Andrea del Sarto (three years younger than I with cheeks so angular and nose so long that his face looks like a masquerade mask) and I grabbed three more chairs and cups of ale for Ghirlandaio and the other two artists quick on his heels: Andrea della Robbia (I admire Andrea’s blue-and-white terra-cottas almost as much as I admire his style; that day he was wearing a purple feathered hat that only Andrea could pull off without provoking laughter) and Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was one of the first artists I befriended upon entering Florence; he has a soft spot for handsome young men, so he invited me to his studio to copy whenever I wanted. I’m sorry you never met him. Like his paintings, he’s hard to picture without seeing in person. Back then, he was over fifty with a graying beard (I predicted correctly that he’d have a full head of silver before another year was out). He was taller than you’d think, and his golden eyes always pranced around, making you feel like you were missing out on half-a-thousand things happening right in front of you. Dropping into the chair next to me, he said, “If I’m not upset about the damned fresco, Davide, you have no right to be.”

I tucked my hair behind both ears and asked, “What’s going on?”

No one spoke as we waited for Leonardo to take a long, slow drink—no one ever spoke when waiting on the maestro. He ran his tongue along his teeth and finally responded, “The city has hired someone else to paint the wall opposite mine inside the Hall of the Great Council.” For about a year, Leonardo had been working on his large-scale fresco, The Battle of Anghiari—a depiction of a Florentine military victory over the Milanese. Even in a city home to many of the greatest works of art in history, people hummed with the promise of such a masterpiece from such a master: Imagine the pilgrims it will attract! Imagine the fame! Imagine the glory! I’d never considered that the city would hire a different artist to compete with Leonardo on the opposite wall in the same room. And I’d certainly never considered what Leonardo said next: “To paint that wall, the city has hired Michelangelo.”

I sat back hard in my chair. I’d learned the sculptor’s name soon after settling in Florence; after the David, everyone was talking about him. Michelangelo Buonarroti was the son of a proud Florentine family that had fallen on hard times, and it was now up to Michelangelo to support his destitute father, stepmother, grandmother, uncle, aunt, and four gadabout brothers. If the city had offered him a lucrative painting commission, he no doubt would take it. The sculptor was to become a painter, after all. I took out my father’s old paintbrush and began to twirl.