Da Vinci's Ghost by Toby Lester

its humanists? Elegant music, luxurious clothing, effeminate manners, witty talk, parlor games, domesticated animals, playful encounters with the exotic and the grotesque: he delighted in all of these things. In Milan, surrounded by such finery and generously supported by the duke, he might be able to pursue his interests in an environment far removed from the noise and mess of the Florentine workshops in which he had come of age. “The well-dressed painter ,” he later wrote, describing the studio of his dreams, “sits at great ease in front of his work and moves a very light brush, which bears attractive colors, and he is adorned with such garments as he pleases. His dwelling is full of fine paintings and is clean and often filled with music or the sound of different beautiful works being read, which are often heard with great pleasure, unmixed with the pounding of hammers or other noises.”
    When Florence seemed to be turning against him later in the decade, it’s easy to understand how Leonardo might have allowed himself to imagine creating a new life for himself at the Milanese court—and why, when Lorenzo asked him to travel there in 1481 as a kind of musical ambassador, he decided to make the most of the opportunity. If music, rather than painting, was to be his entrée into this new world, so be it.
    * * *
    O N D ECEMBER 26, 1476, in Milan, Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza and a small entourage arrived at the Church of Santo Stefano, planning to attend Mass. Minutes later, the duke lay lifeless on the floor, knifed to death by three local assassins.
    The murder created a political vacuum; Sforza’s elder son, Giangaleazzo, was only seven years old. Two years of bitter infighting and political maneuvering ensued, until, in 1479, the duke’s younger brother Ludovico seized power. Declaring himself regent, Ludovico cynically announced that he would rule until his late brother’s son came of age. “I take up the burden of power,” he said, “and leave the honors of it to my nephew.” In all but name, he had become the city’s duke. Many of his subjects, alluding to the swarthy color of his skin, soon began calling him simply the Moor.
    Born in 1452, the same year as Leonardo, Ludovico received a respectable education as a boy. He read Latin and was proud of his skills as an orator. As a young man he spent several years living in exile in Tuscany, and while there came to recognize the degree to which Milan lagged behind Florence as a cultural power. Upon becoming regent he decided to rectify matters, devoting himself to matters of not only war and politics and commerce but also the arts.
    Ludovico embraced the atmosphere of triumphant medievalism that he had inherited from his predecessors. He lived in a castle. He had a passion for heraldry. He commissioned churches in the Gothic and Lombard style. He surrounded himself with scholastic astrologers, doctors, and philosophers. He hired a fawning coterie of poets and painters to record hisgreatness. He sought out talented musicians and dancers from all over Europe to adorn his court. He sponsored lavish pageants, hosted jousting festivals, and hunted with hounds.
    At the same time, not immune to the Renaissance fever sweeping other parts of Italy, he launched a genuine program of cultural improvement in his city. From Florence and other important Italian cities he imported architects, artists, and writers, even going so far as to bring one Florentine writer to his court to help smooth out what he considered “the coarse speech of the Milanese.” He had an eye for genuine artistic talent, too—and when Lorenzo de’ Medici sent a certain Master Leonardo to play music at his court as a goodwill gesture on the part of the city of Florence, he recognized that the man had it in spades.
    Leonardo traveled to Milan sometime between late 1481 and early 1483—quite possibly in mid-February 1482, to perform or compete in the city’s Ambrosian festival. By Vasari’s