The beam of light coming from the window shone directly in Giancarlo’s face, causing Giancarlo to wake with some degree of annoyance. His experiment was working though, and this sunbeam that had penetrated through the only crack in his curtains has caused him to awake every day before seven. No longer did his mother barge into his room shouting insults like “bastardo” and telling him to stop sleeping the day away. Instead, Giancarlo is greeted by an unusual amount of cheeriness in her voice, for she believed that by getting up early, he was developing the habits of a hard-working man. It was this same cheeriness that greeted Giancarlo as he entered the kitchen.
“Salute Giancarlo,” his mother says in a singsong voice. Though her once blonde hair has now begun to grey and her skin is becoming saggy, Madonna Valeria has always retained a youthful and lively spirit. “Your brother and father have already left to go to the piazza but it’s not too late to catch up with them. Are you joining them?”
“Mama, you know that I’m not. Messier Lucardi needs me in his bottega today. Messer Pitti is pushing us to finish the statue of Judith by next month, so time is of the essence!” There was a hint of annoyance in Giancarlo’s voice.
His mother gave a quick wave of the hand. “Yes, but are you getting paid to do that? Do you see a single florin of Messier Lucardi’s commission?”
It was a trap. Giancarlo swallowed. “No, but- “
“Exactly! You are a man of seventeen now, you should be earning money so you can move out of here and one day
“But mama,”
“Giancarlo, you know I love you and your father has put a lot of our spare money towards your education, but I wonder, is there any money down the path you are going? You could be a fine sculptor, yes, but what good is a sculptor without a benevolent patron funding them? I mean what about the Medici? Bless Messier Lorenzo’s soul but what if, and god forbid, the Pazzi were successful yesterday! Do you think that they would be commissioning artists?”
“How could you say that Mother!? You insult Messer Giuliano’s memory!”
“I weep for Messer Giuliano too and we all hope it’s never comes to that and the Medici have a long and prosperous rule in this city, but don’t I have a point?”
“It isn’t even the Medici that are commissioning Messier Lucardi’s statue, it’s the Pitti!”
“And yet the same thing can happen to them. Giancarlo, I love you but if all the patrons disappear, so too will the art; that is not the same for a judge.”
“No mama,” Giancarlo yelled; his blood was boiling. “When a tyrant takes over, he still wants art. The Pazzi has paid to decorated a fine chapel in Santa Croce, the Montefeltro’s have built an ideal city in Urbino! A tyrant keeps his artists, he only forces all of the judges out of office instead! And then what will they do?” Unable to stand his mother’s early morning ambush anymore, Giancarlo stormed out of the house.
“Giancarlo! Aspetta!” He heard his mother calling as he slammed the door.
The audacity of his mother to say those things! Doesn’t she know that art is eternal and that beauty exists even without a wealthy lord to pay for it? Art was his calling- drawing, sculpting, poetry; he was not going to waste his life being a judge sorting out some peasant squabbles. After over a millennium of slumber, the world was awakening, and here he was at the epicenter of it all; he was not going to miss his opportunity to play his part in this wondrous new world.
Giancarlo’s anger was brought to a boil when a young toddler accidentally bumped into him while running around in front of his house. With one easy motion, Giancarlo pushed him aside. The toddler let out a shrieking wail as he fell to the ground.
“Watch out next time Michelangelo!” Giancarlo shouted with exasperation. Michelangelo only wailed harder in response.
Header Picture: Primavera, Sandro Botticelli. 1482.