers ruled the city. The occupying forces were unruly and dangerous, so da
Vinci moved around the north of Italy doing various commissions. But to survive
an artist needed a patron (no helpful Arts Council dispensing awards) and it
was only by accepting the patronage of Cesare Borgia that da Vinci secured a
longer term of gainful employment to support his household.
What is interesting about this period of da Vinci's life is
the lack of information. The manuscripts of this man, a compulsive note-taker
and sketcher, are scant for these months. It was a time of extraordinary
activity in Renaissance Italy: coups and counter coups, scandalous liaisons,
horrific acts of revenge, and barbaric instances of torture. Yet we find only a
few fleeting glimpses of his life recorded; for example, a brief phrase in a
page margin: Where is Il Valentino? Or
a sketch of some architecture in Urbino, a city captured that year by Cesare
Borgia. Curiously, it is Urbino that has a painting by Joos van Gent called ‘The
Communion of the Apostles ‘which predates the da Vinci Last Supper by twenty
years. In van Gent's depiction eleven of the Apostles are shown as older men
with beards, and one is a youthful beardless figure with golden hair…
As a writer these "lost years" of Leonardo da
Vinci are a gift - the opportunity to build a story round the available
historical facts. I trawled over all manner of materials, read da Vinci's own
writings, his stories, riddles, jokes, puns, fables, studied his works and
followed his journeys through Italy. At least, my editor observed with
amusement, these research trips are warmer than those undertaken when doing Remembrance, a novel partly set in the
trenches of World War I.
When I began to research, The Medici Seal, before the appearance of Mr Brown’s novel, there
wasn’t such a brouhaha about everything da Vinci. Now one has to secure tickets
months ahead to view ‘The Last Supper’ in Milan, where the tour guides are
rapidly losing the will to live by being repeatedly asked "So, which one is Mary Magdalene then?' A guide in Ravenna told me that
she is asked the same question when showing tourists the 6th century
mosaic of Christ at supper with his Apostles! However, it's these other
versions of that scene that underlines the power of da Vinci's version,
beginning with his unique choice of the most dramatic moment of that Gospel.
Then there is his ingenious composition - the concealed geometry of the
painting. It was in ‘The Last Supper ‘that da Vinci interpreted his findings in
physics, mathematics, acoustics and proportion. Rather than a formal grouping,
it is a painting charged with emotion; his figures the actual visible
manifestation of force, displayed in sound, in time and in place. After
studying the figure of the Apostle Matthew, I decided to name my main character,
Matteo.
Like many people I have an ongoing fascination with Leonardo
da Vinci. His paintings are stunning beautiful, his anatomical drawings absorbing,
the minute detail engenders respect for his draughtsmanship yet touch the
senses in a profound manner, as in the one showing the child curled in the
womb. His engineering projects are startlingly modern. In addition to da
Vinci's work there were the people he met on an every day basis: the Medici
family who were great patrons of the Arts in Florence, and the Borgias, Cesare
and his fascinating sister Lucrezia. All of it crying out to me: Write about
this! Write about this!
My travels took me to Senigallia.
This town on the Adriatic
is famous as the place where Cesare Borgia tricked his rebel Captains into
meeting with him and then broke his truce and murdered them. It is recorded
that he had two of his Captains garrotted back to back upon a bench. One of
them, Vitellozzo, was a friend of da Vinci. It is this incident of the Borgia
moving swiftly to eliminate his enemies efficiently and without mercy that
Machiavelli wrote about later in his classic work
The Prince. While in Senigallia doing location shots for the
V&A presentation on my book I was reliably informed by the tourist office
that Mary Magdalene's bones were brought ashore there from the Holy Land!
The main character in
The
Medici Seal, the boy Matteo, is rescued by the companions of da Vinci in
the late summer of 1502. Matteo has his own story, a vengeful brigand on his
trail seeking to recover a stolen item. The boy becomes an assistant to the
Maestro, accompanies him on his trips to the morgue, watches his dissections,
holds the Maestro's drawings during his conferences with Cesare Borgia, stands
by his side at dinner. There is independent documentation that in the autumn of
1502 the city of Florence sent a diplomat to talk to Cesare Borgia. Their
emissary, one Niccolo Machiavelli, met Cesare Borgia in the Castle of Imola.
This was when Leonardo da Vinci was repairing the fortifications there.
Imagine what might happen with Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli,
and Cesare Borgia, all together.
I did.
Photographs © SCARPA
LATEST BOOKS
The Traveller (from dyslexia friendly publisher Barrington
Stoke)
It may have been those childhood experiences, or, when
I was a bit older, seeing the Leonardo da Vinci’s fascinating red-tinted drawing
of a foetus in the womb, that made me develop a life long interest in the
subject. It can cause others to go off their food but I found that aspect of my
research into the life of Leonardo da Vinci for The Medici Seal fascinating. In Florence, right next to the Pitti Palace, is a
scientific museum - La Specola. Opened in
the 18th century it was unique in that it was intended for the
public to have access to see the exhibits. In the basement are cases of wax
bodies sliced open to show the internal organs. The works are by several wax
sculptors created over the centuries. Some have been treated in a method
believed to be similar to techniques used by Leonardo to map out the human
venous system. 
