CHAPTER 18

SO AGNOLO WAS gone and there would be no sculpting of the David until he came back. I had hoped life in the bottega would return to normal, but after his first fit of annoyance with the boy, Donatello grew half mad with anger and frustration. He was enraged at first that he could not continue with his sculpting but then his rage gave way to worry about the boy himself. He was perhaps ill. Perhaps the Black Pest, even during these winter months, had stolen upon him and borne him off just as he had feared. Or perhaps, taken by force in a sodomite tavern, the boy had been raped and murdered and his body was even now lying in some filthy alley behind the Mercato . . . or was being carried toward Pisa on the swollen waters of the Arno. We must find him. We must search him out.

In truth none of us save Donatello seemed sorry that Agnolo was gone. The garzoni—assistants hired for their specialized skills—were caught up each in his own task and the apprentices, who worked hard and resented all the attention lavished on the boy, were plainly relieved to see him gone. Pagno di Lapo seemed to me indifferent. “He’s run off with that sodomite soldier,” he said, “and he’ll come back when the soldier casts him off.”

I did not say, “All this fuss over a pair of boots.” I bit my tongue instead. But I wondered if this might be a new coyness, yet another assault on Donatello’s patience. How many rival soldiers could Donatello endure? I had no concern for the wretched boy himself; he was vain and stupid and a whore; it was Donato in this new frightening blindness I was concerned for.

Pagno had less concern for Agnolo’s welfare than for the bottega’s commissions, he said. The Prato Pulpit, for instance, was being completely neglected. It was long since time for Donatello—or Michelozzo—to carve the child angels for the cornices. Still, it was Donatello he worried for, and what the boy’s disappearance meant to him. “You must find him,” Pagno said, “he’s with his soldier.” And in Donatello’s hearing, he said, “After all he is your brother.”

As if echoing Pagno, Donatello said, “You will make inquiries? You will find him for me?”

“Of course,” I said. “You need only ask.” But I added, “He is not my brother.”

* * *

I KNEW THAT Agnolo lived with other boys of his kind in the warren of inns and rooming houses on the far side of the Ponte Vecchio, but I set out with little hope of finding him or—more unlikely still—anyone who might know of him. “A comely boy of sixteen? With fair hair? And willing?” They are thirteen to the dozen here, runaways and wild young boys and even the sons of good and noble families, ripe for danger and deviltry.

I went at nightfall, half frozen by the January cold and muffled in a double vest, a long cloak wrapped around me twice and a heavy wool scarf to shield my face against the fog. It was a damp night with rain just starting to fall and a dim moon that provided no light at all. Here and there flickering night torches lit a main street and gave safe passage to people hurrying home from work, but I turned from the main streets to the back alleys and the haunts of prostitutes and cutpurses and criminals of every sort. In such doubtful company and in such darkness and danger, how was I to discover the whereabouts of Agnolo Mattei? And yet, though it seemed impossible, it was not long before I chanced upon a gang of three young toughs who loitered at the head of an alley and who, by their youth and eager appearance, looked as if to welcome me and whatever I might have to offer. I asked about Agnolo—I mentioned his soldier friend—and they claimed to know him. “He wears boots like those of his soldier and he calls himself a sculptor,” one of them said, laughing. “A sculptor!” He was as tall as Michelozzo and as broad. I gave him a few piccioli and asked at what house I might find the boy. “Ask for him at the Buco,” he said. “It is a special house.” They laughed at this fine joke. “Or at the Sant’ Andrea or the Chiasso or the Fico!” I pretended patience. “And what of yourself?” another said. “Do you want for company?” I said I wanted only to find the boy. “He is lost,” I said. “He is my brother.” “Oh, he is surely lost, your brother,” he said and added quickly, “everyone should love his brother.” They were sturdy boys—bravi, you would think to see them. The tall one gave a quick embrace to the boy nearest him and let his hand linger on his buttocks shamelessly. He looked carefully to see my response. The third simpered and said nothing.

I thanked them and came away and sought out Donatello. I was struck of a sudden by how tired he looked, and how much older than his years, and I blamed Agnolo for this. Nonetheless I reported what I had learned, that we should look for him at a tavern called the Buco.

“I know the Buco,” Donatello said. “It’s an evil place.”

The next night we went there together. It was the worst of the January weather and snow was falling lightly as we crossed the Ponte Vecchio. Most of the shops were shuttered for the night and, despite the number of people crossing back and forth, the air was quiet and we could hear the Arno rushing beneath us. I thought of what Donatello had said about Agnolo’s dead body being borne off to Pisa on the swollen river and I shuddered to think I had wished him just such a fate. “Miserere mei Domine,” I said. Donatello, who could not know what I was thinking, cast me an odd glance and said, “Ever the Franciscan.” I took that unkindly and wished Agnolo ill all over again.

The falling snow had begun to gather in the streets, transforming the filth and the slops and the debris of the day into mounds of white and silver, a disguise that for a moment turned the ugly into something beautiful. There was the scent of woodsmoke from the evening fires and I wished we could forget Agnolo and walk on like this together until the night was over. But almost at once we came to the end of the bridge and the start of the Via Lambertesca where the snow turned dirty and the street itself became a stream of mud, dangerous underfoot and ugly to look upon. We reached the alley called Buco from which the tavern takes its name—the tavern is still there today, I am told, and still a haunt of sodomites—and we paused before the door, ill at ease. There were no windows onto the street. Only a hand-lettered sign above a narrow door indicated this as a place of business. “Taverna Buco,” the sign said, and beneath the lettering someone had scrawled what looked to be an erect penis.

“We’ll find him, surely,” I said for want of anything else to say.

The door opened upon a tiny entrance the size of a coffin where still another door opened into the main room of the tavern itself. I pushed the door inward and at once we were assaulted by the din of drunken laughter and the clash of tankards against wood and the roar of voices raised in mindless anger and pleasure and surprise. A great fireplace against one wall heated that end of the tavern, but the chimney drew poorly and smoke poured back into the room and stung the eyes. The noise was constant and the air was thick with the smell of spilled wine and sweat and wet woolen clothes. Serving maids came and went in haste. Tavern boys delivered flagons of wine and ale. A barman, thin to the point of emaciation, was heartily at his work with wine casks and tankards and a handcloth to slop away spills. The Buco had the look of a typical Florence tavern, except that a narrow stairway led to the floors above where there were tiny rooms that could be rented by travelers . . . or by sodomites to entertain their guests, boys and women alike, with rent to be paid by the hour or the night or, in special cases, for longer periods if money was no problem and the need was unremitting. All this was known to be true, though little of it had ever been proved in court. To me it looked like any other tavern in Florence.

Before I had adjusted to the shouts and laughter and before I could well see through the smoke-filled air, we were approached by the tavern keeper who surprised me by bowing slightly to Donatello and greeting him, “Ser Donato. Welcome to my tavern.” I could not tell if the tavern keeper knew him from the past or merely recognized him as the great sculptor he was. From his greeting it was impossible to know with surety.

“Benedicite,” Donatello said, and I wondered if he was mocking me.

“Our tables are full, as you see, but I’ll make up a new one especially for you.” He signaled to a boy and said “Another trestle.” The boy flashed us a broad and willing smile. He was no more than fifteen with a great mass of black curls, a gap in his front teeth, and the awkward, unformed body of a growing youth. He wore the new tight stockings—one leg red, the other yellow—that were meant to show his thighs and buttocks to advantage. Like Agnolo, he was shamelessly for sale.

“I’m looking for a boy,” Donatello said, and when the tavern keeper raised his brows in inquiry, he added, “my apprentice, Agnolo Mattei by name, in training to be a sculptor.”

“There are many boys,” the tavern keeper said, “with many names.”

“Wine, then,” Donatello said and the tavern keeper left us. A serving woman appeared, fat and happy, with her breasts much on display, and in her hands she bore two small tankards of wine. It was of poor quality and faintly sour. The Buco was not patronized for the quality of its drink.

“Agnolo, the sculptor,” she said. “He fancies a farmer’s hat in summer and a soldier’s boots all the year through.” She was pleased to show she knew him. She was that kind of loose woman who is motherly by nature and a prostitute by necessity. They are not uncommon even today. My Alessandra had been one of those . . . Alessandra who today is a nun of the Order of Preachers of San Dominic, Sister Maria Adriana, O.P., may she have long life.

We finished our wine and took leave of the tavern keeper and in the falling snow we made our way back across the Ponte Vecchio. We did not talk about what we had seen at the Buco—a life as far from the bottega as life in a Muslim seraglio—nor about what we would have done had we found him there. We walked in silence, listening to the crunch of snow beneath our heavy shoes. Reluctantly I suggested the other taverns known for prostitution—the Sant’ Andrea or the Chiasso or the Fico—and I was relieved that Donatello did not have the heart for it. Nor did he want to be alone.

Back once more at the bottega he lit a fire and we huddled by it while he ran his worries through his mind and I sat thinking murderous thoughts about Agnolo who was responsible for so much misery. I longed to be home now with Alessandra and my boys. For this misery too, I blamed Agnolo.

“Where do you think he could have gone?”

“To his soldier, I imagine.” I waited for a response and then, because I could not help myself, I said, “Or to a new soldier.”

Donatello shot me a hard look.

“He is not famed for fidelity,” I said.

“He claims you speak only to give him hurt. I wonder if he is right.”

“I speak the truth.”

“Always? I think you are very hard on him.”

“Yes.”

I could not bear to have Donatello think ill of me but no more could I bear to think of them alone together in Donatello’s privy chamber. I tried to force from my mind the thought of what things they did there and I wondered if, in the madness of love, I might be willing to do such things. I looked at Donatello, my father, my friend, and in truth I knew not what I could do. There was a long silence while we carefully studied the fire. It was burning low.

“He could have been arrested. It was late night when he left . . . here”—had he been about to say, “when he left my bed”?—“and it could happen that he ran into a gang of toughs, or soldiers on the lookout, or the Onestà . . . .” His voice drifted off into silence.

“He is too quick. He is too clever.”

But his mind had fixed on this. He has been arrested, Donatello said, he is in the dungeons of the Bargello, they are torturing him, that small body.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow you will go inquire. You must.”

I lowered my head and said nothing.

“He’s only a boy.”

“I’ll go,” I said, “and I’ll find him. Or news of him.”

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, ripe with fear and wearing my new cloak and my red capuccio, I set out to find the offices of the Ufficiali di Onestà.

At the Palazzo della Signoria the guard at the main entrance said he had no knowledge of the Onestà. He yawned. What exactly was I looking for? A young man, I said, perhaps a prisoner. Well, there are no prisoners here in the Signoria, he said, with a wink and a half-smile. If I was in search of a prisoner I should go to the Bargello. But, he added, there are prisoners everywhere in Florence, not all of them in the city jail. I thanked him for his help. He nodded wisely and wished me well.

At the gates to the Bargello I asked for the offices of the Onestà. I was referred to the Office of Information, inside, to the left. There I found, between two armed police, a tiny man with a luxurious black mustache who sat behind a table thick with papers scribbled over in red and black and green: an official’s desk. Two men were ahead of me in line and I waited while their business was dispatched—with a certain amount of fuss and a good deal of contempt for the nuisance they caused—and then it was my turn.

“The Onestà?” He licked one side of his mustache and then the other. He had the white watery eyes of the near blind and, despite the sinister mustache, he had a kindly look. “What is your business with the Onestà?”

“Only an inquiry.”

“About what matter?”

“About a prisoner.”

“In the Bargello?”

“That is what I need to find out. If he is in the Bargello.”

“You won’t get that kind of information. They won’t tell you.” He licked his mustache again and shuffled the papers before him.

“Thank you for your help.”

“They can’t tell you.” He chuckled, pleased. “They don’t even know.”

“Thank you.”

“No one knows. Once in there, you’re gone forever. Sometimes.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ll see.”

He waved his hand in dismissal and, as he instructed, I went outside and down the stairs and turned right. It was icy cold below stairs. I wandered in a dark corridor until I came upon a door with a small plaque that said Ufficiali dell’ Onestà and, beneath it, a smaller handwritten card that said Ser Paolo Ruggiero del Pagone, Conservatore di Legge. There was no guard at the door and no sign of anyone else in the corridor, so I knocked softly and, when there was no answer, I knocked a bit harder. I waited and knocked once more, harder still. I turned away and started back down the corridor when I heard the sound of a door opening. I looked back and there in the doorway marked Ufficiali dell’ Onestà stood a huge man with a bald head and the black gown of a cleric. He was peering anxiously into the dark corridor. He was enormously fat, with tiny slits for eyes and no chin at all and he was murmuring apologies.

“Ser Paolo at your service,” he said and squinted at me. “I was unaware . . . I do apologize . . . I was pissing . . . the smell . . . it is a problem of control . . .”

The air was close and fetid. In truth the room was stale with the smell of old clothes and wet paper and over all the strong sharp smell of urine. Ser Paolo’s skin was very white, like the belly of a fish, as if he had never been exposed to light. I wondered if he slept here.

He waved me inside the office, a narrow room with a table and two chairs and many wooden cases stuffed with notebooks and account books and the bits of paper that accumulate in any place of business. Some of the oldest of these documents were of rolled parchment, yellow as butter, with wax seals still attached. Some had ribbons dangling from the wax. Some were recent, with no seals at all. A small window at the top of the rear wall admitted what little light there was in the room.

Surely this could not be the headquarters of the Ufficiali di Onestà, a powerful branch of the government of the Republic. The Onestà had as its commission to protect the purity of convents and monasteries and—a more recent commission—to prosecute sodomy. And this airless room was their headquarters? This could not be.

I made as if to leave.

“Sit, sit!” he said, and put on a pair of spectacles the better to peer at me. He saw at once that he had mistaken me for someone of importance—my red cappuccio, a gift from Donatello, had misled him—and thus he had wasted his apology on a nobody. He looked startled at this and his tone cooled noticeably.

“Your business here?”

A young man had gone missing and I was looking for him, I said. His name was Mattei, he was a bit wild, and I wondered if at some time in the past week he might have been arrested on suspicion of loitering.

“Loitering,” he said, and readied his notebook and his stylus. He paused to caress the cover of the book and to lay the place-ribbon straight along the binding. “By loitering”—he squinted up at me—“by loitering you mean . . . sodomy?”

“I only ask,” I said.

“Your name?”

“Luca di Matteo,” I watched, anxious, as he wrote it down. He wrote slowly and with care, his tongue between his teeth.

“Di Matteo. Mattei. He is your son?”

“No relation,” I said, “it is a common name.”

“It is a common name. Alas, it is true.” He asked what trade I plied.

I paused. “Engraver,” I said. “Assistant to a goldsmith.”

He wrote ‘engraver,’ slowly, as if it were a great labor. “Employer?”

“Whoever will hire me.” He squinted, displeased, and overcome by folly I said, “The great Lorenzo Ghiberti.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and wrote down “Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti” and underlined the name.

“Well!” he said, and puffed out his cheeks. He looked exactly like a frog.

I was eager now to leave but that was not possible. The interrogation, once begun, must go on until he was satisfied. He continued to ask questions and I responded with lies and he wrote down everything I said. Your residence? I am a visitor from Prato. Then you should ply your trade in Prato. Your residence here in Florence? I made up the name of a rooming house in Santa Croce. Near the Basilica, I said, in the area of the stables and the bake houses. Your interest in this boy? He is the son of an acquaintance; I am inquiring on his behalf. By name? He is a merchant in Prato. Of what name exactly? I drew a deep breath: Ser Lapo Mazzei. And then, improvising, I said the boy goes by Mattei to spare his father shame. Ser Lapo Mazzei was an important merchant, known even in Florence, and he recognized the name at once and entered it in his book. He asked more questions and I answered them, some truly, some not. He squinted at me and wrote down what I said, his tongue fixed between his teeth.

When he had exhausted his store of questions, he asked once more what it was I wanted. He seemed truly to have forgotten. I repeated that I was looking for a boy called Agnolo Mattei who may have been arrested. He shook his head and, to my great surprise, he smiled. “No,” he said.

“No? It is certain?”

“No one has been arrested since before the Christmas feast. Our laws, like all the laws of our great Republic, are better kept than punished. Public decency is our first priority.”

I did not know what he meant so I said nothing.

“We want no more burnings at the stake. If your friend Agnolo is a practicing sodomite and if he confesses voluntarily, he will be pardoned. If he is denounced by someone else, however, we may decide to take action against him.” He spoke gravely, reciting a lesson. “That is how we proceed: we value honor first and then denunciation. Onestà is not a name only. It is a promise.”

“No. Yes. I see.”

“And do you wish to confess anything yourself?” He squinted and leaned forward, his stylus poised above the page.

“No. Nothing.”

“Do you wish to denounce?”

I told him I did not wish to confess or denounce. I was done. I was grateful.

All at once he bent forward and clutched at his stomach. His pale skin grew whiter still. “Go then quickly,” he said, “because I must piss again. It is a sore affliction.” As I moved to the door, he said with urgency, “Go. Only go!”

I could hear the gurgle of urine in the night jug as I closed the door behind me and, with a huge sense of relief, I left to his ledgers and his piss pot the Conservatore di Legge Ser Paolo Ruggiero del Pagone. I made my way quickly along the dark corridor and up the stairs and out again into the world of air and light. Ser Paolo Ruggiero, farewell, farewell!

* * *

IT WAS FREEZING outside but the clean air was welcome and, though I was greatly agitated to have told so many lies—and all of them written down by a government agent—I was much relieved to be able to report to Donatello that Agnolo had not been arrested. I had this on the authority of the Conservatore di Legge himself.

“He has simply gone away then.”

“It would seem so,” I said.

“With his soldier.”

I said nothing.

“I had thought that was behind him.” He laughed, ironically.

“It may be he will come back.”

“Then damn him!” he said. “Let him rot in hell and his soldier with him.”

I was not prepared for his response.

“If he comes back, turn him away. I will not see him. I will have nothing to do with him.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

With that he went to his work table and for an hour or more he sifted through the pile of commissions. Some were for work under way and some for work that had long since been abandoned. He set about rearranging them in their order of importance. “Prato,” he said.

“We have been neglecting Prato. Tell Pagno to come and talk with me at once.”

“My lord,” I said.

He removed the wet cloth from the bozzetto of the David and stood for a moment gazing at it. He touched the shoulder and let his finger drift down the arm to the hand that held the stone. He moved that same finger to the helmet of Goliath and pressed hard against the severed head. I turned away, embarrassed, but I looked back in time to see him lift a hammer and take aim. With a single great blow, he shattered the perfect bozzetto in a hundred pieces. He stepped hard upon the shards of clay and ground them to dust beneath his foot. He was mad with rage, surely, but I studied him keenly and to my eye he appeared calm.

That was the moment when I realized, with a terrible tug at my heart, that it was not just a sexual attraction Donatello felt for the boy. He was—fatally—in love with him.

“Clean away this mess,” he said and then he went outside to tell Pagno di Lapo to begin carving the child angels for the cornices of the Prato Pulpit.