Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  While he was still en route news reached him of his wife’s death, and it was then that he composed the elegiac passacaglia, “Poi che manco’ la speranza”7.

  “And this loss was to lead him slowly to the grave,” concluded the Chormaisterin sadly.

  She added that Atto had even shown her the handwritten intavolature with his master’s arias. “Franz then told Abbot Melani that we were thinking of settling either in Rome or in Paris, the cities where Luigi Rossi had lived, but he advised against it strongly. He urged us to return to Vienna, saying that it was now the capital of Italian music, that in Rome and in Paris music was finished. In Rome it had been killed years before by Pope Innocent XI, who had closed the theatres and forbidden the carnival; and in addition the power of the papacy was now in decline. In Paris, now that the Sun King was in thrall to that self-righteous old plebeian Madame de Maintenon, everything, even music, had become grey and bigoted.”

  Abbot Melani, I reflected as the Chormaisterin spoke, knew perfectly well what was going to happen just a few months after he gave that advice. The King of Spain Charles II was close to death, and when he died his will would be opened (whose contents – O Fates! – Atto was already familiar with). He well knew that thanks to that will the throne of Spain would immediately become an object of contention, sparking off the terrible war that was to leave the whole of Europe starving, especially Italy, theatre of its operations, and France, bled dry by its own king. The Abbot’s counsel, therefore, was a very shrewd one: Vienna, the blessed Caesarean city kissed by the Goddess of Opulence, was the only safe refuge.

  And then, if I knew him well, it would not have escaped the attention of the Sun King’s old spy just how useful it would be to have two trusted friends like Camilla and Franz in an enemy capital in wartime.

  “It’s been such a long time,” I sighed, “since I last saw the Abbot!”

  “But around that time Franz fell ill,” Camilla went on. “He suffered continually from fluxions of the chest. Returning to Vienna could have been fatal to him. So we went back to Italy, wandering from one court to another. My poor husband, while fearing for his own future, was worried about my fate. For this reason, in 1702, when the war of succession broke out, he decided in the end to follow Atto Melani’s advice and we came back to Vienna where, if some misfortune were to condemn me to solitude, it would be easier for me to make a living.”

  Franz de’ Rossi, her story proceeded, had immediately gone back into Joseph’s service and had introduced his wife into the ranks of the royal musicians, where she swiftly earned the confidence of the future Emperor.

  “Of the Emperor?” I said in admiration.

  “As everyone knows, His Caesarean Majesty is a musician of considerable discernment and appreciates all those who show zeal and love in their endeavours to serve him and to satisfy his passion for the art of sounds,” replied Camilla. “Timore et amore.”

  “What?”

  “It’s his motto. It explains the weapons he likes to govern with: with fear and with love, timore et amore,” the Chormaisterin spelt out clearly, with the tone of one who intends to say no more. Then she went back to the story of her marriage.

  Franz de’ Rossi, descendant of Seigneur Luigi, had passed away on the foggy morning of 7th November 1703 in the Niffisch Home on the Wollzeile, the Wool Street, just behind the Cathedral of St Stephen. He was only forty years old.

  “I was left all alone. I had never known my father, and sadly my dear mother,” she added, with a change in her voice, “whom I longed to re-embrace on my return, had died while I was away.”

  “My mother died far away as well,” said Cloridia.

  I started, and so did Camilla. My wife was referring spontaneously to her mother.

  “Or at least I imagine she has died by now; who knows when, who knows where,” she concluded, her voice slightly husky.

  The Chormaisterin clasped Cloridia’s hand tightly between her own.

  “I used to have a pendant,” Camilla said slowly, “a little heart in gold filigree with miniatures of my mother and my sister as a child, but unfortunately it got left behind in the house where my mother died, and there’s no way to get it back, alas.”

  “And your sister? Where is she now?” I asked.

  “I’ve never met her.”

  Although we had been walking with slow, dragging paces, and had taken every possible by-way, we had now reached Porta Coeli.

  “I beg of you, don’t torment yourselves with sad memories,” she urged us with a smile before we separated, “there are happy things in store for you in the days to come!”

  While Camilla disappeared in the direction of the dormitory, two figures emerged from the evening gloom: a young gentleman and his servant. They were heading towards the wing of the convent which held a second guest house for foreigners. The gentleman was saying to the servant:

  “Remember: crows fly in flocks, the eagle flies alone.”

  I started. I knew that expression. I had learned it from Atto, many years ago. For the whole evening I had been thinking of him, and now he seemed to be responding. Perhaps Abbot Melani had learned that expression from Cardinal Mazarin, and so it was known to many people. Maybe that gentleman knew Camilla and had simply heard the expression from her, and she, in turn, may have learned it from Atto Melani. Enough, I was brooding too much. One thing was perfectly clear: it was one of those eternal maxims that one never forgets and is happy to repeat.

  Once we were in our room, while Cloridia got ready for bed, I hastened to satisfy that longing I had had ever since I returned from the Place with No Name: to rummage among the books and various writings on Joseph I that I had acquired on arrival in Vienna, to seek the answer to my doubts. Why on earth did the Most August Caesar wish to restore the Place with No Name, heedless of the chain of vendettas that surrounded the place? The sad affair of his predecessor Maximilian II and the struggles between Christians and anti-Christians that had broken out around Neugebäu had meant that for a century and a half the Habsburgs had yielded to the powerful pressure of all those who wanted this monument to Suleiman’s defeat to fall into ruin. But not Joseph the Victorious. Why? What was spurring him on?

  Once I had discarded the writings in abstruse German, I quickly unearthed a pair of panegyrics in Italian. I opened the first: Applause of Fame and the Danube on the Day of the glorious Name of the Most August Emperor Joseph. Poetry for music consecrated to His Excellency the Lord Count Joseph of Paar, Great Seneschal of His Imperial Majesty, composed by the academician Acceso Gelato on the occasion of the Sovereign’s name day in 1706. I dipped into the work, which was a dialogue between the Danube and Fame:

  Danube: Misery

  Tyranny

  From Austria are banned;

  Thoughts of woe

  Spirits low

  Leave Austria’s fair land:

  Glory’s voice

  Shall sing so gay:

  And all rejoice

  On this great day.

  In the woods’ dim shades

  On hills and in glades

  Let the birds raise a song

  Of joy and delight that shall sound all day long.

  Fame: Twixt these banks JOSEPH’s fame

  Shall echo and sound

  And the waves at that name

  And the breeze

  In the trees

  Shall whisper their bliss all around.

  The mawkish panegyric, despite its awkward rhymes, reminded me how the devotion that had arisen in my breast for Joseph I had gradually turned into affection as I learned further details of his worth: he was naturally endowed with great clemency, heartfelt generosity, open-handed liberality and a love of justice; he was understanding, mature, resolute and made pronouncements with prudence and grace; he was unequalled in courage, and would go out hunting heedless of the weather, the season or the danger, so that even the boldest courtiers would excuse themselves from accompanying him, and he would often abandon his guards and present himself
at the city gates all alone or with a single companion.

  As time passed, talking to clients whose chimneys I swept, or to customers in eating houses and coffee shops, I heard more and more stories about His Caesarean Majesty’s good heart. He was so open-handed, they said, that the first to ask him for a favour was the first to receive it: Joseph was incapable of turning down anyone in need. He gave everything to everyone regardless, drawing not on the imperial treasury, but on his own private coffers, so that he was often reduced to great personal privations.

  But no story could outweigh the impression that I had received directly, when I saw him for the first time with my own eyes.

  It was just two months earlier, in February. For the carnival celebrations they had revived the old custom of Prachtschlittenfahrt, the solemn sledge-ride of the Emperor and his court. In the Caesarean procession, led by Joseph himself, there were 51 sledges and over 130 people, between noblemen in sledges and servants on foot or on horseback.

  The sledges were carved in marvellous shapes of swans, shells, bears, eagles and lions, but the most splendid, which had been taken on a long ride that morning with no passengers so that the people could admire it, was the one for Joseph and his consort. At the front was a wonderful piece of marquetry representing branches, an amazing work jointly created by goldsmiths, cabinet-makers and gilders; on the sides were two fauns with flutes, wonderfully lifelike; to keep the imperial couple warm there were gold-embroidered ermine blankets, and at the rear were gilded standards with the Habsburg and imperial coat of arms. In the cortège there were other vehicles with likenesses of Venus, Fortune, Hercules and Ceres, concealing noble couples covered with shawls and quilts, perhaps intent on some warm, secret embrace.

  After a long journey along Carinthia Street and the neighbouring thoroughfares, the procession halted in front of the Cathedral of St Stephen. Joseph got out to pray and to offer thanks to Our Lord, accompanied by his mother the widow queen Eleanor Magdalen Therese, his wife the reigning queen Wilhelmina Amalia, his two daughters Mary Josephine and Mary Amalia and his sisters Mary Elizabeth and Mary Magdalen. The imperial family, in slow procession towards the front door, graciously presented themselves to the crowd. The Caesars of the House of Habsburg consider it their duty, but also their pleasure, to gratify the people’s desire to admire, approach and study them. This is another reason why the imperial family often attend public mass in one of the churches in the city or the suburbs, or march in processions, or, in Lent, follow the traditional Via Crucis along the so-called Kalvarienberg – which is to say, Mount Calvary – in the suburb of Hernals, where there is a church of that name.

  Cloridia and I had tried to elbow our way through the crowd in the great square before the Cathedral of St Stephen, but the throng was so tightly packed we could make no headway. And so, before the imperial crowd left St Stephen’s, we ran to the Hofburg, as we knew the procession would end up in its great courtyard.

  Here the more far-sighted spectators had already taken up their positions: clustered together in little groups in the great open space, clinging onto columns or, if children, perched on their fathers’ shoulders. I chose, at the risk of enjoying only the most fleeting glimpse, to squat down opposite the jaws of the dark portal from which the Caesarean convoy would emerge into the open space.

  In the great courtyard of the palace the snow fell thickly but lightly, the roofs of the Hofburg glimmered with a spectral candour. Squeezed in among the shivering crowd of onlookers, sheltering my face from the wind, I awaited the arrival of the procession.

  At last the moment came: from the great portal I heard the tinkling of the sledge bells, then there appeared a pair of footmen bearing the imperial banners, escorting the head of the parade, followed by more, and yet more. At last there emerged the first pair of white horses with fiery-red trappings, their backs adorned with imitation eagle wings, pulling the sledge where he himself, the Emperor, stood upright, heedless of the cold.

  I saw him for just a few fleeting moments but they seemed endless: his august figure, just a few paces from me, impressed itself delectably and indelibly on my heart and my spirit.

  The high well-shaped forehead, tawny hair, firm nose, beautiful complexion ruddied by the stinging cold, the large fleshy mouth open in a broad smile that was bestowed generously upon us, the formless crowd: all this I saw at once, and it struck my heart, already inclined to devotion, to the core. As I gazed upon him, his large eyes, glinting with the sweet azure of youth beneath the laughing curve of his eyebrows, embraced us all in a single glance. In those few instants I was able to appreciate his figure, which was not tall but perfectly proportioned, his strong shoulders and his open, decisive posture.

  I was captivated, and so was Cloridia. From that moment my affection for the young Sovereign turned into passionate attachment and fidelity. Even as I gazed on him, I repeated to myself that so illustrious an heir was the perfect idea of the most heroic virtues, such as Egypt had never had in its Vexor, nor Assyria in its Ninus, Persia in its Cyrus, Greece in its Epaminondas, or Rome in its Pompey. In his reign of less than six years he had achieved twenty-nine victories in war. And with what unstinting ardour had he engaged in the famous sieges of Landau! The daring of his boldest followers appeared mediocre alongside his courage, the ferocity of the veteran soldiers seemed like inertia, and in his character there blazed a keen desire for glory, which, when instilled into the warlike breasts of the Germans, had twice hastened a victory over so considerable a fortress, defended by the obstinate courage of the most heroic French troops. Not even the Most Serene Prince Eugene had ever succeeded in conquering it! The victories of the Most August Joseph the First could only be compared with those of antiquity: of Cyrus against Croesus, in which not only had the latter been captured but the vast Kingdom of Lydia conquered; of Themistocles against Xerxes, in which he had avenged the cruel servitude of Greece oppressed by a million armed barbarians; of Hannibal against the Romans at Cannae, which had made the battlefield synonymous with defeat for centuries to come; and finally the bloody victory of Charles the Fifth on the fields of Pavia, in which Francis the First had been taken prisoner, the most courageous of that century. On closer consideration, I said to myself, now soaring to the heights of adoration, the successes of Joseph the Victorious were superior to these. After all, which of the Romani Imperadori could boast within the space of his Imperium such prodigious victories as those he had attained in just three years? His victories could only be compared with those of Caesar against Pompey, of Vespasian against Vitellius, of Constantine against Maxentius, memorable and bloody battles, exemplary for the valour of the soldiers, the multitude of legions and the overpowering force of the factions.

  While I lost myself in these thoughts, the long procession of sledges had all entered the courtyard of the Hofburg, illuminated by hundreds of torches, and was weaving solemn serpentines from one side of the square to the other while the people applauded and gave voice to their jubilation.

  Elated with our new life in the opulent northern capital, enchanted by the snow, which did not bring in its train (as it would in Rome) the wailing figures of Indigence and Famine, and delighted by the splendour of the Caesarean court, which – unlike those of Versailles and the Papal State – was not an insult to the poverty of the people, since every pauper in Vienna received two pounds (two pounds!) of meat a week, my wife and I embraced one another.

  Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia!

  So resounded the aria of the magnificent Regina Coeli composed by Joseph I, which we often heard in the churches of Vienna; and so chanted our soul, in its joy at this unexpected resurrection to new life.

  Holding back tears of enthusiasm and exaltation, we impetuously gave our hearts that day to the young Caesar, incarnation of our own rebirth, in the great and unsuspected cornucopia, surrounded by hills and fertile vineyards, that was the Caesarean city.

  I had given myself up to divagations and sweet memories. I returned distractedly to the panegyri
c:

  DANUBE: At the flash of his Arms,

  FAME: At the splendour of his Glories

  DANUBE AND FAME: Pale flowers wither . . .

  DANUBE: And in spite of those Flowers

  To the emulous Ruler’s distress

  The Pride of the stubborn Bavarians

  And Pannonians now languishes.

  FAME: Caesar, you who with Jove

  Have divided the Empire

  And with Mars the laurels,

  In the flower of your Years

  Now, that the Trumpet’s sound

  Invites you to rejoice,

  Open your heart to Joy, and wipe away all tears . . .

  Even in these tedious rhymes there was a kernel of truth. In order to be feared, Joseph had chosen Mars, because the thought of war, whose harsh clangour was never too far from Vienna, had been a constant companion for him from his earliest years. But another divinity had to be added to the Mars of the panegyric, and that was Venus.

  Joseph had encountered the Goddess of Love at a precocious age, and it could not have been otherwise, as Mother Nature had endowed him most generously. At the age of twenty-four he was handsome, strong and well-proportioned, like his robust German mother. He had no trace of the horrid jutting chin and pendulous mouth that for generations had disfigured his ancestors, including his father Leopold and his brother Charles, the current pretender to the Spanish throne. Surrounded by the deformities of the House of Habsburg, Joseph stood out like a swan among ducks.

  Women (princesses, ladies of the court, simple serving wenches) appreciate a man of distinction, and he was happy to reward them at night, one by one, with the appropriate means.

  And how gifted he was! Eloquent, sparkling and imaginative: he lacked for nothing. The Muses themselves had done their part, lavishing their talents on him. The King of France did not know a single foreign language; Joseph spoke six like a native. At the age of seven he wrote correctly in French, at eleven in Latin, at sixteen he could speak both languages fluently, in addition to Italian, with good pronunciation. Two years later he had mastered Czech and Hungarian. He was skilled in music and composition, and played the flute expertly. He developed his muscles with physical exercise, hunting and the military disciplines.