“By 1500 the two artists were back in Florence. Michelangelo, then twenty-five, was a celebrated but petulant sculptor, and Leonardo, forty-eight, was a genial and generous painter who had a following of friends and young students. As Vasari reported, he displayed instead “a very great disdain” toward Leonardo. One day Leonardo was walking with a friend through one of the central piazzas of Florence wearing one of his distinctive rose-pink (rosato) tunics. There was a small group discussing a passage from Dante, and they asked Leonardo his opinion of its meaning. At that moment Michelangelo came by, and Leonardo suggested that he might be able to explain it. Michelangelo took offense, as if Leonardo were mocking him. “No, explain it yourself,” he shot back. “You are the one who modelled a horse to be cast in bronze, was unable to do it, and was forced to give up the attempt in shame.” away. On another occasion when Michelangelo encountered Leonardo, he again referred to the fiasco of the Sforza horse monument, saying, “So those idiot [caponi] Milanese actually believed in you?” “Leonardo was handsome, urbane, eloquent and dandyishly well dressed,” wrote Michelangelo’s biographer Martin Gayford. “In contrast, Michelangelo was neurotically secretive.” He was also “intense, disheveled, and irascible,” according to another biographer, Miles Unger. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 368). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. personal religious practice, Michelangelo was a pious Christian who found himself convulsed by the agony and the ecstasy of faith. They were both gay, but Michelangelo was tormented and apparently imposed celibacy on himself, whereas Leonardo was quite comfortable and open about having male companions. Leonardo took delight in clothes, sporting colorful short tunics and Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 368). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. fur-lined cloaks. Michelangelo was ascetic in dress and demeanor; he slept in his dusty studio, rarely bathed or removed his dog-skin shoes, and dined on bread crusts. “How could he fail to envy and detest the easy charm, the elegance, refinement, amiable sweetness of manner, dilettantism, and above all the skepticism of Leonardo, a man of another generation, said to be without religious faith, around whom there constantly strutted a crowd of beautiful pupils, led by the insufferable Salai?” wrote Serge Bramly.14 Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (pp. 368-369). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 367). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 367). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 367). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 367). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. ”
