immortal person

Early the next morning, an unexpected visitor knocked on Giovanni's door.The herald of the Medici family came to the door of the guest room of the tavern, and the owner of the tavern stood respectfully behind him.He brought with him the official deed, signed by Lorenzo, and handed Giovanni a heavy purse as an advance for the sculpture.

What theme does Your Highness want?asked Giovanni.

At your command, said the herald.

After a pause, Giovanni asked Lorenzo if he had any other words for him.The herald shook his head, and said proudly: "His Highness has always given enough trust to artists who are outstanding enough."

This is a new face. Obviously, he did not know that Giovanni had lived in the palace for a long time before, and this was not the first time he had served the family.This is not surprising, five years have passed, and now not many people know about that time.Giovanni thanked him, and then noticed that he was accompanied by a tail - a boy cowering timidly behind the herald.He has hay-yellow hair and a thin build like straw. He calls himself Petey and is 13 years old.He said that he was a sculptor's apprentice in the Medici Palace, and he had come to be his assistant at the order of the Duke, hoping that he would not refuse.

"I can do simple round sculptures and clay sculptures. Sir, please let me learn from you," he said eagerly, paying attention to Giovanni's expression, "You don't need to pay me commission, His Highness has already given me enough allowance."

Giovanni looked down at him, his eyes shrank for a moment, and then he boldly came forward again.Giovanni nodded without saying much, and he was relieved as if he had been pardoned.After the herald left, he poked his head into Giovanni's room and looked around, wondering, "Do you live here, sir?"

Confusion was clearly written on his face, he didn't understand why a sculptor who was said to be rich enough lived in such a humble room. "We're not staying here, are we? Are you going to live at the palace? If so, can I, too—" he asked.

Needless to say, Giovanni knew his little thoughts.He shook his head.

The hope in the apprentice's eyes was instantly extinguished, but it didn't look very surprising.Giovanni looked at him, and suddenly remembered himself many years ago—how similar, wasn't he the same back then?Yearn for the Medici Palace as a sanctuary.

"People chasing the sun from generation to generation..." He remembered Bertoldo's words.

He shook his head and added, "Let's find another house."

The small guest room in the tavern obviously cannot be used as a work room, and the continuous knocking sound day and night will disturb the rest of other tenants.He told Pitty his intention, and the apprentice's eyes lit up again: "Please entrust this task to me, no one is more familiar with the streets and alleys of Florence than I am. I promise, sir."

He wasn't bragging.On the second day, Pitty negotiated a suitable price with the owner he found, and paid half a year's rent in advance—"Thank you for your generosity, sir." This small gray building is located in the southwest of Lord's Square, with The Medici Palace is just across the street.Giovanni did not contest his rash decision until he came to the attic and found it facing an arched window on the east side of the second floor of the Palazzo Medici.

He turned and took a look at Petey.As if expected, the young apprentice immediately raised his hands: "Your Highness... No, I think, you might want to be closer to the palace."

Giovanni looked at the window.The windows are closed tightly, and the thick silk curtains are closed behind the windows airtightly, making it impossible for people to know the situation in the room.Pitty may not have known it, but he could not forget that it was Lorenzo's bedroom.

And that window has never been opened, and he has never been able to control the sight of it.A few days later, he learned from Pitti that Lorenzo had left for Perugia as early as four days ago, as an envoy from Florence to mediate the local war that had lasted for years.Five years later, Lorenzo is busier than ever. "His Royal Highness is always busy. I have never seen him idle—does he really have time to admire the sculptures in the palace?" When he asked intentionally or unintentionally, Pitty replied like this.Even his doubts were the same as Giovanni's back then.

He got more news about Lorenzo from Pitty.These were things that he tried his best to avoid knowing in the past, but now he can't control the desire to make up for it.He knew that Lorenzo had established a theatrical fund in the city, as the Athenians had done, to finance theatrical productions and performances.His opponents accused him of wasting the "sacred tax" that should have been used for the defense of the city-state, and the creators and writers were grateful to him; he brought Dante's name back to Florence and carved the poet's name on the square. On the floor tiles, every passerby will bow their heads when looking at it, as if paying tribute to the dead poet. "Florence should have its own cultural heroes" - the duke is said to have said so.He guarded the city, cherished it, shaped it, made it whole.Florence was more his child than his junior heir.

When talking about these things, Pitty's tone was full of pride, but occasionally, he would look at Giovanni very strangely, even vigilantly.Giovanni didn't care about the subtle expression that the apprentice thought he was concealing.

After the stone, wax and planks were moved into the attic, it finally had the appearance of a workshop.Together they unloaded the ordered suitcase from the wagon on the last day, and Pitty gasped for its weight.After opening it, he found that there were stacks of parchment scrolls and ancient manuscripts inside, all things that could only be seen in the study of a bibliophile.His eyes widened in disbelief.

In the next few days, he was surprised to find that his teacher spent the whole morning burying his head in the books, and only occasionally jotted down a few images with charcoal.In the afternoon, Giovanni would open the suitcase in which he placed his manuscripts, and look through the albums of pictures painted in Rome.He had spent the past two years in Rome, laboring to build the papal mausoleum, which had earned him his fortune and honour.Rome has long since lost its imperial splendor and is now a haven for whores and thieves, littered with garbage, sewers and cemeteries.But buildings and sculptures from thousands of years ago still survive, even if they are already in dilapidated condition.Outside of the Vatican's projects, Giovanni spent a lot of time documenting drawings of these antiquities, and he knew the city's sarcophagi, niches, and triumphal arches like the back of his hand.He had spent a whole week sitting in the ancient baths tracing patterns, and the snakes and rats in the tall grass were the only living things besides him. "It's gutsy," his assistant at the time said. "You know, you're like a ghost from the old days—the kind that's not for revenge, but for mourning."

maybe.And isn't Florence just a city haunted by the dead? — In the words of the priests.At the Vatican, he had heard bishops whisper together.They called Lorenzo "the prince who released the ghost", and secretly called him contemptuously "the savior" and "the enemy/christ/Christ", just as Innocent VI called Petrarch. "Ghosts of heretics," they emphasized, "Plato, Socrates! Shouldn't they be imprisoned in Limbo?"

How sad that they are at the center of a former empire and have no idea of ​​what civilization used to be like.The Dark Ages - as Petrarch called it - For the past thousand years or so, wisdom has ceased to flow and minds have ceased to be free, but many now believe that it has finally ushered in a ray of dawn again.Something decays, something else emerges, right now, right here, right here in Florence.

What kind of image should be used to express it?Giovanni thought long and hard.In the past five years, he has rarely had the opportunity to read for a long time.Not every court treated scholars as honored guests like the Medici Palace. Clowns, jesters and beautiful oriental slave girls were more welcome existences in those places.Dukes preferred to hang paintings of female nudes on fireplaces rather than heads of ancient kings and generals.And in Florence, in front of the window opposite the Medici Palace, the familiar atmosphere came again, as if he was still sitting at the ebony desk, and Poliziano was sitting beside him—as if he had never been far away.

This is the magic of this city.Like a gust of wind, an undercurrent, something is vigorously sprouting and growing here, and one day, it will change the books of all literate people.

He soon discovered that Pitty's knowledge of Latin was quite superficial, at most he could only read the prayer book, probably Lorenzo did not assign scholars to teach him as he did back then.So he began teaching Pitti grammar, as Poliziano had taught him in the past.This confuses the young apprentice, who is seldom assigned by Mr. Buonarrotti. In fact, although he is kind, he is rather taciturn. persist in.Pitty is a hard-working guy, but not a quiet enough student.As active and talkative as a sparrow, he recognized Giovanni's gentle disposition, and murmured under his breath at every opportunity. "Is this a Greek letter? Didn't those people just scribbled it?" "You must be joking, how can a word have so many inexplicable meanings?"...

Giovanni did not give up.After that, at dawn every day, Pitty had to sit at the table with a sad face, and the voice of him dryly reading "The Gallic War" over and over again echoed in the attic. "I'm only a craftsman," he murmured, in a volume just enough for Giovanni to hear, "why watch things that old pedants like?"

He tried his best to divert Giovanni's attention, but often with little success.The only success came after a fortnight, when he tried to take Giovanni's eyes off the Latin phrases he was translating, in order to correct a few minor errors which he had only just discovered. "Look, sir," he exclaimed suddenly, "that window opposite—that window is open at last! I wonder who lives in it?"

Giovanni paused, then looked up.Sure enough, an old maid was standing in front of the window, maintaining the posture of pushing the window open.On the bed behind her, Lorenzo tucked himself in between the quilts and made a slight gesture to her.It was so far away that Giovanni could not see his movement clearly—the next moment, the window was closed again and the curtains were closed.

"That's His Highness?" Pitty asked, "It turns out that he also had a lazy day."

He had finished cheating, cast a cautious glance at his teacher, Giovanni did not look at him, tired, Lorenzo?How is it possible, such a thing will never happen to the Duke of Medici.This is so abnormal.And...it was almost noon now, why did he close the doors and windows tightly?

He stood up suddenly.

He remembered—how could he forget?Perugia, where Lorenzo went - a plague was raging there.

The author has something to say:

"The saints (such as Su and Ya) before the birth of Jesus were in Limbo Prison" comes from Dante's "Divine Comedy".