SIMONE MARTINI LEANS FORWARD AND STARES INTO the eyes of Jesus, frowning. The Savior’s face is scarcely a foot away, and Simone’s not sure he likes what he sees. Can these really be the eyes of the Son of the Almighty? If so, shouldn’t they be larger, wiser, more…godlike, somehow?
“Not bad,” says a voice, so unexpected and startling that Simone jerks upright, whacks his head on a ceiling beam, and nearly topples off the scaffold—a twenty-foot fall to a stone floor, which would surely smash his skull like a ripe melon. His surprise and dizziness swiftly give way to pain and to anger. Who has dared to interrupt him at this delicate moment, as he’s making the final repair to the fresco? Didn’t he give strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed? The paint must be applied before the plaster dries; otherwise it won’t bond properly and the fresco will be ruined. Truth be told, Simone had been on the verge of laying down his paintbrush, satisfied with the Savior’s eyes after all. Still, he finds the intrusion doubly infuriating: His order was ignored, and now a bump on his head hurts like the devil. Rubbing the rising knot, he looks down to see which of his assistants has just earned a thumping.
But it’s not an assistant. Simone can’t see the man’s features—the hood of a cloak shrouds the face in shadow—but Simone knows his half-dozen apprentices by their shape and stance, and this stooped, stumpy creature isn’t one of them. “The face is quite good,” the stranger adds. “But the hands are too small and the fingers are much too short.” Simone can hardly believe his ears. Who is this rude fellow, and how dare he criticize the work of Siena’s most respected painter? “If you’re depicting Christ giving a blessing, the right hand must be more prominent; the first two fingers must be long and slender.” Insolence! thinks Simone. Insufferable insolence! Quivering with rage, he scampers down the scaffold and draws back his fist.
The little stranger removes his hood, and Simone gasps. “Master Giotto!”
Giotto di Bondoni, the best artist in Tuscany—and therefore the best in the world—springs into an old man’s parody of a fighter’s crouch. Then he laughs, steps forward, and flings his arms around Simone in a hug. When he releases him, he steps back and surveys the immense fresco, which covers an entire wall of Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, the city’s center of government. Originally painted by Simone in 1315, the fresco depicts the Virgin Mary surrounded by saints and—above her, at the top of the painting—Jesus, raising his right hand in benediction. During a storm a few weeks ago, a leak in the roof damaged a bit of the painting. Had the rivulets appeared a few inches lower—streaking Christ’s cheeks, rather than discoloring his hair—the change would have been hailed as a miracle: “Behold! The Savior weeps!” Instead, it was dismissed as water damage, requiring a big scaffold and a small repair.
The old master makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the entire fresco. “Not bad,” he says again, this time in a voice whose warmth and admiration are unmistakable. “Not bad at all, especially for a plaster boy who was always slow.”
Now it’s Simone’s turn to laugh. “I wasn’t slow—just overworked. You were too cheap to hire enough helpers.”
“Cheap? Cheap? Are you kidding? Do you know what I got paid for those frescoes in Padua? Nothing. Less than nothing. Three years I worked like a dog in that chapel, and that bastard Scrovegni paid me a pittance. You know what I had to do to make ends meet? I’m ashamed to tell you, Simone. I made copies of Duccio’s paintings and signed his name—pretended they were his work!—because Duccio fetched better prices than I did back then. And that’s not the worst of it. Once, when I needed money to buy more pigments, I put greasy pig bones in gilded boxes and sold them as relics of saints.” Simone is shocked; he opens his mouth to ask a question, but Giotto waves him off. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too degrading.” He makes a face of distaste. “And the Scrovegnis rich as kings. You know how they made their money, yes?” Simone shrugs; he’d heard the rumors, of course, swapped by gossiping assistants as they mixed plaster or ground pigments, but he’s not sure how much he’s supposed to know. And besides, he doesn’t want to deprive Master Giotto of the pleasure of telling the story. “Usury,” Giotto hisses. “Lending money at ruinous rates. Worse than the Jews, that family. Ever read Dante’s Inferno?” Simone shakes his head. “Dante puts Scrovegni’s father in the seventh circle of Hell for usury. I’d put Scrovegni the younger in the eighth circle, for fraud. Usurers, liars, and thieves, the whole family.”
Giotto spits—right on the floor of the public palace, the most beautiful building in Siena!—then looks again at the fresco, and beams. “Ah, but this is wonderful, Simone. Huge, too—almost as big as my Last Judgment in the Scrovegni chapel.” He turns to Simone and looks his former apprentice up and down. “How old are you now?”
“Forty-four, Master Giotto.”
“Amazing. You were a beardless boy when you mixed plaster for me in Scrovegni’s chapel.”