“Unlikely. People qualify for sainthood by martyrdom, or miracles, or deeds of astonishing charity. Angelic John has achieved none of these.”
“But he has saintly virtues. He kneels in prayer while painting the Holy Family. Has never broken his vows of poverty. Or chastity.”
“Unlike me. But Brother Angelico comes from a rich family. Finding he did not want money and women he chose to join the Franciscans when a grown man. Aunt Mona made me a Carmelite when I was eight because she could not feed me. Poor soul, she could hardly feed herself. I do not envy Guido’s lack of appetite for some good things God places within my reach. I do not even envy Angelic Guido’s remarkable talent, for his work has taught me a lot. Apart from my master, Messy Tom,14 Angelic John is the best of the older painters. His weakness is an absence of various expression. ALL his holy figures are delicate, sweet and benign. Were it not for the energetic design, harmony of colour and masterly chiaroscuro his greatest works would make me feel I was facing a banquet of twenty courses marinated in honey. Think, Diamante, of that poor haggard ugly gap-toothed Magdalen made by Donatello! Think of Eve’s weeping, grief-distorted face painted by Masaccio in this monastery! It is the finest thing Messy Thomas ever did! Nobody can paint better than that.”
“The public prefers Angelic John.”
“Naturally. Among the vulgar public only those made ugly by suffering appreciate pictures of those also made Holy by it. But artists of talent — artists great enough to lead instead of follow vulgar taste — such artists will always come here to learn from the work of Messy Thomas and me. Angelico, despite great virtues, is a Gothic manuscript illuminator enlarged and modernized by the great examples of Florentine art, especially sculptures in bronze. The great paintings of the future will grow from we who are achieving in paint the spatial depth Donatello has mastered in his great door panels, and are learning even more from nature.”
“Yes,” said Diamante thoughtfully, “Your grief-stricken faces are as natural as old Giotto’s. And your Christ childs are very natural, sturdy little ruffians. And your virgins are always dressed in the height of fashion, which in young girls is natural I suppose.”
Fillipo looked hard at Diamante who said, without raising his eyes from colour grinding, “And the Medici appreciates Angelico as much as the public do. Perhaps more.”
“That shows Cosimo’s breadth of vision. He discovered Angelico years before I became a painter and now commissions work equally from us both. He prefers having me in his house because, unlike Angelico, Cosimo and I are sinners. Cosimo is the worst because his crimes are against nature. He breeds money out of money so like other bankers will finally sit in Hell scratching himself among the sodomites. I am only. . only. .”
“Avaricious?” murmured Diamante, “A fornicator? Forger?”
There was silence for half a minute in which Diamante braced himself for a wrathful explosion. Instead he heard Filippo warble in sing-song, “We have been companions since our novitiate Diamante! You have learned all you know of fine arts from me Diamante! Let us concentrate on our work Diamante! I promise not to say more about your foolish, ridiculous, extravagant, insane, unChristian expenditure on tomatoes.”
11: A FLORENTINE NUNNERY
In a convent cell lent to him for a studio Filippo painted a young nun, Lucrezia Buti, lent to him as a model for his Virgin Mary in Glory. As usual he had begun the session by sinning with her carnally because, he said, that let him paint without the distraction of carnal lust. He had then worked for nearly half an hour in silence before she murmured between rigid lips, “Filippo, if I have a child?”
“Have you already missed a period?” he said, frowning and mixing a colour.
“No.”
“If God wills you a child,” he said, applying his brush carefully to the panel, “six or seven months will elapse before your appearance announces the advent. Plenty of time.”
“But Filippo — ” she cried.
“Don’t move! Imagine that I am the Archangel of the Annunciation. Imagine the little baby God is perhaps making in you. It is a wonderful thought, fearful also! What will people think? You are a virgin, and unmarried, yet the child will be God’s as well as yours, so He is bound to save you from harm. You know how God saved the Holy Virgin from scandal — He got old Joseph to marry her before she bore His Son. Wedding a jobbing carpenter must have been the first of her sorrows. You need not stoop so low.”
Between rigid lips she murmured, “I am afraid.”
He said cheerily, “Don’t be. You have me.”
“Not often.”
He stroked colour into the Madonna’s robe then said firmly, “When I have finished this you must leave here. I will help you escape on a holy day, a sacred festival when the Mother Superior is looking elsewhere. Come and live with me.”
“As your wife?”
“Of course not. I am a priest. STAY SERENE!” he shouted, “You are to be my Virgin in Glory, not my repentant Magdalene.”
“My convent will be dishonoured,” she said mournfully. “My family will be dishonoured.”
“Your noble brothers are not as rich and powerful as my friend Cosimo Medici. They made you and your sister Spinetta nuns because they could not afford dowries that would fetch you noble husbands. You will be happier when not quite married to me, a butcher’s son, yes, but also a great artisan and priest. There is room in my workshop for you and Spinetta also, if she too wishes to escape. A couple of women will be useful. Brother Diamante does his best but is not a good housewife.”
“This makes me weep, Filippo,” she said and wept, uncertain whether from sorrow or joy.
“Weep joyfully,” he urged, “Despair is the one sin God cannot forgive because it prevents repentance. He easily forgives other ones, even murder, which is a nasty big sin. Making babies is hardly a sin at all. In the beginning God commanded all his creatures to be fruitful and multiply. Stay serene Lucrezia!” he pled, but her weeping became sobs until he yelled, “Stay serene or I cannot paint you!”
With a great effort she mastered the sobs. For a while there was silence but for the soft strokes of his brush, then he said casually, “You will often be painted when we live together. There will always be a market for Virgins with your face and eyes.”
Lucrezia’s convent was a small one with only four other nuns. The house was of a kind later denounced by the republican friar Savonarola because of a grill in the door behind which young nuns sometimes stood flirting with young men in the street outside. On a day of Holy festival when the Mother Superior led out her Brides of Christ to see the Girdle of Our Lady displayed it was easy for Lucrezia and Spinetta to escape in the crowd.
12: SOMEWHERE IN ROME
A revolt by the nobility of Rome in 1434 forced a Pope (like several of his predecessors) to flee the city in disguize. For ten years Eugenius IV was a guest of Cosimo de Medici in Florence, usually residing in the Medici palace where he met Brother Filippo. In 1443 the support of foreign kings let the Pontiff return to Rome and soon after he commissioned an Annunciation from Filippo. Sometimes he relaxed while watching the painter at work and grumbling about his problems. One morning he said gloomily, “Strange times, strange times! I have healed the thousand-year-old schism between Roman Christians in the west and Greeks in the east. The Byzantine Emperor John Palaeologus and the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismond recognized my supremacy, and now so does Emperor Frederick. I have signed agreements with Copts in Egypt and Nestorians in Mesopotamia, so Christians in Africa and Arabia will be restored to Roman Christendom. What do you think of that, my Pippo?”