Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  “Gott behüte Ewer Gnaden.” “Goodbye Most Illustrious Sir,” the pupil was reciting courteously. Cloridia smiled tenderly on hearing his high-pitched voice.

  “People are saying that this is a different embassy from the previous ones,” she then confirmed, returning to me as her smile faded. “Do you want to know how many people there were on previous official Turkish visits to Vienna? As many as 400. The last time they came was 11 years ago, in 1700, and they had 450 horses, 180 camels and 120 mules. And now,” she added, “arriving like this in a great hurry, almost without warning, with very few followers and a journey in the depths of winter . . .”

  “So does anyone know why they’ve come?” I asked, feverish with anxiety.

  “Certainly they know. Officially, to confirm the peace treaty of Karlowitz. And that’s what the Agha discussed with Eugene in front of everyone.”

  “The treaty signed with the Emperor twelve years ago, when the last war with the Ottomans ended?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And was there any need to send such an urgent embassy from Constantinople to confirm a treaty that had already been signed? They haven’t made any claims or announced any hostile intentions towards the Empire?”

  “On the contrary. The Ottomans have got many other matters on their minds right now: they’re engaged against the Czar.”

  “The whole thing makes no sense. Do you think they’ve come for some other reason?”

  Cloridia looked at me, returning the question with her eyes.

  “I’ve asked each and every one of those drunkards in the Agha’s retinue,” she said then, “but do you know what they answer? Soli soli soli ad pomum venimus aureum! And then they laugh and they drink, so as not to say anything else. They ape their master without even understanding what they’re saying.”

  “And the palace staff? Maybe they’ve picked up something from the private talks between Eugene and the Agha.”

  “Ah, as for that, there’s been no private talk!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Eugene and the Agha have never gone off in private; they have always talked exclusively in front of an audience.”

  “And so they’ve really never talked of anything except the old treaty of Karlowitz.”

  “Truly inexplicable, don’t you think?” she answered disconsolately. “Just think,” she added, lowering her voice, “that even in the Prince’s diary, there’s nothing about this embassy except the sheet of paper the Agha gave him. And on the sheet all that’s written is that sentence: ‘Soli soli soli ad pomum venimus aureum,’ simply that the Turks have come to Vienna all by themselves.”

  “This is all absurd,” I commented.

  “Maybe this sentence conceals something we don’t know,” conjectured my wife. “They’ve explained to me that the pomum aureum, or the Golden Apple, is the name the Turks give to Vienna.”

  “Yes, I know; Simonis told me this just today,” I confirmed, summarising for her what I had learned from my assistant about the history of the Place with No Name, about Maximilian II and Suleiman.

  “Incredible. But where does the name Golden Apple come from?”

  “Ah, I’ve no idea.”

  “Maybe it’s the name that holds the key to understand the sentence,” hazarded Cloridia.

  Things clearly did not add up. It had been feared that the Ottomans might arrive in arms, or at any rate bringing something terrible with them. Instead, publicly emphasising that they had come all by themselves, they wanted to reassure the imperial forces as to the honesty of their intentions. But this still did not explain why they had come to Vienna in such urgent haste. And there was something else that jarred with their avowed peaceful purposes – the way they had referred to the Caesarean city, using the hardly reassuring name of “Golden Apple”. The description underlined the fact that Vienna was still a target of conquest for the Ottoman Sublime Porte. It was no accident that Prince Eugene was granting them the extraordinary honour of hosting them for three days in his palace.

  “And how do you know what’s in your master’s personal diary?” I asked with my eyes bulging, suddenly thinking of Cloridia’s words.

  “That’s obvious: I was told by his personal manservant’s wife, the one I promised to help give birth for free.”

  My wife, although she could not practise as a midwife, a profession which required a regular licence (like everything else here), never stopped helping women who were pregnant, in childbed or in puerperium. Her help was gratefully received, since the best obstetricians in the city, those on the same level as Cloridia, cost a fortune.

  “But hurry up now,” she exhorted me, “Camilla is waiting for us.”

  20 of the clock: eating houses close their doors.

  “Before I got married, there was nothing interesting about my life,” began the Chormaisterin.

  We were in the august imperial chapel, at the rehearsal of Sant’ Alessio, during a break. Since only our little boy and I belonged to the troupe of extras, Cloridia did not need to be there, but Camilla de’ Rossi had been so skilful in overcoming my wife’s initial diffidence that she now happily accompanied us to our evening engagements, and during the break it was not rare for her to pass the time conversing with the Chormaisterin.

  The breaks during the oratorio rehearsals were, for the moment, the only chances that the two women had for such chats, and the Chormaisterin seemed to value them greatly. Cloridia and I were always busy with our daily work, and for this reason could not make use of the convent’s kitchen, unless we were ill. Furthermore, by the rules of Porta Coeli the nuns were not allowed to sit at table with strangers. Camilla, who was only a lay sister, was not subject to this prohibition, and was very disappointed that we did not share her meals, all based on spelt; and so she consoled herself by preparing delicious dainties of spelt for our son, which had also had the beneficial effect of restoring him to full health. This had greatly endeared our gentle hostess to my wife.

  In every conversation Camilla had the amiable gift of delicately introducing the subjects Cloridia most enjoyed, in primis that of assisting pregnant women and looking after new mothers and babies, obviously, but also occult teachings like the interpretation of dreams and of numbers, or the art of the ardent rod or diviner’s wand or whatever it is called: disciplines that Cloridia was highly skilled at, and which she had practised in her youth. Gifted with almost prophetic intuition, the Chormaisterin almost seemed to know from the outset Cloridia’s tastes and inclinations, and with discreet but unfailing adroitness led the talk towards those themes.

  These amiable attentions succeeded in loosening my sweet consort’s tongue, so that when Camilla went on to ask her about her past, Cloridia did not bridle as she usually did but willingly proceeded to satisfy her curiosity.

  That evening the conversation between the two women was in full flow when Cloridia for the first time put a few questions to the Chormaisterin: what had driven a young Roman woman, from Trastevere no less, all the way to Vienna? Did she not miss Trastevere, her rione? Where exactly was the house she had been born in and had grown up in? Cloridia, who knew most of Rome from her days as a midwife, had suddenly remembered a certain Camilla de’ Rossi, a well-to-do shopkeeper in Trastevere, daughter of a certain Domenico da Pesaro and mother of a Lucretia Elisabetta, whom she had assisted in giving birth to her son Cintio. Cloridia would have been happy to discover that she already knew some of Camilla’s relatives: you know how it is, it’s such a small world . . .

  “Before I got married, there was nothing interesting about my life,” Camilla cut her short, showing little desire to delve into her origins, too obscure perhaps for one who now enjoyed the confidence of His Caesarean Majesty.

  “Married?” asked Cloridia in wonder.

  “Yes, before entering Porta Coeli I was married. But excuse me, the rehearsal has to start,” she said, moving towards the orchestra players.

  And thus it was we learned that Camilla, although only twenty-nine yea
rs old, was a widow.

  The music began. Sweet violin strokes softly filled the vault of the Caesarean chapel, supported by the warm breath of the organ, the silvery tinkling of the lute, and the tawny tints of the violone. The soprano, in the role of the betrothed bride just abandoned by Alessio, gave voice to a mournful lament:

  Cielo, pietoso Cielo . . .4

  But immediately an angry burst of chords broke from the orchestra. The bride inveighed against her old love, and asked heaven for a weapon to punish him:

  Un dardo, un lampo, un telo

  Attenderò da te

  Ferisci arresta esanima

  Chi mi mancò di fé . . .5

  Since the extras were not required during that passage, I had sat down to listen with Cloridia and our son on the chapel pews. Swept away by the energy of the music, I suddenly realised that with one hand I was clutching my consort’s arm, and with the other the back of the bench in front of us. While Camilla’s notes and the soprano’s silvery voice swelled in the volutes of the chapel, I thought back to the strange coincidence that had struck me the evening before: music and singing had come back into my life, and once again were associated with the name Rossi. In Rome I had come to know the arias of Atto’s master, Luigi Rossi; here, the Chormaisterin Camilla de’ Rossi. Could it just be pure chance? Perhaps names bring events and experiences along with them? And if so, can words therefore govern things?

  While I brooded over these fleeting questions, the piece came to an end. Camilla began to instruct the singer and the players on how best to perform the passage, and to go over individual parts again; as always, the Chormaisterin was extremely eloquent and thorough in explaining just what tones she expected from the singing, what sighs from the sweet flutes, what grumblings from the gruff bassoons.

  During the next pause, Camilla rejoined us. I at once urged her to continue her story. She carried on, explaining that when still very young she had married a royal court composer, a musician in the service of the Emperor’s eldest son, who was the then young Joseph I.

  The court composer was Camilla’s music teacher, as she was already in Vienna at that time with her mother. He was Italian, and was called Francesco.

  “But here in the Empire,” Camilla explained, “where all names are Germanised, they called him Franz. Franz Rossi.”

  “Rossi? So your surname is Rossi, and not de’ Rossi?” I asked.

  “Actually it was. The noble patronymic de’ was a generous concession of His Majesty Joseph I, just before Franz died.”

  Her husband, Camilla went on, had trained her in the art of singing, and more particularly in that of composition, and taken her around the various courts of Europe, where they learned the most recent musical fashions, which they would introduce into the Caesarean court on their return. In Italy they went more or less everywhere: Florence and Rome, Bologna and Venice. During the day they visited the workshops of master-lutists, explored theatres to test their acoustics, approached virtuoso singers or harpsichord players to learn their secrets, and paid homage to princes, cardinals and persons of note in return for their benevolence. At night, by candlelight, they fought against sleep, copying music to take back to Vienna for the delectation of His Caesarean Majesty’s highly refined ears. Then she left us again, to go on rehearsing the orchestra.

  While the Chormaisterin made the musicians try the passage over and over again, and the music swirled around the chapel, I was carried away on a sweet silent surge of memories.

  Rossi! So that was the original surname of Camilla’s deceased husband. Not just similar, as I had first thought, but identical to the surname of Seigneur Luigi, Atto’s beloved master in Rome, the mentor of his youthful years. Luigi Rossi: the man who had taken the young castrato Atto Melani with him to Paris, conferring glory on him as the protagonist of Orfeo, the great melodrama requested by Cardinal Mazarin to celebrate his own greatness, second only to the supreme powers of heaven.

  Almost as if in mockery of me, the soprano recited:

  Cielo, pietoso cielo . . .

  And once again my mind went back to those events of twenty-eight years earlier, to the Inn of the Donzello, in Rome. Not a day had gone by in Abbot Melani’s company, between the four walls of the inn where I had first met him, without my hearing at least a line of Seigneur Luigi Rossi, modulated by Atto’s etiolated but still passionate voice.

  Meanwhile the voice of the abandoned bride trembled with anger:

  Un dardo, un lampo, un telo

  Attenderò da te

  Ferisci arresta esanima

  Chi mi mancò di fé . . .

  In the parallel world of my memories, marvellous notes quivered in Abbot Melani’s throat, as he sang to the poignant memory of his master (and of other things that I could not even imagine), and I, an ignorant servant boy, wondered at the sound of those ineffable melodies, never heard before or since.

  “Finally we went to France, to Paris,” Camilla began again at the end of the rehearsal, as we all walked back to the convent of Porta Coeli.

  Since it was such a short journey to Carinthia Street from the Caesarean chapel and from there to the convent, we walked slowly to give her time to tell her story.

  “But the court of France is in Versailles,” objected Cloridia.

  Here Camilla smiled with a touch of embarrassment.

  “We didn’t go to court. More than anything else Franz wanted to visit someone, the only person still alive who could tell him about a relative of his, a great-uncle, also a composer. He was very famous in his day, but he died prematurely. And times have changed so quickly that he’s now forgotten. In Rome Franz couldn’t find anyone who remembered him. It was only in Paris that he finally –”

  “You mean Maestro Luigi Rossi, don’t you? He’s your relative? And it was Atto Melani that you visited in Paris, wasn’t it? And that’s how you met the Abbot?” I asked in an excited series of questions that already had their answer.

  Just at that moment we were interrupted as we encountered a great flock of people, mostly very young.

  I should have guessed it from the beginning, I reflected as I stepped around the crowd: Camilla had known Atto. It could not have been otherwise. That was why the Abbot had sent us to stay at Porta Coeli: in Paris he had met Camilla, and then they had remained in touch. Thanks to this acquaintance, despite the war between France and the Empire, he had succeeded in finding a trusted person in Vienna, the enemy capital. Had not Atto also written a letter to the Chormaisterin, expressly commending us to her care, as she herself had mentioned when we arrived? And furthermore: Franz, Camilla’s deceased husband, was Luigi Rossi’s nephew.

  Meanwhile the group of young people were swarming into the courtyard of a house: it was an Andacht, one of those pious prayer meetings in front of the statues of saints and patrons, which took place everywhere in Vienna after sunset. They would sing, recite the rosary and litanies, listen to sermons and then round things off by gorging on cold meat and bread, washed down with wine; after which the couples would go off to engage in encounters of a less spiritual nature.

  “When did you see Melani?” Cloridia and I asked in unison, anxious to hear about our benefactor.

  “It was eleven years ago, in August 1700. The excellent Abbot welcomed us like a father, showing us incomparable benevolence and magnanimity during our whole stay in Paris. When we told him our story, he displayed a touching and delicate sensibility that won me over. I have never known anyone who can equal Abbot Melani in nobility of spirit!”

  Camilla lavished praise on Atto. Well, she had been lucky, I told myself, to have seen only the Abbot’s nobler sides.

  “Melani told us that he had just returned from Rome, where he had attended the marriage of the nephew of the Cardinal Secretary of State. He was supposed to stay until the conclave, but a bad injury to his arm forced him to return to Paris.”

  As we walked on, Cloridia and I looked at each other without a word. We knew that story all too well, having lived through it with
Atto – or rather, having endured it as a result of his shady intrigues. He had been stabbed in the arm, it was true, but that was certainly not why he had fled from Rome! But we let the matter drop. We certainly had no wish to fill Camilla in on the less honourable aspects of the man who, after deceiving and exploiting us for his own ends, had now become our benefactor.

  “The Abbot talked to us of his master Luigi Rossi, Franz’s relative.”

  Melani, plucking sprigs of memory from the vast wildernesses of his remembrance, with touching diligence had almost brought back to real life the figure of Seigneur Luigi for Camilla and Franz. At several points Atto had been on the verge of tears, and only the respect he bore her, a sweet fresh young lady, had restrained him. He had recounted the glory that Luigi Rossi had achieved many years ago in Rome in the service of the Barberini, and then his success at the court of the King of France; he had told them how his famous cantata for the death of King Gustave of Sweden had won him the admiration of all Europe, and how his Orfeo, in which for the first time the arias lasted longer than the recitatives, had renewed and transformed opera. Luigi Rossi had been a gentle spirit of fine intellect, an inexhaustible source of fresh poetry and inspired music; he had received more applause in both Rome and Paris than any Italian musician before him.

  Atto, proceeded the Chormaisterin, pursuing the train of memories, shared with them not only the successes and joyous occasions from half a century ago but also the tragic ones. He told them how Seigneur Luigi had heard, while he was with Atto in France in the service of Cardinal Mazarin, that his young wife Costanza, the beautiful harpist of the Barberini, was ill. He had rushed back to Rome, and on the journey he had set to music the noble lines “Speranza, al tuo pallore / so che non speri piu’, /eppur non lasci tu / di lusingari il core”6 – but all in vain.