CHAPTER 26 #4
She handed over the code of law and scientific advancements to her subordinates and citizens, while turning her focus to something more distant and core—
Economics.
Economics had always been the foundation of revitalizing a nation.
Without sufficient funds, both the military and science would falter, like a boiler running out of fuel.
When Hedy was still a merchant, she had witnessed the lavish projects of the Duke of Milan, Sforza—who had built an enormous livestock industry. He owned 40,000 animals, and his related products were sold to many countries.
After abolishing the tithe tax, Hedy launched new policies to encourage commerce and agriculture.
Her mercenary group operated in rotations, with half of them training and guarding, while the other half worked the fields and cleared land, just as she had designed before.
In the two to three years since, the nation’s cultivated land had expanded to twice its original size under the joint efforts of Hedy and Lorenzo, and grain production had been quite promising.
But this was still not enough.
Due to wars and annexations, more and more people had joined the nation. Although they could work the fields, there were still noticeable elements of instability from those who idled about.
When Hedy established the empire, she had personally upended the roles of royal and religious power. The old Roman papacy had long been destroyed, reduced to dust. Many monks and priests had been released, facing the bewildering task of navigating a new world.
Religion was no longer the all-powerful shield it once was, and they could no longer exploit and oppress in the name of gods.
It was at this subtle turning point that Hedy thought of another person—Franklin D. Roosevelt.
——
When Roosevelt took office as president, Hedy was still not yet nineteen years old.
At that time, she had not yet experienced the pain of losing her father and was living in the privileged and affluent household of a Jewish banker, enjoying a leisurely and contented life like other young women.
Jews were always very good at business, but Americans, in this regard, might not have had quite the same innate talent.
When President Roosevelt assumed office, the entire United States was already on the brink of collapse.
The rapidly rising unemployment rate had people lining up for relief food, and the false prosperity built on banks and stocks had completely crumbled, while the number of streetwalkers on the streets kept growing.
In the dark days of the economic crisis, the president proposed a short but powerful policy.
The Three R’s — revival, relief, reform.
Among them, one method could easily be transplanted to today’s Italian Empire: the mutual reinforcement of government projects and employment rates.
Italy needed to build many things—smoother and broader roads, large workshops for various industries, water purification facilities in every city, and fortresses and watchtowers designed by Leonardo.
And that’s exactly what she did.
Anyone could get a job, regardless of their previous nationality or background, as long as they swore an oath under the flag of the immortal bird, and they could support themselves through this job.
The empire issued a “minimum wage decree” spanning multiple sectors, strictly forbidding wage cuts for workers.
More and more migrants began pouring into cities, like hardworking ants, beginning to repair and strengthen the country.
One bridge after another connected the banks of the river, coal began to be mined and transported continuously, and the roads between cities began to function as powerful arteries, supplying fresh blood to the capital.
—In the past, it might have taken about eleven days to travel from Florence to Milan, but on the newly constructed highway, they only needed seven days!
The queen maintained such a passion for the country and her work that she almost forgot something important.
“My lady,” Niccolo casually mentioned as he put down the documents, “next Sunday will be Mr. Da Vinci’s birthday.”
Hedy, who was in the middle of responding to letters, accidentally dragged the pen across half the line when she heard this.
“April 15th?” she said in a daze. “Is it already April?”
“Today is April 6th,” Niccolo replied slowly. “The teacher is busy at the cathedral right now. Should I ask him what he would like?”
Already... April!
Hedy quickly finished writing the letter and sealed it, handing a stack of documents to Niccolo. “Help me finish reading these—I'll look at the outline you wrote when I come back tonight!”
“Gladly,” Niccolo replied as he walked away, his voice echoing, “Be good to my teacher!”
In the past few years, Hedy had never celebrated Leonardo’s birthday.
Almost every April was filled with troublesome matters.
It was either the Roman Church causing trouble, or Leonardo picking up some little kid.
And in those past years, Leonardo had only celebrated her birthday twice.
On November 9th last year, she had been stuck at the Roman Church, waiting for a rescue that seemed like it would never come.
In such chaotic times, trying to maintain any warm and beautiful traditions felt like an extravagant wish.
When Hedy arrived at the Florence Cathedral, the priests, upon seeing her, showed expressions of fear and humility, all bowing their heads in reverence.
She made her way down the long corridor, following her memory to find his location.
The man was bowing his head, carefully applying paint, his expression relaxed and serene.
Hearing her hurried footsteps, he paused, looking up at her. “Hedy?”
“I—I’m so sorry,” she panted, standing still. Looking at him, she dryly said, “I’ve been dealing with business and industrial affairs lately. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you.”
It seemed like they hadn’t seen each other for six or seven days, and she couldn’t even remember what time she fell asleep in the office each night.
“I’ve just returned from the Florence Academy,” Leonardo said with a gentle smile, his tone tinged with a bit of playful teasing. “After all, we’re both almost late for a wedding—perhaps that’s what we like about each other.”
She chuckled softly, moving closer to the "Last Supper" painting.
The placement of the figures and their relationships were quite clear, but everything was still in the sketch phase.
It would probably take another three or four years before the painting was fully completed.
“But... I really haven’t seen you paint in so long,” Hedy said, familiar with the routine as she stirred the paint for him, her tone carrying a hint of nostalgia.
“How many people used to line up outside the workshop waiting for you to start painting, almost desperate to shove their money bags into my face.”
Leonardo had originally intended to talk to her about his agreement with God, but he simply smiled and continued to apply the thin, transparent egg tempera.
He had added a lot of linseed oil to the oil paint, which helped further adjust the texture of the painting.
Hedy rolled up her sleeves, handing him tools as her gaze fell on the faint grid marks.
“Leonardo, what is this?”
“These are auxiliary lines to determine placement,” Leonardo answered, half-surprised. “Don’t you use these when you paint?”
“Auxiliary lines?” Hedy took a step back, staring at the faint checkerboard-like lines.
Suddenly, something came to her, and she turned to look at him. “Leonardo, how did you learn to paint?”
All of Florence, or rather, all of Europe, was currently swept up in the painting craze.
But painting, at this time, was more of a “technical craft” than what we now consider “artistic creation.”
The traditional masters had established a series of rules, instructing apprentices to replicate exactly what they saw.
They used grid lines like a chessboard to divide the space completely. As long as the apprentices traced the corresponding lines within each square, they could complete the task.
Under this method of teaching, children quickly grasped the essence of copying—
As long as the masters created rough sketches, the apprentices could replicate the painting onto wood or walls, joining others to finish the artwork.
—And when Leonardo was young, he too learned in the same way.
But he added his own thoughts to the process, and his paintings were completely different from everyone else’s.
When Leonardo was in his teens, he initially helped his teacher, Verrocchio, paint the small angel figures in his works. But this angel truly had the sparkle of a child, with plump cheeks and chubby little hands, every detail capturing the most captivating and lingering gaze.
—After that, all the angels in Verrocchio's workshop were entrusted to him.
Later, when Hedy arrived at his own workshop, the two of them began dissecting the human body under the guise of alchemists, delving deeper into the intricate connections—how certain muscles would stretch and deform when raising an arm, or how different parts of the body would react when lifting the gaze and smiling.
Beneath the skin, these movements would ultimately reveal themselves on the surface in a unique way.
After starting to study anatomy with Hedy, Leonardo's figures gained a more vivid sense of bodily form.
The human body was no longer stiff and formulaic, like copying a statue.
The large body began to be divided into different segments, each with its own unique way of expression.
Torso, limbs, and face...
His learning process was filled with analysis and exploration, and his growth was much faster than that of others.
"So, Hedy... how do you learn?"
Hedy, unsure, glanced at the wet oil paint on the wall and then turned to him. "There are several schools of thought."
"Several?" Leonardo paused, suddenly remembering the scene he had seen when he stood outside her window.
No lines, no deliberate grids, just the use of color and light to express everything.
He had many questions to ask her back then, but everything changed because of Sarai.
Now, as he took up his brush again in a more peaceful time, he remembered that she too was skilled in painting.
In fact, in her past life, Hedy had not only created oil paintings but also had a personal style, somewhat in line with the Impressionist movement.
Like Leonardo, she had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge across many fields, and she learned faster than most.
"The most classical one—we call it the French Academic style," Hedy said as she picked up a charcoal pencil, took his notebook, and casually drew a cross.
Of course, her "classical" style might be considered avant-garde to him.
Leonardo set down his brush, half-embracing her shoulder to observe the subtlety of her work. "A cross?"
"We can also call it the cross coordinate axis."
The cross coordinate axis is a simplified version of the grid positioning method but allows the artist to have more flexibility in judging proportions and contours.
By establishing a cross coordinate on any subject or scene, the contours and positions of surrounding elements become much clearer.
Leonardo’s pupils contracted slightly, and his mind began to race.
“My tutor advised me to first look for similarities between still life and geometric shapes, then do a transformation on the coordinate axis,” Hedy explained. Within just a few minutes, she had drawn an apple, its outline remarkably similar to the one in the corner with a bite taken out of it.
She pondered the complex relationship between the European Impressionist movement and Abstract art, deciding to start by discussing sketching.
“And the Soviets—well, we can also say the Russians.”
“The Russia that’s still part of Mongolia?”
“Yes, that one,” she replied, her pencil quickly sketching lines over the apple, establishing light and shadow contrasts. “They place greater emphasis on the expression of form in painting—and this approach is quite similar to the trends of this era.”
Highlights, gray faces, light-dark boundaries, reflections, and shadows.
This style of painting also spread to the United States, sparking much debate and exploration.
Hedy softly explained the different styles of sketching, casually drawing a Mickey Mouse beside the apple.
“As for watercolors and the Impressionist movement, that’s a more complicated story.”
The British needed accurate methods of mapping landscapes, which led to the trend of using watercolor to create maps.
The emergence of the Impressionist movement injected soul into both color and air.
The hazy fog, the morning’s first light—the expression of painting became like poetry.
When she said this, she couldn’t help but let out a small sigh.
“If I could… I’d really love to take you to the National Gallery in London to see Monet’s originals.”
The man seemed to sense her regret, and lowered his head to kiss her forehead.
“Perhaps we could create the same effects ourselves.”
Hedy blinked, suddenly realizing that watercolors existed in this era as well—it just hadn’t yet been tied to landscape painting.
Leonardo—he was fully capable of mastering these major artistic movements.
He could almost do anything.