Da Vinci's Cat

Sir Federico Gonzaga is the son of the Duke of Mantua.  He has been held hostage in the Vatican by Pope Julius II, in order to ensure the continued loyalty of the Duke.  

Sir Federico has a fine eye for ranks of nobility, for court etiquette, and for proper dress.  We would call him arrogant, but he is acting as he has been brought up.  He feels a strong duty to maintain the dignity of his father and of his family.

Sir Federico is also lonely and bored.  He has many important acquaintances -- the pope himself plays backgammon with him, and is often enraged when he loses -- but he has no true friends.  This is understandable, because Sir Federico is only eleven years old.  A child surviving in a court of intrigue.

The boy makes his first friend when he opens a large, ornate box and meets a lively, friendly, and intelligent kitten.  The two are inseparable, until the kitten walks back into the box and disappears.  Federico is devastated, but the kitten emerges again, a short time later, as a fully grown, elegant cat.  Federico fears witchcraft.

But the reality is even stranger.  The box is a time machine, one crafted -- we eventually learn -- by Leonardo da Vinci as a gift for the King of France.

Thus begins Da Vinci's Cat (2021), a novel apparently aimed at middle school students, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.  The plot is perhaps too elementary, and the human relations too superficially described, to serve as an adult novel (but not perhaps as a sci-fi or fantasy novel).  And yet, it appeals to adults (to this one, in any event), while it may seem too rich in history and art to be accessible (or of interest) to the typical middle school reader. 

Leonardo himself plays little additional part in the story.  But Federico is close friends with Raphael (elegant, charming, popular) and is tactfully diplomatic with Michelangelo (ugly, hostile, jealous, and -- as Federico repeatedly reminds us -- he stinks).  The time is the early sixteenth century.  Michelangelo is painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Raphael is doing the papal apartments.  (Federico brags that Raphael painted him as a beautiful young boy and inserted him into his School of Athens masterpiece.)

The boy views Pope Julius II as just another egotistical Renaissance aristocrat, the head of one of the most powerful Italian states.  He hardly touches on the pope's religious leadership.  As he observes during a service in the Sistine Chapel, below Michelangelo's scaffolding:

His Holiness promptly went to sleep as he usually did during ceremonies.  Federico could not hear the priests for the pope's snoring. 

And that may have been an accurate assessment of Julius II's priorities.  According to Wikipedia, Julius II "left a significant cultural and political legacy."  No mention of his personal sanctity.  

The plot thickens.  From the same box from which the cat had stepped appears an American from the year 1928.

"I am Sir Federico of Mantua."

"Pleased to meet you Sir Federico.  Herbert Bother of New Jersey.  Call me Herbert."

Federico found Herbert's Italian appalling, but then he was from New Jersey.  But despite initial dislike, he soon adopts Herbert as his second friend, after the cat.  We also are introduced to Beatrice, or Bea, also from America -- but from America in our own time -- a young girl Federico's age.  Bea becomes a protagonist along with Federico, and some of the chapters are told from her point of view.  Stir these odd characters together with the concept of time travel, and you end with a plot that is interesting enough to keep you reading.

But the better reason for reading Da Vinci's Cat is the picture Ms. Murdock paints of Renaissance Rome, as seen both through Federico's contemporary eyes, and through the astonished eyes of visitors from the twentieth century:  The Vatican, a century before the completion of the modern St. Peter's (first planned by Julius II himself).   The darkness and danger of the Roman streets at night.  The smells.  The jousting for advantage by both nobles and artists, all seeking the pope's favor.  The policing power of the newly formed Swiss Guards.  The mutual jealousies of all those competing artists whose names loom large in Art 101. 

Most of the background is accurate.  As the author notes at the end, Federico was a real kid, born in 1500 in Mantua.  A kid who really was a hostage of Pope Julius II for three years.  He may or may not be the young boy painted in Rafael's The School of Athens -- but the author is convinced he is. The personalities and characteristics of Michelangelo ("he stinks") and Raphael (charming and popular) were actually more or less as described.  Leonardo was a scientific genius as well as an artist.  As Murdock notes, tongue in cheek:

Perhaps he invented a time machine, but since many of his notebooks have been lost, we'll never know for sure.

So, I ask again.  Will middle school kids enjoy the book?  Some, probably.  I'm not sure how I would have reacted to it at that age.  It may presume more historical and artistic background than I had in middle school.  Although what seventh grader can resist a heroine about whom it is written: "Also she really needed to pee.  No one in books ever talked about pee."

Federico is arrogant, but he was an aristocrat.  He has a good heart, and becomes increasingly likeable.  (Anyone who loves a cat is just dandy in my book.)  Bea discovers a painting of Federico as an adult in a modern encyclopedia -- he had a distinguished career as Duke of Mantua and as a patron of the arts.

It's not mentioned in this middle school novel, but Federico died at the age of 40 of syphilis.

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Top photo -- Painting of Federico II Gonzaga at the time he became a hostage.  By Francesco Francia (1447-1517)

Bottom photo -- Fragment from The School of Athens (Raphael) with image of Federico's head, with blond, curly hair, in center.