Rome died.
He did not fall in battle, a heroic death immortalized in poetry and myth. He faded, crumbling away little by little until his grandsons were left with nothing but ruins and uncertain memories. Others tied to take up Rome's mantle, but they could not be Rome. They were too small, too weak, too full of their own self importance to understand that occupying the land would never give them Rome's power and might, even if they received the Pope's holy approval.
His grandsons understood when the others did not. They went their separate ways, South and North, to try to hold onto what they knew and find a place for themselves in the chaotic, confused world.
Wars came and went. Rebellions rose and were crushed. King Death raised his scythe, and half the people fell under the shadow of the plague.
Feliciano traveled, from his beloved Venice to Milan to Assisi to Siena to Florence. He wandered the streets, watched new buildings rise with domes and arches like those that had adorned his grandfather's streets. He touched the stones, read the ancient scholars, and tried to see his grandfather's face in the panels of tempera and gold leaf, in the princes who dually wielded war and philosophy, and those who captured the beauty and tragedy of the world, sacred and profane, with a paintbrush.
They called him a genius. They called many genius, poets, artists, philosophers, scientists, but rare was the man who could do all that and do it well. His boundless curiosity and desire to try all things, to know all things, attracted Feliciano instantly. He was entranced, awed, and confused by the depths of Leonardo's knowledge, the way his mind leapt from point to point seemingly without rhyme or reason. But Leonardo thrived on questions, even as he peppered Feliciano with ones of his own.
"Tell me about Giotto again," he asked as his paintbrush glided slowly over the wood panel in carefully measured strokes. Feliciano sat near him nibbling on an orange.
"He was funny," he replied. "He liked to make me laugh." Leonardo smiled at that. The blonde had largely faded from his hair, and the lines etched in his face were deeper, but his smile was the same as the confident young man Feliciano had met in Verrocchio's studio, the one whose potential shone so bright that his master considered giving up painting for good.
Leonardo continued to work, although he frequently stopped to make notes in his notebook about the new catapult he designed. On the previous page, he had drawn a study of a bird's wing and the one before that, a man's arm flayed to reveal the muscles and bone that Feliciano was too scared to look at for long. He much preferred Leonardo's current project. Hopping off his stool, he approached the painting. For once, he thought Leonardo might finish this one, but even if he abandoned it now, it would still take his breath away. The painting was dark, the landscape rocky. It did not look like anything Feliciano had ever seen, nothing like the quiet rolling Tuscan hills so many artists included in their paintings of the Holy Family. It was mysterious and alien, more akin to something half-remembered from a dream. Yet when he stared, he could almost hear the trickling of water dripping off the towering rocks that seemed to encircle the holy ones like a church hewn from a grotto.
"Why the focus on John?" he asked. "Should the angel not be pointing at Christ?"
Leonardo glanced up from his notes. "The road of a prophet is difficult and full of self-doubt. John was killed by a king who made a hasty promise. He will need all the blessings he can get."
Feliciano nodded. The angel looked back at him, smiling enigmatically. Feliciano's eyes traveled up to the serene image of the Virgin, her long-fingered hand hovering over the infant Baptist, and tried to understand.
He had known Michelangelo since he was a boy carving satyrs in il Magnifico's household. He stepped around the sculptor gingerly, eager not to disturb him and set off Michelangelo's temper. Michelangelo preferred privacy when he worked, disliking anyone watching him for fear another artist might steal the ideas he had worked so hard to cultivate. Despite his protests, Feliciano liked watching him work. Michelangelo handled marble like it was modeling clay, chipping and chiseling until he revealed the angel within. Feliciano wondered if Michelangelo talked to the marble when he was alone. He would not be surprised if the marble spoke back to the man who understood it so well.
But it was not marble that Michelangelo worked with today. He had painted an image of the Holy Family. They twisted and grasped and reached, the pyramid of their bodies creating an earthly trinity. The brilliance of the colors seared Feliciano's eyes. When he closed them, he could still see the flashes of vibrant pinks, blues, and oranges.
"If you have something to say, say it," Michelangelo grumbled without turning around. Feliciano did not know what to say. The painting was strong yet serene, divine, even if Michelangelo painted the Virgin's bare, muscular arms. But how was that different from David in the Palazzo, standing nude and resolute before God and the giant?
"I thought you were a sculptor," he blurted out.
Turning, Michelangelo frowned deeply. Feliciano flinched. "I am," he sighed, after a long moment's silence. "I find my joy and purpose in marble. However, I received a job, and I will complete it."
"You are a good painter."
Michelangelo shook his head. "Don't. You sound like my father." He returned his attention to the painting, adding a detail to the strange line of nude men arranged behind the Holy Family. "Anyone with enough practice can paint something. It is another thing to bring stone to life and make it breathe."
Feliciano thought of stone friezes of the Virgin made by a young sculptor still learning his craft. They were still, frozen, impassive, so different from the brilliance and vitality captured here. This Virgin was alive, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted as she reached for her Child. He wondered what else Michelangelo was trying to bring to life. He dared not ask.
"Come here, little one." Feliciano eagerly ran into Raphael's outstretched arms. Scooping him up, Raphael nuzzled his cheek as Feliciano giggled helplessly. Across the room, Lovino scowled, shook his head, and stomped out.
Later, Feliciano found his brother throwing stones into a fountain. He picked one up for himself, but Lovino's aim was better, and Feliciano's stone barely skimmed the edge.
"Why don't you like Raphael?" he asked.
"It's not that I don't like him," Lovino replied. "It's you. You let him treat you like his child, and you're not."
"No I don't!" he protested. "It's not like that." Raphael was just gentle with him. He carried Feliciano when he grew tired, read to him, sketched with him, made sure he was safe and comfortable at night. But he was like that with everyone, gracious and considerate. Feliciano was not special. He was not.
"Idiot. He'll die like they all die, and you'll be alone. Again."
"No. No." Tears stung his eyes. He shoved Lovino away. "You don't know. You don't understand anything!" He ran until his feet carried him back to the studio. Even though the hour was late, Raphael was still there. He sat, legs crossed, on the ground in front of his unfinished painting, sketching on a loose sheet of paper. He looked up as Feliciano entered, pushed his sketches aside, and pulled Feliciano into an embrace.
"Hush, hush," he murmured as Feliciano buried his face into Raphael's black doublet. "What has sparked this?" He scanned Feliciano's body quickly. "Are you all right?"
Feliciano nodded. "I was just sad."
"There now. I know." With a comforting smile, Raphael rocked him until he quieted. He dried Feliciano's tears. "Come, why don't we looked at how it is coming along." Picking Feliciano up, he carried him closer to the painting. The two angels Feliciano and Lovino modeled for gazed up contemplatively at the Virgin and Child hovering above them. Mother and Infant stared out, eyes wide and sorrowful and full of fear.
"There is a crucifix on the opposite wall where this will hang," he explained. "It seemed appropriate."
"They see mortality." Feliciano turned from the vision. Raphael was young still. Closing his eyes, Feliciano clung tighter to his neck.
Raphael died.
He did not die an old man, comfortable in his bed with a long life and career behind him. He died suddenly, caught up in the long sweep of Death's scythe. They buried him in the Pantheon, a mortal god among the ancient ones. Feliciano tried not to think about him fading, crumbling away until he was nothing but dust encased in a marble tomb.
Time did not give him long to mourn.
Invaders came once more, ransacking and burning everything their shadow touched. A few decades ago, they had stood in awe of all his people's accomplishments. Admiration had turned to envy, which became greed.
Austria, dizzy with pride over his victory, dragged Feliciano to his country and locked him away, a prize destined for little else but servitude to his new conqueror.
Feliciano wept, but there was no one to hold or soothe him. Leonardo had died in the French king's arms. Michelangelo was far beyond his reach now. Spain took his brother. Rome was gone.
"Do you know what Michelangelo was working on when he died?" Austria asked him one morning almost four decades later. "A sculpture of the dead Christ in his mother's arms. I saw it the last time I was in Rome. It was quite unfinished and rather strange looking, but I suppose something of the man's genius lingered there."
Feliciano said nothing. In his mind, he saw it, the elongated bodies, the roughness of the stone masking Mother and Son's faces as if this was a private scene of divine grief to be veiled from mortal eyes. He shook his head. Austria would never understand. He only sought the remnants of past glory.
Alone in the privacy of his tiny room, Feliciano picked up his paintbrush.
Virgin of the Rocks, Doni Tondo, Sistine Madonna, Rondanini Pietà
Leonardo probably didn't die in Francis I's arms. That was one of the (many) fictional stories in Vasari's Lives of the Artists. It was widely believed at the time, however, and France was probably proud that Leonardo had died in his country rather than Italy's.
Some scholars speculate that Michelangelo's "distant" early Madonnas were him working through his issues about his mother's death when he was six. Or he was just emulating the stately matrons in Roman friezes. Take your pick.