The Lost Battles Read online

6 “Niccolò arrived in Milan”: Ibid., 149 recto.

  7 “But I ask no more than that”: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting, Codex Urbinas Latinus 1270, Princeton, 1956, vol. 2: Facsimile, 8 verso.

  8 (as Machiavelli sneered): Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Marshall Jr., Princeton, 1988, p. 50.

  9 Piero came from the town: Roberto Longhi, Piero della Francesca, London, 1930, p. 66; J. R. Banker, The Culture of San Sepolcro During the Youth of Piero della Francesca, Ann Arbor, MI, 2003, p. 24, stresses the economic suffering of San Sepolcro as a result of the battle and the ransoming of fourteen hundred of its inhabitants from the victorious Florentines.

  10 Piero was a mathematician as well: See J. V. Field, Piero della Francesca: A Mathematical Art, New Haven and London, 2005.

  11 accused of plagiarising them: Vasari, pp. 337–8.

  12 a copy of a work by Archimedes: Richter 2, n. 1417, p. 428.

  13 a long wooden panel that survives: Bought by the collector Sir Hugh Lane and bequeathed by him in 1918, it is now in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, NGI 778. It has a pendant, NGI 780, depicting the Florentine conquest of Pisa in 1406. Both are by the same anonymous artist.

  14 said Leonardo Bruni: Leonardo Bruni, “Memoirs,” in History of the Florentine People, vol. 3, trans. James Hankins and D. J. W. Bradley, Cambridge, MA, 2007, p. 395.

  15 He even sought out the bronze medal of Piccinino: Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. A.170-1910. On such early uses of art as historical evidence, see Francis Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of History, New Haven and London, 1993.

  16 Leonardo gave him the same headgear: “un soldato vecchio con un berretton rosso,” Vasari, p. 553.

  17 the monsters lurking in the stain on the wall: This was a world in which the fantastic intruded constantly on the everyday. The early modern person resembled the rider surrounded by monstrous beings in a wild wood in Dürer’s great print Knight, Death and Devil. The demonic qualities of Leonardo’s battle painting connect it to the constant backdrop of myth and prodigy in Renaissance life, from peasants dressing as animals at Carnival time to werewolves haunting the forests. See Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival in Romans, London, 2003; Caroline Oates, “Metamorphosis and Lycanthropy in Franche-Comté, 1521–1643,” in Michel Feher, ed., Fragments for a History of the Human Body, New York, 1989, pp. 305–63; Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages, New York, 1970.

  18 “But the Dukes souldiers not satisfy’d”: Nicholas Machiavel’s “Prince.” Also, The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca and The meanes Duke Valentino us’d to put to death Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto of Fermo … and the Duke of Gravina, London, 1640, pp. 304–5.

  19 “Animals will be seen on the earth”: Richter 2, n. 1296, pp. 364–5.

  20 “Leonardo had designed costumes”: On Leonardo’s costumes for tournaments and masques, see Martin Clayton, Leonardo da Vinci: The Divine and the Grotesque, London, 2002, pp. 157–81. Leonardo records his tournament costumes of “uomini salvatici” in Richter 2, n. 1458, p. 439.

  21 a self-conscious dramatisation of the martial persona: Stuart W. Pyhrr and José-A. Godoy, Heroic Armour of the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negroli and His Contemporaries, New York, 1998.

  22 inside the golden head of a lion: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchased 1923, cat. 23.141.

  23 Verrocchio’s workshop: Marble reliefs of antique warriors from Verrocchio’s workshop are in the Louvre and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Leonardo’s Bust of a Warrior is in the British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, 1895-9-15-474.

  24 ornate grotesques and satyr-like visors: For example, a peak or hinged mask from a helmet by the Negroli family, dated 1538, in the Bargello Museum, Florence, M. 771, strongly resembles the armour in Leonardo’s battle picture.

  25 Death leaves a skeleton: Edward MacCurdy, ed., The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1938, vol. 1, p. 312.

  26 It is a book built on water: David Abulafia, The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus, New Haven and London, 2008, pp. 241–61; Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Amerigo, London, 2006.

  27 “They eat little flesh, other than human”: Amerigo Vespucci, letter to Soderini, in Mario Pozzi, ed., Il Mondo Nuovo di Amerigo Vespucci: Vespucci Autentico e Apocrifo, Milan, 1984, p. 139.

  28 “Lucretius in the third of the Things of Nature”: Richter 2, n. 1492, p. 450.

  29 “Make dead men, some partly covered”: Richter 1, n. 602, p. 303. On the lateness of this part of Leonardo’s battle text, see Carlo Pedretti, Commentary on J. P. Richter, “The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci,” Oxford, 1977, p. 353, which dates it to c. 1510–11.

  30 “… I saw two frozen in one hole”: Dante, Inferno, Canto XXXII, ll. 125–9.

  THIRTEEN: THE GOOD CITIZEN

  1 “When I can”: The dialogue is as reported by Condivi, p. 35: “rispondendo lui: ‘Quando potrò,’ egli irato soggiunse: ‘Tu hai voglia ch’ io ti faccia gittar giù di quel palco.’ ”

  2 “Of my departure, it is true”: P. Barrocchi and Renzo Ristori, eds., Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, vol. 1, Florence, 1965, Michelangelo in Florence to Giuliano da Sangallo in Rome, 2 May 1506, p. 13.

  3 Benvenuto Cellini did actually murder: Cellini stabbed to death the jeweller Pompeo de’ Capitaneis, a rival for the patronage of Pope Clement VII. See Cellini, Autobiography, trans. George Bull, rev. ed., London, 1998, p. 79, for the beginning of their animosity, when Pompeo criticised Cellini’s work to the Pope, and p. 128 for its bloody conclusion. For Michelangelo’s belief in Bramante’s machinations against him, see Condivi, pp. 29, 34.

  4 The incredible expense: Compare Diarmaid MacCullough, The Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700, London, 2003, pp. 120–32.

  5 “Michelangelo, who had never found”: Condivi, p. 26: “ ‘E voi direte al Papa che, se da qui inanzi mi vorrà, mi chercherà altrove.’ ”

  6 “6th June, 1505, a Friday”: Madrid Codex II, 1 recto.

  7 Another problem was becoming apparent: Vasari, p. 553.

  8 according to Villani’s chronicle: Giovanni Villani and family, Cronica, Turin, 1979, p. 328, says the commander was recovering from a fever and all too glad to lie down and let his men bathe without having prepared fortifications.

  9 not battles but erotic scenes: Titian’s Diana and Actaeon is jointly owned by the National Gallery, London, and the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Peter Lely’s Nymphs by a Fountain is in Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.

  10 painted onto a maiolica plate: In the British Museum, London, MLA 1888-02-15-1. It was made in Urbino and bears the arms of Cardinal Bembo.

  11 “This was thought the finest thing”: Luca Landucci, Diario Fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516 …, ed. Iodoco del Badia, Florence, 1883, p. 273: “E così fu tenuto la più bella cosa che si ordinassi mai per la città di Firenze.”

  12 “paint the Great Council Hall”: Condivi, p. 27.

  13 “finished that marvellous cartoon”: Ibid., p. 28.

  14 A painting done in Florence: Attributed to Francesco Granacci and in the National Gallery, London.

  15 In a speech he wrote calling for funds: Parole da dirle sopra la provisione del denaio. See James B. Atkinson and David Sices, eds., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, DeKalb, IL, 1996, p. 81.

  16 On festival days the young bloods: Niccolò Machiavelli, Art of War, trans. Christopher Lynch, Chicago and London, 2003, p. 29.

  17 Michelangelo refused to hand over the picture: Condivi, p. 43.

  18 it was said the king lamented: Vasari, p. 550.

  19 That spring Leonardo: L. Beltrami, ed., Documenti e memorie riguardanti la vite e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, 1919, doc. no. 169.

  20 The French historian: Lucien Febvre, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais, Cambridge, MA, and London, 1982.

  21
Christianity in the early Middle Ages: See Jacques Le Goff, Medieval Civilisation, 400–1500, Malden, Oxford, and Victoria, 1990, p. 57, on the early medieval Peace of God movements, and on attempts to reconcile Christianity and warfare; also Maurice Keen, Chivalry, New Haven and London, 1984, esp. chap. 3.

  22 “War is sweet to those”: Margaret Mann Phillips, Erasmus on His Times, Cambridge, 1967, p. 107.

  23 “it is considered impious”: Erasmus, Bellum …, Louvain, 1527, ai.

  24 “Now on the other hand we will compose”: Ibid.

  25 “You might see someone”: Richter 1, n. 601, p. 303.

  26 “think what a nefarious thing it is”: Richter 2, n. 1140, p. 286.

  27 there could be no more refusing: Condivi, pp. 27–8.

  28 Michelangelo was asked by the Florentine Chancellery: Atkinson and Sices, eds., letters 115, 117, 118 from Biagio Buonaccorsi to Niccolò Machiavelli, pp. 129–32.

  29 “You were to have come to find us”: The dialogue is as written down by Condivi, pp. 28–9.

  30 “was hurled to the ground”: Condivi, p. 29.

  31 a marvellous history painting for the people: Aurelio Gotti, Vita di Michelangelo, 2 vols., Florence, 1875, vol. 1, p. 54. On Alidosi as intermediary, see Hugo Chapman, Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, London, 2005, pp. 101–2.

  32 “Excuse the Signoria”: Beltrami, doc. 180.

  FOURTEEN: SCHOOL OF THE WORLD

  1 The very stones: P. Barocchi and R. Ristori, Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, vol. 1, Florence, 1965, letter CVI, p. 139.

  2 At the very least, hundreds died: John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575, Malden, MA, Oxford, and Victoria, 2006, p. 421.

  3 That December the laying waste: Luca Landucci, A Florentine Diary, trans. Alice de Rosen Jervis, London and New York, 1927, 12 December 1512, pp. 264–5.

  4 The relevant document: L. Beltrami, ed., Documenti e memorie riguardanti la vite e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, 1919, doc. 216, pp. 136–7.

  5 “This cartoon was the first beautiful work”: Benvenuto Cellini, La Vita, ed. Lorenzo Bellotto, Parma, 1996, pp. 44–5.

  6 Marsilio Ficino … whose works Dürer knew: Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, Princeton, 1971, pp. 156–71.

  7 “These cartoons were kept”: Cellini, p. 45.

  8 “carried to the Sala del Papa”: Vasari, p. 889.

  9 “left by Michelangelo”: Condivi, p. 28.

  10 A guide to Florence published in 1510: Memoriale di molte statue et picture sono nella inclyta cipta di Florentia per mano di sculptori et picturi excellenti moderni et antiqui tracto dalla propria copia di Messer Francesco Albertini prete fiorentino anno domini 1510, Florence, 1510, “al tempo dello illustrissimo Pietro Soderini,” reprint London, 1909, p. 17.

  11 “Buonarroto, the bearer”: Barrocchi and Ristori, vol. 1 letter XLIX, p. 70.

  12 “I learnt that the Spaniard”: Ibid., letter LIII, pp. 75–6.

  13 A copy by him survives: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Parker II, 535.

  14 “Aristotile da San Gallo”: Vasari, p. 889.

  15 a Mannerist term of praise: Condivi, p. 28. On the Mannerist cult of “artificiality,” see John Shearman, Mannerism, Harmondsworth, 1967, esp. pp. 37–8.

  16 was said to have painted a Medusa: As late as 1899, tourists were told that a seventeenth-century work in the Uffizi collection was Leonardo’s Medusa. See Catalogue of the Royal Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Florence, 1899: “1159. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Head of Medusa. The head of the Gorgon is cut off and turned upwards; the hair is changed into snakes, and other reptiles and monsters are scattered around it. This admirable painting formerly belonged to the collection of the duke Cosmus I” (pp. 211–12).

  17 Early copies of Leonardo’s Medusa: A suggestive example is a fountain in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, with bronze masks of a Leonardesque Medusa/Piccinino attributed to Benedetto da Rovezzano, c. 1536, originally made for Cowdray House, Sussex. Benedetto cast similar Medusa/Piccinino masks for the altar of Santa Trinità, Florence.

  18 The very adoration it received obliterated it: Vasari, p. 889.

  19 “that he was moved to do this by his affection”: Vasari, Vite, rev. 2nd ed., Florence, 1568, vol. 3, p. 423.

  FIFTEEN: PRISONERS

  1 He promptly complied: Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography, trans. George Bull, rev. ed., London, 1998, p. 75.

  2 At this time he drew his own sensitive portrait: British Museum, London, 1895-9-15-519.

  3 One of his last essays: Machiavelli, “The Account of a Visit Made to Fortify Florence,” in The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, Durham and London, 1989, pp. 727–34.

  4 Seen in plan, his bastions: In the collection of the Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

  5 He worked by torchlight: Benedetto Varchi, “Della istoria fiorentina, tomo primo,” in Thesaurus antiquitatem et historiarum Italiae, 1723, a reprint of his sixteenth-century work, p. 294, says the “young men of Florence competed with the soldiers” to build the bastions by torchlight.

  6 As Freud observed: James Strachey and Albert Dickson, eds., Sigmund Freud, vol. 14, Art and Literature, Harmondsworth, 1990, p. 157.

  7 In a letter to his patron: Richter 2, nn. 1351, 1352, 1353, pp. 407–10.

  8 “blocked my anatomy by blaming it to the Pope”: Ibid., p. 410.

  9 “harboured such heretical … thoughts”: Vasari, p. 547. 269 Was he aware: Richter 2, n. 1212, pp. 303–4.

  10 “Alas this one will never”: Vasari, p. 554.

  11 And this was the method Michelangelo used: Varchi, p. 312, describes the soft earthen construction of Michelangelo’s bastions in 1529. See also Renzo Manetti, Michelangelo: Le Fortificazioni per l’assegio di Firenze, Florence, 1980; James S. Ackerman, The Architecture of Michelangelo, Harmondsworth, 1970, p. 138.

  12 Both of them experimented: Compare, for example, Leonardo’s drawing of a tower haloed by torqued radiating bastions in Madrid II, 37 recto, with the orotund ground plans of Michelangelo’s gatehouse designs in the Casa Buonarroti. See further Pietro C. Marani, ed., Disegni di fortifiazioni da Leonardo a Michelangelo, Florence, 1984.

  13 In designs for the Trivulzio Monument: See Leonardo’s drawing RL 12355 in the Royal Library, Windsor.

  14 siege became a routine military strategy: Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494–1660, London and New York, 1996.

  15 One victim whose name is at least remembered: Vasari, p. 725.

  16 It was the worst catastrophe: John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575, Malden, MA, Oxford, and Victoria, 2006, p. 458.

  17 “more from fear than love”: Condivi, p. 41.

  18 “Dear to me is sleep”: Rime, 247, p. 281.

  19 He was old, and for once he was forgiving: In his spoken corrections to Condivi’s biography that survive as anonymous handwritten notes in an extant copy, Michelangelo softens his earlier denunciations of Bramante. See Caroline Elam, “Postille,” in Condivi, p. xxxviii.

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