The Eye Stone

by Roberto Tiraboschi

  Edgardo half closed his eyes to protect himself from the glare which had become more bothersome with the rising of the sun. “This landscape gives you a feeling of peace and soothing languor, as though nature here has the power to protect you from all suffering and harm.”

  Ademaro cut him short. “Let’s go now, I must introduce you to the abbot. You’ll see, he’s a deeply spiritual man, and witty, too.”

  They slowly went down the steep spiral staircase. Every step sent an excruciating pain through Edgardo’s hip. He was used to living with his crooked bones, which seemed intent on forcing him to slither like an invertebrate insect.

  Abbot Carimanno was waiting for them in the library on the ground floor. Edgardo was deeply disappointed by the meager number of manuscripts on the shelves in the small room. He had always imagined that all abbeys had libraries containing at least seven hundred volumes, like their own in Bobbio. Moreover, monks who had traveled south had told of libraries with over a thousand volumes.

  “We’re building our knowledge step by step. We collect, copy, translate and preserve the knowledge the wise men of the past have bequeathed to us.”

  Abbot Carimanno had a thin, hoarse voice. Tufts of white hair sprouting from his nose and ears joined at the top of his skull, like a halo. He reminded Edgardo of a mangy old crane that used to nest on the tower of their castle when he was a child.

  “We do the best we can without having the kind of resources you have at Bobbio.” He smiled slyly. “Many manuscripts from Constantinople and Alexandria arrive in Venetia and we try to secure them for ourselves . . . even if our Ademaro here sometimes swipes the best morsels from right under our noses.” He laughed. “I have confidence that within a few years, thanks to the generosity of our faithful, the library of San Giorgio will become one of the most important in any Benedictine monastery. An abbey with no books is like a stronghold with no provisions.” Edgardo nodded reverently. “Ademaro says you’ve come along to help him choose new manuscripts for your library.”

  Edgardo lowered his head. “That is so,” he said.

  “And he also says you’re an excellent copyist—the best in Bobbio.”

  “Ademaro is too kind,” Edgardo replied cagily.

  The abbot took a few springy steps toward the door leading to the cloister, and suddenly started mumbling, “What a foolish, doltish man I am! One of the most brilliant copyists of our monasteries has come to see us and I’m not even taking him to see our scriptorium . . . Fool. Ass . . . Please, follow me.” And he climbed the stairs, skipping from step to step.

  The scriptorium, on the first floor, right above the library, gave onto the botanical cloister, where medicinal herbs and spices were grown that were essential for the brother in charge of the sick. The room was not very large but filled with much more light than the one in Bobbio. The windows, in pairs, tall and with pointed arches, took up an entire wall and looked over an open field. An even, vibrant and almost unnatural light filtered through the waxed canvas. Various lecterns were aligned beneath the sources of light, and upon them were the codices to be copied or translated, as well as the smoothed-out parchment bearing lines traced with charcoal sticks.

  Seeing his fellow brothers stooped over their papers, focusing on their work, engrossed in writing, he felt deeply sad. He wondered if his own time for writing had gone forever.

  Ademaro had stopped to speak to a monk with a ruddy complexion, red as a crab, with bright, darting eyes.

  “This brother looks like someone devoted only to the pleasures of the flesh,” Ademaro said with a smile, introducing the monk to Edgardo, “but in truth he mainly cultivates the pleasures of the spirit. He’s the most illustrious translator of Arabic into Latin I know. His name is Ermanno di Carinzia.”

  Edgardo bowed his head in a sign of homage. The monk self-consciously shook his entire body like a wet dog trying to shake off the rain. “No, no, Ademaro exaggerates . . . Still, appearances don’t lie and I do like wine more than books.” He burst out laughing, and the hilarity immediately alarmed the abbot, who quickly approached the trio.

  “I would like your opinion,” Carimanno said, taking Edgardo by the arm, “on a young copyist I consider to be very promising. He has a firm hand, an extraordinary memory, and very sharp eyesight.” He pulled him toward a skinny young man who seemed to be drowning in a habit that was too large for him. He was writing, bent double, curled like a dry leaf, and had the greenish complexion of a sick person.

  “His name is Rainardo,” said the abbot. “Look, what do you think of his writing?”

  For a moment, the light bouncing off the parchment numbed Edgardo’s sight, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. All the words looked out of focus. He turned to look at the abbot and had the impression the old man’s dark eyes were searching his soul.

  “So, what do you think?” Carimanno insisted.

  Edgardo drew closer to the sheet of paper, perhaps too close, with visible effort, and squinted. “I think it’s excellent,” he lied. “He has a fine ability for shaping letters.”

  “We would be honored if you’d now give our disciple an example of your own skill.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Edgardo. “The youth is already on the right path and doesn’t need a teacher.”

  “I beg you, he’ll find it useful,” Carimanno insisted, handing him a goose quill.

  The abbot’s face had twisted into a sinister grimace, his lips tight, his curly hairs wriggling like threadworms. Edgardo wished he could hurl into the distance the pen that was dancing before his eyes.

  “Writing is an art that requires solitude and silence, and never strives to show off.”

  “Just one line,” Carimanno persevered, sneakily.

  Edgardo turned abruptly. Why was he insisting? Did he know everything? Had he detected the impending blindness in his eyes?

  “Most Illustrious Father, may I have your permission to postpone the test to another occasion?”Ademaro readily intervened, fearing his friend would grow rude and aggressive, as often happened when he was contradicted. “It’s almost Terce and the boatman is waiting for us on the bank to take us to the book merchant. May we take our leave?”

  Carimanno made a disappointed grimace. “If your task is so urgent, then you may take your leave.” He stared into Edgardo’s eyes. “We will have another opportunity to test your art.”

  Edgardo stared back at the abbot with defiance. Ademaro took him by the arm and pushed him toward the exit.

  Paolino da Venezia's map (1346), reproduced by Temanza (detail)

  V.

  SAN MARCO

  The water level had risen during the night and flooded the junctorio in front of the abbey. There was a gondola waiting for them at the bottom of the steps. The two monks went onboard and the boatman pushed away from the bank with his oar.

  Edgardo stared at the greenish water with a dark expression. “What does the old man mean?” he snapped.

  Ademaro tried to calm him. “Don’t be disrespectful.”

  “I’m a cleric from a noble family—I’ve not taken vows. He has no authority over me.”

  “He just wanted a demonstration of your expertise.”

  “No, Ademaro. It was more than that. I read suspicion in his eyes. There’s something untrustworthy about him.”

  “He’s just curious. Don’t worry, he suspects nothing.”

  Anxiety. A sense of instability. Equilibrium that suddenly vanishes and is replaced by a nervousness full of questioning. What had happened to take away his peace of mind? Edgardo could find no answer but he did not like that feeling. He looked up. “Where are we going?”

  “To the shop of the merchant who told me about the stone for the eyes, as I promised.”

  Edgardo nodded. His agitation and bad mood prevented him from enjoying the amazing spectacle unfolding before him as they approach
ed the dock opposite the Basilica of San Marco.

  A wall of white sails swelled by the light breeze obscured the view of the piazza. Masts tall as towers swayed against the sky, almost touching one another. Oars interweaved and crossed. Hawsers flapped on the water surface with a low wheezing sound. The smaller boats maneuvered under cables and ropes, as if through the vines of a forest.

  In the front row, chelandions, acazias, and war galleys protected the cogs that were unloading on the shore.

  After many turns among those giants, the gondola managed to reach the dock that penetrated deep into the piazza until it lapped at the south entrance of the Basilica, which was mirrored in the water of the lagoon. The two monks got out and pushed their way through the crowd. Edgardo had never seen so many people in such a small space. Sailors, traders, servants, beggars, slaves, monks, whores, and pilgrims thronged in front of San Marco, shouting, negotiating, and complaining. Cries, arguments, calls. A Tower of Babel of languages and races.

  The façade of the Basilica was surrounded by scaffolding swarming with men working on mosaics that rose under the narthex. On the opposite side of the piazza a wooden tower was being erected, which, as Ademaro explained, was used for sighting enemy ships or Dalmatian pirates, and for signaling the harbor, with a fire lit on the top, to those navigating at night. On the eastern side, in front of the lagoon, Doge Ordelaffo Falier had rebuilt the Doge’s Palace after it had been totally destroyed by the fire of 1105. The towers on all four sides, their crenellated walls with bartizans, machicolations and lookouts, reminded Edgardo of his father’s castle, and he felt a momentary twinge of nostalgia. However, the Doge’s Palace had no need for a moat to protect it, since it was surrounded on two sides and at the back by a canal, the Rio Palazzo, which isolated it completely.

  “Follow me and keep close, or you risk getting lost in this anthill,” Ademaro warned.

  Leaving the palace behind, they pushed their way through the crowds toward a waterway, the Rio Batario, which flowed at the end of the piazza and cut sharply across the green campo the people of Venetia called Brolo, the word suggesting an area dense with grass and trees. In the midst of all this green was a chapel dedicated to San Giminiano.

  Carrying on straight ahead, they circumvented a luxuriant elder tree. Here, Edgardo stopped in amazement. Two large purebred piebalds were grazing quietly in the shade of the branches. The presence of the horses seemed extravagant and unreasonable to him, and he wondered how they had ended up here, in this watery landscape, crossing marshes and canals.

  Ademaro edged into a narrow calle* which started from the piazza and was called Calle delle Merzerie. “Mind how you walk,” he said. In truth, it was almost impossible to advance through this narrow, crowded alley. Men on horseback traveling in both directions arrogantly pushed their way through a sea of people who relied on their wits to fulfill their daily chores. Along both sides of the clay walkways there were tiny timber houses, one story high at most, with thatched or plank roofs. Some had a small covered loggia on the upper floor. On the ground floor of every building were the workshops of craftsmen, shops with various merchandise, and storehouses crammed with goods. Everybody looked extremely busy and, perhaps unused to city chaos, Edgardo struggled to understand what it was they were doing exactly or in which direction they were going. They went in and out of the shops, laden with stuff, arguing and shouting. A garzone was running, pursued by the screams of a man who was probably his master. The horses kept releasing excrement without an ounce of decency. Anonymous arms appeared at first-floor windows and poured out nauseating fluids without any warning. On the roof of a small house, a young man who had just got up was pissing sleepily on the loggia of the neighboring house. Walking ahead without any unpleasant accidents was a difficult enterprise. Everyone skipped as best they could from one clod of earth that was still clean to another, so that one got the impression of a city populated by grasshoppers.

  In front of the shops of tailors, doublet-makers, goldsmiths, dyers, boot-makers, and barbers, merchandise of every shape and kind was on display. Exhibited in front of a surgeon’s shop, in a row of stuffed exotic animals, there was even a well-preserved Egyptian mummy in its sarcophagus. They struggled to walk through the street, which reminded Edgardo of a miniature, like the ones that adorned the margins of a page. A live drawing interwoven with monstrous beasts, winged horses, and deformed faces immersed in a background of drenched vegetation that gave off a revolting smell.

  “Here we are,” said Ademaro, sliding into a dark, moldy lair from which rose a wretched little wooden staircase. They went up, making creaking and wheezing sounds, until they reached a large room on the first floor.

  In the time it took to turn the page, the miniature completely changed its image. The stench turned into a breathtakingly sweetly scent: cedarwood and amber flavors typical of the shores of the river Nile blended with the camphor fragrance of myrrh and civet. A heavy cloud that impregnated everything and penetrated every nook and cranny.

  Edgardo looked around in a daze. They seemed to have entered the shop of a merchant who had lost his mind. A messy heap of objects, fabrics and furniture filled every corner from floor to ceiling. The floor was overloaded with Oriental rugs sporting colorful patterns. On the wall were displayed boar hooves, deer antlers, flags, suits of armor, scimitars, and shields. The shelves, covered in damask cloths, overflowed with dishes full of spices. Finally, as though to crown this treatise on folly, on a canopied bed, a woman lying on her side like an odalisque, covered with nothing more than a sapphire-colored tunic that revealed abundant quantities of a flaccid body brazenly exhibiting folds and crevices of unashamed sensuality. Edgardo had never seen such a fair, ivory complexion. The round, bloated face barely left room for two small, dark, porcine eyes. Her lips were pale and defenseless, her arms lay abandoned on her flabby belly.

  “My respects, Madama Teodora,” Ademaro introduced himself.

  “Who are you? I don’t recognize your voice, come closer so that I can look at you in this semidarkness.” She had a sleepy, singsong voice. The two monks drew closer.

  That was where that sickly scent came from. From this woman’s body.

  “Oh, it’s you, Brother Ademaro. I beg your pardon, I fell asleep. You’ve come back, what an honor . . . Come and sit by me, and your friend, too.” She motioned to a bench at the foot of the bed. “Unfortunately, I can’t move. My legs are at odds with my head, they’ve been poisoned by bad humors and have turned all blue.” She stared at Edgardo. “Is your brother a surgeon, or a herbalist by any chance . . . ?”

  “No, I’m a copyist,” said Edgardo.

  “You as well? God help you. We’re expecting a new shipment of codices from Alexandra. The finest stuff, enough to make your mouth water, manuscripts in Arabic, Spanish, Greek . . . but meanwhile,” she suddenly dropped her voice, “I have something extraordinary to offer you, God bless you, something only two holy men like yourselves will appreciate for its value and its redemptive significance.”

  Ademaro did not seem very impressed by the spice trader’s words. “I came to see your husband . . . ”

  “He’ll be here any moment . . . Listen to what I’m about to tell you, brothers, but you must swear on all the saints, the angels and archangels, that you will not tell anyone.”

  “We don’t swear on what is holy,” said Edgardo.

  “Your will be done . . . but I’ll tell you anyway, so listen and be amazed . . . ” The hag swelled her double chin and began. “Bloody battles, escapes, dangerous journeys from the East to the West—our knight had to survive all that on his return from Pope Urban’s holy crusade in order to safeguard a thing that even now I don’t dare name and shiver at the very thought of showing . . . ”

  “What are you prattling on about?” Edgardo said, impatiently.

  The woman made a grimace, closed her eyes, seemed to nod off, then suddenly burst out, “The relic.”


  Ademaro sighed. “What relic would that be?”

  “I don’t know that I’m worthy to speak its name.”

  Edgardo cut her short. “Probably not, but try anyway.”

  “A relic that would give your church eternal sanctity. This relic alone would summon hordes of faithful from every land . . . May God forgive me if I dare speak his name: John the Baptist.”

  Ademaro did not stir at the mention of that name but began toying with a bristly beard that looked dark against his pale face.

  “Did you hear me? John the Baptist,” Teodora repeated, then fell silent for a long time, closed her eyes again, and took a deep breath. “I miraculously came into possession of John the Baptist’s foreskin.” Having spoken, she took a tiny brocaded box out of a drawer and opened it right under Ade­maro’s nose.

  “Isn’t it sublime? Look at how much light it gives off.”

  Edgardo also came closer, intrigued, and saw, in the box, laid out on a tiny pillow, a shred of dry skin, black and wrinkled, which looked just like the peel of a chewed-up prune.

  “It’s truly amazing,” Ademaro said, without losing his composure.

  “To you, holy men, I will give it for a low sum.”

  At that moment, there was a racket on the stairs, hoarse panting and coughing fits that announced the appearance of a short little man with no neck and a long beard that wavered over a large, pyramid-shaped belly. As soon as she saw him, Teodora quickly closed the box.

  “What are you doing? What are you doing?” he shouted. “Daughter of an infidel, put that stuff away in front of these holy men . . . I beg your pardon, my dear brothers, have pity on my wife. She has no restraint. She comes from the Orient, the daughter of a merchant from Constantinople. She’d sell her mother if she still had one.”

  The clerics stood up and approached him. “May the Lord be with you, Karamago,” said Ademaro.