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I
‘Vinci? Where in the name of God is that?’ ‘A podere in the hills somewhere.’ ‘I heard his father was a notary, here in Florence.’ ‘Then why isn’t he a notary too?’ ‘Don’t think he can do additions.’ ‘Andrea says he has the eye of Brunelleschi and the hand of Giotto. That he made a perfect sketch of the cathedral from memory in a matter of minutes, after seeing it only once.’ ‘Nothing but shit!’ ‘Have you seen his hands? They’re huge.’ ‘Let’s hope his head is smaller.’ ‘A few months of painting terracotta and it soon will be, don’t worry.’ He moves behind the screen. On the other side of it, the group of boys that constitute the workforce of the bottega of Maestro Andrea del Verrocchio are busy discussing his merits. He tucks his hands beneath his armpits and leans against the wall. It has been less than a week since he arrived. He has spent three days chipping marble and learning how to solder. He tries to be pleased with the result: you need a steady hand to catch a butterfly; years of pulling pieces of paper from a pouch and sketching living things against the back of a tree or on the 77
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Lucille Turner curve of a knee have given him both a steady hand and the will to put it to use. Painting terracotta is good, especially if he can mix his own colours. He never wanted to be a notary. ‘His flower was better than yours, Domenico. So I presume it is envy rather than scorn that makes you speak, and since neither are good, I suggest you stay quiet.’ ‘Those are wise words, Sandro.’ The Maestro has come up behind the screen and propels him forward to face the others beyond it. There were moments like this, and then there was his body. It seemed to be growing away from him, making demands that he did not understand and could not fulfil. He had taken to scraping hair off his face with a penknife and water, and found that sometimes he had the energy of ten men, and at other times the force of a snail. Once he stripped and stood in front of the mirror in his room at the side of the bottega. His body shocked him when he saw it. He had never seen himself in a large mirror before and noticed that his arms were long and lean, his shoulders straight, his back supple. His first impulse was to draw, and he sat in front of the mirror sketching his legs and genitals. When he had finished the drawing, he found that the drawing was not the result he had thought it might be, but the beginning of another quest that led on, inexorably to other details. If he could have, he would have even taken a knife to his own legs and cut them open, to see what was inside and drawn that too. In fact, drawing the leg on the outside was, he considered, only half of the interest: what really mattered was what lay within. ‘I understand that the head of our new apprentice has become 78