Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey

Author:Stephanie Storey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2016-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

1503

Leonardo

Winter. Rome

“Oremus.” Pope Alexander VI called across the Sistine Chapel, and Leonardo dutifully bowed his head. The corpulent pope’s voice sounded the way he looked, round and majestic. “Praeceptis salutaribus moniti, et divina institutione formati, audemus dicere …”

The small congregation responded in unison. “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.”

As the Lord’s Prayer echoed through the chapel, Leonardo watched Cesare Borgia, draped in a black cape and kneeling humbly at the pope’s feet. Borgia looked so earnest that he could almost imagine the young duke as his former self, the God-fearing Cardinal of Valencia, dressed in red robes, swishing through the halls of the Vatican. After renouncing his cardinal’s hat, Cesare had donned a soldier’s uniform instead. From what Leonardo had seen of the young man’s insatiable passion for blood on the battlefield, Il Valentino was much better suited to war than religion.

“Amen.” The pontiff, wearing a crimson velvet cape and a golden skullcap topping his head like a halo, broke the bread.

This was a special Mass, delivered by the pope to a few cardinals, friends, and family members to celebrate his son’s safe return home from Romagna. The congregation stood through the service, except Cesare, who knelt at the pope’s feet, publicly begging for forgiveness for his wartime sins. The prostrate position had the extra benefit of placing even more attention on the victorious duke.

A week earlier, Cesare and his army had marched triumphantly back into Rome. Leonardo had visited the Eternal City once before, a brief trip to study the ruins of Emperor Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, but as a special guest of the duke, he saw the capital from a new perspective. Staying in the lavish private chambers of the pope, overlooking St. Peter’s deteriorating basilica, Leonardo sat on his balcony and sketched peasants, farmers, and merchants streaming into the Vatican to ask forgiveness for their sins. He wanted to call down and tell them not to worry; their transgressions were surely nothing in comparison to the sins of those who had been to war.

“Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum,” Pope Alexander intoned.

“Et cum spiritu tuo,” Leonardo responded with the congregation.

Mumbling inaudibly, the pope dropped a small piece of the Host into the Holy Chalice, and then chanted the Agnus Dei three times.

This was the first time Leonardo had been inside the Sistine Chapel. The barrel-vaulted room was three stories tall and nearly three times as long as it was wide—the same dimensions as the Old Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The ceiling was painted blue with gold stars emulating the heavens. Leonardo knew no one would ever look up at that ceiling, because who would ever be able to tear their eyes away from the jewels that adorned the walls?

In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV had announced a plan to hire the peninsula’s best, most innovative artists to decorate his new chapel. He asked Lorenzo the Magnificent to help choose the painters. Lorenzo had called on Florentine artists Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Cosimo Rosselli, along with the Perugian painter Pietro Perugino.

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