THE NEXT DAY, LORENZO began the Saint Martin, which he would complete within the time upon which he and the farmer had agreed. And he did it in the old style or the new, the gothic manner or the antique, which seemed somehow fresher, with the soft Siennese touch or the Florentine precision, all those things that don’t matter; and he made it with anger and charity, which matter, anger lived becoming charity painted, dedicating himself to it and refining it layer upon layer, devotionally; and, what also matters, he made it with forms that you see in space, upon which charity does its work, and amongst them men, trees, hats. We don’t know whose features he gave to the saint and whose to the beggar. But it was what we call a masterpiece, so to speak, of a minor master or a master. Perhaps it was the most beautiful thing made of color and line that man had ever brought to bear on the face of the Earth; it was along the same road as Piero, but going to the end of that road and passing him by; it was to Piero what Piero was to Veneziano, what midday is to morning. And in this case it took place in a town piazza, and with a noble sword and a fine body that stood straight up, each and both radiating a solidity, a soulfulness as the coat was cleaved in two, with great solemnity, a sullen saint and a sullen beggar, a sullen horse, and all three infinitely happy to be standing there sullenly; a reasonable brightness fell on the porticoes and in the foreground, a young woman passing by looked at something on the ground but didn’t lower her head, haughty, dreamy, sullen, we do not see what she was looking at, he hadn’t painted the bunch of grapes, her hands were open like a Madonna of mercy; and on her head, an Oriental miter. It was Lorentino’s life plain and simple, as if by Piero, but by Lorentino.
And of course Saint Martin wasn’t capable of such a miracle, only the Son made flesh would have known how to do such a thing, and not even he; it was too late in Lorentino’s life for such an inconceivable object to burst from his old hand, his anger was too dulled for so much charity to be released. So this was more in the delicious manner of a minor Marches colorist, a good storyteller, and in this great Dalmatian garden he was painting, Lorentino said then and there his master Piero’s lessons, which is to say use only perspective, the antique; but freely, playing and laughing under the yoke, like hunting dogs responding to their master’s horn, but nonetheless rejoicing at the hunt itself. And in the middle of this sky filling with intoxication and song, Lorentino made the little piece of the beyond, the halo that was his hallmark, that he fleur-de-lysed and contoured in all that gold; and so set forth, the saint cut the coat in two with the hands of a seamstress, smooth and elated, fussy, he hadn’t gotten off his horse, was leaning like a young mother toward the beggar; and as a last touch, a serious child holding the bridle and looking out at you, a child who was Hope made flesh, an angel or a little valet, his cheeks red, his bare feet amongst the violets of the woods. Lorentino enjoyed adding them. Who can know what it looked like. But it was a masterpiece, since Lorentino had given the best he had to give, had devoted himself as one should, just as each of us, doing the best we can, devoting ourselves as best we can, doubtless makes a masterpiece.
Diosa watched him carefully the whole time he worked on the painting: because all the while he had the touch she had long ago felt, but she didn’t know what he was using it on now. She told herself that perhaps she would have some dresses, or maybe Angioletta would, now.
And Bartolomeo had his master. The disciple watched a master at work, between Ash Wednesday and Easter. We don’t know what he did with this, perhaps a masterpiece of his own as he approached his sixtieth year, perhaps nothing.
THE FARMER RETURNED on the agreed date and found the painting very pretty but didn’t make a big deal about it, out of fear that the painter would ask for more. But he didn’t. The farmer had brought his cart and put it on the back, because it was big. It was nearing Easter in the countryside. The village curate also found it pretty, in the secluded village of Saint-Martin’s church, where of course this saint should be. The curate added a gilded wooden cornice. Old Maria also saw it, impressed either by the illusion of space or by the gold, but she didn’t quite recognize her Saint Martin; other farmers saw it, and beneath it took off their bonnets and pondered, but no lords and no captains saw it, they didn’t come through very often. Lorentino died. No trumpets were heard. The farmer died; old Maria had long since joined her Saint Martin, whose face no one knew. And the Ferrarese who looked like a Masaccio or a Saint Martin had fallen as well, all alone with his cane in the rough-hewn countryside, between two commissions he’d been denied. And no trumpets were heard. Occasionally at night the wind from the Verna, the same wind, banged into the wall of this little church the way it had down below on the churches of Arezzo. Sigismondo’s dogs, one black, one white, were yapping at the doors. Occasionally, they would open a door. And at midday in summer on the little piazza before this church and on the piazza before San Francesco there was no one, only long shadows and light for no one. Vasari stopped there fifty years later, he went into this country church, he didn’t see the Lorentino, they had put up something newer that Vasari didn’t like very much; the Lorentino was in the sacristy, resting peacefully with a chasuble hung from one of its corners; Vasari didn’t go in, he didn’t write a Life of Lorentino. Perhaps it was the most beautiful thing made of color and line that man had ever made on the face of the Earth. This work unknown by Vasari remained in the sacristy for a long time. Vasari died. During the French wars, or those of the Hapsburgs, the parish became very poor; there was a big hole in the wall of the sacristy, perhaps from a cannonball, or perhaps only from time: and as they didn’t have any money, they put the painting there to cover the hole, so that in the peace before a mass the curate could dress in private, praying for Saint Martin’s help and not suffering from the Vernal winds. This for ten years; fifty. And as the back of the wood of this painted surface was cooking ceaselessly, was taking in water and freezing, the image began to warp and became horrible, or laughable; “Good Saint Martin” said the farmers, laughing, when they saw it; they turned the painting over, out of decency. Saint Martin impassive, abruptly Florentine or softly Siennese, disfigured but impassive, watched the wind off the Verna, the long shadows and no one. It was not the most beautiful thing there is to see on this earth. The heavens afflict those things they love. Skies golden and rose were changing. Saint Martin was becoming soot, colors were falling; one would have been able to see Lorentino’s under-drawings, the first features added the first morning when he was still filled with his vision of the saint, the theological hand and its beginnings, its furies. One would have been able to see it all. But no one passed by there, it overlooked fallow fields. Along the bank, nettles grew, and violets; lost pigs and sparrows passed. At night, signs blazed, a forest in flames, comets. One night the saint didn’t see the signs, he no longer had a face: there was nothing more to see, the parish got back on its feet, the wall was rebuilt and this nothing was tossed away. Today it is dust, like Lorentino; like Piero; like the name Lorentino; like the name of Saint Martin that farmers no longer call, that no longer bursts forth in their laughter and no longer cries along with them, that is held silent in mouths below ground. Here and there the name Piero is spoken, is multiplied and divided into nothingness. It won’t be long now. One day, God will no longer hear one name before any other. He will send a sign to the seven. They will raise seven trumpets to their lips.