Secretum

Day the Seventh

13th J ULY, 1700

"Mistress Cloridia, I seek Mistress Cloridia! Open up at once!"

I know not for how long they had been knocking at the door of my little house. When I at last opened my eyes, I saw that it was still pitch dark. My wife had already put on her gown and was on her way to the door.

I dressed with all speed, while the sparkling freshness of the air suggested that we were in the hours immediately before first light, when the temperature sinks to its lowest. I rejoined Cloridia. In the doorway stood a little boy who had just alighted from a barouche; the wife of the Deputy Steward of Palazzo Spada needed her midwife: her waters had broken.

"Please hurry, quickly, Mistress Cloridia," the boy insisted. "One of the palace guards has paid me to come and fetch you. The lady's alone with her husband and doesn't know what to do. You're needed urgently."

"This we could have done without, we really could have done without," muttered my wife, stamping on the ground, while she gathered her equipment in a furious hurry. "Go and wake up the little ones," she ordered me, "and join us at once at Villa Spada."

"At Palazzo Spada, you mean," said I, correcting her.

"At the villa," she said. "We shall meet by the back entrance; and be sure to bring your big sackcloth cape with you."

"But I'm not cold."

"Do as I tell you and stop wasting my time," Cloridia retorted angrily, literally beside herself at my sluggishness in emergencies.

Still dazed and somnolent, I stared vacantly at my wife as she moved from side to side of the room, picking up a towel here and a jar of oil there. She stopped one moment to think, then took from the trunk a camisole and petticoat which she herself had worn when pregnant, wrapped them up in a bundle with a pair of clogs and other articles of clothing and in the twinkling of an eye leapt onto the barouche and urged the boy towards Villa Spada.

"The knitted stockings, too? Ah, no, that I cannot bear. Find another solution, Monna Cloridia."

"Do you want the Deputy Steward to ask me how it is that my assistant is wearing fine red abbot's stockings under her skirts?"

When I arrived at my appointment with Cloridia, I could not believe what the moon's grey reflection presented to my eyes: Atto, with his smooth, flaccid face half concealed under a white midwife's bonnet, and dressed in large women's clothes left over from my wife's last pregnancy, was mounting a last, vain resistance to Cloridia's expert hands as they lifted the skirts of his disguise.

Cloridia had dressed him well for the part of an old midwife and now, having discovered that under that attire the Abbot had secretly kept his favourite red stockings, was making him change them for a pair of knitted hempen ones of the kind worn by women of the people. It was these that had provoked Atto's rebellion. The old castrato, who had sung the most varied feminine roles in half the world's theatres, was not so ill at ease dressed up as a midwife; but, like a real prima donna, could not bear the vulgarity of those knitted stockings of the sort worn by any common woman.

"Would you rather go barefoot in your clogs, like a beggar woman?" Cloridia rebuked him impatiently.

"Good idea, you'd make a perfect cerretana," I interrupted, making fun of Atto by way of greeting, whereupon we exchanged winks.

While the barouche waited outside the gates, my consort rapidly summed up the situation. Unfortunately, her herbs had acted earlier than expected: Cloridia had counted on having the morning free in which to inform us about what she had been able to see and study at the palace the day before.

"So now we have no time," said she anxiously. "Anyway, I have learned that on the first floor there's a gallery, which is kept locked, and which Father Virgilio in person had built. It contains various objects, including the Flemish globe you mentioned to me yesterday. Perhaps you will find what you are looking for in that gallery. The Deputy Steward's lodgings are on the ground floor, on the right-hand side of the vestibule with its three small aisles; you'll find the stairs immediately after that. The rest I shall show you when we get there."

We moved towards the gates, followed by the little girls. During the ride, Cloridia explained her plan to me.

"I shall tell the Deputy Steward that, as his wife is fat, I have had to bring a trusty old midwife with me, as well as my daughters," and here she pointed at Atto, "because I need someone who, together with the husband, can hold the woman down while I induce her to give birth, while our two little ones look after the instruments, towels and all the rest."

From her little smile, it was, however, quite clear that Atto would need to make no great effort to mimic a woman's voice and movements more than convincingly.

Atto, then, was to pretend to be an assistant midwife; the thing was far from being without danger, even without considering the disgust which it caused the Abbot. How the deuce had Cloridia persuaded him to attempt this masquerade? I regretted not having been present when my consort was using her powers of persuasion.

"This is all very well," retorted Melani, "but you still have not explained to me how I am supposed to get away from the Deputy Steward's lodgings. I'd not want to run the risk of having to provide real assistance throughout the delivery and then having to return empty-handed."

"Trust me," murmured Cloridia, for we were already approaching the gate. "There's no time to explain it to you now, but I'll make sure you know when the time comes to leave me."

"But…" Atto tried to say.

"Hush, now."

"And what about me?" I asked.

"You, pretend to take your leave of us and, while I distract the boy who's driving the barouche, put on your cape and get onto the back axle."

My sweet wife had not thought any disguise necessary for me; ah yes, I thought with a trace of melancholy, my small size made it easy for me to slip in concealed…

Once they had all got down from the barouche, I leapt up as swiftly and stealthily as possible and hid myself behind it. Fortunately, I thought with a smile, the presence of my two little ones in the barouche, well behaved but not without vivacity, created so much noise that it helped keep my presence hidden from the young driver.

When the carriage entered the palace courtyard, 1 stretched the cape even further over my head. The guards let us pass with a nod.

As Gloridia had advised us, the Deputy Steward and his wife, who had come from Milan not long before the pregnancy to take up service with the Spada family, were temporarily lodging in a small room on the ground floor, which enabled them to keep an eye on the entrance to the palace, now that the servants had all been sent to the wedding at Villa Spada.

I waited hidden in the coach-house. As agreed, Cloridia soon announced that she had left a purse in the carriage and, while the Deputy Steward and Melani took the service entrance to go to the woman in labour, she brought me surreptitiously in. We went up to the first floor. First, I tried out the key ring lent to us by Ugonio. As expected, I did not need to try many times and soon found the right keys. The locks on the doors yielded quietly one after another.

"Wait here and don't make a sound," my wife commanded me, kissing my forehead. "Soon I shall send you Mistress Midwife Melani. Keep a lookout here," said she, opening a window in the wide corridor which gave onto the inner courtyard still sunk in darkness. "Here's what I thought when I came to this place yesterday."

From this window, Cloridia showed me, I could see almost everything that was happening in the room where the woman was giving birth. This would be extremely useful. While we were searching, we could keep a constant check on the Deputy Steward's presence near his wife and thus be sure that the coast was clear. I had a quick look: Atto and the Deputy Steward were down there and I could descry the woman lying on the bed. I smiled seeing Abbot Melani got up like that: he must be on tenterhooks waiting for Cloridia. To keep up appearances, he was removing the equipment from the bag and arranging it by the woman's bedside. Yet he held each item disgustedly with his fingertips, as though he were picking up dead rats.

Cloridia returned downstairs, leaving me in the dark, and entered the Deputy Steward's lodgings. I saw her take three bolsters and arrange them on the floor. Then, to my great surprise, she made the pregnant woman lie down there on her back. She arranged the three cushions carefully under her so that her head hung back towards the floor.

The posture was quite uncomfortable and the poor woman was complaining, but Cloridia made matters even more difficult for her, or so it seemed to my untrained eyes, by bending her knees so that her feet ended up under her back, as in the drawing which I am reproducing below.

"How hot it is in here!" exclaimed Cloridia, opening the window of the room, so that from my lookout I could hear as well as see all that was taking place within.

"But is it really necessary for my wife to give birth in that position?" moaned the Deputy Steward, who could not bear to see his wife bent in such a horrid posture.

"'Tis surely not my fault if your wife is so fat. All the lard in her paunch compresses the womb and makes it even tighter. Only thus can the woman's uterus be dilated sufficiently for her to be able to give birth easily, however fat and corpulent she may be."

"And how is that?" asked the husband dubiously, turning also to Atto, who at once turned his eyes elsewhere with a vague expression on his face.

"Simple: the fat on the body spreads towards the sides," my wife replied, as though this were all perfectly obvious, "so that the infant is not prevented from coming out, as would happen if the birth seat were used, because the belly and the full weight of the fat and the intestines would compress the womb below and restrict the opening for the child no little, thus obstructing the delivery."

With the groaning woman lying thus arranged, Cloridia ordered the Deputy Steward and Abbot Melani (who, however, kept his gaze well averted from the woman's private parts) to hold her firm by both arms while she herself knelt between her legs, with a cushion under her own knees.

She covered the woman's pudenda and got our eldest daughter to hand her a terracotta jar full of oil of white lilies, with which she anointed both her hands and forearms and began to smear her patient's genitals and belly. Then with the greatest care, she thrust her right hand into the woman's privates and abundantly softened the insides with oil. Lastly, she ordered her to be turned on one side and also anointed the point four fingers above the ending of the back, known as the little tail or coccyx, which in childbirth sticks out no little, as I had occasion to observe when Cloridia gave birth to our two little daughters. She then made a movement with her hand which drew a resounding howl from the poor mother-to-be.

"Heavens, the canal really is narrow," complained Cloridia. "My friend," she then commanded, turning to Abbot Melani. "Go and get me the oil of yellow violets which is inside that glass jar."

She continued as before and then thought the time ripe to give our daughters a little lesson in obstetrics.

"If the woman in labour has a tight womb, one anoints freely and unrestrictedly with oil of yellow violets. And since one or ten applications of ointment cannot compensate for natural defects, one may use up to twenty or thirty, until — as Hippocrates and Avicenna proposed — art corrects nature. Avicenna also favours squirting a few drops of oil right inside the womb, the better to relax the internal parts."

The children paid attention, while the Deputy Steward and his wife, with her face all covered in perspiration, looked at one another full of admiration and gratitude for the knowledge of so fine, and renowned, a midwife.

I was beginning to fume: Cloridia had promised to free Abbot Melani, but as yet nothing was happening. And I could see that Atto, too, was in a state of growing agitation, casting eloquent winks in my consort's direction.

"Alas, there is not enough of this oil," said Cloridia. "My dear, please go and fetch the other bottle which I left in the bag."

Atto obeyed. When he returned, Cloridia looked at him with a worried expression.

"M'dear, you seem unwell."

"Well, I really…" whined Atto who did not know what Cloridia was getting at.

My wife began to scrutinise him attentively and asked: "Are you aware of any slight feelings of faintness? Lassitude? Do you feel confused?"

Abbot Melani returned Cloridia's inquiring gaze with an uncertain expression and answered her fusillade of questions vaguely. Then suddenly my consort rose and put her hands around his neck. Atto, taken by surprise, opened his eyes wide and tried instinctively to defend himself, while Clorida energetically opened his blouse and plunged her nose in, pretending to observe the breasts.

"Those red spots…" she murmured, lost in thought, prodding first the one, then the other breast, which I knew to be only stuffed with rags, while even the Deputy Steward's wife had left off complaining about her pain and was looking on with bated breath. "… and these purple ones here… My unfortunate friend, I fear that you may be suffering from the petechiae'

"The what?" the other two both asked in unison.

"The spotted-fever; in Milan, they call it segni," Cloridia announced to the couple, who looked frightened.

Upon hearing that phrase, Atto at last realised what had already been clear to me for several minutes. I saw him change expression and restrain a sigh of relief.

"This distemper is caused by the excess of heat and dryness," continued my wife, "and it tends to affect cholerical temperaments, as I know that of my colleague here present to be. My poor dear, you must go home at once and try to keep calm. Eat cold food, which will cool down the choler, and you will see that you will soon recover. We here shall manage without you."

"You can take my mule, which is in the servants' stables," said the Deputy Steward, exceedingly worried about the risk of contagion. "It is the only one left in there, you cannot go wrong."

"And the guards?" Atto asked in a weak voice.

"You are right. I shall accompany you."

"Of that, there can be no question!" Cloridia promptly cut in. "I need you here. Besides, you must avoid any possible infection. There must surely be some way out using a service door to which you will, I imagine, have the keys…"

My astute consort had seen and foreseen everything. The Deputy Steward opened a drawer and pulled out a key.

"I only have one copy of this," said the Deputy Steward to Atto, "but I beg you to…"

"You'll get it back promptly enough, of that you can be sure," my wife cut him short, snatching the key from his hand and giving it to the Abbot.

In reality, we had no need of that key: there would certainly be a copy in Ugonio's bunch, but that we could certainly not tell the Deputy Steward.

With a warm and amused wink, Melani lit a candle and, going to the door, left in great haste.

I leaned out an instant down the dark stairway to make sure that Atto had not forgotten Cloridia's directions and taken the wrong way.

"Your wife really enjoys a good joke," he commented as soon as he rejoined me. "She took me by surprise with that story of petechiae, but I must say that she does have an excellent memory."

Cloridia had in fact, in her little charade with the petechiae, merely quoted the sentences she had heard seventeen years before in the mouth of Cristofano, the Sienese physician and chirurgeon who had been shut in with all of us in quarantine at the inn where I was working, and where I had first met Atto. What he said had remained unforgettable for us; we all hung on every word from the lips of the doctor who was looking after us in those days when every moment was alive with the fear of contagion.

Since she had not had time to prearrange anything with Atto, my wife had therefore used those words to give him a clear signal; it was certain that, on hearing them, Abbot Melani would obey without thinking twice.

I guided Atto to the window on the corridor and explained that from there we could easily keep a check on the situation and thus avoid being discovered.

"And now," Cloridia was ordering imperiously, "avoid like the plague the ill wind that blows in draughts! Let us place your wife near the open window so that she may breathe the good sweet- smelling air of early dawn. But close the door tight, so that there are no draughts. We shall open up only once the child has been born."

"But I have to do my round every half-hour," protested the Deputy Steward.

"There can be no question of that."

"But…"

"You will appreciate the importance, if one is to avoid all risks of contagion, of avoiding all agitation and over-activity. The distemper dessicates and in a short space of time extinguishes the body's radical humidity, and that can in the end kill," declaimed our brave Mistress Cloridia, yet again quoting, this time solely for her own pleasure, the words which the physician had uttered so many years ago in the Locanda del Donzello.

Upon hearing those words, the Deputy Steward, suddenly as pale as death, hastened to close the door of the room, accompanied by my tenacious spouse's seraphic smile, as she again knelt between her patient's legs.

"Here we are."

Thus Abbot Melani commented on the swift movement of the door which, with a short squeal, swung open on a dark space.

We entered, immediately closing the door behind us. We did not know how much time we had in which to operate: everything depended upon the pregnant woman's labour, after which Cloridia was to be accompanied home by the Deputy Steward. By that time, we would have had to complete our own search and take the mule away from the stables, otherwise the Deputy Steward might become suspicious.

We tried to make sense of the dark space which now enveloped us. We shed light with Atto's taper, which I myself brandished, turning it here and there, in an attempt to reconcile our tentative footsteps with the frenzy of our eyes. The room in which we stood seemed enormous.

"This does not seem to be the gallery of which your wife spoke," commented Abbot Melani.

"Anyway, there are no globes here," I observed.

We crossed the room, then another one, then yet another. All the walls were covered with rich frescoes and paintings which filled the Abbot with enthusiasm and wonder.

"Ah, I recognise these paintings, they're by a Flemish artist, Van Laer; I saw them years ago in the collection of Cardinal Casanate, peace be on his soul," said he, stopping to contemplate four pictures depicting a cow, a tavern and two scenes of assassinations in the woods. "The Cardinal has been dead these four months only and the Dominicans of la Minerva to whom he left everything have already begun to sell off his legacy," said he with a bitter laugh.

While Atto kept stopping before every canvas, taper in hand, I made my way rapidly back, like a cat in the night, to spy on Cloridia through the window.

The woman's labour pains were becoming more and more excruciating and the poor thing was suffering greatly, but, as my wife had predicted, the birth was proceeding extremely slowly.

Seeing how the situation was slowing down, and despite his wife's entreaties that he should hold her hand, the Deputy Steward had not forgotten his custodian's duties and had, alas, returned to his desire to do the rounds of the palace's rooms.

Thus, on one of my incursions to check up on developments, I saw and heard through the window that, in order to detain him, Cloridia had took up her favourite argument: breast-feeding.

"You want to hire a wet-nurse, did you say? Ah, you must have money to waste! And what objection does your wife have to giving suck herself?"

"But Mistress Cloridia," stammered the Deputy Steward, "my wife must soon return to service…"

"Yes, to earn enough to pay the wet-nurse! Would it not be better to keep the infant at home?"

"We shall speak about that later, if we must. Now I must go out on my rounds…"

"'Tis incredible," my wife attacked, rising from her position near her patient and barring the Deputy Steward's way. "Now even the wives of artisans yearn to send their new-born infants to wet-nurses outside the home, as though we were all princes and most delicate princesses, while those folk, yes, 'tis true that they cannot afford the luxury of babes crying in the house as they are always weighed down by public business."

The Deputy Steward was speechless.

"Who does not know, after all," continued Cloridia, "that in every state and condition of persons, it is far better to raise one's children at home than to give them out to wet-nurses? Aulus Gellius confirmed that centuries ago!"

The man, who surely had not the least idea who Aulus Gellius was, seemed intimidated by the citation.

"In this, women today are truly more inhuman than tigers or other cruel beasts," she continued, "for, apart from women, I know of no animal that is unwilling to give suck to its young. How can a mother, after carrying it in her belly and feeding it with her own blood, not yet knowing whether it was a boy or a girl or a monster, once she has seen her child, recognised it and heard its cries, sobs and sighs calling on her for help, then exile it from her bosom and from her bed, pleased with herself for having given that child its being yet denying it all well- being, as though her breasts had been given her by God and nature as a mere ornament of the torso, as in males, and not to feed her children?…"

I had heard enough. I knew from experience that once she had launched into that subject, Cloridia would without difficulty detain the Deputy Steward for a long, long time.

I returned to Atto and we resumed our search as the first light of dawn filtered into the palace. Soon we had left behind us a long series of rooms superbly decorated with mythological and historical subjects: the room of Amor and Psyche, the room of Perseus, the stucco gallery, and then the rooms of Callisto, Aeneas and the feudal era.

"Tis no good. There's no trace of the globe you spoke of."

At that juncture, we heard a series of screams, followed by a lacerating, interminable howl which almost caused Abbot Melani to faint. We ran to see: the Deputy Steward's wife had given birth. The herbs administered by Cloridia to stimulate delivery had worked more swiftly than our search.

"A bane on your wife and the day when we placed our trust in her," muttered Abbot Melani. "Now we are stuck here and we have discovered absolutely nothing."

At that moment, Cloridia looked up to the window, holding the squalling babe in her arms, already wrapped in a towel, and made a rapid signal in our direction, as though to say, "Go ahead, do not worry."

So we returned to our search, uncertain and cautious. We visited the Achilles room, that of the Tales of Ancient Rome and those of the Four Elements and the Four Seasons, moving on to the Great Gallery, the study and even the chapel.

"There's something here that doesn't square up properly," said Atto. "Let us return to the staircase."

"Why?"

"When we first came up from the ground floor, we turned right. Now, I want to turn left. Then I'll tell you why."

The Abbot, as I was soon to see, had his good reasons. Retracing our footsteps, we realised that, turning left immediately after climbing the stairs, there was a gallery which we had not yet explored. The daylight, which was growing brighter moment by moment, enabled us to see not only the walls, doors and windows, but also the very high ceilings which the eye should enjoy on the first floor of every noble palazzo.

As soon as we entered this new space, we stopped before a great candelabrum on the floor, whose candles we lit with our taper so that there was light all around us. Great was my wonder when we found ourselves facing a broad gallery, with a wealth of all kinds of frescoes, all kinds of works of art and the most precious furnishings.

It was quite clear even to untrained intellects that this room was one of the most splendid and eminent treasures of the entire

Palazzo Spada, one that could not fail to be shown to the benevolent guest in the course of a humble visit.

It was a fairly spacious gallery, in the form of an elongated rectangle. On the one side, the walls were covered with frescoes and paintings, while the opposite side was subdivided into a series of great windows which in the daylight hours brightly lit the whole space, with, between them, a series of fine marble busts. The ceiling consisted of a curved vault which was adorned with an imposing fresco, the order and meaning of which I would, however, have been unable to understand at first glance, were it not for Abbot Melani's explanations.

Atto explained that the magnificent imagery on the ceiling stood for Astronomy and Astrology. I saw cherubs holding up a white velarium on which were drawn lines intersecting on the surface of the earth; at one end of the fresco, one saw Mercury bearing a meridian in the heavens, while the whole assembly of the pagan gods looked on in wonderment. At the opposite end were four female figures representing Optics, Astronomy, Cosmography and Geometry who were also intent upon creating a catoptric meridian, 'midst many other splendid and praiseworthy anthropomorphic figures.

On the walls there was an extensive and unusual series of splendid paintings, for the most part faithful and highly realistic portraits of illustrious men. Although I could not yet make out the details, it did seem almost as though there were a multitude of real faces looking down upon us. A great whitish crab was perched above our heads on the vaulted ceiling and seemed to be sternly observing us.

"Good heavens, Signor Abbot, look up there. Never have I seen so huge a crab, and what's more, creeping along a ceiling. And all white!"

"Well, my boy, here now is an opportunity for you to learn something. This is Palazzo Spada's celebrated Gallery of the Anacamptic Astrolabe."

"Ana- what astrolabe?…" I tried in vain to repeat after him, still keeping a wary eye on the great white crab which did not, however, for the time being show any sign of leaping on us.

"Or catoptric dial, if you prefer, to use the terminology of the learned Father Kircher."

For a moment, I fell silent.

"Did you say Kircher?" I asked, recalling how we had come into rather close contact with that personage in the course of our adventures seventeen years ago.

"If you were to read newspapers from time to time," was his only reply, "you would sooner or later learn something about the marvels of your city."

"Yes, I knew that Palazzo Spada abounded in architectural marvels and that people come to admire it from all the world over, but…"

"I imagine that you at least know what a sundial is," said the Abbot, cutting me short.

"Of course, Signor Atto. It is a clock in which the shadow cast on given points by a certain object, like a stone or a piece of metal, enables one to tell the time."

"Correct. This, however, is a special dial: it functions catoptrically, to employ Kircher's terminology. In other words, not thanks to the sun's rays but to reflection. Do you know what there is down there, outside?" said he, pointing to a sort of little window that gave onto the courtyard.

"I do not know."

"A stand with a mirror on it which reflects the light of the sun and the moon. The Spada household has mirrors of various forms and designs which reflect sun or moon-rays and project luminous images like your white crab. This, as you can now see, is nothing but light refracted onto the ceiling of the gallery, which thus gives the exact time."

I looked up again: he was right, the beast was white because it was drawn on the ceiling by a ray of light.

"And it tells the right time?" I asked incredulously.

"Certainly. You too can surely see those lines marked on the vault, which permit anyone who can read them to follow the hours and minutes on the ceiling of the gallery, so long as the light is a little stronger than this candelabrum. For the whole thing is an immense sundial, but upside down. The light does not reach it from above but rather from below. That crab is reflected moonlight, and I suspect that it takes the form it has because in these July days we are in the sign of Cancer, the Crab. This is probably done by using a mirror of the right shape."

Atto's explanation was interesting, but it was I who interrupted it with a cry of surprise.

"Look, there's the Flemish globe! Indeed, there are two of them."

We drew near the better to examine our find. Further down the gallery, there were in fact two wooden globes, one representing the terrestrial regions, the other, the heavens. We read the name of their maker, a certain Blauew of Amsterdam.

"Alas, if this is indeed a terrestrial globe like that of which you have heard tell, it has nothing to do with Capitor's globe," said he in weary, opaque tones.

"It is not the one?"

"No."

The globe which stood before us did not in fact much resemble that in the picture, and it did not even have a golden pedestal.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"It is no good. We have made a mistake. Once again, we have got everything wrong," groaned Atto, sitting wearily on a chest.

I raised my eyes, drawn by something on the wall opposite. My gaze drew near to the series of portraits decorating the windowless wall and stopped deep in thought at one of them. This was the likeness of an individual with a severe face, whose expression was strong but gentle, his forehead broad, the mouth decisive and the beard bristling. He wore a tricorn hat similar to those of the Jesuits, and an embroidered surcoat with on its breast a heart betwixt two branches.

"There he is. I present to you Virgilio Spada. As I have told you, he was a member of the order of the Oratorians, followers of Saint Philip Neri, and the portrait here is in accordance with their precepts. He was a wise soul, and quite pious. He helped his order in many ways, above all materially."

All around, I saw portraits of other members of the family, but

Atto barely deigned to spare them a glance. For a while longer, he remained pensive, then he shook his head.

"No, we are mistaken. This is not it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, without knowing where to turn my thoughts.

"Have you looked around you, my boy? Where the Devil is Virgilio's collection of curiosities? I can see no trace of it here. We've not even found one tiny bit of it here. And yet it must be clearly displayed somewhere, seeing that the family loves receiving distinguished visitors and showing them its possessions."

"And so?"

"This portrait tells me something."

"What?"

"I do not know. I must think on that, now I am too tired. Let us go, Cloridia may have finished."

After saying this, the Abbot moved slowly towards the door, bent by the weight of years and fruitless searching.

As I followed him, I continued to feed greedily on the marvellous, but to me, incomprehensible, decorations of the catoptric sundial.

"Signor Atto, all those signs and numbers painted up there, what are they?"

"Those numbers are the houses of the zodiac with the astrological tables for the compilation of the celestial figures, or the birth chart and horoscope, while the other lines that you see show the times in various parts of the world," explained Atto, stopping and looking up.

"Was Father Virgilio also interested in all these things?" I asked perplexed, being well aware of the deadly risks that a churchman could run for showing an interest in horoscopes, especially half a century ago.

"Oh, if that's all you want to know, the Spada have always had a passion for the celestial sciences. Virgilio and his brother loved astrology, including the forbidden forms of it. As I have already told you, I was in Rome when Virgilio died in 1662. It is said that he even possessed books placed on the Index by the Holy Office, as well as some writings regarded as heretical, which, however…"

The Abbot broke off and stood there staring at me as though seized by a sudden thought.

"Boy, you are a genius!" he exclaimed.

I gazed questioningly at him.

"I know where we shall find Capitor's dish," said he.

So it was that Melani explained to me, in a barely audible voice, that Virgilio's great passion had been for judicial astrology, or that which dealt also with horoscopes and predictions; he had studied his own

celestial chart and his father's, and many others too. In 1631, however, this science had been condemned by the Barberini Pope, Urban VIII.

"I remember that well, from the tales I heard at the time when we met, at the Donzello."

"Then you'll remember the ugly death that Abbot Morandi met with when they discovered all those books on astrology in his possession."

I repressed a shiver as I recalled what I had learned at that time.

"When that happened, many prelates with an interest in the subject took fright. Among their number were Father Virgilio and his brother Bernardino: it was said that Virgilio had moved a number of dangerous books by night from Palazzo Spada to the Oratory, where they were kept under lock and key in a great chest until his death."

"In other words, it is at the Congregation of the Oratory that we shall have to search."

"Yes. It will be pretty difficult to evade the surveillance of the Philippine Fathers, and I really do not think that your Cloridia can be of any help to us this time."

After leaving the Gallery of the Catoptric Sundial, we returned to the window whence we could espy my sweet consort. We found her still in full flow of her sermon, while she collected, cleaned and put her things in order together with our two little daughters; while so doing, she turned her sanguine prose to the ever more perplexed Deputy Steward who, in the meanwhile, to regain something of his composure, was caressing and consoling his exhausted spouse.

"It is even worse when, in order to avoid paying a wet-nurse, or because she has grown weary of giving suck, a mother makes her little one drink the milk of beasts. You may be certain that, once her child has tasted of that poison for body and soul which is animals' milk, it will have difficulty digesting and will thus be too full to be drawn to its mother's breast, which it will come to forget."

We waved our arms from the window to let Cloridia know that our search was at an end, that she need trouble herself no longer and could put an end to that flood of words with which she was holding back the Deputy Steward, but all in vain. Caught up in the whirl of her pleading, my wife did not notice us. What was more, we had to take care not to be seen by my little ones who might, in their innocence, give us away.

"The truth is that goat's milk makes children into goats, and cow's milk makes them into oxen. Now, what father or mother would want a child as feeble-minded as a calf or horned like a goat? Or both together? The animal spirit twines itself around the radical humidity of the infant's little body and will not abandon it until it dies. Take a good look at the faces of children who have received cow's milk: the acqueous, bovine stare, the hooded eyelids, the fat head, the swollen members and the flaccid, pallid skin. And what of the nature of these little unfortunates? If it is not tetchy and taciturn, like that of a goat, it will be placid and temperate, like that of a calf. And how proud their stupid mothers are of them! They can do what they will without being bothered by their stolid, bastardised little ones, while they look on with disgust at other mothers, exhausted by giving suck and weary with caring for their tireless, lively little earthquake of an infant."

At long last, Cloridia caught sight of us.

"In conclusion, have a care before giving animals' milk to a being whom God had endowed with a soul!" said she with a voice almost broken by her bombast, while she began to put her equipment back into her bag. "Until three years of age, no child should touch a single drop of the milk produced by beasts. And even after the age of three, this will be most harmful. So everyone, both fathers and mothers and their little sons and daughters, should keep well away from beasts' milk throughout their lives, if they mean to live in good health and clarity of mind. Deo gratias, we have finished."

She crossed herself, as she did after every birth, and we heard her impart her last recommendations to the new mother as Atto and I rushed to the stables and the mule which was to take us back, weary and disappointed, to the Villa Spada.

We were already in the inner courtyard, still asleep under the mists that herald the early morning, when we heard a grim, disquieting sound. It came from our left, where there stretched out an immensely long gallery of singular magnificence, followed by an equally long avenue, flanked by hedges and terminating in a garden.

It was then that we caught sight of a dreadful colossus, a quadruped higher than two men and as long as a carriage, as black as night and covered with thick, disgusting hair. For a few interminable moments (at least so it seemed to me) I was paralysed with terror, almost hypnotised by that infernal monster. I saw it leap over the hedges in the avenue and rush at an unimaginable speed towards us, again emitting the thunderous roar which we had just heard.

With a superhuman burst of speed, I fled, forgetting even Abbot Melani, and in the twinkling of an eye I had shut myself into the stables.

Atto was already there: unlike me, he was clearly unperturbed and had got out of the way at once.

"The monster… the colossus…" I panted, my face contorted with terror.

I looked at Melani. He had a grin imprinted on his face.

"What do you find so funny?" I asked, thoroughly irritated.

"What you too will soon see. Follow me."

A few minutes later, Atto was at the opening of the gallery, seated on the base of one of the columns, tranquilly caressing the colossus. For it was no colossus at all, but a nice little dog. The creature had been sleeping out in the garden beyond the gallery and, surprised by my arrival, had reacted with a typical canine growl, then drawn near to challenge the invader. What had seemed to me a monster of incredible proportions was in reality a little animal that came up to my knee.

"Do you understand?" asked Melani.

"I think so, Signor Atto."

Yet it still seemed incredible to me. The gallery from which the dog had emerged was a masterpiece of the great Borromini, whom the Spada had often employed to improve and enlarge their palace. It was so constructed as to delude the observer, through a clever play with perspective which only someone who knew the trick could detect. As the visitor entered the gallery, it grew steadily smaller: the pairs of columns by either side became lower, the black and white chequerboard paving went upwards and grew narrower, while the squares themselves became smaller, imitating the flight towards infinity which painters know so well how to simulate in their creations when they depict roads, cities and temples.

Even the stucco mouldings on the semicircular vaulting were formed into an ever smaller quadrangualar grid, so as to keep in proportion to the shrinking of the vault itself. Beyond the other end of the gallery, there was no spacious garden stretching out to infinity, but a modest little courtyard in which, however, imitation box hedges had been carved from stone and painted with two coats of green. With their regular parallelepiped form, these became ever lower and narrower as the distance from the gallery, and thus, from the observer, increased, thus creating the irresistible impression of a distant avenue running to meet the sky. The sky itself, which I had thought I saw behind the hedges, was in fact painted with clever chromatic counterfeiting a few paces beyond, upon the wall that concluded the whole illusion.

I entered the gallery and timidly caressed the first pair of columns, then the second, then the third… each time narrower and lower. Borromini's optical illusion was so cleverly designed and carried out that it had tricked me to the extent even of terrifying me. Besides those sham hedges, even that little dog had seemed to me gigantic. Its growl, distorted and amplified by the echo of the vault, had seemed on reaching me to be the roar of a wild beast.

"We fear what we cannot understand: here, as in the gallery of mirrors at the Vessel," said Melani in paternally admonitory tones as we trotted on our mule back to Villa Spada.

"I had heard tell of Palazzo Spada's gallery in perspective and of its marvellous optica! illusion: princes and ambassadors come to visit it from all the world over. But I did not know what it might be and, caught unawares, I took fright… You know, I am very tired…" said I, trying to justify myself and to cover my shame.

"You saw an immense portico, which in reality was very small. Within a small space, you saw a long road. The more distant they are, the larger small objects can appear, rightly placed," Atto philosophised. "Greatness is but an illusion on this earth, the wonder of art and the image of a vain world."

I knew what he really had in mind: the Vessel. But not the gallery of mirrors. Rather, he was meditating upon those mysterious apparitions which we had witnessed, and upon his faint hope of finding a rational explanation for them in the end.

I therefore said nothing, while we wended our weary way across the Holy City, meeting the first passers-by, still half wound in the coils of sleep, and formless nocturnal cogitations made way for clear thinking.

On our return to Villa Spada, we found a letter for Abbot Melani: the usual one. Atto's reaction upon opening and reading it was no different from the times before: he became sombre and dismissed me hastily, on the pretext that he wanted to take a rest. In reality, he had to reply to the letter, in which the Connestabilessa announced her latest delay.

In the hours that followed, I was unable to enjoy so much as one moment of rest. The programme for the day consisted of a rather demanding entertainment, and Cardinal Spada had repeatedly insisted to Don Paschatio that he was counting on him to ensure its complete success, informing him that any servants who failed to fulfil their duties would be most severely punished. Don Paschatio had for his part ensured that, this time, none would dare absent themselves: he had, of course, sworn as much on all previous occasions, without being proved right. This time, too, a pair of waiters had let the Major-Domo down, on the pretext that they were ill (whereas they had in fact gone fishing on the island of San Bartolomeo, as I had gleaned from their conversation the day before).

There was indeed a great deal of work to be done, nor was it easy to carry out. For the guests' entertainment, there had been laid on a shooting party, the game being birds. This outing was open not only to the gentlemen and cavaliers present but to ladies too, since the hunt for fowls involves no dangers, only joyous recreation. This was, in other words, to be a pleasure party, consisting of many and various kinds of hunting merriment, as had been announced to the guests the day before by no less than Cardinal Spada in person.

The territory of Villa Spada was, however, too small for the beat, which would require much space in which to hide, set up ambuscades and entrap birds. It had therefore been agreed with the excellent Barberini household that the entertainment could also take place in the plot of land adjoining the Spada estate (where, two days before, the falconer had tried in vain to catch Caesar Augustus with his hawk).

The guests were to be organised into groups, according to the means they would be employing. The first squad, consisting of about ten people in all, was to be issued with special bird traps: sham bushes within which had been set a Y-shaped wooden stick. This stuck out from the top of the bush and at either extremity were placed two pieces of iron rather like scissor blades which, operated from a short distance by means of a long, thick cord, would snap shut, crushing the bird's legs.

The second group of huntsmen received a number of artificial trees, to be planted in the earth with the sharp point at the base of their trunk. At the top of these little trees was fixed a horizontal stick which would look quite inviting to birds seeking a perch. At the base of the bush was hidden a great crossbow, pointing upwards, into which was notched a sort of big rake with many sharp points. If fired at the right moment (even from a short distance, by activating the trigger of the crossbow with a stout brown string) the bizarre mechanism would shoot up and impale any unlucky fowl perching on top of the tree.

For other participants, special arquebuses had been prepared, to be set into the ground (by means of a handle with an iron point) to be aimed at some clearly visible branch and fired the moment some passing bird came to rest there. Here too, the arquebuses were to be operated at a distance by means of an invisible thread.

Those cavaliers gifted with sharp eyesight were given fine crossbows of the highest quality with which to shoot at birds in flight.

The most able-bodied gentlemen were equipped with real portable trees, capable of concealing a whole man and his arquebus. These were made from papier mache covered with bits of bark and mounted on an iron frame. They were furnished with false branches covered with an abundance of twigs. So that these could be worn, they were equipped internally with leather belts which made it possible to carry the simulacrum of a tree on one's shoulders while leaving the arms free. The guest could look through two little apertures and freely approach his victim, take aim with his arquebus, slowly pointing the barrel through the appropriate slit, and fire with assured success. This ingenious invention, designed on the basis of the advice of Gioseffo Maria Mitelli, from Bologna, son of an artist and painter of frescoes who had done much work at Palazzo Spada, gave rise to such praise and wonderment that I am providing a drawing of it here:

Others, who were more adventurous, were to attempt the so-called hunt with an ox. In other words, they used imposing sham cows, painted in oils with the greatest verisimilitude on canvases mounted on wooden frames, to be used as screens behind which to stalk the prey without frightening it off, and then shoot it with an arquebus. To paraphrase more noble examples, one might call these real Trojan cows. I have also provided a drawing of this expedient, but I have other reasons for so doing:

In fact, the cow, as soon as it was set up in the field, scared all the animals on the Barberini estate, and some ladies too. This was because the bovine effigy, being painted in oils, shone with such lucent splendour in the sun that it seemed almost like a burning mirror. It had therefore to be rapidly withdrawn, otherwise all the birds would have flown off in terror.

Of course, in order to be able to attract a sufficient prey, it was necessary to stock the area of the merry hunt with a great number of song birds, so that their warbling would attract their fellows. For this purpose, many cages had been purchased full of chaffinches and goldfinches. Given my occasional role as Master of the Fowls, Don Paschatio had entrusted me with the important task of placing these cages at strategic points on the Barberini estate, making sure that each group of hunters should have the same number of these baits and that they should be uniformly positioned throughout the hunting grounds. To reinforce the effect, I was also to tie other song birds to the stems of plants and to trees, securing their legs with thread.

As I was gathering the cages and carrying them two by two to the Barberini estate, I encountered Don Tibaldutio. As often happened, he felt like conversing a little with me. I have already mentioned that he lived apart from the rest of the villa in a little room behind the chapel, and often felt somewhat lonely. I therefore proposed that he should keep me company while I laid out on the ground, on the trees and in the midst of bushes and shrubs the cages containing the birds which were to serve as bait.

Hardly had the chaplain begun to speak of this and of that when his upright and chaste presence revived like an invisible flame the burning memory of the night before.

Atto's memoir was, I thought once more, to be brought "ad Albanum": thus, behind all these shady affairs there was a cardinal, no less! What malign force, what infernal ladle was capable of mixing in the cauldron of the Holy City a highly placed cardinal, the right-hand man of His Holiness, and the diabolical sects of the cerretani. I then remembered that the cerretani had originally been defrocked priests. How was that possible? Only an ecclesiastic could enlighten me on this point.

As a good pastor, Don Tibaldutio listened to my questions without batting an eyelid. I pretended that I had heard rumours in the street concerning the religious origins of the sects of mendicants.

"Age-old is the scourge, and wrapped in mystery, its origins," the Carmelite began gravely.

It all began after the barbarian invasions which put an end to nine centuries of Roman domination of the world. In those days, men were for the most part poor peasants and lived in small, isolated rural communities. The roads were unsafe, many the bandits and masterless soldiers, and the bears and wolves on the lookout for prey. Friars and monks remained in the safety of their monasteries, often built on inaccessible heights. Apart from the merchants, who had to travel for their trade, everyone lived in villages, working the land and praying God for the next harvest. But they were not alone: regularly, visitors would arrive.

They were dressed in rags, haggard and dirty, and they asked for charity. They came from obscure places on the edge of villages, abandoned lazarets, little gaggles of hutments, almost a parallel civilisation devoted to filth. They were known as vagrants, degenerates, knaves, rascals, or tricksters and swindlers, if you prefer. But they were not poor: their poverty was only a disguise. They knew well how to profit from the words of the Evangelist, which call on all good Christians to practise charity: "Give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you."

"Some, perhaps, had been priests," said Don Tibaldutio, "but instead of honouring the Lord with prayer, they had given their souls to the Evil One."

They would choose the humblest among the peasantry, ignorant of the world and its snares, and present themselves to them in unusual guises, with wild eyes halfway between folly and wisdom. They pretended to be all at once healers, magi and prophets, saviours of body and soul. They sold talismans, relics, miraculous orations, magic spells against the evil eye, ointments and panaceas; they announced miracles or divine punishments; they interpreted dreams; they miraculously found hidden treasures and rich inheritances which had been concealed; they exorcised and cast anathemas, thundering against sinners and promising heaven to the just. In the course of all this, they asked for and invariably received offerings in money.

Begging for alms (which was thus both their purpose and their method) they were past-masters of suggestion, illusion and swindling, as the learned Gnesius Basapopi tells so well. When they practised flagellation, from their wounds gushed false blood — that of cats and chickens. But invariably they took alms and tribute in plenty from the credulous and simple, who were legion. Besides, did not the Sophists, too, have a reputation for being jugglers and charlatans, and, moving beyond them, even Socrates and Plato? None of those peasants remembered the admonition of the Bishop of Hippo, that one should give to the poor, but. not to play-actors.

"But were they never unmasked?" I objected, as I took a goldfinch from a cage, tied its foot to a piece of twine and secured this with a nail to the trunk of a young acacia.

"Of course, from time to time, a victim would react. But this was rare, and in any case, when it did happen, those rascals would change their skins like serpents and return to their former trades as tumblers, rebeck players, even tooth-pullers because, as that verse ofTheocritus puts it, paupertas sola est artes quae suscitat omnes: poverty alone gives rise to invention.

Then he sang:

By lies and by tricks You can live half a year; By tricks and by lies, Live the other half too.

"What's that?" I asked, as we moved on to the area where the arquebuses had been placed.

"An old rhyme of false beggars: just to help you understand how corrupted their minds are."

But there was more to it. Insistent rumours had it that the cerretani had all united in a single sect. Following this, their high priest had founded the various subdivisions, not so much in order to organise them according to their specialisations as for a Satan ic purpose: the imitation of the religious orders of the Catholic Church.

This hypothesis was not to be underestimated, for Bernardino of Siena tells how one day Lucifer, surrounded by all his demons, manifested to them his desire to start a church in contraposition to that of Christ, an Ecclesia malignantium wherewith to cancel out or at least mitigate the effectiveness of the other, celestial Church, upon which it was modelled. Even Agrippa of Nettesheim, who did not much believe in witches' spells, was so certain of the malefic powers of the canters that he went so far as to accuse them of practising black magic.

With time, matters got worse, explained the chaplain, as I checked on one of the arquebuses planted in the ground, to make sure that it was indeed well aimed. Even the genuine religious orders were infected by the scandal. The monasteries got wind of the freedoms enjoyed in the world: it was necessary only to serve up a little nonsense to the ingenuous. The body came then to prevail over the spirit, eating and drinking over prayer, sloth over works consecrated to the Lord.

"Wearing black vestments, as Libanius writes in Pro Templis, the monks ate more than elephants. They were men in appearance, yet they lived like pigs, and they publicly tolerated and committed acts of the foulest, most unspeakable turpitude. As Saint Augustine well knew, the enclosed orders of friars were reduced to an ignoble, muddy Gehenna," he exclaimed, casting a compassionate glance at a robin I had found dead in one of the cages, perhaps killed by the strain of being carted around thus.

Monks and pseudo-monks, excommunicated by their own bishop, swarmed out from the cloister and began to wander unpunished on the highways, perturbing the peace of the Church and spreading further corruption amongst the good people. They joined the multitudes of true and false tramps, ragamuffins, layabouts, lepers, gypsies, vagabonds, cripples and paralytics lying in front of church doors, and made them their impure flocks.

Now all doors were open to their cunning. Yet none could do anything about them, because they were poor, or at least, so they seemed and, as Domingo de Soto teaches in his Deliberatio in causa pauperum, in case of doubt, one should nonetheless give one's coin to those who beg. In dubio pro paupere.

"Not only does the practice of charity cancel out sin but, as Saint John Chrysostom puts it: the poor beggars piled one on another in church porches are the physicians of the soul. Indeed, Peter Chrysologos preached that, when the poor man stretches out his hand to ask for charity, it is Christ Himself who does so."

"But, if it is as you say, then roguery is the daughter of compassion and thus, indirectly, of the Church itself," I deduced with no little surprise as I placed a few crumbs in a cage.

"Oh, come now…" Don Tibaldutio stumbled, "I really did not intend to say such a thing."

There was, he nonetheless admitted, something disquieting about all this. The Hospitalier Friars of Altopascio, for instance, who begged unrestrictedly at castles and in villages, were an official grouping authorised by the Church of Rome. By their preaching they frightened the people, threatening excommunication or promising indulgences. And, in exchange for money, they would absolve anyone.

Had not the pontiffs too succumbed to the ambiguous fascination of superstition and charlatanry? Boniface VIII always wore a talisman against the urinary calculus, while Clement V and Benedict XII were never separated from the cornu serpentinum, an amulet in the shape of a serpent which John XXII even went so far as to keep on his table, stuck into a loaf of bread and surrounded by salt.

"But, some say," he added, lowering his voice by an octave, "that even the cerretani themselves originally enjoyed official sanction."

"Really? And what kind of sanction?"

"There's a tale that I heard from a brother originating in those parts. It would appear — but beware, there is no proof of this — that at the end of the fourteenth century, the cerretani had a regular authorisation to beg, at Cerreto itself, on behalf of the hospitals of the Order of the Blessed Antony. A permit, in other words, emanating from the ecclesiastical authorities."

"But then the cerretani were officially tolerated. Perhaps they still are to this day."

"If such a permit ever existed," said he, prudently, "it would have had to be registered in the statutes of the city of Cerreto."

"And is it?"

"The pages concerning this begging for alms were torn out by someone," he remarked impassively.

Besides, he added in the same breath, if one really wished to pay attention to gossip, it was even said that they had a friend in the Vatican.

"In the Vatican? And who could that be?" I exclaimed, matching my intonation to my incredulity.

On his face, I read regret at having pronounced one word too many, and displeasure at being unable to row back.

"Well… They speak of someone from the Marches. But perhaps it is all a matter of envy because he has an important post in Saint Peter's factory, so they slander him behind his back."

So, I thought in astonishment, someone at Saint Peter's Factory (the permanent workshop for the repair and restoration of the most important church in Christendom) was in contact with the cerretani. This was obviously a matter to be looked into, but not with the chaplain, who had given himself away and would certainly provide me with no further details.

It was time for us to part. I had completed my task of setting out the birds which were to act as bait, and I had checked on the fixed arquebuses; furthermore Don Tibaldutio had answered quite exhaustively my questions concerning the links between the Church and the cerretani.

How much like the skilled and crafty trade of scoundrels and swindlers was all that proliferation of Holy Years, decade after decade, which had reduced the Jubilees from a rare act of collective devotion falling only every hundred years to a vehicle for constant money-making! Was this not perhaps a consequence, however distant, of the errors and misdeeds committed or tolerated when the cerretani first came into the world, even before the first Jubilee, born from a rib of Holy Mother Church and fed with the sacred milk of pity and charity? Sfasciamonti was right, said I to myself, we were surrounded. The seat of the papacy was a fortress into which the Trojan horse had long since been introduced.

Don Tibaldutio blew his nose in conclusion, staring at me thoughtfully through the folds of his handkerchief. He understood that I had on my mind something that I did not mean to reveal to him.

I thanked him and promised that, should I need further clarification on the subject, I would certainly seek his advice.

A moment before taking my leave of the chaplain, I remembered a question over which I had been brooding a long time:

"Excuse me, Don Tibaldutio," said I with seeming nonchalance. "Have you ever heard tell of the Company of Saint Elizabeth?"

"But of course, everyone knows it," he answered, caught out by the ingenuousness of my question. "It is the one that gives money to the catchpolls. Why do you ask?"

"I saw them passing the other day and… Well, it was the first time I had ever seen them, that's all," said I, clumsily disguising the matter.

I simply could not see clearly into the doubt that was slowly gnawing away at my insides but had not yet reached my brain.

Thank heavens, the merry hunt turned out well and happily. After a few hours of lying in wait and laying ambuscades, the ladies and gentlemen had exhausted their lust for the chase and had returned to the great house, bearing almost empty baskets containing a meagre, pitiable haul (starlings, swallows, rooks, a few toads, two moles and even a bat) and with everyone falling about with laughter. In the end, once I had withdrawn all the cages with the bait, I could see that these were far more numerous than what had been caught.

Only a few minor incidents (all of them fortunately resolved by the prompt intervention of the servants, who had come running en masse) had momentarily disturbed the entertainment, causing poor Don Paschatio's heart to jump into his mouth. Prince Vaini, reckless as ever, had for a joke aimed his crossbow at the hat of Giovan Battista Marini, Bargello of the Campidoglio, whereupon the shot had gone off by accident. The arrow had narrowly missed Marini's cranium and had stuck into a nearby tree, taking his hat with it. Cardinal Spada, backed by his Major-Domo and a host of lackeys, had had to plead long and hard to avoid Vaini and his victim coming to blows. Challenges to fight a duel, several times uttered, had fortunately come to nothing.

In the meanwhile, Monsignor Borghese and Count Vidaschi, for want of nobler prey, had fired their arquebus at a large rook. The black (notoriously inedible) fowl had fallen to the ground, apparently badly wounded. When, however, the two aggressors had advanced to catch it, it had taken off, flying rather haphazardly among the other players and ending up perched on the fine, flowing tresses of Marchesa Grescenzi who exploded into screams of pain and panic. When at last the bird let go of her, the whole group took aim at it with arquebuses and crossbows. The poor creature, being wounded in one wing, could not gain height. When at last it landed on the ground, it was ingloriously finished off with a shovel.

The third incident was not the fruit of an excess of audacity, as in the case of Prince Vaini, but of total incompetence. Marchese Scipione Lancelotti Ginetti, who was notorious for his lack of wit, and even more so for his short-sightedness, shot a bolt from his crossbow at what he believed to be a bird perched on the topmost branch of a tall pine. The bolt struck a bough, causing it to shake violently. Out of the branches fell a whitish sphere which shattered on the ground.

"An egg," exclaimed the first.

"One does not shoot at nests, it is both pointless and cruel," exclaimed the other, turning to Marchese Lancelotti Ginetti.

Others gathered, all keen to stress the Marchese's error, at a time when the latter was pulling strings to be appointed Colonel of the Roman People (an ancient and noble office of the city's communal institutions), while many nourished the hope that he would fail in this. Moreover, any pretext was good for distracting attention from the hunt, which was yielding such meagre results. The Marchese tried to disculpate himself, claiming that he had been shooting at a big bird, while everyone was trying to hide their laughter, knowing full well that Lancellotti Ginetti could not see a yard beyond his own nose.

With their noses pointing skyward, many guests — all claiming themselves to be expert hunters — tried to understand to which bird the egg that had fallen to the ground might belong.

"Riparian swallow."

"Pheasant, in my view," proposed Monsignor Gozzadini, Secretary for His Holiness's Memorials.

"But, Excellency, on top of a tree…"

"Ah yes, that is true."

"A partridge," said another.

"A partridge? Too small."

"Excuse me, it must be a turtle dove, or at most a pigeon, that's quite clear."

"But even a white dove…"

"Perhaps it is a jay," ventured Marchese Lancellotti Ginetti, who seemed to regard it as somehow dishonourable not to pronounce his opinion on the egg which he himself had brought down.

"Come, come, Marchese!" butted in Prince Vaini with his usual insolence. "Can you not see that the egg is white, while jays' eggs are speckled? Even the dogs in the street know that!"

The entire group ganged up on poor Lancellotti Ginetti, stressing the gravity of his mistake with a series of "Ah, yes!", "But what's got into his head?", "Utterly absurd" and so on and so forth, all accompanied by allusive little coughs and the clearing of throats.

Suddenly, the ear-splitting report of an arquebus was heard. Everyone, including Lancellotti Ginetti, immediately ducked to the ground to avoid any further shots.

Fortunately, there were no dead or wounded. A quick check revealed that none of the gentlemen present had an arquebus. Moving further afield, none of those handling one admitted to having fired in the previous few minutes. Some of those present still had goose pimples from the experience, and moved away to resume the beat.

This incident, which I had fortuitously witnessed as I was in the process of moving one of the cages to a better position, filled my soul with a dense cloud of disquiet. At point blank range, an arquebus shot could only kill.

Out of a sense of duty, I at once reported what had happened to Don Paschatio; his face was marked in equal measure by anguish and terror. The one thing not needed at the festivities which he was overseeing was a dead man, perhaps one high born. He began lamenting that this hunting party was most inappropriate at the present time when a conclave was imminent, with so much mutual detestation in the air. Someone might give in to the temptation to settle old accounts.

I had, however, cooled down after the initial shock. I had my suspicions; but I could not yet imagine whether there were any grounds for them, nor did I know whether it would be wise to investigate the matter. In any case, urgent business now occupied my mind, calling me to action.

The business of spying, to be quite precise.