The Medici Boy by John L'Heureux - Brilliant Novel Spotlighting Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (Donatello) Out in Hardback Tomorrow!

Inside view of Battistero di San Giovanni
 Church in Florence, Italy. Funeral
 monument of the pope, then antipope
, John XXIII (1410-1419), made by
 Donatello and Michelozzo; Baptistry,
Florence, Italy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

~~~

Michelozzo

I had failed with Father Saint Francis and in different way with Cenntino and Ghiberti and I was sick with desire for Alessandra, who alone did not hold me a failure. But I would not see her until Sunday and today was Wednesday and rejected and shamed, I was now about to meet the great Donato di Betto Bardi, called Donatello, orafo e scharpellatore, goldsmith and stone carver.

He stood before a clay armature, looking from the comely wax head he was modeling tgo the model himself who sat in front of him on a little platform, anxious and uncomfortable. This was to be the head of Louis of Tolosa, the boy saint who gave up his kingdom to become a Franciscan mendicant.

Donatello

"We won't disturb him while he's working," Michelozzo said.

Michelozzo was of course Michele di Bartolomeo, Donato's chief assistant, who stood with me while I waited to be presented to my new master. I felt like a dwarf beside him. He was broad and tall, with huge rough hands, and so heavily muscled that his evident strength was the first thing you noticed about him. It was for reason of his size they called him Michelozzo: Big Michele, a gentle giant. The second thing you noticed was the warmth of his eyes. They were gray, going on blue, and they looked kindly on whatever they saw.

~~~

This book was sponsored by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial foundation with a generous grant that allowed the author to conduct research background. It includes extensive historical background on the artisans that were alive at the time The Medici Boy was created. By presenting the material as literary fiction, L'Heureux successfully takes readers back into the Renaissance world of art, he brings in the power of politics, but also the sexuality of the time and especially within the communities... The author shared in an ending note that it was clear to him, as it will be to most individuals who might compare the Davids by Michelangelo and Donatello, that there is a distinctly erotic flavor to that by Donatello. I chose to emphasize this as an expression of today's continued, constant discourse on the issue of homosexuality.  Most of would recognize that the "Sodom and Gomorrah" story first placed the issue of same-sex choices as a religious issue. The official word used at that time is thus part of this novel. For purposes of my review, I'm choosing to use "Gay" as that used by today's world.

The Medici Boy

By John L."Heureux

I found this a sad story from the point of gay love. It appeared that Donatello did indeed fall in love with the model for this statue. It is truly beautiful--more in appreciation of the model as opposed to the demeanor of the original David. The author tries a number of intriguing attempts to ensure that there was a feeling of what was actually happening--the murder of Goliath by David, as guided by God--but none of those efforts seemed to change the obvious provocative poses taken by the model, and the failure of Donatello to hide his own passion. The novel excitingly complements in narrative form what we ourselves see in the finished product. We cannot help but be impressed by the story created so accurately to illustratively define his work on this particular piece... because the erotic, almost exhibitionist poses, are not found from other works on this genius... which I'm including for some of the works also mentioned in the book.

In an interesting approach, the author does not really even get into homosexuality. Rather, it is seen as the needs and early play of boys, which will, at some time in life, be put away so that the man will marry and begin his family. I am sure there were men, however, such as Donatello, who never married, just as there were men who married who seemed to prefer the homosexual life. 

Cosimo de' Medici

The patron who had requested Donatello's David seemed to me to be written that way...since he had commissioned the statue with the boy model and then when finished, drew his hand across the backside of the model...

And so was, too, the narrator of the story...

We began with David's hat. It was
fired in the oven, the wax was drained
out,, and then...

But I would not lie down in his
little room. I would not stay and
listen to the loving words passed
back and forth...

It was the time of the Black Pest and Luca lost family so that he ultimately was living with a family who were dyers. Unfortunately, this arrangement ultimately led to the destruction of Luca's life, as it had been once he had left that home, since it was a son of that family, Agnolo, who became the artist model...

Ahhhh, but, it was the Kiss...a friendly kiss by Donatello of Luca, that really, in my opinion, started it all. For it was on that day that Luca admitted to himself what he felt he now was... I tend to feel that his love was more that of hero worship, but that's just my personal  opinion because thereafter nothing happened between the two, although Luca did once bring it up with Donatello only to be kindly rebuffed...with the explanation of who he would love for all his life...

Cosimo was not only rich but a very important leader in Florence although he had no formal title. Still, it was the head of another rich family who made it a political issue when he started speaking and then acting out against Cosimo. Cosimo is written to be extremely intelligent, shown through his accomplishments, but from the artisans life, he was the supporter that kept many, if not most of them working! Thus Donatello and his work group was prey for the potential chance of using them to disgrace Cosimo in some way...

But if he was forced to leave his home in Florence, which he once was, Cosimo, who chose Michelozzo as his architect whenever available, would merely have new building facilities created and would then have Donatello and his friend/assistant Michelozzo begin working in that new area of Italy.

In telling the story from the perspective of Luca, we learn intimately about his life, his early escapades with women, which is most of the time why he doesn't succeed in any of his work! Perhaps wisely, it was Donatello who not only gave his permission but increased his wages in order to marry, as well as fund the wedding.  Donatello was as generous with his money as was his patron, Cosimo. Luca was not to be an artist, but he came to more and more take on the assistant work which had to be accomplished by Michelozzo, and thus freeing him to become full partner in that business.

But in telling the story from Luca's perspective--that of a man who had come to love his Master, we see his internal jealousy when he could not be an artisan, but worse, when Agnolo became the flirtation of his life as he walked back into Luca's life and seemed to negatively touch not only Donatello, but everybody else who worked there. He discovered that several others there had been with Agnolo and, for Luca, this was disloyalty toward his master, as well as painful to himself as he struggled with his personal jealousy that he was not able to intimately work with this great man. Heartbreak grew worse when Agnolo got involved with his wife and family...

During all that is personally going on, readers are able to become totally involved with the making of some of the greatest works done by Donatello... but it was The Medici Boy that had started a new period... 

My favorites from the book I think were of Mary Magdalen, and of the beautiful horse and rider first bronzed... as well as, of course, many religions icons commissioned by the churches and other magnificent facilities in Italy. It's an easy search to pull up full information on his fantastic works so I've not named each of those provided here... 

...At just this time I discovered that Agnolo's thoughts
inclined toward Caterina, and his thoughts--as
always--had led to action...
"I have spoken to her, firmly," Michelozzo said,
"and you must speak to Agnolo...

I knew this, I had heard it before, but now, alone with him in this freezing Bottega, it was as if Donatello had plunged a knife in my stomach and turned it.

"I know," I said, "You love him," We were silent for a long time and then I said, shyly, exploring, "Was there not a time when you felt the same for me?"

He looked at me, uncomprehending. Then he took a sip of wine and sat back and looked at me sadly. "Luca" he said, "Not in that way. Never in that way."

"And yet you kissed me." I spoke coldly and I was bitter in my mouth and in my heart...

...Donatello di Betto Bardi would bring the city everlasting fame with his great equestrian  bronze of Gattamelata...

"

Agnolo posed for him with a rare patience. He tired quickly and he had trouble breathing but he never complained. Nor did he object to being portrayed as ugly. Donatello had dressed him, as he imagined the Baptist would look, in a long ragged tunic, shredded at the bottom to resemble a tattered animal skin. About his shoulders he wore a rough scarf to shield him against the night cold. His legs and feet were bare. In his raised right hand he clutched a small reed cross and in his left he held a parchment scroll, His matted hair hung in clumps. There was no trace left of that beautiful youth of the Medici boy.

John the Baptist gradually emerged from the walnut trunk... 

He was at this time sixty-four years of age, a small man of immense strength of mind and body, and though his eyesight had begun to fail a litt,e his hands remained strong and certain and he could carve better in this his old age than most sculptors at the peak of their powers. Also he had chosen his assistants with care and wisdom. And he was happy.

He was happy because his work had gone well and because he was surrounded by artisans he loved and respected and because at his little house...were the men he most trusted, Pagno di Lapo and myself. There too was the great burden of his life, the other half of his soul, the unremitting source of his job and his grief, Agnolo Mattei, once the young bronze Medici boy and now a man well advanced in the process of decay... 

It was the sculpture of Mary Magdelene which was done
before the time when Agnolo did his last model work for
Donatello... It also was done later in life as was for Mary. That sculpture was placed in Donatello's private room at work rather than being placed for another commission... That was the beginning of the end of the book...and much more... I knew something dramatic would happen at the end, but I still did not expect what did. For in the end, passion did drive all of their lives... History lovers - a must-read...

Highly recommended for a biographic historical novel based upon living characters of the Renaissance!

GABixlerReviews

John L'Heureux has served on both sides of the writing desk: as staff editor and contributing editor for The Atlantic and as the author of sixteen books of poetry and fiction. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker, and have frequently been anthologized in Best American Stories and Prize Stories: The O'Henry Awards. His experiences as editor and writer inform and direct his teaching of writing. Since 1973 he has taught fiction writing, the short story, and dramatic literature at Stanford. In 1981, he received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, and again in 1998. His recent publications include a collection of stories, Comedians, and the novels, The Handmaid of Desire, Having Everything, and The Miracle.

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