by R P Nathan
“That’s The Feast at the House of Levi,” said Sarah.
“I saw something about that in Shaeffer’s notebook.” I pulled the small black volume from my daysack and flicked through its pages. “Here we go.”
17 January 1915
Today I went to the Galleria dell’Accademia close to the book shop where I bought Polidoro’s journal. I visited the museum as a break, not so much from my work – which has fallen in quantity to barely a trickle and has in consequence left me with much free time – but more from the translation of the journal, which is proceeding apace. Unfortunately it came as no break from the rain which pelted me on my way through the streets down to Dorsoduro. I had been told by Colonel Roberts that the gallery made a capital day’s outing so I thought I really should take the opportunity to go there even though as you know, paintings by themselves do little to inspire me. At the very least, I thought it would provide me with a place where the dull wet of the day could not reach me.
And for once, Venice has not disappointed. The Accademia is truly a marvellous place and one that you would love, Anna, with your superior understanding of the great painters and their works. Let me briefly describe it to you and also an incident which I found of particular interest. The gallery is set out in roughly chronological succession of rooms in an anticlockwise manner. At the top of the stairs—
“He describes loads of the paintings, but it’s not really that interesting unless you’re into history of art – no offence.” She grinned. “But I’m sure he talks specifically about this painting… Ah, here we go:
In the tenth room which contains many paintings by Paolo Caliari (known as Veronese) my guide was explaining the history of the huge canvas, some forty feet wide by twenty high, called The Feast at the House of Levi which shows a light and airy hall with a long table with diners whilst around is much activity from various characters who are picked out in a splendid array of silks and fabrics, the whole being a highly vivid spectacle.
“Originally,” he said to me, “this painting was to be called, The Last Supper and the central figures at the table portrayed Christ and his Apostles, but it provoked much outrage from the Church, who thought it too irreverent, and Veronese was summoned before the Inquisition. They asked him whether he thought it fitting that at our Lord’s Last Supper he should paint ‘clowns, drunkards, Germans, dwarfs and other indecent things.’ Veronese replied that he had used artistic licence and that in any case these figures are not around the table where the supper is being held but on the stairs in front. They said that in Germany and other heretical places such devices are used in paintings to pour scorn on the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church. Veronese agreed that this was wrong, but that he was merely following the line of his predecessors.
“‘What predecessors? When would they have ever done anything like this?’
“‘Why, in Rome, Michelangelo in the papal chapel painted Our Lord Jesus Christ, St John, St Peter and the entire court of angels naked.’
“‘It is not believed,’ replied the officers of the Inquisition, ‘that there will be clothes or such things at the Last Judgment and therefore there was no call to paint them. Everything in that painting is in the correct spirit. There are no clowns, no dogs, no weapons and no Germans. On this basis do you think you did well to paint this picture?’
“At this point, Veronese showed good sense and backed down though still professing he had intended no wrong. The Inquisition told him to amend the picture and rather than upset the balance of his masterpiece he chose simply to change the title which then satisfied all concerned.” My guide chuckled. He was a small man with a bald head and he seemed to enjoy talking around his subject, but now he reverted his voice to a monotone, as was his habit when giving the more basic facts. “Veronese became the official state painter of the Republic when Titian died. His particular specialities were these large canvases with Palladian architecture and decor to set his figures upon.” He gave a slight yawn. “He used colour and light well and his compositions often have great allegorical power. Now if you will go over to the other side of this room we can see how Tintoretto...”
But I had stopped listening to him for, on the wall to my left, was a small painting, no more than a foot high, oil on board with a simple gilt frame, of a man in a blue doublet with no ruff and seated at a table. He had dark close cropped hair and his eyes stared from the picture, eyes that suggested they had seen suffering. His face was scarred and on the left side of his neck above the line of his jacket were deep marks as though someone had cut and gouged him savagely. And on this same side, the neck had contorted outwards into a goitre, a grotesque bulge of scarred flesh as though a hen’s egg had been put under the skin. His head was angled so that this side was more visible, hideous though it was. His hands, which were empty and showed upturned on the table before him, were scarred also, scabbed and calloused. Yet he clearly wore his injuries and torments with pride for he faced them forward presenting them to the painter and viewer. In the background was a wooden sideboard and on it a leaden casket. The man looked like he was perhaps fifty years old, but it was difficult to tell for the scarring he had suffered was cruel. His was a compelling portrait but nothing was so compelling for me as the name inscribed below the painting: Girolamus Polidorus, hero of Venice.
We instinctively glanced over to our left but the wall here was covered with more large canvases and though we looked all around there was no sign of the painting anywhere.
My guide was standing impatiently at my side and sighed when he saw me looking at the painting. “A minor hero of Venice only,” he said dismissively. “Polidoro received his injuries from the Turks when he went to rescue his master’s skin in Constantinople. You have already seen the paintings commemorating the great sacrifice of Marco Antonio Bragadino.”
“Yes, I remember. And was this portrait painted by Veronese as well?”
He looked weary. “It has been suggested that it is one of Veronese’s last works. The skin was returned in 1580 after Polidoro had stolen it from the Turks and given it to the Venetian ambassador. Polidoro himself, however, was captured by the Turks and did not manage to escape and return to Venice until 1587 or 1588. That was the year that Veronese died. Polidoro was held to be a hero on his return, and since he too was originally from Verona it is thought that Veronese might have been inspired to paint a portrait of him soon after his homecoming. Personally I do not believe that a painter at that stage of his life – he was sixty then – and with his already considerable fame would have bothered with such a subject but who am I to argue with the curators of the museum.” He raised an eyebrow as though to suggest he would have been very happy to entertain such an argument with them.
“And the goitre?”
“When the Turks found out what Polidoro had done he was tortured terribly and imprisoned for seven years suffering many privations. Eventually he was ransomed by Bragadino’s brother but even then his ordeal was not over for he did not leave the Turks without further hardship and maltreatment. Nothing is known of his journey home other than it took several roundabout months dodging the Turks at every turn and that the last three weeks were spent in an open boat, drifting along enemy shores with precious little fresh water and nothing to eat except seaweed. He was skin and bones when he was finally found by a Venetian frigate, and he had developed a goitre. He recovered well enough after his return though. The goitre eventually went down and he was given a pension by Venice and the sons of Bragadino. He ended his days on his brother’s farm in Verona.” He shrugged. “But Signor, as I say, this is a minor work only and were it not for the fact that it has been attributed to Veronese – falsely in my view – it would not even be here. Now really we must move on to the Tintorettos.” And he walked to the other side of the room.
I paused for a moment before following him and looked at the painting one last time, to view this man whose innermost thoughts I was currently attempting to read and decipher. I stared into his face and saw the
pain there, and yet I realised suddenly that I had been wrong about his eyes. For whilst his face showed all the sufferings he must have endured both at the siege and after, and his cheek bones were prominent as though he were clenching his teeth and his brow furrowed, his eyes were gentle and calm and gave him the look of one who was finally at peace.
◆◆◆
We sped through the rest of the collection and then, without needing to discuss it, doubled back to the bookshop in the entrance hall. I picked up a copy of the museum catalogue and Sarah found an illustrated monograph on Veronese and we ploughed through them. But there was nothing.
“I guess the attribution was wrong,” she mused as we put the books down and ambled out into the sunshine again. “And if it wasn’t a Veronese there would have been no reason to keep it.”
“But he was an important historical figure.”
“A minor hero,” she said echoing Shaeffer’s guide. She looked at her watch. “It’s still only eleven-thirty. Shall we just walk?”
We strolled across the wooden bridge, enjoying the sparkles on the bright water, and on the other side we continued through the light-flooded Campo Santo Stefano and Campo Sant’Angelo and then on into the luxuriant shade of the puzzle of alleyways of San Marco. We steered clear of the Piazza. Instead our general route followed the Grand Canal but mazed through the side streets packed with stalls and art shops and booksellers and banks and hotels. Though bustling, the streets were fun and we twisted and turned as we wanted so we could walk down Calle degli Avvocat, Calle del Caffettier and Rio Terrà degli Assassini merely because we liked the names and did not mind that they brought us to consecutive dead ends (though we thought this particularly appropriate for the last). And we could step briefly into churches along the way if we wanted or equally walk on by just enjoying the shade and the cobbles underfoot.
Our route took us up and round the bend in the canal past San Salvadore and San Bartolomeo. Occasionally Sarah would point out something of interest or just something that took her fancy. Like the meat shop selling long sausages made of asinello. “Little donkey,” she said making a face. Or when we stopped for ages outside a book stall which was selling beautiful hand marbled pages by the sheet and she told me how for a time Venice had been the centre of printing and bookbinding in the world. Or when we came across what looked like a small black metal post box set into the wall, with the slot framed by a lion’s open jaws.
“Those lionheads are really cool,” she said excitedly. “The Venetians would drop anonymous notes in them informing on people they thought were traitors. Then the Council of Ten would go round and collect them.”
“The Council of Ten?”
“They were a cross between the Cabinet and the Secret Police and they took all the key decisions in Venice until Napoleon wound up the Republic in the 1800s. They were responsible for spying and information gathering and dealing with traitors. Suspects would be whisked away in the dead of night, maybe tortured, then tried in private and executed.”
“Only a little bit ruthless then?”
“They kind of had to be. For a while Venice was the top state in Europe so it needed to protect itself and to do that the Ten had to know everything that was going on around them. Their spies were everywhere and they had the best code breakers in Europe.”
“Sounds like a police state.”
"Well kind of. But it was still pretty democratic compared with the rest of Europe. Rather than a royal family, the Doge and the Ten and the Signoria were all selected from nobles whose families were well established in Venice. That’s why you see the same names coming up again and again if you look at a list of Doges: Mocenigo, Dandolo, Contarini, Morosini. The man in the street didn’t have much of a say in what was going on, but at least he was looked after. There were hospitals and orphanages and support for the poor and the old. The Ten ran Venice with a rod of iron but they ran it well.”
Her voice dropped a little. “And when it gets dark round here and you walk down one of these streets perhaps ending in a brick wall or coming right onto a canal, you still look over your shoulder and wonder if the Ten is coming after you.” She shuddered deliciously and walked off down a dark alley in search of trouble.
But as well as it being a history tour, we talked about other stuff as well.
“So is it a big wrench finishing university?” she asked me as we passed over the Rio di San Giovanni Christomo, one of the myriad minor waterways which criss-crossed Venice. “I couldn’t imagine leaving Manchester any time soon.”
“That’s because you’ve only done a year: it’s different after three. And anyway Cambridge is quite a small place so I’m pretty much ready to move on.”
“What comes next?”
“PhD. I’m going to Imperial to study particle physics.”
She chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just… I can’t believe I actually know someone who’s going to do a PhD in particle physics. That’s wild.”
“OK,” I said feeling hurt. “There’s no need to take the piss.”
“Oh no, John. I think it’s cool, I really do.” She put a hand on my arm. “Honestly. I really envy people who do maths and science. They’re more definite subjects. More... objective than art.”
I looked at her through narrowed eyes, determined she was in earnest and then nodded. “They are cool subjects. Physics especially. People think it’s just about equations and scribbles on a blackboard but it’s not. It’s about how the Moon goes round the Earth, or how electricity flows, or water falls, or stars are formed. It’s about motion and inertia and momentum and energy. It’s micro and macro; it’s neutrinos and it’s the Big Bang. Good physics – great physics – is about subtlety and simplicity and… and symmetry.”
“Physics as poetry.”
“Yes. Yes.” And then I checked as I realised I was getting carried away, but though she was smiling it was a warm smile, an attractive one. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” I said after a pause, shrugging.
“Like I said: I envy you.” We both realised at the same moment that her hand was still on my arm. She removed it and made as if to find something in her pocket.
We continued on for another couple of streets and crossing over a rickety looking wooden bridge we found ourselves in a quarter where the buildings were noticeably higher, seven or eight storeys with the floors packed tightly together. We walked on until we came to a pleasant tree-lined square which was set out with trestle tables and benches and decorated with bunting. At the far end was a podium for a band or a speaker. It looked like there would be some kind of festival later on that day.
We sat down on one of the benches and looking around her Sarah said, “I think we’re in the Ghetto.”
“Oh are we? It’s quite nice. Now I mean. I guess it wasn’t back then—”
She smiled. “It is nice, isn’t it?” The pretty square was dappled in leaflight and we sat there in a companiable silence. Just thinking.
“You know my feet are killing me,” she said at last. She shifted on the bench and, slipping both feet out of her sandals, she reached down and massaged them. “I love Venice. But these cobbles kill me.”
I smiled as I watched her, a pretty face topped with spiky blonde hair, bleached almost white by weeks in the sun. I breathed in the cool summer air and felt the afterglow of walking with her and talking with her; an enjoyment I hadn’t felt all holiday; a warmth which subsumed the heat of when we’d first met; the easy frisson more heady than passion, more potent than anything. I ached with the moment; the thought that it would come to an end. I wondered how I could tell her that.
“You know I’m having a great morning,” she said unexpectedly. She had stopped rubbing her feet and was sitting facing me now, straddling the bench. She wore a white blouse today, the top two buttons undone, a glimpse of vanilla skin. Her brown eyes flickered as she watched my face. “And I wasn’t lying last night. I do really like you.”
&nbs
p; “You do?” I felt a sudden and tremendous excitement building inside me.
“Yes. I just don’t want to muck everything up.”
“You couldn’t—”
“I have done already though haven’t I? Got you confused and me confused…” She groaned and looked away from me. Seconds passed. A minute. Eventually she looked back, her head to one side. “Would you maybe like to do this again tomorrow? Just the two of us.”
I blinked at her, the words engulfing me. “I thought you said it would be better if we didn’t see each other?” I said doggedly, not daring to believe.
“We probably shouldn’t.”
“Then—”
“But it’s only going for a walk isn’t it?” she said and then with a wry smile, “And we’ll take it really slowly.”
I laughed. “I’d love to.”
“Good.”
I looked at her. We looked at each other. Just for a moment, and I felt every nerve ending, every synapse sparkle in me as she smiled at me once again. She smiled with one side of her face more than the other so her eyebrow rose at the same time and it gave an air of such knowing innocence that my mind was wiped of everything except for that moment and the future she promised with her coral lips. I leant forward to her, to kiss her gently, persuasively, but she looked down at her watch before I could get there.
“It’s half-twelve,” she said as I hurriedly sat up straight again. What can we do that doesn’t involve walking for the next half an hour.”
I could think of a couple of things. I smiled at her winningly, alluringly.
“Can I take a look at Shaeffer’s notebook? The bits you read to me earlier were really interesting.”
“Oh. Sure.” I put the clothbound book onto the table in front of us. She shifted up until our shoulders were touching.
“So what came after his visit to the Accademia?”