Secretum

Day the Third

9th J ULY, 1700

It was the purest and lightest of chants, nor could I have said whence it came; it was, if anything, nowhere and yet all around me.

It had an air of innocence about it, of timid red-cheeked novices, of remote and solitary hermits. It was a tender psalmody and it delighted my ears as I became aware of my new condition.

At last, I realised: it was the chant of a confraternity of pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee. It was men and women who made up the sublime blend of voices, sweet and robust, silvery and stentorian, manly and womanly; they had risen with the sun, and now they raised a song of thanksgiving to the Lord as they set out on the visit to the four basilicas to seek the remission of their sins.

The rectangle of now azure sky from which I had fallen was still there above, crystalline and immobile.

I was dead and, at the same time, alive. My eyes were full of that rectangle's blue, but I could no longer see. The sky flowed from my eyes like angels' tears. Only the music, only that pilgrims' choir drew me to itself, almost as though it alone could keep me alive.

The last sensory impressions (the precipitous fall, the walls of the courtyard swallowing me up, the air pressing against my back) had been swept away by that holy melody.

Other indistinct voices wove into each other and unwove in occult counterpoint.

It was only then, after becoming aware of the existence of other beings around me, that I broke the frail shell of my torpor.

Like a new Lucifer cast down from paradise, I felt a sinister, warm smoke envelop my limbs and engulf me ever more in the viscous belly of the Inferno.

"Let's get him out of there," said one of the voices.

I tried to move an arm or a leg, if I still had any. It worked; I raised a foot. This new and promising development, came, however, mixed with an unexpected sensation.

"What a stink!" said a voice.

"Let's both work together."

"He owes his life to the shit, ha ha!"

I was not dead, nor had I smashed into the hard paving stones of the courtyard, even less been engulfed in hell: I was being lifted out of a cartful of warm, smoking manure.

As Sfasciamonti was to explain to me afterwards, while freeing my back of a few lumps of manure, I had ended my fall in a colossal mountain of fresh dung parked there during the night by a yokel who intended to sell it in the morning, for use as compost, to the superintendent of Villa Perretti.

Thus, by a pure miracle, I had not broken my neck. But when I had fallen onto the horrid heap of excrement, I had remained in a swoon, showing no signs of life. The onlookers who had meanwhile gathered were worried; someone made the sign of the cross. Suddenly, however, when the pilgrim confraternity passed by, I had moved my head and blinked. "'Tis the Lord's doing," exclaimed a little old man. "The confraternity's prayers have resuscitated him."

Up above, Sfasciamonti, distracted by my fall and anxious about my fate, had allowed our man to get away when, rather than face the catchpoll's wrath, he had let himself drop to a lower rooftop, continuing his flight on the surrounding terraces. My ally who, with his weight, would have run the risk of falling through some skylight, was compelled to abandon the chase. Once down the stairs, he had dragged me out from the manure cart with the help of a market gardener, there to sell his produce on the nearby market of Campo de Fiore, which was just about to open.

'"Tis an accursed mess," said Sfasciamonti, as he led me to a nearby vendor of old clothes to fit me out with clean apparel.

"The Chiavarino had this in his hands — anything but a spyglass."

From a dirty grey cloth he pulled out the device which I had seen him brandishing victoriously when he burst out from the stairs onto the terrace, at the unforgettable moment when I had a knife pressing against my guts.

The apparatus, which had emerged badly from the night's adventures, was reduced to a mass of twisted metal, in which one could with some difficulty discern what had once been a microscope. The only parts remaining in one piece were the base, a vertical cylinder and a pivot joining this with the rest (now lost) of the optical instrument. The cloth contained a collection of glass fragments (presumably, what remained of the lenses), three or four screws, a cog wheel and a half-crushed metal plaque.

"It must have gone like this," said Sfasciamonti reconstructing the events of the night, as we entered the old clothes shop. "This was stolen not long ago. I shall check today on whether any other sergeant knows anything of this. Chiavarino must have done the job himself, or perhaps he bought it off someone else. When he heard us at the door, he misunderstood our explanation, confusing the spyglass with this mackeroscopp."

"Microscope," I corrected him.

"Well, anyway, whatever it is. Then he left the house and went to the Piazza Navona. He must have been looking for some cerretano," said he while, nodding to the old clothes merchant, he led me to the inner courtyard where there was a little fountain, so that I could clean myself up.

"But why?"

"Did you not hear what the Maltese said? Chiavarino works for the German. And the German, as I told you, works with the cerretani," said he gesturing with his head in the direction of the terrace on Campo de Fiore. "The mackeroscopp was supposed to go to the German. Many real beggars spend the night at the Piazza Navona, but there are plenty of cerretani there too. Chiavarino went to one of these."

"You mean the one who was on the point of killing me!"

I exclaimed, remembering Sfasciamonti's scream when he saw that it was not Chiavarino.

"Of course. They met behind the fountain. Then the cerretano heard us and fled. We ran after him thinking it was Chiavarino, whom I know perfectly well and who looks quite different: tall and fair with a broken nose. And he's not cross-eyed, as the little monster whom we followed seemed to be."

So I had risked my life for nothing, I thought, while I took off my filthy clothes and washed quickly, for who could say where Atto's telescope might be, let alone his papers? My bones were all still aching from the fall into the manure, although it had been fresh and soft because of a generous admixture of straw.

Then there was a suspicion which gnawed at me. The Maltese did not know what a spyglass was, and probably did not know what a microscope, a far more unusual object, might be. Nor did Chiavarino know what the two devices were or what they were called, so much so that he confused the one with the other.

"How did you know that this was a microscope?" I asked the catchpoll, pointing to the little packet in which he had placed the fragments of the machine.

"What a question: 'tis written on it."

He opened the little bundle and showed me the wooden base of the apparatus, on which there was a gracefully framed little metal plaque.

MACROSCOPIUM HOC

JOHANNES VANDEHAR1US

FECIT

AMSTELODAMI MDCLXXXIII

"Microscope made in Amsterdam in 1683 by Jan Vandehaar," I translated.

He was right, it was written there. And those few simple Latin words even Sfasciamonti had been able to understand, however approximately.

"Someone will have to explain to me how you shoot with a thing like this mackeroscopp with its barrel full of glass," he muttered to himself, incapable of resigning himself to the fact that the device was not an arm.

Still confused by the breakneck piling up of events, not to mention the physical trials I had had to undergo, only then, while I was drying myself with a piece of cloth and dressing, did I remember to tell my companion of the provocation with which I had tried to confuse the cerretano, warning him that he would die at the hands of the German, and of the man's strange reply which I had by some miracle heard when I was falling from the terrace.

'"The German will kill you…' But you are insane!"

"Why? I was only trying to save my life."

"That's true, damn it, but you went and told an accomplice of the German that his principal would have him killed… The German's dangerous. 'Tis as well that it was, as you said, to save your life."

"Well, that's precisely why I'd like to know what the cerretano said. Perhaps he threatened that they'd come after me."

"What exactly did he say to you?"

"I couldn't understand, 'twas a phrase that made no sense."

"You see, it really was a cerretano. He spoke to you in cant."

"In what?"

"Cant. Gibberish."

"What's that, their jargon?"

"Oh, far more than that. 'Tis a real language. Only the cerretani know it, 'tis their own invention. They use it to talk in front of strangers without being understood. But thieves and vagrants of all kinds use it too."

"Then I understand what you're talking about. I know that criminals, when a sergeant is coming, say 'Madam's coming' or "Tis raining'."

"Yes, but those are things that everyone knows, like that martino means a knife, or a piotta is a hundred Giulio coin. Even many of the words of the Jews are well known; if I tell you that two people are agazim, you'll understand perfectly that I am talking of a couple of friends. But then there's a more difficult level. For instance, what does it mean if I say to you: 'The hunchback isn't corn of the first of May?'"

"Not a thing."

"Well, that's because you don't know cant, or slang. 'The hunchback' means 'I', 'corn' means 'afraid' and 'the first of May' is God."

"So 'I'm not afraid of God'," said I, astonished by the obscurity of that short sentence which seemed so well suited to a cerretano.

"And that's only an example. I know it only because we sergeants do manage to pick up something. But never enough. The cerretano said something to you which you couldn't understand, is that not so?

"If I remember, it was something like… teevooteedie, teeyootiffie, no, teeyooteelie or something like that."

"That must be another kind of cant. I really don't know how it works, I've never even heard it spoken. I only know that sometimes the vagabonds use normal words but mix them all up, twist them about and complicate them using a secret method which few people know," said he, twisting, untwisting, tapping and squeezing his fingers one against the other, the better to illustrate the concept, "and you can't understand a word of it."

"So how the deuce are we to know what the cerretano said? We do not even have any way of continuing our investigations and finding Abbot Melani's papers," said I with ill-concealed disappointment.

"We must be patient, and besides, matters are not exactly as you say. We do at least know now that someone is collecting these strange instruments with which one can see large or small, mackeroscopps, spyglasses et cetera, and that he has a passion for relics. We can look for Chiavarino, but he'll already have moved to another house. He's a dangerous fellow, 'tis best to keep well away from him. The track to follow is that of the cerretani."

"It seems no less dangerous."

"That's true. But it does lead directly to the German."

"Do you think it was he who stole Abbot Melani's papers?"

"I believe in facts. And this is the only trail we have to follow."

"Do you have any idea of how we proceed from here?"

"Of course. But we shall have to wait until tomorrow night. Some things cannot be done by day."

Meanwhile, we had returned to our horses. We separated: this time too Sfasciamonti had some chores to do on behalf of his mother. Since I was still in shock following my dreadful adventure, the catchpoll thought it would be better if I returned to Villa Spada on foot; he would see to the return of both our mounts.

So it was that, still stinking and rotten but at least not shameful to behold, I made my way towards the San Pancrazio Gate. At that early hour, the city was overflowing with pilgrims, pedlars, prentices, maidservants, swindlers, strollers and tradesmen. Every little alleyway was animated by washerwomen's songs, children's cries, the barking of stray dogs, street vendors' calls, as well as the curses of coachmen whenever some wobbling cart delivering dairy products cut across the path of their carriage. In the markets of each quarter, those great theatres in which the city of St Peter renews its rites each day, the festive chaos of the morning was turning into a spectacle: the fluttering black of an apostolic pronotary's gown set off the green of lettuces, a cleric's dark cloak strove to upstage the orange of fresh carrots, the perplexed eyes of dead fish scrutinised the eternal human comedy from fishmongers' counters.

I was near Via Giulia, immersed in this disorderly stream of humanity, goods and vehicles, when I came upon an even denser assembly. I made my way as well as I could, more concerned to get through than to look at what was going on. In the end, however, I found my progress blocked and tiptoed to see what this was all about. At the centre of the crowd stood a sinister figure, his long hair gathered into a ponytail, and, on his bare breast, a large bluish sign in the form of a viper. But it was around his neck that there squirmed, slimy and treacherous, a real serpent. The public observed its contortions, at once fascinated and frightened. The young man began to whine a sort of dirge; the coluber twisted rhythmically, following the intonation and rhythm of the chant and arousing the audience's amazement. Now and again, the mummer would stop and in a low voice utter some arcane formula which had the power to halt the reptile's contortions; the animal would freeze suddenly, tense and rigid, and would come back to life only when the chant began again. Suddenly, the young man seized the creature's head and thrust a finger into its jaws, which closed on it at once. He withstood the pain a few moments then withdrew his finger. He then began to distribute a few little jars filled with a reddish ointment, explaining that this was serpent's earth, the most perfect of antidotes which, if one is bitten by a snake, counteracts the venom so that one suffers no pain whatever. The nearby onlookers threw small coins in large quantities into the straw hat at the fellow's feet.

I looked questioningly at my neighbour, a lad who was grasping a large bread-making mould.

"He's a sanpaolaro" said he.

"And what does that mean?"

"Saint Paul one day bestowed grace on a certain family, promising them that none of their members and descendants would ever need fear a serpent's venom. In order to be distinguished from others, the descendants of that family are all born with the sign of a serpent on their body and are known as sanpaolari."

Behind our backs, an old man interrupted.

"All balderdash! They catch the snakes in winter when they've little strength and almost no venom. Then they purge them and keep them on a starvation diet, so that they become soft and obedient."

In the group pressing around the sanpaolaro the old man's words had been clearly overheard; some heads turned.

"I know all these tricks," the old man continued. "The sign of the serpent is made by pricking oneself in several places with a very fine needle, then rubbing on one's skin a paste made of soot and the juice of herbs."

Other heads, distracted from the spectacle, turned towards the old man. But just at that moment, a cry went up.

"My purse! I have it no more! They've cut it!"

A little woman who until that moment had been staring at the spectacle of the sanpaolaro almost as though she had been hypnotised, was expostulating desperately. Someone had cut the string which she wore around her neck and had made off with her purse and all her money for the day. The group of spectators turned into an uncontrollable magma, in which everyone twisted around to make sure that nothing was missing (purses, necklaces, brooches).

"There, I knew it," said the old man, guffawing, "the sanpaolaro's friend found what he wanted."

I turned towards the man who until that moment had been drawing all our attention. Taking advantage of the general confusion, the sanpaolaro (if he merited the name) had vanished.

"With his accomplice, of course," added the old man.

Resuming my walk, my humour had darkened. I too had not realised that the serpent was only a means of attracting a few unsuspecting victims while an accomplice of the sanpaolaro looked after the business of relieving them of their money. Two real virtuosi of the art of theft, thought I: as soon as things became uncomfortable, they had vanished like snow in the sunshine. And what if they too were cerretani. Sfasciamonti had said that every cerretano was a beggar and that begging was the most profitable trade in the world. Did he perhaps also mean that every beggar, rogue or vagrant was also a cerretano? If that were the case, the prospect would be terrifying: without realising it I had been offering alms to an army of criminals who held the city under their control.

I abandoned these notions, which seemed too fanciful, and my thoughts returned to my fall and the horrible death which I had just faced. What had saved my life? The prayer of the pilgrims in procession or the cart full of manure? The dung had undoubtedly been the immediate cause of my salvation. Was I then indebted to good fortune? And yet, I had opened my eyes to the passing of the pious procession of pilgrims, to whose chants I had miraculously reawakened. Had I thus been touched by grace through the merit of the innocent vows of love and charity of that cortege of the faithful come from afar?

But how effective were those vows? In the pilgrims' intentions these were certainly innocent and full of ardour, I thought. But, I murmured to myself as I passed a squalid and most costly lodging house for pilgrims which I knew to be the property of a cardinal — there was also something else beyond those prayers that was perhaps less innocent and pure: the very organisation of the Jubilee.

Of course, I well knew (and it was universally known) that Pope Boniface VIII had, in the year 1300, inaugurated the solemn recurrence of the Holy Year with the best of intentions. Drawing inspiration from the noble custom of the pontiffs of ancient times, who every hundred years granted the faithful full and complete remission of their sins, provided that they visited the Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, Pope Boniface VIII had officially instituted the Jubilee Year in the full and proper sense, adding to past practice only the obligation to visit the Basilica of St Paul, and setting aside certain days for the visits of the faithful.

The news had spread like lightning throughout Christendom and had touched the hearts of the faithful everywhere, as though the very trumpeting angels of paradise had been at work. Its success had been immense. Swarms of Romei, or pilgrims, had in that year 1300 come to the Holy City from all the world over, descending from the valleys of the Apennines, crossing valleys and ravines, crags and gullies, peaks and high plateaux, towns and villages, rivers, seas and far-away coasts, bringing with them, both for the purposes of the journey and those of the sojourn in Rome, purses well filled with money: and this the popes, and with them all the Romans, found most welcome.

To make the great journey, the Romei had often sacrificed their most precious goods: peasants had abandoned their fields, merchants had neglected their business, shepherds had sold their flocks, and fishermen, their boats. This was not, however, to pay for the journey (which was made entirely on foot, like every good pilgrimage springing from a lively and uncontaminated faith) but rather to be able to procure for oneself a place to lay one's head in Rome, where such things cost a veritable fortune. There was no thought of sleeping in the open: if one did not fall a prey to cut- purses and cutthroats, the Pontifical Guards did what they could to dissuade the less fortunate pilgrims. Indeed, why sleep in the streets when the popes themselves had organised an immense number of lodgings for the pilgrims? Confraternities and pious hospices did their very best; but beds were always scarce. At the Jubilee of 1650, it was said that even the Pope's sister-in-law, the powerful and notorious Donna Olimpia, had purchased lodgings and inns to take advantage of the arrival of the pilgrims. But in truth all the Romans enjoyed the benefits of the holy event. Aware of their responsibilities as hosts, they had turned innkeeper overnight, knowing full well that the regular inns and the religious hostels would never suffice to accommodate the influx of pilgrims. When the poor travellers, exhausted by the fatigues of the journey, came to the door of the inhabitants of the Holy City (as Buccio di Ranallo tells it so well) they were then greeted with angelic smiles, kindness and mercy without end. Once, however, they had entered their chambers, the music changed and those angels turned into ravening dogs: the guests were piled up ten to a room (which sufficed for three or four at most), the sheets were filthy, the pillows stank, manners were rough and the food, although most costly, was rubbish. One could never be rid of the suspicion that the sudden rise in the prices of foodstuffs had been caused by clever frauds, keeping supplies of commodities far from the city. The poor quality of the food was usually blamed on bad meat and cheeses which, some said (but this was never proven) were cleverly mixed with the fresh produce.

Some Romei, believing that to sleep on the hard ground was a badge of merit to be taken into account when the time came for the remission of sins, would humbly lay themselves down in the streets of Rome. In the middle of the night, they would be, however, rudely awoken by the sergeants, who first of all would give them all a sound hiding for having violated the city's decorum and the regulations for public order. Then they would say to them, "Are you pilgrims? But how did you think to sleep like vagabonds? There's a hostel for people like you just a stone's throw from here." And thus the unfortunates would be compelled to rent a room for an unbelievable price in one of the boarding houses owned by relatives of the pontiff or high prelates.

Then there were the most embarrassing episodes, such as those when pilgrims, arriving exhausted at the gates of Rome, were seized by bands of slave-traders who, after beating all the stuffing out of them, forced them to work in the fields and released them, humiliated and extenuated by hard labour, only after many months.

Yet the Faith, indifferent to such passing inconveniences, had for centuries continued to draw glorious hosts of believers to the Holy City, and with them, huge sums of money: I knew that, among the most ancient examples, there had at the Jubilee of 1350 been one million two hundred thousand pilgrims during Lent and at Easter, and eight hundred thousand at Whitsuntide; in 1450, the Apostolic Chamber had taken one hundred thousand florins (and celebrated by converting no fewer than forty Jews and a rabbi). Finally, in 1650, only half a century before the Jubilee now being celebrated, there had been no fewer than seven hundred thousand pilgrims. Great feasting and booty was had by all: the cobblers who resoled the Romei's boots, the innkeepers who fed them, the water-sellers who sated their thirst; and by the traders who had something to offer them: rosaries, holy images, stools to sit on, medicinal herbs, wine, prayer books, bread, clothing, hats, the authentic relics of saints, pens and paper, gazettes, guides to Rome and whatever could be bought and sold.

According to the wish of Boniface VIII, one hundred years should pass between one Jubilee and the next. Such an interval of one century was a warning to all sinners that one could not and should not abuse the patience of the Most High. However, seeing the success of the initiative, and its not unwelcome economic effects, the solemn interval of one hundred years was at once reduced to a half-century by Pope Clement VI who in fact announced the next recurrence in 1350 (without himself celebrating it in person, since he was then in Avignon, which was at that time the seat of the papacy, while Rome was soiled with bloodshed in internecine warfare between noble families, exhausted by the plague and perturbed by the dark misdeeds of the lawless plebeian Cola di Rienzo).

Boniface IX later shortened the interval to forty years and proclaimed a new Jubilee in 1390, and then another barely ten years later in 1400. Martin V celebrated one in 1423, while Nicholas V even went so far as to proclaim two consecutive ones in 1450 and 1451.

The next popes were more orderly, increasing the interval between one Jubilee and the next to 25 years: Sixtus IV held one in 1475, Alexander VI in 1500 and Clement VII in 1525. There then followed yet another intense acceleration: both Paul III and Julius III celebrated three Jubilees in four years.

The pace grew more and more breathless: Pius IV celebrated no fewer than four Holy Years during his pontificate (including two in the same year) while Clement VIII proclaimed three. Paul V marked up six, at an inexorable rate: 1605, 1608, 1609, 1610, 1617 and 1619. All of which was as nothing compared with the performance of Urban VIII who, in twenty years decreed no fewer than twelve of them.

Seeing their signal success, the popes who followed did not feel like changing course: Innocent X fitted five Jubilees into ten years, Alexander VII another five into nine years, while Clement IX even managed to compress four Holy Years into two years.

Coming to more recent popes, while it is true that Alexander VIII and Innocent XI proclaimed only two and one Holy Years respectively, Clement X had three, in quick succession (in 1670, 1672 and 1675) and even the present Holy Father, Innocent XII, could not restrain himself from celebrating four in eight years.

It is quite true that these extraordinary celebrations did not always draw great masses of pilgrims to Rome. It is also true, moreover, that the intervals, initially subject to the severe hundred-year cycle, had in the course of time become subject to steadily more and more contingent motivations, which often ran the risk of perplexing posterity, and sometimes even contemporaries.

Some extraordinary Jubilees came to be granted on a limited basis to certain nations or groups (Peru, Armenia, India, the Maronites of Lebanon, the Christians of the Aethiopic Empire) who, in the community of the faithful, especially the Italians and Europeans, did not perhaps always evoke sentiments of immediate, universal, overwhelming fraternity.

The Council of Trent, the struggle against heresy, the ransoming of prisoners in the hands of Mahometans, the peace between France and Spain, or else, fairly frequently, the enthronement of a new pope, provided other occasions (obviously called pretexts by the malign), which did not always have a character of absolute urgency and gravity.

It was striking that no fewer than nine times the proclamation of a Holy Year had been determined by the needs of the Church, or rather of its coffers, and for that very reason, Urban VIII (subsequently accused of gravely dissipating the money of the Apostolic Chamber) had proclaimed four Holy Years in 1628, 1629, 1631 and 1634.

And if many Holy Years had been granted to the faithful against the Mahometan menace, which was ever lively in the Orient, it was more difficult to understand what stringent necessity had in 1560 induced Pope Pius IV to choose as the reason for opening the Extraordinary Holy Year, the raids of a certain pirate named Dragut.

Be that as it may, in exactly four centuries, from the first Jubilee in 1300 until that opened by His Holiness Pope Innocent XII in 1700, there should, according to the original plans of Pope Boniface VIII, have been five Jubilees. The total had, however, reached thirty-nine.

So I wondered with anguish and doubt, coming to the end of my reflections, whether such a cavalier attitude did not risk weakening in the sight of the Most High, or even rendering vain, the power of the supplicants' prayers. This doubt was reinforced by the consideration that the Jubilee attracted dishonest persons and gave occasion for so many sad occurrences (theft, cheating, rapine) like that which I had just witnessed.

But such pressing questionings had at last to make way for sleep. I had reached home. I promised myself that I would later ask for the guidance of Don Tibaldutio Lucidi, the chaplain of Villa Spada.

Cloridia, as I expected, was not there. She had certainly stayed behind at the Villa Spada to watch over the confinement of the Princess of Forano. Just as well: I'd have died rather than let her see me in that horrible stinking state. The first thing I did was to fill the bathtub and to immerse myself entirely in it, in an endeavour to rid myself of the pestilential odour of which I had become the carrier. While I rinsed my head with bucketful upon bucketful of water, I shivered more from the memory of the perils which I had faced than the icy and unpleasant ablution. By the time I had dried myself, it was already full daylight. The diurnal luminary shone splendid and implacable, awakening the senses and inviting mortals to action.

Indifferent to that radiant call, I dragged myself to my bed, worn out, and already halfway between waking and sleep I prayed to thank the Blessed Virgin for having saved my life.

My hands were still joined when I saw the note. The handwriting was somewhat tremulous, but determined. It was easy to guess the author:

All night up waiting. I expect your report.

I dedicated one last irate thought to Abbot Melani. Because of him I had almost lost my life — and for nothing. Did he want my news? He would have it in good time, no sooner.

I slept for over two hours: not enough to recover all my strength, but sufficient at least to be able to walk, think and talk.

I was almost thinking of staying at home waiting for someone to come and summon me, caring not for the wrath of Don Paschatio or that of Abbot Melani. Suddenly, like a blow from a whip on my naked back, a memory caused me to wake up with a jump: it was the great day, the wedding day of Cardinal Spada's nephew!

On my arrival at the villa, I found the air dense with euphoric frenzy. Not only workmen, porters, lackeys and scullions were moving busily along the drives, through the kitchen gardens and among the rooms of the great house. Today, there was also a gay and colourful troop of artists who would be bringing joy to the hours following the nuptial banquet: the musicians of the orchestra.

I at once requested tidings of Cloridia. I interrogated more than one servant, but was told that she was still confined to the apartments of the Princess of Forano, nor had she ever left there during the night. Well, I thought, if she was so busy, she would have had no time to worry about the author of these notes.

I then made my way to the little wood and continued to the chapel in which that afternoon the august nuptials were to be celebrated between Clemente Spada, nephew of His Eminence

Cardinal Fabrizio, and Maria Pulcheria, niece of Cardinal Bernardino Rocci.

Among the servants of Villa Spada, all were exceedingly curious to see the bride. Of her, we knew only that she was no great beauty. Surely, the preparations were worthy to provide a setting for the nuptials of Venus. The sacristy and the little wall running around the chapel had been exquisitely ornamented with arrangements of the freshest flowers in terracotta vases and wicker cornucopias, set about with garlands of fresh cut blooms and baskets garnished with lemons, apples, golden apples of the New World (or tomates, which nature has created beautiful but unpleasant to the taste), ears of corn and generously displayed fruit. Commodious armchairs in the first row and chairs of gilded intaglio wood in the successive ones had been arranged harmoniously in a semicircle, so that no guest's vision should be disturbed by the person in the row in front.

In a corner, standing against the wall and delicately covered with a damasked cloth, were the bundles of decorated sticks, bound together with coloured ribbons and culminating in crowns of flowers, which we servants, apparelled in festive dress for the occasion, were to wave with festive exultation at the end of the ceremony. The little arena with armchairs and seats was crowned with marvellous open vaulting, all built in wood and papier mache and composed of pairs of quadrangular columns surmounted by gracefully ornate capitals, among which lovely rounded arches leaned out, garlanded with flowers, heather and mad bunches of wild herbs.

In like manner, the other nuptial decorations (hangings of blood-red velvet, draperies of golden silk, curtains with the family arms of both the spouses) had been completed and skilfully arranged. Two maids were about to finish placing the soft plush cushions on the chairs; from the chapel I heard the paternal voice of Don Tibaldutio giving the little servers their final instructions. I took heart: at least for the nuptial rite all arrangements were on time.

I felt the need to kneel before the altar and recite yet another prayer of thanksgiving for having my life saved. Wthin the chapel, there was a statue of the Madonna of the Carmel, the same to which Abbot Melani had for all those years confided my little pearls as an ex voto\ this had evoked even more in me the desire to turn to that apparation of the Holy Virgin and Mother and to confide the fate of us all during the coming days to her safekeeping. I entered, sought a discreet corner, and knelt.

A short while later, Don Tibaldutio emerged from the sacristy and saw me. He set to work making final touches and putting the liturgical instruments in order, all the while keeping an eye on me. I knew why. Don Tibaldutio was a good-humoured and rubicund Carmelite who lived in a little room behind the sacristy which had been designated as the presbytery. Isolated thus from the rest of the villa, he often felt lonely and so would take advantage of my presence (when I went to the chapel to pray or was in the immediate vicinity, busied with some gardening chores, or with the aviary) to chat with me. His living as chaplain to the Spada family was no mean distinction and many of his fellow priests would have gone on hands and knees to have such a post. He, however, rather than take advantage of his position to receive petitions and forward them to his master, restricted his role to the care of souls, and nothing else. And his flock consisted not so much of the Spada family (who were often absent on business) as of the humble servants' household, a community living at the great house all the year round and changing little from one year to the next.

Now, celebrating the nuptials of Cardinal Fabrizio's nephew and heir was indeed a great honour for Don Tibaldutio, but one which he would gladly have done without.

When, after my prayers at the foot of Our Lady of the Carmel, I rose once more, Don Tibaldutio came to me with the usual open and consoling smile. He placed a hand paternally on my head, as he always did, and asked after my Cloridia.

"You do well to entrust yourself to Our Lady. Have you the special prayers for the Jubilee? If not, I can lend you a little book. If you wish, I can go and fetch it at once: I have just completed my duties in preparation for this afternoon's happy event, so I have a little time to myself."

"Don Tibaldutio," said I, at once seizing my opportunity to calm the doubts which had arisen in my mind about the validity of the Jubilee indulgence, "'twas precisely on that account that I was thinking of coming to you for enlightenment and counsel…"

So it was that I told him briefly of the laceration of the soul which had been mine a few hours before. I did, however, employ expressions more prudent and less direct than those of my solitary cogitations; had I bluntly apprised him of how deeply I was repelled by the unworthy manner in which the Holy Years were conducted, I would have spoken the truth, but then I might perhaps have risked scandalising that honest and temperate churchman. I therefore used various expressions and turns of speech which danced around and touched lightly upon the kernel of my doubts, without ever mentioning such concepts as "cupidity", "corruption" or "simony".

"I see," interrupted Don Tibaldutio and, raising his hand sagely and lowering his eyelids with a seraphic smile, he invited me to take a seat beside him on one of the pews at the side of the chapel.

"You too, like so many, wonder what difference there might be from plenary indulgences, and whether the Holy Jubilee indulgence might not in some way be a pretext, as it may seem to profane eyes."

"Really, Don Tibaldutio, that is not what I meant… The fact is that I doubted the efficacy of cases in which…"

"Efficacy, efficacy. But that depends upon us believers," he replied, expressing the obvious. "In order to gain the indulgence it is sufficient to carry out each of the works enjoined on us, which, as you well know, are alms, visits to and prayers at the four basilicas, all in a single day, plus visits to and prayers at thirty churches for Romans and fifteen for outsiders, who have the disadvantage of the journey. But take care not to try to cheat Jesus! Our Lord Innocent XII has laid down that, for the purposes of this Jubilee, the ecclesiastical day is to be counted from Vespers to Vespers. It is therefore within that period of time that the basilicas are to be visited in a single day; in case of need, one can also do it from midnight to midnight, as used to be the case, but never from midday to midday, as too many Romans do, out of concern for their own comfort! Nor may one go to church too early or too late; 'tis not good enough to practise one's adoration through a closed door and, on that pretext, to spare oneself from giving alms to the priest!"

He began once more to scrutinise me, while I, with my eyes fixed on the ground, waited for a suitable moment to take my leave and return disconsolately to work with the same doubts as when I had entered the chapel.

"Why, my son," he added unexpectedly in a murmur, suddenly laying aside his didactic manner, "if the Apostolic Chamber enriches itself with the Holy Years beyond the power of words to describe, do not imagine that there remains one single scudo for poor parish priests."

I raised my eyes and my regard, crossing that of Don Tibaldutio, asked at last what my tongue could not express in plain language: what, in the eyes of the Most High, was the value of believers' prayers raised to heaven as a result of Jubilees which had, alas, been organised for shady lucrative ends?

"Very well," he replied, satisfied with that mute request.

I understood. Hitherto, Don Tibaldutio had answered me in the same terms as my questions, that is, without the virtue of clarity. He gestured that I was to follow him into the sacristy.

"God is merciful, my son," he began, even as we were making our way there. "He is certainly not that severe and vindictive deity of whom we read in the Old Testament and with whom the Jews still remain involved. Consider this little precept: if one is not in a state of mortal but only venial sin, Confession is not even a necessary prerequisite for obtaining the Jubilee indulgence; it is enough to make an act of contrition within one's own heart — the so-called Confession in Voto which I mentioned to you a few moments ago. Not only that: even in a state of mortal sin, it suffices to accomplish the required acts in order to obtain the Jubilee indulgence, so long as the final action was accomplished in a state of grace, or after repentance and Confession. Would all that make any sense if the Lord were not infinitely merciful?"

Indeed, I thought, 'tis as in the gospel parable of the husbandmen in the vineyard: those who come last receive full wages, as though they had worked the whole day. Does that not perhaps mean that God greatly recompenses our little deeds, our nothings with wholeness?

"The actions of visiting churches are morally good: even he who does this in a state of mortal sin moves towards reconciliation with God. And that is what counts," continued the chaplain.

We had meanwhile entered the sacristy, where Don Tibaldutio offered me a seat, taking care to close the door behind us. I imagined that he was on the point of revealing to me who knows what great and secret truth.

"The God of the Christians, my son, sacrificed his only-begotten son for the redemption of our sins," he said at last, speaking plainly. "The Holy Virgin and Mother bestowed upon Saint Dominic the sacred gift of the rosary to recite for the salvation of our souls; likewise with her own hands she made the scapular of the Carmel, of which I myself am a votary, and when we wear this, we can be certain that Our Lady Queen of the World will come with her crown of stars to fetch us from purgatory on the first Saturday after our death. Do you believe that we poor mortals deserve all that? Of course not, my boy, 'tis only the infinite grace and mercy of God that so decree, and certainly not the merits we gain from reciting a few Ave Marias or wearing an extra piece of material, gestures which in themselves are quite worthless; least of all are they worthy of obtaining eternal life. The Lord knows how petty and slothful we are, and that is why He offers us paradise on a golden platter, in exchange for vile copper coin. In His infinite love for us His children, He is satisfied by our little act of faith and goodwill: we make a small, wavering step towards Him and lo, the Merciful Father runs to us and gathers us up in His arms."

I waited for Don Tibaldutio to continue his discourse and to come to the long-awaited revelations; but he had said all that he had to say. He opened the door of the sacristy and again accompanied me to the foot of the statue of Our Lady of the Carmel, where he had first spoken to me. After bestowing a silent benison on my forehead, he left me there, moving away serenely and without a word.

Only then did the full import of the chaplain's teaching become clear to me. It was for me to draw my conclusion on my own: Divine mercy granted the Jubilee indulgence even to those in a state of mortal sin; all the more so would it lend an ear to the prayers of innocent pilgrims, even if they had been drawn to the Holy City by others' lust for lucre.

The truth which Don Tibaldutio had revealed to me was indeed great, as I had expected, but not secret; and yet, so humble and plain that it might have troubled certain august ears. It was therefore wiser to deliver it in the subtlest of whispers behind well closed doors.

I left the chapel calm and reconciled. I was about to continue on my way towards the theatre when I heard an echo of hurried martial footsteps coming towards me.

"Here Maestro, please come this way."

It was Don Paschatio, all out of breath, who was showing the way to a tall, thin individual, all dressed in black, with a forelock of pepper-and-salt hair adorning his forehead rather artistically, under which darted two flashing eyes set in a grave and irascible visage. The pair was followed by a musician (whom I recognised as such because he was attired like all the other members of the orchestra) who was carrying two violin cases and, under his arm, a capacious valise which one could imagine to be full of all manner of musical scores.

I followed them for a while until we reached the theatre. Here, the musicians had already taken their places and it was then that I had a surprise: it was no orchestra, it was a veritable tide of humanity. All in all, I estimated, they must have been over a hundred strong. They were busy tuning their instruments but they fell silent when Don Paschatio and the two individuals who were unknown to me arrived at the great amphitheatre. The man dressed in black evoked around his person an impalpable sense of devout reverence, perhaps even awe. I observed with pleasure that the stage for the players and the benches for the public, of fine polished wood, had all been completed on time. There were only two carpenters hammering a loose floorboard; they vanished in response to a severe nod from Don Paschatio, as soon as the taller of the two strangers mounted the platform in the middle of the orchestra.

It was then I realised that this was the celebrated Arcangelo Corelli, composer and violinist of great renown, whose participation at the festivities I had heard bruited abroad during the preceding days. He was to conduct music which he himself had composed.

Nothing had I heard of him until the year before, isolated as I was from the world by my daily coming and going from the Villa Spada to my little field and thence to the conjugal home. It had been a cantor at the Sistine Chapel who had come to buy grapes who had first spoken to me of "the great Corelli". And now I had been told by Don Paschatio that he was not just a great musician but the Orpheus of our times, whose glory now spread over half Europe and would one day make him immortal.

Like a military formation, the orchestral players grasped their bows in the same gesture and pointed them in identical fashion, as though 'twere an image reflected by a thousand mirrors, each at the same angle, with the same inclination and pose, at the strings of their instruments: the violins all alike, thus too the viols. For a few moments absolute silence reigned.

"Not only does he want them to play as one man but to look like one; even today, when they are but rehearsing," whispered Don Paschatio, sitting down by my side.

From his voice, I detected the triple sentiment of excited curiosity about Maestro Corelli's performance, contentment at serving as his Amphitryon, and weariness at the size of his task.

"He truly has a dreadful temper," continued Don Paschatio. "He never talks, he looks straight in front of him and thinks only of music. He deals with clients through the musician whom you saw arriving with us. He is his favourite pupil and it is said that he is also his… Well, Maestro Corelli is seen only in his company and never with a woman."At that moment, the music closed our mouths. As though moved by an invisible, ethereal force, and not only Corelli's gesture setting the music in motion, the musicians attacked in perfect, divine unison a concerto composed by their maestro. To my great astonishment, I soon recognised a folia.

Once again, that simple, almost elementary motif surprised me, showing me its agile, insinuating and subtle second nature. It was like a beautiful and opulent peasant girl, ignorant of the world but well versed in the human soul, who arouses the desire of a rich gentleman far more than his consort, with all her money and her pretences. Such was the nature of the folia, at once simple and capable of anything. Eight clear, robust measures, from D to F (or so I was to learn only later) and then again back to D; a seemingly innocent little motif, yet one capable of unleashing the most unheard of and lascivious fantasies.

At the outset, each folia, being a daughter of the people, seems to be all too simple: from D to F, from F to D. Corelli's was like this too: within the brief span of that eight-beat double modulation, the melody at first took the form of simple chords. The accompanying chords then uncoupled. In the second variation, they dissolved into triads, with a French-style rhythm. In the third, they broke down into arpeggios, in the fourth, they transformed into scales, in the fifth, into tremolos, progressively complicating the game with amusing embellishments, proud staccatos, lamenting legatos, a thousand artifices of adornment which ended up by casting the listener into a state of vertigo. Every now and then, a slow variation, in which the motif was reprised languidly, indolently, at last afforded both audience and players a chance to catch their breath.

After variation upon variation, the indistinct mist of the initial theme had by now dispersed. A whole landscape, once concealed amidst the few notes of the original motif, now emerged for the listener. It was as though the sense of the theme itself had at last become clear, the very meaning of the folia, a voyage from one tonality to another, not from D to F and back but from one world to another. And what worlds were these if not the world of sanity and of folly? One must needs journey from the one to the other because both, mutually illuminating one another, were imbued with meaning. From D to F from F to D: no melody could so conquer the heart and the mind without that perennial fluctuation from one tonality to the other. And for no one can there ever be wisdom, or so that music seemed to suggest, without that sacred pilgrimage towards folly.

Maestro Corelli played the part of first violin; to guide the whole symphonic ensemble he needed only sharp and brief movements of the head, as an experienced horseman needs only a tap of the heels or ankles to steer his well-beloved mount. It was as though he were saying: "Now, stop and listen, you'll not leave empty-handed, for I know what you're looking for."

Shining through that music, almost as if the notes wanted to comment on my thoughts (while in nature, 'tis the contrary that's common) I sensed all the bittersweet flavour of times past, of things that had happened and things yearned for, yet which had never come to pass, of the seventeen years which had separated me from Atto, of the lessons on diplomacy and government which I had received from him; teachings which, like the work of that magician of a painter whom he had invoked for me on our visit to the Vessel to immortalise the features of the Connestabilessa when young had been imprinted in me forever…

Perhaps himself enraptured by the power of his creation, Corelli had ceased to conduct. He was playing almost in meditation upon his violin, with the bow caressing the third string, then the first with a suaveness that seemed almost careless, playing for his own ears only. But this was no self-love. The orchestra was following him with eyes closed, casting sudden oblique glances at its conductor, minuscule pulls on the oars keeping the barque of the folia in exquisite and perfect balance in its passage from a calm episode to a somewhat more lively intermezzo, then once again to another slow movement. The musicians really were playing as one man, I thought. They and Corelli formed one thing, and that thing was Corelli.

And then I remembered: the first adventure I had lived through with Atto, his lessons of (theoretical) morality, the great but forgotten music of Seigneur Luigi Rossi, which he had shown me…

While the notes to which I was listening spread over my head and shoulders the warm blanket of memories, while the silvery shadows of the past rained down on me, it seemed that from Euterpe's merciful hands there slipped into my lap the ultimate and true sense of my being in that place at that hour, my face barely touched by the perfume of the nasturtiums in a nearby flower bed, and I glimpsed the end to which that sublime caravel of sound was tending: after seventeen years, a man and no longer a boy, fate was calling me to Atto's side in a new test of courage, a renewed merging of heart and intellect, a most bitter and most sweet voyage at the end of which virtue and knowledge once again awaited me. This was something which only later was I to recognise to be at once true and false, because induced by that philosophy without words and without ideas which speaks through the mouths of flutes and cymbals, mocking us all.

The notes were dying out in the sweet embrace of the final chord when a voice swept away the delusive voices to which I had been giving a home in my heart.

"For heaven's sake, where you been?"

My Cloridia had found me. She read on my face the signs of the adventurous night and questioned me with a silent, worried look.

I gestured to her that we should move away from the amphitheatre and drew her towards the cane-brake which delimited the green part of the garden to the north, just before the boundary wall. This was a useful stratagem, as by now the whole of the Villa Spada was more than ever gripped by extreme agitation, and not even our beech tree would be safe from inquisitive ears. I told her briefly all that had happened between nightfall and dawn.

"You are all insane: you, Sfasciamonti and Melani," said she in a voice halfway between tears, reproof and relief at having found me safe and sound.

She embraced me and we remained for a few minutes holding each other tight. I smelled the perfume of her skin mixing with the wild odours of the cane-brake and hoped with all my heart that I no longer smelled of manure.

"I have little time. The Princess of Forano wants me constantly by her side. She keeps on swooning, feeling unwell, being overcome by little bouts of fever. In other words, she's afraid of giving birth, despite the fact that this is the fourth child she's producing."

"But how come the husband allowed her to accompany him to the Villa Spada, knowing that she's so close to her confinement?"

"In fact, he does not know that, he thinks she's only in her sixth month…" Cloridia winked, with a vague, sly expression on her face that spoke volumes. "She, however, absolutely insists on being present at the wedding: the bride is a good friend of hers. I've been quite unable to convince her to return home. Let's stay here and listen to me carefully, I must be quick."

As promised, Cloridia had succeeded in obtaining some interesting information. A few weeks earlier she had assisted at the difficult confinement of a chambermaid at the Spanish Embassy. The young woman was very grateful to her for, thanks to her assistance, the little one, a fine little girl called Natalia who had tried to leave her mother's womb feet first, had been most skilfully extracted by Cloridia: slipping her fine fingers into the birth canal, she had succeeded in performing Siegemundin's celebrated "double-hold" at which she was so adept, and turning the baby in her mother's womb, whereupon she had pulled her out by the head without the slightest danger. The young mother who had previously twice miscarried had, out of gratitude, become Cloridia's friend.

"I mentioned to her what had befallen Abbot Melani and the bookbinder. In order to convince her to speak, I told her that this was perhaps of importance to the Spaniards and she should therefore tell me every curious thing that she had seen or heard. She said to me: "Jesu, Mother Cloridia, you must pray fervently for your husband and for your master, Cardinal Spada."

"And why is that?"

Cloridia had needed only gentle insistence to extract a confession from the young woman. Overhearing partly by accident (but also on purpose) the conversations of the Ambassador, the Duke of Uzeda, the little chambermaid had learned that political manoeuvres were taking place in Rome which would be decisive for the future of Spain and the world.

"Just as I read in the letters of the Connestabilessa Colonna," said I.

"You did well to spy out those letters. I am proud of you. In any case, Abbot Melani deserves no better. After all, he steals letters, that's how he gets by; even if they end up by costing him plenty," laughed Cloridia, alluding to the memoirs which Melani had arranged to be stolen from me and which he had then proceeded to buy at a high price.

Cloridia never spoke fondly of Atto. She did not trust him (and how could she be blamed for that?); indeed, of him she could hardly have thought worse. The Abbot, while perfectly aware that she was within calling distance of him, had never once thought to ask after her or to involve her in our business, were it only for the sake of appearances or to request a smattering of information; nor could Cloridia abide the idea that anyone could dare ignore her precious admonitions without running to certain doom.

Since his return she had never so much as been to present her respects or to offer her services and I was sure that if she had merely glimpsed Atto's silhouette in the park of Villa Spada, she would have changed direction so as not to meet him. The same was true of him, of that I was certain. In other words, the twain, my wife and Abbot Melani, repaid one another in the same coin.

"What else did you learn?" I continued.

"My little chambermaid mentioned to me, too, in truth very briefly, that the Catholic King is very ill and might soon die, but he has no heirs and it was said that the Pope had therefore been asked to help. Everyone at the Embassy at that time was terrified of being suspected of espionage. She, however, told me that she had heard this rumour which was current among the Spaniards in Rome from her other compatriots."

"What rumour?"

"That the Tetrachion will soon be arriving in Spain."

"Tetrachion? And what is that?"

"She does not know that either. She says only that he is the legitimate heir to the Spanish throne."

"The legitimate heir?"

"That is what she said. She asked me if I know anything of this. But it was from her that I heard tell of it for the first time. How about you?"

"Never heard of it. Not even the Connestabilessa had anything to say about that. But what's the connection between the Tetrachion, Abbot Melani's stab wound and the death of the book-binder?"

"I have no idea. As I said, in order to soften up my little chambermaid, I told her that this business concerned the Spaniards. So she told me that, according to the rumours, the coming of the Tetrachion would bring misfortune: what happened to Melani and to the bookbinder were, in her eyes, among the early signs of that trouble."

"Do you think that she will have anything else to tell you later on?"

"Surely not, seeing how scared she was. You know how word of mouth spreads among the servants' class. Once in motion, it takes on its own life. I do not exclude the possibility that I may soon receive further information about this Tetrachion quite spontaneously. Meanwhile, take care, I beg of you. You cannot always be as fortunate as you were last night."

"You know that I am doing this for both of us," said I gravely, alluding to the bountiful compensation which Atto had paid me for writing up the chronicle of his Roman sojourn.

"Then be so good as to arrange matters so that, at the end of this story, you and I are still together. Being a widow is no pleasant business. And do not deceive yourself: he paid you to write a memoir, not to go around searching for his stolen papers."

"Do not forget that they drugged me and broke into our house. I must prevent that from happening again," I retorted in my defence.

"It will happen surely enough if you persist in keeping company with Melani. Remember Article Five: 'He who holds the purse strings is the winner.'"She was right. With that mocking proverb Cloridia had said all that need be said. I did not have to follow Atto in all his convolutions. I had already been paid; it was therefore up to him to seek my services. Last night, however, I had not only followed him, I had gone around in his stead, and risked my life in so doing.

What would become of my family if I were to die? Cloridia could not bring up the little girls on her own. No, not even my intention of keeping watch over Atto on behalf of my master Cardinal Spada merited my running such risks.

"You have made me worry, my boy, believe me."

Abbot Melani was somewhat clumsily playing the part of the good paterfamilias. He sat in an armchair, massaging his arm. Hardly had I finished my conversation with Cloridia than he had succeeded in getting Buvat to trace me and bring me to him. The apartment was again in good order.

"I have spoken with Sfasciamonti," he went on. "He told me everything. You have been magnificent."

I remained silent for a few seconds. Then I exploded:

"Is that all?" I asked in a loud voice.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said: is that all you have to tell me? After risking my life for your trafficking. 'You've been magnificent!' And there's an end to the story, is that how you see it?" I added, almost screaming.

He jumped up and tried to place a hand over my mouth.

"What the Devil has got into you? You could be overheard…"

"Then kindly stop treating me like an idiot. I am a family man now. I have no intention of risking my life for a handful of coin!"

Atto was circling me anxiously. My voice continued to resound through the chamber and it could be heard outside.

"A handful of coin? What ingratitude! I thought you were satisfied with our arrangement."

"That arrangement made no provision for my death!" I replied, yet again at the top of my voice.

"Very well, very well, but now do speak quietly, I beg of you," said he in tones that suggested capitulation. "To all problems there is a solution."

He sat down and waved me to a chair in front of his one, almost as though acknowledging my status as that of a belligerent of equal strength, at last invited to the negotiating table.

So it was that, having entered Atto's lodgings with the firm intention of freeing myself from his service, I left after bringing about the opposite. As was his wont when discussing pecuniary matters, especially when it was he who must disburse, he was curt, exact and to the point, with just a trace of restrained bitterness in his voice. The terms of the new agreement were as follows: in carrying out Atto's instructions, or in favouring his interests, or finally in carrying out all the operations necessary for the purpose of completing the memoir for which he had paid me in advance, I was to do everything possible, without however at any time exposing myself to danger, whether mortal or of particular gravity. The term of this undertaking was obviously to coincide with Atto's departure from the Villa Spada or otherwise at some previous time, to be fixed according to his imprescriptible decision..

This ambiguous and complicated form of words meant, when all was said and done, that I was to place myself with even greater alacrity at the service of Abbot Melani, if necessary, even in difficult or dangerous situations: if possible, without paying with my life. The term "if possible" weighed down on my shoulders like a millstone.

The other part of the deal was no small matter, and Atto was all too well aware of that.

"Not just money, houses. Property. Lands. Farms. I shall make over your daughters' dowry. A rich dowry. And, when I say rich, I am not exaggerating. In a few years they will be of an age to marry. I do not want them to find themselves in difficulties," said he, affecting a generosity which I had, however, extorted from him. "I have a number of properties in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany: all valuable estates yielding excellent returns. At the end of the festivities of your master Cardinal Spada we shall go together to a notary and there we shall make over the deeds to a number of properties, or perhaps the income from them — we shall see what is most convenient. You will need to do nothing: your two little girls will become the assignees of the dowry and I hope that this will suffice to find a good husband for them. Even in these matters, you know, what counts most is help from the Lord."

He made me stand up and embraced me vigorously, as though to seal who knows what fraternal sentiment.

I let him. I was too concerned with weighing up in my mind the implications of that agreement: I could guarantee my daughters, the offspring of a humble labourer and a midwife, a sure and dignified future, even a life of ease. I had accepted in a hurry, out of unpreparedness and, above all, for fear of losing a unique opportunity. A thousand unknowns flocked on the cord joining heart and intellect, croaking their doubts: what if something (illness, death, sudden departure) were to prevent Atto from honouring his undertaking? And, above all, what if he had deceived me? I did not, however, accord much credence to this last possibility. If he had wanted to trick me, he would surely not have paid in advance for the writing of the memoir, as he had, however, done; and in cash.

In any case, I asked him: "Excuse me, Signor Atto, but… would it not be better to put something in writing?"

He let his wrists fall from the arms of his chair, as though exhausted by a titanic effort.

"Poor boy, you are still so ingenuous. Do you think that if someone intended to cheat you, a contract of this kind would be of any help to you in a court of law or that it might perhaps even help you to obtain your funds?"

"I really…" I hesitated, ignorant as I was about matters of law.

"Come, come, my boy!" Melani rebuked me. "Learn to live and think as a man of the world! And learn to look better into the eyes of those with whom you are dealing, because 'tis from your intuition about the person that your success or failure will come. Otherwise, every deal will be an enigma to you and every contract a confused mess."

He fell meaningfully silent, scandalised by my proposal of a written contract yet pitying my scant knowledge of worldly affairs.

"However," he added, "I understand you."

He took pen and paper and put all that he had just promised in writing.

He handed it to me. Melani undertook to constitute on behalf of each of my daughters a marital dowry with rents and property to be drawn up before a notary of the Capitol, but which, he now promised, would be substantial.

"Will that do?" he asked coldly.

"Yes, indeed, I think, yes; Signor Atto, I must thank you…"

"Please, please…" he gestured as though to brush off my words and at once changed the subject. "What was I saying to you? Ah yes, Sfasciamonti described all yesterday's events to me in detail. Just one question: what exactly did the cerretano say to you on that terrace?"

"Something like 'tiyootootay'… No, now I remember. He said, 'Teeyooteelie'," I replied, with a great effort of memory.

"You have really been splendid."

"Thank you, Signor Atto. A pity that all that 'splendour' — to use your words — has got us nowhere."

"What do you mean?"

"We have nothing but the remains of a microscope. No telescope, no relic, no papers."

"Nothing, you say? Now we know about the German."

"Well, about him we really do not know a thing, not even whether he really exists," I objected.

"Oh, you have not laboured in vain. I agree with Sfasciamonti that we are following up an important clue. There is someone here in Rome, this German, who collects optical instruments and relics. Not only that: this character has links with the cerretani. Now we know who to look for. As for the question of the secret language of the cerretani, that really does not trouble me at all. If we cannot manage to decipher it, we shall find ways of making them speak our language! Heh!"

It was unusual to see Atto so blindly trusting. I had the suspicion that all that optimism served mainly to appease me and not to lose my services.

"Sfasciamonti says that no one knows where he is to be found," I objected.

"These persons of the criminal underworld can always be traced. Perhaps one need only know the right name. The German, however, is but a nickname," he replied.

That observation brought to mind the strange name which Gloridia had mentioned to me and which, she thought, might also be useful to Atto.

"Signor Atto, have you ever heard tell of the Tetrachion?"

At that moment, there came a knock on the door. It was Sfasciamonti who entered quickly and without even waiting for an answer. His face too bore the marks of that horrible sleepless and over-eventful night.

"I have news. I have been to the Governor's palace," he began. "No one knows anything about the telescope. I do, however, have news about the mackeroskopp."

Sfasciamonti had shown the remains of the optical instrument to a number of colleagues who had quickly retraced it to a burglary committed a few days previously. The apparatus belonged to a learned Dutchman who had been robbed of all the effects he had left in his chamber at an inn near the Piazza di Spagna.

"There too, they opened the door with a key. No breaking and entering. No idea as to who did it."

"Interesting," observed Atto. "This is our thief's favourite method."

"Today there's the wedding," the catchpoll continued, "so I shall not be able to get away. We must wait until evening. I'd like to put some questions to a couple of wretches. Let us then meet tonight after the nuptial banquet. You, my boy, will come with me."

I looked at Atto, hesitating.

"No," he said, guessing that I had some hesitation about running yet more risks, "the matter concerns me personally… therefore I too shall come."

I had been caught out: in point of fact, Cloridia would have wished me to stop going out at night on behalf of Melani. Atto had offered to come, but in my company! And if an old man like him took this upon himself, I bethought myself with some embarrassment, why could not I do likewise?

The catchpoll explained the objective to us.

"Interesting… Most interesting," commented Atto at the end.

"Who told you? Speak! From whom did you learn this?"

The attack came the moment we were alone. He grabbed me by the collar and hurled me against the wall. His was the modest strength of an old man, yet surprise, the respect which I nevertheless felt for him, and which caused me to hesitate, as well as fatigue from the night before, all prevented me from facing up to him as I ought.

"Tell me!" he screamed in my face one last time.

Then he looked behind him out of the corner of his eyes, towards the door of the chamber, fearing that he might have been overheard. He relaxed his grip, while I myself, whose sole reaction had been to grasp those almost skeletal wrists to prevent him from strangling me, broke free.

"But what has got into you?" I protested.

"You must tell me who spoke to you of the Tetrachion," said he in a firm, icy voice, as though he were reclaiming possession of something that belonged to him.

I therefore told him that a chambermaid at the Spanish Embassy had made some obscure connection between the incident which had befallen Atto and the death of the bookbinder and the coming of the Tetrachion, who was said to be no less than the legitimate heir to the Spanish throne. When I referred to the illness of the Catholic King, and to the fact that he was on the point of dying childless, I had to make a considerable effort to avoid betraying the fact that I had learned all this from Maria's letters.

"Well, well, I see that you know the main things about the Spanish succession. Obviously, you have taken up reading gazettes once more," he commented.

"Er, yes, Signor Atto. My wife does, however, hope to have further details in the next few days," I concluded, hoping that he had calmed down.

"Of that, I have no doubt. Don't imagine that you are going to get away with this so lightly," he said acidly.

I was incredulous. After all the services which I had rendered him, Atto was treating me like the most sordid of traitors.

"Anyway," I burst out at last, "who or what the deuce is this Tetrachion?"

"That is not the problem."

"Then, what is?"

"The problem is: where is he?"

He opened the door and went out, beckoning me to follow him.

"Things could not go on like that forever," he began.

We were approaching the gate of the Villa Spada, in the midst of a chaotic and excited multitude of workmen, seamstresses, porters and lackeys.

He had decided to respond to my questions with facts, and was heading for an unknown destination; but with words too, taking up again the thread of the narration which he had interrupted the day before.

Gradually, as the King reached manhood, Atto narrated, Mazarin's position was becoming more delicate with every passing day. He knew that he would not be able to keep his sovereign forever in a state of blissful, nebulous ignorance of matters of state and the facts of life. After being the absolute master, what place would the Cardinal occupy under a young, vigorous monarch in full possession of his powers? Mazarin thought anxiously of this again and again during long journeys by carriage, while distractedly receiving postulants, in every single free moment that work left him and last of all, in bed, as he awaited sleep and his most pressing thoughts performed their last furious dance. Meanwhile, despite the Queen Mother's complaints about Maria, he raised not a finger to separate the young King from his niece…

"The King saw this and took it in, interpreting this silence as consent. And of one thing you may be certain: the Cardinal absolutely did not want to see his niece in the humiliating role of royal mistress when Louis took himself a wife!"

"In other words, Louis had the illusion that the Cardinal would let him marry her," I conjectured.

"'Twas more than an illusion. Once the King even went so far as to call Maria 'my Queen' in the presence of others. The whole court, led by the Queen Mother, cried scandal. Louis's sole response, however, was to acquire from the Queen of England a splendid necklace of huge pearls which was, moreover, one of the English crown jewels: it was to be his betrothal gift to Maria. Was it not, moreover, true that, a year previously, the hand of Maria's younger sister Ortensia had been requested by the English King Charles II? The negotiations failed later, but only because the British sovereign wanted, in addition to a dowry in money, the fief of Dunkirk, which Mazarin did not feel able to yield. So Louis's hopes were not by any means groundless."

At court, meanwhile, the couple's every sigh was spied upon and reported to Anne of Austria. A mordant comment by Maria, a word out of turn or her all-too-spontaneous laughter, all were at once transformed by courtiers' gossip into a caprice or insolence inviting loud censure. A passing glance by the young King at some damsel was enough to make the courtiers exult against Maria Mancini.

Very soon, an expedition was organised: everyone was off to Lyons, for the presentation to the King of a young maiden, Margaret of Savoy, a possible candidate for Louis's hand. He obeyed, but he took Maria with him and carefully avoided any contact with the Queen Mother. Every evening during the journey, instead of having dinner, the King performed in a ballet, having partaken of an abundant afternoon meal, so as to avoid dining with his mother. Then he would play at cards with Maria.

We had, I saw, left the Villa Spada and we were making our way towards the San Pancrazio Gate.

At the meeting with Margaret of Savoy, Atto continued, Louis was as cold as a mannequin. He had eyes and ears only for Maria. They were inseparable. During stages on the journey, he at first followed her carriage on horseback then acted as her coachman; in the end, he fell into the habit of joining her as a passenger. On moonlit nights, Louis would walk up and down until late under the windows of Mazarin's niece. When he attended some play, he would want her by his side, on a specially made platform. Those who accompanied them on their walks were by now accustomed to staying behind and leaving the lovelorn pair alone, a few yards ahead of them, so as not to disturb them. By now, they spoke of nothing else at court. The Cardinal and the Queen Mother, however, said nothing and let it be.

The whole court was stupefied by the disrespectful behaviour of the young King. The negotiations soon broke down and poor Margaret wept at the disgrace. Then came the surprise: a secret envoy arrived from Madrid. The Spanish King offered Louis the hand of his daughter Maria Teresa, Infanta of Spain.

"It seems almost as though you kept a diary of those days," I ventured, dissimulating my curiosity, for I was aware of Atto's aptitude for gathering information which he would then put to various quite unforeseeable uses.

"A diary, a diary!" he replied with some annoyance, "I was on an official diplomatic mission, in the retinue of Cardinal Mazarin, the purpose of which was to conclude with Spain the Peace of the Pyrenees; I registered every single detail with my eyes and ears, that's all there is to it. This was part of my duties."

Once the court had returned to Paris from Lyons, in February 1659, Louis's first thought was to celebrate the failure of the meeting with Margaret of Savoy.

"At the gathering, you could see festive costumes echancres after the fashion of the peasants of Bressannes, a small town through which the royal progress had passed on its way to Lyons, with manchettes and collerettes en toile ecrue, a la verite un peu plus fine," said Atto, showing off with a delighted and malicious little smile, in a mixture of French and Italian. "Mademoiselle and Monsieur were attired en toile d'argent with pink passepoils, tabliers et pieces de corsage in black velvet and gold and silver dentelles; while their black velvet hats bore pink, white and fire-coloured plumes and Mademoiselle's neck was covered with rows of pearls too numerous to be counted, and bestrewn with diamonds.

"And there was Mademoiselle de Villcroy, puree de diamants, and

Mademoiselle de Gourdon, all covered in emeralds, accompanied by the Due de Roquelaure, the Comte de Guise, the Marquis de Villeroy and the sparkling Puyguilhem (later to become the notorious Comte de Lauzun), they too costumed and coiffed avec les houlettes de vernis, like the peasants of Bressannes, and this was yet another silent seal which the great architect, Love, placed, 'midst scornful celebrations, upon the failure of Louis's planned nuptials with Margaret of Savoy.

"And the offer in marriage of the Infanta of Spain?" I objected.

"The negotiations had not yet begun. Between the Spaniards and Mazarin, secret contacts were taking place, but only gradually did they become public. All still remained to be decided. What was more," added Atto pensively, as we went through the San Pancrazio Gate under the watchful eyes of the guards. "What was more, I have always had the impression that the Cardinal had very different plans from these matrimonial arrangements for bringing Spain to heel and imposing peace on terms entirely favourable to himself. At least, until…"

"Until?"

"In March 1659, something unforeseen took place. Don John of Austria, the King of Spain's bastard son, arrived in Paris. He was coming from Flanders, of which he was the Governor, on his way to Spain. I recall those days very well, because Don John arrived incognito, at Vespers, and at court excitement was at its height. Queen Anne received him in her chambers, and I too was able to be present."

He was a small man, slight in build, well made, with a fine head and black hair — just a little rotund. Noble was the aspect of his face and agreeable to behold. The Queen treated him with great familiarity and in his presence spoke almost entirely in Spanish. She also presented to him the young King Louis. Don John, however, the son of King Philip of Spain but born of an actress, ever over-proud of his birth, behaved with excessive haughtiness, disappointing and arousing the indignation of the entire court which was playing host to him.

"The same embarrassing situation was repeated the day after,"

Atto recounted, "after he had had the honour of sleeping in Mazarin's apartments. Don John came at length to the Louvre, where Anne and the Cardinal received him with a friendliness which was not reciprocated. Monsieur, the King's brother, lent him his own guard without receiving the least thanks in return. Everyone was astounded and shocked by the Bastard's effrontery. Yet that was as nothing when compared with what was to happen later."

"Was there a diplomatic incident?"

Atto drew breath and raised his eyes, almost as though to force the riotous flock of memories into the sheepfold of logical discourse.

"An incident?… Not really. Something else. What I am about to disclose to you is a tale known to very few."

"Do not worry," I reassured him, "I shall tell no one."

"Good. You do well to behave thus — in your own interest, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Like all scalding hot information, you can never quite tell what awkward potentialities lie concealed in it."

Meanwhile, we had covered a good distance along the Via San Pancrazio. I had guessed where we were going. This was confirmed when Atto came to a halt. We were before the entrance.

"It is here. Or at least, it should be," said Atto, inviting me to cross the threshold of the Vessel.

We stood yet again in the fine courtyard, made gay by the ever renewed gurgling of the fountain. This time, no sign of any human presence came from within the villa; neither music nor even the slightest vague rustling that might stimulate one's imagination.

We advanced towards the tree-lined drives which we had explored on our first visit, near the espaliered citrus trees. After the amiable hubbub at Villa Spada, the silence here seemed designed to dispose Atto even more towards narration. Only a timid breath of wind caressed the foliage on the treetops, the sole witnesses to our presence. As we walked in the park of the Vessel, Abbot Melani spun out the thread of the tale.

Don John, or the Bastard, as many called him, had in his retinue a curious being, a woman who was known to all as Capitor.

"A mangled name, for in reality they called her la pitora or something of the sort — a word which, I believe, means in Spanish 'the cretin'."

Capitor was mad. Hers, however, was no ordinary madness. It was rumoured that she came from a family of clairvoyant lunatics who, among the folds of a distorted vision, mysteriously captured gleams of occult truth. The Bastard had made of her a sort of domestic animal, an entertainment for the cruel, rough amusement of his soldiery and, sometimes, the gentry.

"Her fame as a clairvoyant, but also as an outlandish, entertaining madwoman, had preceded her to Paris," said Atto. "So much so that, soon after his arrival, the Bastard was asked whether he had brought her with him."

Thus it was that Capitor was presented at the Louvre. She was dressed in men's clothing, with short hair, a plumed hat and a sword. One eye swore at the other: she was, in other words, cross-eyed. Her skin was yellow and full of pock-marks, framed by a mousy mane, with a hooked nose and a dark window in the middle of her front teeth, all of which made her quite phenomenally ugly. Hers was an ungainly, pear-shaped figure, with minuscule withered shoulders, while her hips spread into enormous parentheses, all of which combined to render her disastrous appearance the more droll and ridiculous.

She was always accompanied by a flock of birds of all kinds, which took shelter on her shoulders and in the ample fold of her hat: goldfinches, parrots, canaries, and so on.

"But what was so special about her?"

"She was all day long at the Louvre," replied Atto, "where the Queen Mother, the King and his brother had a wonderful time joking and teasing her. She would often respond with strange strings of words, meaningless riddles, queer rhymes and incantations. Often she'd burst out laughing without rhyme or reason, in the midst of a banquet or a speech by a member of the court, just as one would expect from a lunatic. But if someone reproved her, she would at once become as sad as a funeral and, pointing her index finger at her opponent, she would whisper incomprehensible, menacing anathemas. After which she'd again roar with laughter, mocking with odd and truly funny witticisms the poor unfortunate who had thought to punish her. Often, she would play the castanets and dance after the manner of the Spanish gypsies. She would dance in the most curious fashion, without any accompanying music; but she did it with such passion that, more than a dance, it seemed to be an arcane rite. At the end, after the last pirouette, sweating and panting, she would let herself fall to the ground, ending with a raucous cry of victory. Everyone would applaud, bewitched and perturbed by the madwoman's magnetism."

There was a strange atmosphere in those days, since that indefinable being had arrived at court. While in the beginning everyone thought they could play games with her, it was by now the contrary that had become the norm.

With her bizarre behaviour and her caprices, Capitor amused everyone; with only two exceptions.

"The madwoman had no favourite topics of conversation. Indeed, she had none at all. If she was sad, she stayed in a corner, all dejected, and there was no way of conversing with her. Otherwise, she would wait for someone to ask her something, for example: 'What is the time?' She would reply, if she was on form and she liked the questioner, with some absurd pronouncement, such as: 'Time doesn't wait for time, for otherwise it would have to wait for those who no longer have any time, or to let them die in their non-time. I shall not die, because I am already in Capitor's non-time. You, on the other hand, are in today's time, and that seems fine to you because you have the illusion that you can see it, whereas what you are really seeing is the nothingness of your own non-time. Have you ever thought about that?'"

"But that doesn't mean a thing!"

"Indeed it is not supposed to. But, believe me, when that bedevilled madwoman gushed forth her incantations, you'd be taken in like some silly child and suspect there was some sense to it, even some revelation of which only she was capable. And that suspicion was not mistaken."

"What do you mean?"

"The madwoman, Capitor, had… how can I describe it? Let us say, she had some special faculties. I shall explain. More than once, she was asked where some lost object was to be found, which the owner had for a long time been seeking in vain. In a trice, she'd find it."

"But how?"

"She'd think of it a moment, then she would move directly behind a wardrobe, or rummage in some drawer, and there was the thing they were looking for."

"Good heavens, and how did she manage to…"

"She could do even better. She could guess at the contents of sealed envelopes or the names of people who were being introduced to her for the first time. She had premonitory dreams which were extraordinarily detailed and genuine. She invariably won at cards because, as she said, she could read the cards on her adversary's face."

"This seems to be almost a case of witchcraft."

"What you say makes sense. But no one ever pronounced that word. It would have caused a scandal; besides which, everyone took Capitor for what she was: a rather strange toy with which to amuse the Bastard's soldiery and, for a few days, the royal family. At the Louvre, they were many who enjoyed the entertainment during Don John's stay. When she left, the Queen, the King's brother and Madame de Montpensier bestowed on her their portraits painted on enamel and decorated with diamonds. Madame La Baziniere, who had even invited her into her home, gave her silverware and boxes full of ribbons, fans and gloves. They all, as I said, enjoyed themselves immensely, except for two persons."

"And who were they?"

Capitor, replied Atto, pampered unguardedly by the King and the Queen Mother, had without question behaved bizarrely during those days in Paris, but never insolently. Except once. Whenever Maria Mancini was in her presence, she would always speak of the same thing: the Spanish Infanta; in other words, the woman whose hand had been offered to Louis.

"She would repeat unceasingly how beautiful the Infanta was, what a great Queen she would be one day, how she was far more beautiful than any other woman, and so on," trilled Atto.

No one knew why the madwoman provoked Mazarin's niece, whose life at court was already difficult enough, with such irritating persistence. Some held that she had been inspired to do so by the Spaniards, who feared that the influence of the young Italian woman might prevent the marriage with the Infanta. Others thought, more simply, that Maria was not borne well by her rival, with whom she shared an instinctive, sanguine nature which, as is well known, gives rise to much discord where temperaments are equal and adverse.

Maria refused to play that game. She already had quarrels enough to pick with the court and lacked the sangfroid to put up with these provocations. She would react angrily, calling Capitor a cretin, insulting and scorning her. The madwoman responded by mocking Maria in turn with humorous, coarse verses and puns bordering on the obscene.

"And who was the other person that was not content with Capitor's presence in Paris?"

"To answer you, I must now recount for you a curious fact, which is precisely what I was intending to tell you, and which obliged me to provide this lengthy preamble."

This took place on an afternoon when it was raining heavily, during one of those sudden, violent storms which can for a few hours prevent any business from being carried on and which remind human beings of the superiority of the forces of nature.

While the driving rain was making puddles boil and flowing in muddy rivulets through the streets of Paris, a strange gathering was taking place in a room at the Louvre.

The Bastard had at last deigned to reciprocate the myriad attentions with which he had been honoured in Paris and offered the royal family a little entertainment. Capitor was to hand over a number of gifts to Cardinal Mazarin, after which the reigning family was to be entertained with a little song recital.

"And who was to sing?" I asked, growing curious, aware as I was of Atto's musical past.

"You have been well aware since the first night we met, seventeen years ago, that in my greener years I enjoyed no little public appreciation for my musical virtues, and that sovereigns and Princes of the Blood deigned to be my audience; and that, among the latter, Queen Anne enjoyed my singing more than ordinarily," said Abbot Melani, reminding me somewhat summarily of the fact that he had, when young, been one of the most acclaimed castrati in the theatres and courts of all Europe.

"Yes, I remember very well, Signor Atto," I replied briefly, mindful of the fact that Abbot Melani did not care to bring out too much from his past that seemed out of place in his current career as political counsellor to the King and secret diplomatic courier.

"Well, it fell to me to sing. And that was no easy matter. It was indeed one of the most singular performances of my entire life."

Everyone was looking forward to attending one of the madwoman's shows, explained Atto: two or three laughs and it would all be over. The company was most select: Queen Anne, Mazarin, the young King, Monsieur, his brother and, lastly, Maria whom, fearing some insolence on the part of Capitor at her expense, Louis had wanted at all costs to seat on a stool by his side. In a deep armchair near the group, but a little apart, sat Don John, accompanied by a retainer.

Upon a signal from the Bastard, three Spanish pages were ushered into the room bearing as many voluminous objects, each of them covered with a blood-red velvet cloth; whereupon I made my entry with the Capitor surrounded by her usual court of birds. The madwoman was all smiles, delighted to be the provider of the royal entertainment.

The presents, thus veiled, were placed on as many tables, arranged in a semicircle, in the middle of which the madwoman took up position, embracing a guitar.

"Courage, Capitor, show the Cardinal our gratitude," the Bastard amiably exhorted her. Capitor, after bowing submissively, turned to the Cardinal: "These presents are for His Eminence,' said she graciously, 'that he may extract the occult and presumed meaning therefrom, but also the clear and resplendent sense which instils knowledge in the soul."

She unveiled the first gift. It was a great wooden globe, containing a representation of all the known earth, the lands and the rivers that furrow them, and the seas that surround them, mounted on a monumental and imposing pedestal of solid gold. The Bastard, full of pride, explained at that juncture that the terrestrial globe was the counterpart to a celestial one; he had had the pair made in Antwerp and had kept for himself the one which represented the regions of the sky, while this one he was offering to Mazarin.

Capitor turned the globe and, caressing it with her pointing finger as she looked straight into the Cardinal's eyes, she then recited a sonnet.

Friend, look well upon this figure,

Et in arcano mentis reponatur,

Ut magnus inde fructus extrahatur,

Inquiring well into its nature.

Friend, of venture here's the wheel,

Quae in eodem statu non firmatur,

Sed in casibus diversis variatur,

And some it casteth down; to others, worldly weal.

Behold, one to the heights hath risen

Et alter est expositus ruinae;

The third is stripp 'd of all, deep down, to waste is driven.

Quartus ascendet iam, nec quisquam sine

By labouring he gained his benison,

Secundum legis ordinem divinae.

"For heaven's sake, how did you manage to remember that sonnet? This all took place forty years ago!"

"What of it? You should know, my boy, that I still retain the whole of Luigi Rossi's Orfeo, which I had the honour to sing before the King in Paris when he was barely nine years old, in 1647; in other words, half a century ago. Be that as it may, Capitor distributed a copy of that sonnet, no doubt to be sure that the message would not be lost. If you had read it and reread it, as we all did in the days that followed, you too would still remember it today without the slightest difficulty…"

"The interpretation does not seem that difficult to me: 'venture's wheel' obviously refers to the turning globe."

"You will understand that the Cardinal hesitated when faced with that rhyming dedication which was both unexpected and somewhat insolent."

"Why insolent?"

"If you listened carefully, you will have noticed that the sonnet is rather curious."

"In the first place, it contains verses in Latin."

"Not only that."

"Well, it says something like the proverb that the world's a ladder: some go down and some, up; one day, you're in luck, the next, the wind may change."

"Quite. And Mazarin, who was at the height of his power, did not care to be reminded that, secundum legis ordinem divinae, in other words, according to the order of God's law, he must sooner or later resign himself to relinquishing his command."

Someone at court hastened at once to whisper in his ear that the sphere which imitates the world (giving the illusion of being able with a glance and with the sense of touch to embrace the entire terrestrial orb) subtly suggests the notion of possession of lands, cities, entire nations: in other words, the prerogative of monarchs. This was a manner of saying that Capitor, and Don John, and in the final analysis, all Spain, recognised him as the real Sovereign of France. All the more so in that the Bastard had taken pains to make it clear that he was donating the terrestrial sphere to the Cardinal, while keeping only the globe of the constellations for himself. This interpretation ended up by flattering His Eminence, so that he regained his good humour.

Capitor then unveiled the second gift. It was a great and marvellous golden charger in the Flemish style with subjects in silver in relief, representing the god of the sea, Neptune, trident in hand in lieu of a sceptre, together with his spouse, the nereid Amphitrite. They were seated rather closely side by side on a rich chariot drawn by a pair of Tritons at the gallop, gloriously parting the waves and leaving a vast land behind them.

"One of the finest Flemish chargers that I have ever seen. It must have been worth a fortune," commented Atto. "Curiously, Capitor called it by a strange name, which imprinted itself in my mind because it was neither French nor Spanish, nor of any language of our times, and this I shall tell you later."

On the dish a number of pastilles of incense had been placed, which Capitor burned, releasing their potent and noble perfume. When the smoke began to thin, the madwoman turned to the Cardinal with a lopsided smile and, pointing with menacing mien, first at the two marine deities, then at the trident, proclaimed: "Two in One!"

Mazarin, continued Abbot Melani, was rather flattered. Like many of those present, he had seen in the two deities himself and Queen Anne, and in Neptune's sceptre, the French crown, held firmly in his hand. Others, however, saw in the marine allegory of the chariot ploughing the immense sea and leaving the land behind it, and above all in the trident in Neptune's grasp, not the crown of France but that of Spain, mistress of the oceans and of two continents, exhausted by wars and thus falling into Mazarin's hands. And that sent Mazarin into raptures.

"He who deprives the crown of Spain of its sons, the crown of Spain will deprive of his sons," Capitor added even more enigmatically, instantly silencing the murmuring of the audience.

"Here too, there was a wealth of possible interpretations. Everyone understood that the warning was aimed at Philip IV of Spain, all of whose male heirs had died at a tender age. According to others, it was because his sister Anne of Austria had been made to sign a deed renouncing the Spanish throne, thus depriving the Spanish crown of its descendants in the female line; while there were those who interpreted it in terms of Philip's obstinate refusal to appoint Don John the Bastard as his heir, despite the fact that many wanted him for their future King."

Capitor moved to the third gift. Yet again, she raised the red cloth with a sharp tug, casting it away. This time, it was a splendid goblet, yet again of silver and gold, with a long stem in the form of a centaur holding up the calyx.

"An object of the finest workmanship," commented Melani, "but above all, symbolic, like the other two presents."

The goblet was in fact full of a dense and oily matter, almost like plaster. Capitor explained that this was myrrh.

"The madwoman then invited me to step forward, and handed me the music. I already knew what she had asked me to sing, and there was no need to rehearse it even once. The accompaniment on the guitar was elementary and even the lunatic's modest musical ability was quite sufficient."

"What did you sing?"

"A little song by an anonymous poet that was quite well known at the time: the ' Passacalli della vita^' or 'Passacaglia of Life'."

"And was it well liked?"

Atto made a face which betrayed all the bitterness of that memory with the icy fear induced by a bad presentiment.

"Not one bit, alas. Indeed, it was from this that all the trouble began."

"What trouble?"

In lieu of a reply, Atto chanted to me with a sure but discreet voice the passacaglia which, accompanied by a visionary madwoman, he had intoned some forty years before in the presence of the King of Spain's bastard son:

Oh, how wrong you are to think That the years will never end -

We must die.

And our life is just a dream And as good as it may seem It will very soon have passed

Die we must.

Just forget the medicine You 'll have no use for quinine All those cures are just a lie -

We must die.

Oh, when singing you can die Or when playing lute and fife Leave your love and lose your life -

We must die.

And when dancing you may die, Drinking ale or eating pie,

Dust can but return to dust,

Die we must.

Maidens, youths and little babes, All men move towards their graves -

We must die.

Sick or sound, brave or poltroon, Death will have us late or soon

We must die.

If this you will not contemplate, It already is too late All your senses you have lost, And you've given up the ghost -

Die we must.

Then he wiped a veil of perspiration from his brow. He seemed to be living a second time the remote, chilling moments in which he realised that he had been made the instrument of some oblique warning to Mazarin.

At the end of the song, Atto cast a furtive glance at His Eminence. The Cardinal was as white as a sheet. He had in no wise lost control of his emotions, nor had he betrayed any annoyance, yet the castrato, who knew every wrinkle in his face, had clearly discerned his unexpressed fear.

"You see," Abbot Melani instructed me, "if you would truly know great statesmen, you must needs have spent no little time in their close retinue. That is because whoever governs a state needs to be a master of dissimulation, so that no one can fathom his nature. However, through the position which I had occupied, I was able to observe His Eminence from close quarters for quite some time. The Cardinal, who was by nature rather fearless and determined, feared only one thing: death."

"But how can that be?" I asked, astonished; "I thought that cardinals, princes and ministers, who are so close to the secrets and machinations of states, were… how can I put it?…"

"Somewhat more distanced from these things because distracted by the high demands of affairs of state, is that not what you thought? Absolutely false. You must know that the power which such eminent personages exercise in no way saves them from the same phantasms as beset the humble. That is because human beings are always and quite invariably made of the same substance, and indeed the fact of rising among the learned and influential exposes one to the risk of imagining oneself to be godlike, so that it becomes hard to resign oneself to the fact that Our Lady Death will sooner or later come and make us equal to the least of her subjects."

Thus, Cardinal Mazarin had for some time been engaged in a vain struggle with the spectre of death, against which every effort must in the end prove in vain. The macabre song which Capitor had made Atto sing seemed chosen to perturb the Cardinal's already unquiet conscience.

"Myrrh was one of the Three Magi's gifts to Our Lord," I observed.

"Precisely. It is a symbol of mortality, since it is scattered on corpses," remarked Melani.

The second present too concealed a recondite message. The incense which it contained, whose penetrating odour Capitor had spread through the air, is indeed used in holy places and the Three Magi gave it to the Christ Child in acknowledgement of his divinity.

Many, then, were the aspects of His Eminence evoked and honoured by those gifts: his charge as a Cardinal and ecclesiastic, represented by incense, and his nature as a mortal man, of which the emblem was myrrh.

"Lastly, the pedestal of the globe, which was in solid gold, was a sign of regal power: a homage to that of Mazarin, the Queen's lover and the absolute master of France, the most magnificent and powerful state in Europe and in the whole world," Melani commented gravely, "like unto Our Lord, who is called King of Kings."

The three objects, in sum, symbolised the three gifts which Our Lord received from the three Magi: gold, incense and myrrh; or the symbols of royal power, divinity and mortality.

"Capitor, His Eminence is grateful to you," said Queen Anne, dismissing her with benevolent ease, seeking to change the subject and to save everyone from embarrassment. "Now, let us invite the orchestra in," she concluded, gesturing that the doors should be opened.

Outside the room, a small crowd of musicians had indeed gathered, whose services Monsieur had commanded, together with a little table so laden as to relieve the guests' stomachs, once their ears had been catered for.

The doors were duly opened and the crowd of players began politely to take their places in the room, filling it with a growing hubbub. At the same time, groups of valets, panting at the effort, were bringing in tables already laid to satisfy the royal appetite. A little further off, there followed the obsequious multitude of courtiers, pressing forward keenly as they waited to be allowed to enter and partake of the remainder of the entertainment.

Louis, Mazarin and the Queen Mother were already distracted by this coming and going when Capitor, who was on the point of making way for the concert and the banquet, fixed her gaze one last time on the Cardinal.

"A virgin who weds the crown brings death," she declaimed, smiling, in a loud and clear voice, "which will be accomplished when the moons join the suns at the wedding."

Then she bowed and disappeared with her faithful retinue of birds into the human clouds of musicians and servants now bursting into the room in joyous disorder.

"Only then did Don John set aside his haughtiness," said Atto. "He turned to the Cardinal and the Queen begging their pardon on behalf of the madwoman. He admitted that her performances were supposed to be an entertainment, yet sometimes they were practically incomprehensible and, even when she seemed to overstep the limits of decency, she did not do so out of discourtesy but drawn by her bizarre and inconstant nature, et cetera, et cetera"

A madwoman could be forgiven for some madness, Abbot Melani reasoned, but Capitor's eccentricities that evening seemed all too much like threats; and Don John did not want to be thought of as having commissioned those hostile words.

The mad clairvoyant had made Atto sing a song that spoke of death and its ineluctability. Before that, she had offered the

Cardinal three costly objects, which alluded to his being a Cardinal — which was true — to his being a King, which was almost true, but inopportune, Mazarin being the Queen's secret lover; and lastly that he was destined to die: undeniably true, but no one likes to be reminded of that twice in the same evening.

The sonnet even contained oblique references — to the inconstancy of fortune, the weight of failures — which no one would have dared to mention in the presence of the First Minister of the most powerful kingdom in Europe.

In the end, taking advantage of the arrival of the orchestra and of the valets bearing in the banquet, Capitor had escaped, leaving His Eminence a last menacingly allusive message.

None could have any doubts as to the meaning of those parting words. The crown was quite obviously young Louis. And who could the virgin be if not Maria Mancini?

"The allusion to the virgin, in particular, seemed to refer clearly to Maria, whom the King never knew: carnally, I mean."

"Really?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"No one believed that, except for myself, obviously, well aware as I was of the extreme innocence of their love, and the Cardinal who was kept informed of every minute of the young King's life. When Maria arrived in Rome and married the Constable Colonna, the latter confided in me not long after their wedding that he had found her to be a virgin and, being aware of what had passed between her and the King of France, had been frankly amazed by that."

If the marriage between the virgin and the crown were to be concluded, according to Capitor's warning, someone would pay with his life. And, seeing that the prophecy was aimed at Cardinal Mazarin, Maria's tutor and Louis's godfather, and thus arbiter of the destiny of the twain, it was easy to imagine that it was precisely his end that was being predicted, indeed even augured.

Proffered by anyone else, Capitor's words might have seemed mere harmless ravings. In the mouth of that being with her arcane faculties of divination, they sounded all too like the voice of the Black Lady with the ineluctable scythe.

"It is not easy to explain here and now, forty years later," said the

Abbot. "When that ugly being opened her mouth, it set one a-shivering. Yet everyone laughed: the foolish because they were amused, the others, out of nervousness."

Atto, too, during Capitor's mad liturgy, had felt the touch of fear. He, too, had taken part, albeit passively and marginally, in the staging of the show for Mazarin.

Meanwhile, the wind had risen and the sky, which had hitherto been immaculate, seemed to have grown slightly darker.

"You yourself, Signor Atto, told me that Capitor was suspected of speaking as if she had been inspired to by the Spaniards who wanted a marriage between Louis and the Infanta and were consequently hostile to Maria Mancini. If that were the case, Capitor's message would have been, how can one put it?…"

"A perfectly normal threat for political ends? 'Tis true, there were those who saw it in those terms; but I believe that His Eminence was by no means so sure of it. The fact is that, from that moment on, Mazarin's attitude to Maria and the King changed sharply: no sooner had Don John the Bastard departed with his madwoman than the Cardinal became the most bitter enemy of the love between the two young people. There was, however, something else: Capitor called the dish by a Greek name: a word which you too now know."

"Do you mean?…"

"Tetrachion."

I was so caught up in the narration that I had almost failed to notice the curious phenomenon which had been taking place for the past few minutes: a sudden, bizarre change in climate, which had also occurred the day before in the very same place.

The wind, which was at first moderate, had found new vigour. The cirrus clouds which had quite unexpectedly begun to darken the vault of heaven swiftly gathered, by now forming a bank, then a cumulus. A powerful gust raised dead leaves and dust from the ground, forcing us to protect our eyes for fear of being blinded. As on the day before, we had to lean against a tree if we were not to lose our balance.

It lasted no more than a few instants. Hardly had the singular little squall blown over than the daylight seemed more joyful and free. With our hands we brushed down our dusty clothes as best we could. I raised my eyes to the sun and was more dazzled than I expected: there was hardly any difference between the light now and when we had left Villa Spada. "What curious weather there sometimes is here," commented Atto.

"Now I understand," I said. "The first time that you mentioned the Vessel to me you said that there were objects here."

"Good. Your memory is correct."

"Capitor's gifts," I added.

He did not reply. He was moving towards the front door.

"'Tis open," he commented.

Someone had entered the Vessel. Or, said I to myself, had gone out from there.

As we were crossing the hall on the ground floor, we heard the notes of the music which had greeted us on our first visit, the folia. I, meanwhile, had inevitably been besieging Atto with further questions.

"Pardon me, but why do you think that Capitor's gifts are here?"

"That is partly a matter of concrete fact, partly deduction, but there are no two ways about it."

Capitor's obscure prediction, Atto explained, circulated at lightning speed through court. No one had the courage to record it in writing, for it was said that the Cardinal had been terrified by it. Even the most meticulous of memorialists preferred to pass over the matter in silence, for their memoirs were made to be circulated and read at court, not to remain clandestine.

Yet, silence was not enough. Mazarin was already obsessed by the problem of how to retain power at the expense of the young King Louis who was bound, sooner or later, to cause him problems, and this he knew full well. After Capitor's dark prophecy, the Cardinal was beset nightly by new, black phantasms.

"As I have already told you," Atto stressed, not without irony, "the Cardinal had always been sure that his life would be long, very long."

Desperately attached to worldly glories, like a mollusc to its rock, he had ended up by confusing that rock with life itself, while it was life that gave him the strength to close up his shell.

"Remember, my boy, great statesmen are like mussels attached to a reef. They look upon the fishes darting here and there and think: poor wretches, they're both lost and aimless, without a fine rock to bite into. But if the thought should once come to them that they may have one day to become detached from the rock, they are terrified. And they are utterly unaware that they are prisoners of their rock."

Obviously, those words did not express the thoughts of a faithful servant of Mazarin, as Atto had been forty years before. Nor did they fit in with that natural tendency of his to hunger and thirst after glory, a tendency with which I was so very familiar. These were other cogitations, those of one who has come to the last stage in life and who is measuring himself up against the same problem as that which beset Mazarin until his last hour: whether the bivalve's shell must open up and let go of the rock.

"Was that you?" said he.

"Signor Atto, what do you mean?"

"No, you are right, it came from outside," said he, moving towards one of the windows giving onto the entry courtyard.

I followed him and looked out too: there was nothing to be seen.

"It was like… someone running and kicking up gravel, or dirt," said Atto.

Then, almost merging into the notes of the folia, I heard it too. It was just like footsteps running down an avenue, the avenue whence we had come. They came and went. Then they ceased.

"Shall we go out?" I proposed.

"No. I do not know how long we can remain in here. Before leaving, I must be sure of one thing."

We took the winding spiral staircase that led to the first floor.

Meanwhile, Atto continued his tale. Mazarin could not bear that miserable state for long. He had lost the omnipotent confidence which had guided and sustained him ever since he had defeated the Fronde revolt. He feared the future: an unfamiliar and ungovernable feeling. In his hands, he held those objects, Capitor's gifts, and everyone knew that. Almost as though these were stolen goods, getting rid of them would be far from simple. In order not to have them always before his eyes, he had them stowed away in a chest.

Of that tale, he had spoken with no one. He did not want to think of it; yet, he thought of it unceasingly. He had never paid much attention to the evil eye, despite his Sicilian ancestry, but if anything was under a curse, he thought, those three trinkets were.

At length he came to a decision. If they could not change owners, the three presents must at least disappear, be sent as far away as possible.

"He entrusted them to Benedetti. He instructed him to keep them here in Rome, where Mazarin never went. Moreover, His Eminence was adamant that he did not want these gifts to remain on any property of his."

"Would it not have been simpler to destroy them?"

"Of course, but in such cases, you never know how matters will end up. And what if one day he might wish to employ a necromancer to disperse the magic power of the three objects? If he were to destroy them there could be no going back. The story was absurd from beginning to end, but Mazarin did not care for risks, not even the most insignificant ones. The gifts must remain accessible.

"So Benedetti kept them here," I deduced.

"In reality, when the Cardinal gave him his instructions, the Vessel did not yet exist, as I've explained to you. But now I am coming to the point."

The Cardinal was so beset by the memory of that visionary madwoman, Capitor, and by that absurd business of the three presents, that to the bitter end he remained undecided as to whether to keep them or send them away. After deciding to entrust them to Benedetti, his anxiety was still too great. So the Cardinal took a second decision which would, in other circumstances, have been unthinkable for a worldly-wise man like himself, who dealt with things hard and fast and cared nothing for superstition or charms to ward off the evil eye.

"Not knowing whether he had taken the right decision or not, he had their portrait painted."

"How could that be? Did he have a picture of them made?"

"He wanted at least to keep the image of them. It may sound stupid to you, but that was how it was."

"And who painted the… portrait of the three presents?"

"There was at that time a Fleming in Paris, a painter. He made fine things. As you may know, the Flemings are very good at painting still lives, tables laden with food, flower compositions and suchlike. The Cardinal arranged for him to paint a quick portrait of the gifts. I personally have not seen it. But I have seen the presents themselves, including the Tetrachion," he concluded, implicitly confirming that we were visiting the Vessel in order to find it.

"The idea would never have come into my head to have a portrait painted of three inanimate things and, what is more, how can I put it…"

"With a spell on them? Of course not. But the Cardinal had learned from the Bastard that he too had done the same thing. In Antwerp, before leaving for Paris, he had for his pleasure had a picture made of the gifts, but with the celestial globe instead of the terrestrial one, which was still in the goldsmith's workshop waiting to be attached to the solid gold pedestal."

Thus, having entered that villa for the first time on the traces of three cardinals and their secret meetings in preparation for the next conclave, I now discovered it also to be the depository of another triad: Capitor's gifts.

The great change in Atto's words at that crucial juncture could not and did not escape me. He had returned to Rome, declaring that his intention was to remain there until the next conclave, in order to watch over its proceedings on behalf of the King of France. At the same time, he had (and this was truly singular) passed over in silence the other great event of the moment: the political and dynastic struggle for the succession to the Spanish throne. This, however, was exercising him in no uncertain manner, as I had learned from reading his correspondence with the Connestabilessa. Now, at last, the Abbot was also beginning to betray his secret interest in his speech. It was no accident that, no sooner had I mentioned the mysterious Tetrachion in connection with the Spanish succession than he had reacted like a wounded animal, since when he had had no other thought than to drag me to the Vessel in search of traces of the missing object. Always assuming that it was indeed an object, as I myself observed.

"Pardon me, Signor Atto, but there is something that is not clear to me. The chambermaid at the Spanish Embassy spoke to me of the Tetrachion as the heir to the Spanish throne, thus of a person. In your view, however, it is an object."

"I know no more than you," he cut me short.

That answer did not satisfy me, and I was about to query it when it was I who started at a noise. I had heard it distinctly, quite separately from the faint sound of the music.

"Was it you?"

"No, you know perfectly well it was not."

The time had come to look around us and to find out what was going on in our neighbourhood.

From the central window in the salon, one could see them rather well. They were down below, in the garden. He was young, not very tall, and rather gauche; far from ugly, but with little eyes that seemed still unsure of where they were meant to be in the oval of his face; his lineaments were elastic, his nose too large and swollen. He was of that unripe age when the body, held hostage by disorderly springtime forces, is expanding from within and almost bursting the tender cocoon of childhood.

His nervous, uncertain gait betrayed an artificial attempt at gallantry and, at the same time, a well brought up sixteen-year- old's overwhelming desire to be able at last to act freely.

Then there was the maiden. From that angle (with our noses pressed against the window panes, but a little too far to the left) we could see her only obliquely; but I knew her all too well from the encounter the day before.

At first he took her arm, then suddenly let go of it, stood facing her and walked backwards, accompanying some pleasantry with animated gesticulation. He placed his hand in jest on the hilt of his sword, miming acts of heroism or evoking duels.

She laughed and let him play on; she was walking lightly, almost like a ballerina dancing on her toes, turning a little pink lace parasol, a magic calyx in which she captured his words. Her hair was in slight disarray, betraying the many kisses just given, or the burning desire to receive them soon, at once, behind the next corner.

Of the conversation, there reached us only a few fragments.

"I would like… if only you knew…" I managed to overhear him say, amidst the rustling of the foliage.

"Majesty, when do you… can happen…" was all I heard of her reply.

I turned to Atto.

He had stepped back and distanced himself from the window. He stood there like a stone idol, looking on with his eyes glazed, his jaws clenched, his lips tightly closed.

When I turned to observe the pair, they were disappearing behind the nearest hedge.

We remained a few moments longer, with our gaze fixed on the place where the couple had vanished from our sight.

"The maiden was… very like the portrait of the Connestabilessa when young," said I, hesitantly. "But the young man's face was familiar, too."

Atto remained silent. In the meantime, the melody of the folia became audible once more.

"Perhaps I have seen him portrayed in a statue… Is that possible?" I added, not daring to utter my impression more openly.

"He does indeed resemble a bust on the external facade of the Vessel, out there in one of the niches. But above all, he resembles one of the portraits you have seen here in the house."

"Which one?"

At first, he did not answer. Then he drew in breath and released the inner burden which had been weighing him down until that moment.

"There are things in this accursed place which are beyond my understanding. Perhaps the subsoil gives off unhealthy vapours; I know that does occur in some places."

"Do you mean to say that we could be the victims of hallucinations?"

"Perhaps. Whatever the case may be, we are here for a specific purpose and we shall allow no one to stand in our way. Is that clear?" he exclaimed, suddenly raising his voice, as though someone within those walls were listening.

Silence fell once again. He leaned against the wall, muttering some obscure imprecation.

I waited until he was calm, then I put the question to him.

"It really did look like him, did it not?"

"Let us go upstairs," said he, tacitly assenting.

Despite the many tales of phantoms, apparitions and manifestations of spirits which we all learn of from our most tender childhood and which, thanks to the power of suggestion predispose us to encounter such phenomena sooner or later, I had never witnessed so odd an occurrence.

As we climbed the spiral staircase to the first floor, I was turning over in my mind the absurdity of those visions: first, Maria Mancini, in other words, the Connestabilessa when still young, or whoever it may have been; now in gallant converse (and this was ridiculous, quite unimaginable) with the same royal lover whom Atto had attributed to her in his narration. I had first seen him in marble effigy, then in portraits (there was more than one in the Vessel) and now in flesh and blood: if the shy and absent-minded youth I thought I had seen in the garden really was made of flesh and blood.

I should have liked blindly to believe Atto's hypothesis that these were mere hallucinations due to the unhealthy air around the villa. Instead, I felt the solid marble of the stairs under my feet and, at the same time, the evanescent and perilous atmosphere of those visions. Willingly would I have escaped into dreams; instead, I found myself stuck fast in some shape-shifting marsh in which the past seemed blessedly to stagnate and, for a few instants, to weave before my confused eyes, in what seemed almost a play of light — an ignis fatuus — the broken threads of history.

There was, however, no time in which to find the answers, given that we were at that moment on the traces of a very different spectre: the phantom of Mazarin's terrors.

The staircase which led to the first floor was in the great hall, at the opposite end from the entrance and on the side facing east. At the top of it, we met with a surprise.

We had entered an enormous gallery, which I estimated to be no less than thirty yards long and four and a half yards wide. The floor was all paved with fine majolica tiles in three colours, each of which looked like a dice showing its sides in relief. The walls were covered in stucco work, all richly painted and gilded and, through the subtle interplay of volutes, naturally drew one's gaze upwards. Here, on the immense vault, we saw a marvellous fresco representing Aurora. Atto himself could not contain his stupefied amazement.

"The Aurora of Pietro da Cortona…" said he with his face turned upwards, briefly oblivious of the purpose of our search and the disquieting figures whom we had encountered.

"Do you know this painting?"

"When it was completed, over forty years ago, all Rome knew that a marvel had been born," said he with restrained emotion.

After the Aurora, in the next portion of the ceiling there followed a representation of Midday, and then an image of Night. The three frescoes thus followed suggestively the progress of daylight, from the first rays of dawn to the penumbra of sunset. The niches and smaller panels of the frieze were decorated with chiaroscuros, seascapes and many delightfully executed little landscapes.

In the spaces between the windows, one could on the long sides admire an impressive armoury: twelve great trophies of various arms both ancient and modern made of stucco modelled in bas-relief with metal enriched with gold, with a moral attached to each one of them, each referring to the value of defending body and spirit. In these admirable warlike cornucopias, there were swords and cannon, visors and cuisses, gorgets and scimitars, as well as spears, iron breastplates, mortars, slings, iron maces, pikes, arquebuses with ratchets, riding whips, standards, arrows, quivers, morions, battering rams, kettledrums, torches, military togas and much more still.

"Sfasciamonti would love all this ironmongery," observed Abbot Melani.

Every single object was decorated and completed with a Latin dictum: '"Abrumpitur si nimis tendas" '"If you draw it too far it will break'," translated Atto, reading with a little smile the inscription carved into a crossbow.

"'Validiori omnia cedunt '." '"All yield to the strongest'," I echoed him with the saying carved on a cannon.

"'Tis incredible," he commented. "There's not a corner, not a capital, not a window in the Vessel without a proverb carved on it."

The Abbot moved off without waiting for me, shaking his head, a prey to who knows what cogitations. I followed him.

"And the most absurd thing of all is that between these walls covered in wise maxims, what music do we hear?" he called out in a loud voice, "the folia… folly!"

He was right. The melody of the folia, played, so it seemed to me, on a string instrument, was following us ever more closely, almost as though it were accompanying our reading of the inscriptions.

The sudden revelation of that paradox set in motion in my head a disorderly whirl of questions and thoughts of which I myself could not yet glimpse the meaning.

"So you are no longer of the view that we imagined all this?" I asked.

"Far from it," he hastened to correct himself. "Even if in all probability that music is coming to us from some nearby villa where someone is perhaps improvising on the theme of the fo liar

After speaking thus, Melani moved on. On each of the long sides of the gallery there were seven windows. From the central ones, one could go out onto two balconies facing the opposite sides of the garden, east and west.

We turned instead to the opposite end of the gallery, facing south, in the direction of the road. The gallery ended in a semicircular loggia whose external facade was articulated by great arched windows. Moving even further, on a projecting platform which rested on the outer wall giving onto the street, there was a fountain. It took the form of two sirens lifting a sphere from which spurted a high jet of water. While enjoying that vision, the eye turned back and there, painted alfresco on the arch of the loggia, was a representation of Happiness, surrounded by its retinue of all the Blessings. The humble plashing of the fountain, careless of its own solitude, dispensed its sweet whisperings to the whole of the first floor. In the side fagades of that first floor, on the wall of the balconies, there were two other artificial springs (one of which I had already heard from the front courtyard below) which, together with the larger and more beautiful one under the loggia formed a lovely magic triangle of murmuring waters, filling the whole gallery with their music.

"Look!" I suddenly exclaimed.

On the panels of the door leading to one of the two loggias with fountains was the whole of Capitor's sonnet on fortune: FORTVNE

Friend, look well upon this figure,

Et in arcano mentis reponatur,

Ut magnus inde fructus extrahatur, Inquiring well into its nature…

"Here is the first clue!" exclaimed the Abbot triumphantly.

"Perhaps Capitor's three gifts which we seek are not far from here," I ventured.

We kept looking all around us. We saw that the semicircular loggia too, as well as the window openings and shutters, were covered in proverbs and sayings. One caught my eye.

'"From the private hatreds of the great spring the miseries of the people'," I read aloud.

Atto looked at me in some surprise. Was that not just what he was teaching me with his tale of the Sun King's misfortune in love, which had ended up by turning into a force of destruction?

"Look," said he suddenly, in a voice stifled by surprise.

Fascinated until that moment by the frescoes, the proverbs, the displays of arms and by the round loggia with its fountain, we at last turned our gaze to the other end of the gallery, facing north.

Despite all the time that has passed since then and the seemingly endless series of unusual experiences, I still recall the vertigo that overcame me.

The gallery was endless. Its two converging sides stretched out to infinity, it was almost as though my eyeballs had been torn from their sockets and projected helplessly into that abyss. Overcome by the unbearable dazzle of the light from outside, I saw the walls of the gallery melt into the displays of arms, the frescoes of the ceiling and, lastly, into the potent, solemn, fearful image outlined against the horizon, framed by the glass window as in a hunter's gun-sights: the Vatican Hill.

"Bravo, bravo Benedetti," commented Atto.

It took us a few minutes to realise what had happened. The northern end of the gallery consisted of a wall in which was set a window which gave onto a quadrangular loggia. The wall around the glass had been hung with mirrors which replicated and prolonged the gallery, making it appear endless. But that happened if the observation point was far enough away and equally distant from the two long sides: then and only then. In the middle of the wall, and thus at the point where the perspective of that architectural tunnel converged, the vista of the Vatican palaces was right at the centre of the frame; it was enough to approach that great window to include in the panorama the cupola of St Peter's Basilica.

So the prow of that ship-shaped villa pointed directly towards the seat of the papacy. It was not clear whether the coincidence was a sign of virtuosity or, rather, a threat.

"I do not understand. It seems to be aiming the barrel of a cannon, almost as though we could fire at the Vatican palaces," I commented. "You knew Benedetti. In your opinion, was it or was it not a matter of chance that the Vessel was thus oriented?"

"I'd say that…"

He broke off. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps could be heard in the garden. Atto did not wish to give the impression that he was alarmed, yet, forgetting what he was about to say, he began to pace up and down nervously.

We explored the rooms giving onto the gallery, which were four in all. First, there was a little chapel, then a bath chamber. Above the entrance of the first was written " Hic anima " and above the second, "Hie corpus".

'"Here is for the soul' and 'here is for the body'," translated Atto. "What a witty fellow!"

The bath chamber was most richly furnished and decorated with stuccoes and majolica tiles. It contained two baths. In each, the water was dispensed by two taps, above one of which was written " calida " while above the other was inscribed " frigida".

"Hot and cold water, on demand," Atto commented. "Incredible. Not even the King enjoys such conveniences."

We again heard a pronounced crunching of gravel outside. The footsteps sounded more hurried than before.

"Do you really not wish to go out and see whether the two… Well.. whether there's someone outside."

"Of course I want to," he replied. "First, however, I intend to finish exploring this floor. If we find nothing interesting here, we shall move on to the floor above."

As was easily foreseeable, the chapel too was decorated with dozens and dozens of holy maxims, from the walls to the shutters of the windows. Atto read one at random.

"'Ieunium arma contra diabolum' 'Fasting is a weapon against the Devil'. We should remind all those eminences stuffing themselves at the home of Cardinal Spada of that one."

The two remaining rooms were dedicated to the papacy and to France respectively: a little chamber with portraits of all the pontiffs and another with effigies of the kings of France and of Queen Christina of Sweden. Above the two doorways, two inscriptions: " LITERA " for the popes, " ET ARMA " for the kings.

"To popes the care of the spirit, to kings the defence of the state," explained Atto; "Benedetti was certainly no friend of the temporal power of the Church," he guffawed.

In the little chamber dedicated to France, two splendid tapestries of bucolic scenes hung on the walls, which captured Abbot Melani's attention no less. The first depicted a shepherdess, with a satyr in the background attempting to abduct another one, dragging her by the hair, but failing because the maiden wore hair which was not her own. In the second tapestry, a young man with bow and arrow leaned over a nymph wounded in her side and attired in a wolf's skin, the whole enclosed in a floral frame punctuated with scrolls and medallions in relief.

"There are Corisca and Amarillis, and here is Dorinda wounded: these are two scenes from The Faithful Shepherd, the celebrated pastoral tragicomedy by the Cavaliere Guarini which for over a century has enjoyed such success in all the courts of Christendom," he recited with satisfaction. "Admire, my boy, these are without question two of the finest tapestries from the French manufactories. They come from the Faubourg Saint-Germain, admirably woven by the skilled hands of Van der Plancken — or de la Planche, if you prefer," he specified, speaking with all the mannerisms of an expert. "I persuaded Elpidio Benedetti to purchase these when I came from France some thirty years ago."

"They are truly beautiful," I assented.

"Originally, these were part of a set of four but, at my suggestion, Benedetti brought two of them to the Palazzo Colonna as a gift for Maria Mancini, who was then in Rome. Only I knew how much she would appreciate them. When I returned to Rome, I found that she had hung them in her bedchamber, just in front of her writing desk. She always loved risk: she kept them for years under her husband's nose and he never noticed a thing!" said he, sniggering.

"The husband did not notice that the tapestries had been hung?" I asked, not having understood.

"No, no, I do not mean that he never discovered them… Come, forget it," replied Atto, becoming suddenly evasive.

"I imagine that this Faithful Shepherd was one of the favourite readings of la Mancini and the King at the time of their amours," I guessed, trying to understand what Atto had meant to say.

"More or less," he mumbled, drawing suddenly away from the tapestries and pretending to take an interest in a picture of a wooded landscape. "I mean, it was the favourite reading of many at the time. It is a very famous play, as I said to you."

The Abbot seemed reticent, and then aware that I had noticed this.

"I detest gossiping about the love secrets of Maria and His Majesty," he declared in familiar tones, "above all, those they shared when they were alone."

"Alone? Yet you are informed of them," I commented dubiously.

"Yes, I and no one else."

I found it distinctly curious that Melani should be seized now by qualms of conscience: he seemed never to have had any whenever he had complacently revealed to me whole series of secret and intimate episodes in the life of the Most Christian King. On the contrary…

I was on the point of replying when I heard the same footsteps yet again. They were drawing near at an alarming pace. They were coming up the stairs. We both turned to the spiral staircase which we had climbed at the far end of the hall.

As stiff as stockfish, both frozen by a fear which neither was willing to admit to the other, we waited with bated breath for the strange presence to manifest itself. The echoes created in the gallery by the footsteps on the marble stairs were so scattered that, without knowing where the staircase was, it would have been impossible to tell which way to turn. The footsteps drew nearer, then very near, so near that one would have sworn that they had reached the level of the gallery. Then they ceased. We both had our gaze fixed on the far end of the gallery. There was no one there.

Then he came. The shadow came between us, enormous, inconceivable. We had been deceived. The being was behind us, almost upon us, on the threshold of the loggia from which one could see the Vatican.

At that instant my mind struggled to understand how he had managed to materialise there behind us in complete silence. Simultaneously, I felt my left shoulder in his grip and knew that I was defenceless.

Transfixed by terror, I turned my head and saw the phantom. It was a small, aquiline, ill-dressed figure. His eyes were sunken, his skin, drawn. It was not necessary for me to lower my gaze to know the rest. The smell was enough: from his neck to his lower belly, his shirt was soaked in blood.

"Buvat!" cried Atto, what are you doing here?"

He did not reply.

"Your… your wife," stammered the pale spectre, turning to me. "You must run… at once."

He leaned against the wall. Then he slid to the ground and fainted.