Torment
The Dining Room of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie
Milan, Italy
February 6, 1498
Leonardo Da Vinci was living a lie. It tormented him day and night.
For the first forty-six years of his life, he had chosen to ignore the war raging in his head. Alas, the ostrich approach was no longer an option.
Not now.
Not with the battle but inches from his face.
He set a paintbrush upon the scaffolding and cracked his knuckles, one after the other. He’d been holding his favored brush for hours—without making a single stroke. Such introspective stints should not be problematic, but they were.
Although the sessions spent in contemplation were often Leonardo’s most productive, generating the insights that elevated his artwork, the Prior presiding over his project was not convinced. In Gioffre’s monastic world, idle hands were the devil’s workshop.
Truth be told, on this particular occasion Prior Gioffre had a point. Leonardo had made no progress today. Despite giving the problem his full focus, he remained stumped and indecisive.
“You’ve been summoned by the duke.”
The words shattered da Vinci’s concentration like a rock through a window. After his senses regained their balance, Leonardo saw that Francesco had joined him on the scaffolding. “What does Sforza want?”
Leonardo’s assistant gave a slight shrug. “Do you think he’d tell me?”
Of course he wouldn’t.
The Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, employed tens of thousands of men. He was a man of great power, pride, and prestige. He would not deign to confide in underlings.
Nor would he react kindly to being kept waiting. The man who paid the bills rarely did.
Leonardo found the duke in the courtyard of the royal residence at Castle Sforza. This was a welcome stroke of luck. Leonardo had designed the playful fountains that were its focal point. Delighting visitors young and old, the waterworks were a source of pride for Ludovico—and a constant reminder of Leonardo’s genius.
Had the weather not been so temperate, they might be meeting in the Sala delle Asse. That venue would have been considerably less propitious, for Leonardo was well behind schedule in painting its ceiling. The challenge he faced with Sforza’s fresco was entirely different from that of his current endeavor. The vegetable motifs the duke had requested were boring, and boring always ranked last on Leonardo’s want-to-do list.
While he waited for his turn before the big chair, Leonardo’s thoughts returned to the tormenting task he’d just abandoned. For three years, he had been faithfully planning and painting the climactic scene from the four gospels. The Last Supper. He was capturing the moment just after Jesus revealed that one of the twelve disciples at the table would betray him.
The enormous mural that covered an entire wall of the dining room was almost finished.
Only two small sections remained untouched.
Alas, they were the most important. The focal points that everyone entering the room was sure to study. The centers of energy and emotion. The faces of Judas and Jesus.
The latter was the source of Leonardo’s torment.
Not the artistry involved in painting the son of God, but the hypocrisy.
Try as he might, Leonardo could not convince himself to truly believe in the God of the Bible. He couldn’t reconcile the picture preached in Scripture with the suffering he saw. Therefore, he couldn’t imbue his artwork with the authenticity it deserved.
How could the Almighty possibly permit the innocent to endure so much misery? Leonardo knew no benevolent father who would allow his children to suffer.
Leonardo’s faith also snagged on the children part. Scripture says God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. But weren’t we all supposed to be His children?
As Leonardo stared at the space that should already contain the holy face, he again attempted to find a way forward. There were only three options. One, ignore the problem. This was the alternative he absolutely dreaded, for it would make his masterpiece imperfect. Two, embrace faith. The irony of that solution was not lost on Leonardo. To embrace faith, he would need to forsake his greatest God-given ability. His reason. Or three, reconcile faith with reason. This was by far his favored approach, but he did not hold out hope. The great philosophers had all failed to square that circle.
Nonetheless, Leonardo found his torment exacerbated by the constant feeling that he was close to finding that philosophical path. On the verge of grasping something that Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas had all missed. A grand unifying insight that could reconcile faith with reason. Some—
“Leonardo!”
Da Vinci looked up to see Duke Sforza standing before him. His Grace was garbed in a rose-colored cloak resembling Leonardo’s own, but stitched with silver and buttoned with gold.
Despite their similar age and dress, Sforza projected a presence entirely different from Leonardo’s. He presented an air of power accented by a hint of danger. This was an image his voice reinforced. “It’s a double-edged sword, that mighty intellect of yours. I sense that it rarely allows you a peaceful respite.”
“You wanted to see me, Your Grace?”
“Yes, and I suspect that you know why. Prior Gioffre called on me earlier. He’s not a happy monk. He has arranged for King Charles VIII to take mass at Santa Maria delle Grazie during his visit to Milan this weekend. Needless to say, such an honor would pay dividends for a generation to come. But Gioffre insists you have put the privilege in jeopardy by failing to finish the very mural that has attracted His Majesty.”
Leonardo began to speak, but Sforza held up a hand.
“Gioffre also tells me that yesterday you spent twelve hours staring at the painting without so much as lifting your brush. He said that’s not the first time you have indulged in idleness. He added that you have also been spending an inordinate amount of time in the ghetto entertaining drunkards while your work goes unfinished. Is that true?”
Leonardo had lifted his brush, but knew better than to quibble over semantics. “In essence, it is true. But in both instances, I was working. Smearing pigment is the easy part, My Lord. Knowing precisely what to paint is the challenge.”
“And for this you are gaining guidance from the ghetto? I fail to find the connection.”
“Where better to behold the face of a Judas than among the thieves and criminals?” Leonardo asked.
Sforza shook his head. “And Jesus. Are you seeking Him in the slums?”
Leonardo was not about to reveal the true source of that dilemma. “Inspiration comes from strange places, My Lord.”
“I won’t presume to argue with you regarding inspiration. I don’t want to argue with you at all. Promise me this, Leonardo. Promise me you will complete The Last Supper by week’s end. Promise me that I, as the painting’s sponsor, will not have to apologize to the King.”
Leonardo took a deep breath. “I promise.”
“Good. You better get back to it then.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“But first, tell me one thing. When do you intend to finish my ceiling?”
Gabriel
Leonardo raced from Castle Sforza to the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. After leaving his panting horse with a stout stable boy, he walked straight to his scaffolding. He climbed the creaky wooden structure to a well-worn plank poised twenty-five feet above the floor and settled in before the spot where two faces should be staring back at him.
Again he picked up his paintbrush.
Again nothing happened.
Apparently, inspiration did not strike simply because a duke commanded it.
Leonardo’s lack of progress did not prevent onlookers from assembling below. Dozens stopped by on most days to watch him work as though painting a mural were a theatrical attraction.
Leonardo ignored them, as he always did.
One good thing about working in a church was that visitors were required to remain respectful. While their presence often produced a positive effect—the stimulation of sitting high above an attentive crowd—today the audience only furthered the frustration of his indecision.
Leonardo found himself tempted to turn around and ask the observers what the face of God’s only son should look like. Fortunately his tongue thought twice. The question would cause an uproarious scandal with an undoubtedly bitter end. So Leonardo remained seated with his back to the crowd, seeking internal inspiration.
Many hours into his meditation, he must have drifted off, for the next thing he knew, Leonardo found himself face to face with an angel. Or an archangel, to be more precise.
Gabriel did not descend from a cloud or fly forth from shimmering light. He simply appeared there before Leonardo, the way figures in dreams always do.
Leonardo instantly recognized his heavenly visitor. Da Vinci had spent hundreds of hours contemplating, creating and perfecting Gabriel’s every feature while painting The Annunciation. The archangel appeared exactly as the artist had rendered him—with curly locks, feathery wings, and a golden halo.
To Leonardo, the match made perfect sense.
It was his dream.
The archangel’s voice, however, surprised him. Gabriel sounded like Andrea del Verrocchio, the true-eyed artist to whom Leonardo had been apprenticed in his youth.
“Greetings, Leonardo. I’ve come to give you a great gift.”
Now there was an opening line you couldn’t hear too often. Could that gift possibly be the obvious? Leonardo dared not hope. But then, why else would God send His messenger? “The solution to my struggle? You’ve come to give me faith?”
Gabriel smiled, bringing his angelic eyes alight like lapis on fire. “Faith will follow surely as day after night. But what I’ll be giving you is a much greater gift.”
A greater gift than faith? Considering the source, that was a profound promise. Leonardo could not guess where this ethereal encounter was going—but he found himself very eager to get there.
Being an angel rather than a demon, Gabriel did not keep him waiting. “I’m going to give you the ability to render God. First in your mind, then on the mural. I’m going to help you know Him, wholly and completely.”
Leonardo found himself unable to respond. His mind swirled with the color of hope and the light of excitement. His skin began to tingle so severely that he feared he would wake. There was nothing he loved more than the moment of discovery, and this, if accurate, would be the greatest revelation of all.
Since Adam first walked the Garden of Eden, no man had truly and completely understood God.
Although many claimed to.
Most were men whose power, position or prestige depended on that special status. Leonardo had pressed more than a few in an attempt to end his torment. He’d cornered priests in confessionals and bishops in bars. All had evaded specifics with talk of mysterious ways.
But this is just a dream! Leonardo’s excitement dwindled as reality intruded. Dreams had a penchant for being too good to be true. Yes, that had to be it. It would be silly to presume otherwise. Surely the real Archangel Gabriel would not bestow such a unique and precious gift upon a nonbeliever.
But Gabriel’s image failed to fade as discovered dreams usually did. This emboldened Leonardo to ask his question. “Why give me this gift? Why not a monk or a priest? A cardinal or a king?”
The voice of Verrocchio did not hesitate. “I chose you because of your mind, Leonardo. No living monk or priest, cardinal or king, has an intellect your equal.”
Leonardo could almost buy that. Ideas flowed from his mind like water from the Dolomites in spring. He had made scores of significant breakthroughs. Discoveries in art and medicine, optics and astronomy, science and engineering. But not religion.
Gabriel sensed his hesitation. “None of them has a mind as pure as yours.”
The clarification did not help Leonardo. If anything, it boosted his bafflement. Of all the people on the church grounds at that moment, Saint Peter would likely count him among the most sinful. At least in regards to religious practice. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not a matter of piety, but rather one of perspective.”
“Perspective?”
Gabriel clarified. “People naturally look upon God from a selfish point of view. Humans cannot help it. They do not pursue the unseen for altruistic reasons. They seek it in an effort to improve their lives. This leads mortals to make mistakes by interpreting the unknowable in advantageous ways.
“When it comes to religious matters, this self-serving reflex is especially robust among the monks and priests and cardinals and kings. They shape their lives and draw their benefits in accord with favorable definitions and interpretations. Therefore, it is beyond them to consider the Almighty with an unbiased mind.”
Leonardo immediately conceded the point. Everyone attempted to interpret issues and events from a favorable perspective. Most sought their own greater glory. People took credit for their successes and blamed others for their failures. It was preprogrammed. Ordained. Human nature.
Gabriel pressed on. “This individual bias extends to institutions. Every church and chapel, every sect and denomination, derives power from its position as a gateway to God. And like all businesses, each prefers a monopoly. Exclusivity on the ultimate real estate. Ownership of the eternal soul.
“Therefore, all religions tout themselves as the one true path. All emphatically reject and renounce any insight or interpretation that would allow men to bypass their particular collection plate in the quest to know God.”
Leonardo appreciated the argument, but then of course he would. As a figment of Leonardo’s imagination, Gabriel was working with inside information. Nonetheless, his thoughts snagged on a prickly point. Religions were made up of more than the men that ruled them. “What about sacred texts like the Bible and the Quran?”
Gabriel raised a slim finger. “Where do you think those sacred texts came from?”
Leonardo had not previously considered that question.
Gabriel knowingly continued without pause. “Neither they nor any other earthly document was penned by God or delivered by angels. All were composed by men, for men. The Last Supper you are painting, for example, is described in each of the four gospels. The gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Four men. The provenance of those texts is right there in the titles.
“Don’t get me wrong, the Bible and the Quran are full of wisdom and insight, but they are designed to be self-serving. Each was written to facilitate the growth of its religion. And, I should point out, no holy book accomplishes our goal. If any text truly imparted a clear and complete understanding of God, everyone would know it—and we would not be having this conversation.”
“A fair point. But why doesn’t Scripture include the revelation you promise to share?”
Gabriel grew a mischievous smile. “Surely you can deduce that answer from what we’ve already discussed.” The phrase was a favored refrain of his favorite teacher, delivered one last time in Verrocchio’s voice.
The challenge itself took Leonardo but a few seconds to solve. As soon as he did, he felt foolish for not having arrived at the conclusion unbidden. “The revelation doesn’t serve the interests of the church.”
“Correct. In fact, understanding how God works doesn’t serve any organization’s interests—and that creates serious problems. Kings and their counterparts constantly claim that God is on their side. It’s a common tactic used to motivate and manipulate the masses. Anyone attempting to take that tool away would soon find his head bidding farewell to his neck.”
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