"Just read. These are the cardinals who will elect the next pontiff. Which ones begin with A'?"
"Acciaoli, Albani, Altieri, Archinto and Astalli," I read from the first lines.
He folded the paper at once and at once replaced it in the pocket from which it has come, while we continued on our way.
We were now right in front of the San Pancrazio Gate from which one leaves the city to the east, by the Via Aurelia. I watched Atto for an instant darting glances all around us, for he too did not desire to arouse too much attention. To be surprised while in possession of such a document might give rise to accusations of espionage, with dreadful consequences.
"Let us see then," said he with a great easy smile, as though we were speaking of any trivial matter. I realised that he was relaxing the muscles of his face for our imminent meeting with the guards at the San Pancrazio Gate, through which we were about to continue his chosen itinerary, the destination of which he had not as yet revealed.
"Astalli is Papal Legate to Ferrara, he is not in Rome at this moment and he will come, if he does come, only for the conclave. Archinto is in Milan, too far off to come to your master's festivities. Acciaioli, the first on the list, is not as far as I know a good friend of the Spada family."
"So there remain only Altieri and Albani."
"Exactly. Altieri fits in very well with our hypothesis, for, like Spada, he is one of the cardinals created by Pope Clement X of blessed memory. But Albani fits even better for reasons of political equilibrium."
"What do you mean?"
"Simple: a secret meeting between three cardinals only makes sense if it is a meeting of the representatives of as many different factions. Well, Spinola is regarded as the favourite of the Empire. Spada, however, being Secretary of State to a Neapolitan Pope, thus belongs to a Spanish fief, and may therefore be regarded as close to Spain. Albani, on the other hand, is regarded by many as being a friend of France. So we have here a little synod meeting in preparation for the conclave. That is why your master is so uneasy at this time: that lecture to the Major-Domo, that nervous, worried air. . ."
"A milkmaid mentioned that Cardinal Spada is forever moving back and forth between an ambassador and a cardinal, about matters relating to a papal breve," I recalled, surprised that I too possessed interesting information which I had not yet, however, been able to exploit.
"Excellent. Unless I am mistaken, Albani is Secretary for Breves, is he not?" concluded Melani, sounding most satisfied.
He was not mistaken; I had heard this mentioned by two ladies during last night's meal.
At that juncture, we broke off, having come within sight of the guards of the San Pancrazio Gate who obviously knew me well because, living outside the walls, I passed through the gate in one direction or the other every single day. To be in a gentleman's company was an added advantage. We were allowed through without any problem.
"You have still not told me where we are going," said I, although a certain idea was already forming in the ramblings of my imagination.
"Well, our three cardinals are to hold their little meeting on board a vessel. On the Tiber, perhaps?"
"That does not seem very likely."
"To tell the truth, it might well be so, if they really wanted to keep out of sight of prying eyes. The fact is, however, that they have a far more convenient place on dry land, and just here, a stone's throw from the Villa Spada. We are almost there. Perhaps you have heard tell of this; it is called the Vessel."
After all Atto's deductions, that was the name I was expecting.
"Of course I have heard of it," I replied. "I walk by it every day on my way from home to the Villa Spada, but I realised that it might be a meeting place for the three cardinals only after you had set forth your considerations," I admitted, "and then I knew that the expression 'on board' was just a play on words. . ."
Atto began to walk faster, registering my diplomatic declaration of inferiority with a mute smile.
"You will see," he resumed, "it is a truly singular place. It is a site, as perhaps you may know, which is fairly closely bound up with France, and that makes the encounter between Spinola and your master Spada even more interesting: a Hispanophile cardinal and a friend of the Empire attending a clandestine meeting in a French house."
"In sum, it is a meeting to choose the next pope. If the third party proves to be Albani, the Francophile, one might say that France is running the affair."
"Now we shall go and take a look," said he without answering me. "The meeting will certainly have taken place at dawn, the hour for occult machinations, and it will be all over by now. But we might still be able to trace some interesting information. And yet. .."
"And yet?"
"A coincidence. Very strange. Something rather bizarre is kept in the Vessel. Objects which. . . well, it is an old story which I shall tell you sooner or later."
Just as Atto was pronouncing these last syllables, we reached our destination and I had to postpone any request for an elucidation.
The place we were about to enter was not far distant from my rural habitation, and was to play a great part in the events which I shall be recounting; it was known to many but truly known by few. Officially, it bore the name of Villa Benedetti from the name of a certain Benedetti, of whom I knew only that he had, decades before, had the edifice built with great luxury and pomp. Because of its singular form, which made it resemble a sailing ship, the structure was also known to the local people as the Villa of the Vessel, or simply, the Vessel.
I have already said that it was known to everyone, and not just to the people of the neighbourhood; for in fact the villa enjoyed a strange notoriety. All the inhabitants of the neighbourhood knew that, after the death of its builder, some ten years ago, the palazzo and its garden had passed as a legacy to a kinsman of Cardinal Mazarin; yet the Cardinal's relative had never set foot there, so that the villa had become a forgotten place. Yet it had not been abandoned: at nightfall, lights could be seen there, and during the day, the shadows of people. From the street, one could hear music wafting through the air, the footsteps of people, gentle laughter. Perpetual was the soft plashing of a fountain, with the occasional counterpoint of a lackey's rapid paces on the gravel of the courtyard.
No visitor, however, was ever seen to enter or to leave. Never did a carriage halt before the villa to set down guests of note, nor was any servant ever seen to go out in order to fetch provisions for the kitchens or firewood for winter. Everyone knew that there must be someone within, yet he was never seen.
It was as though the Vessel was animated by a secret life, independent of any contact with the outside world. It seemed to shelter within its bounds mysterious faceless gentlemen, like the gods of some minor Olympus, caring nothing for men's society and content with their mysterious privacy. Around it, an arcane aura discouraged the curious and inspired a certain unease even in those who, like myself, passed by the villa at least once a day.
The location of the Vessel, on the other hand, could not have been finer or more desirable, overlooking the Via Aurelia from the sweet heights of the Janiculum Hill. Situated right on the boundary between city and countryside, the building enjoyed perfect air and the most agreeable and varied views, without the eye having to go begging for them. Although it rose among the gentle, modest heights of the hill, yet the Vessel had a proud and unblemished appearance: more than a villa, it seemed truly a castle. At first sight, one might say, a seagoing castle. The prow (as I was soon to see) was the double stairway of the fagade, set in the green of the garden, which, with a double symmetrical and converging curve, led to a little terrace, the faithful image of an upper deck. The poop, at the opposite end, was represented by a low semicircular façade, within which a covered loggia with spacious arched windows gave onto the Via di Porta San Pancrazio behind. The ship itself consisted of the four habitable storeys, graceful and airy in design, overlooked by four turrets, in turn made perfect by as many banners, almost like pennants raised on the
masts of a ship under sail.
The Vessel rose thus proudly, well above the ridge and the tops of the surrounding trees, so that it could be seen even from afar; and it mattered not that the garden was not so big, as, moreover, a Latin motto placed above the entrance proclaimed, which time and again I had had occasion to read in passing:
Agri tantum quo fruamur
Non quo oneremur.
In other words, its creator recommended the possession of just so much land as sufficed for the enjoyment thereof, rather than wasting money on the acquisition of great estates. This motto, which smacked of ancient rural wisdom, was merely the prelude to much, so much else, which we were to find within.
Atto halted, scrutinising the distant bifurcation in the Via di Porta San Pancrazio, opening the view onto the Casino Corsini.
"I know that the Vessel was built by a certain Benedetti," I resumed as we discreetly explored the road, "but who was he?"
"One of Mazarin's trusted men. He acted as his agent here in Rome. He purchased pictures, books and precious objects in his name. In time, he became something of a connoisseur. He maintained contacts with Bernini, Algardi and Poussin. . . I do not know whether those names mean anything to you."
"Of course they do, Signor Atto. These are great artists."
Benedetti had a flair for architecture, Atto continued, although not himself an architect. Sometimes he would undertake projects that were large for him. For example, he had proposed building a grand stairway up the hill between the Piazza di Spagna and Trinita dei Monti, but this led to nothing. Occasionally, however, he found ways of realising his ideas. It was, for example, his design which was adopted for the catafalque for the Cardinal's funeral held here in Rome. It was rather heavy and excessively pompous, but not ugly. Benedetti was a fine amateur.
"Perhaps he had a hand in the design of the Vessel, too," said I, wondering out loud.
"Indeed, it is said that the villa is his own work, far more than that of the architects whom he hired. And that is the truth."
"Did you know him well?"
"I helped him when he came to France, a little over thirty years ago, precisely because of the Vessel. When he died, he bequeathed me a few little things out of gratitude. A couple of nice little pictures."
We now stood before the wall surrounding the villa. He looked westward, screwing up his eyes a little against the afternoon glare.
"He had come to visit Vaux-le-Vicomte, the chateau of my friend Nicolas Fouquet. I accompanied him, and he revealed to me that he intended to draw on it as an inspiration for his own villa. But enough chatter now, we have arrived. You will be able to see with your own eyes, and to judge for yourself, if you so desire."
We approached the entrance gate, which was of admirable and unusual design. There rose up before us the poop of the Vessel: a great covered loggia rounded in shape, with luminous arcades, looking onto the road in which we stood. From the loggia came the gentle plashing of a little fountain. The poop was supported by the outer wall, which in turn was skilfully sculpted in the form of a reef, with windows and doors sunk into it like marine grottoes and inlets. The Vessel, afloat on imaginary waves, seemed thus to be anchored beside a cliff. In the midst of pines, oleanders, clover and daisies, on the Janiculum Hill, one beheld that delicious and absurd vision of a ship at its moorings.
No one seemed to be keeping watch over the gate to the villa. Nor, as it proved, was there anyone present. Hardly had we passed through the door than we found ourselves in a vestibule which in turn opened onto a garden.
Atto and I advanced cautiously, sure that from one moment to the next someone would come to meet us. From within the villa, voices could be heard, rendered diffuse by the distance; then the echo of a woman's laugh. No one came.
We found ourselves in an ample courtyard with, to our right, the majestically projecting hull of the Vessel. In the centre, a graceful fountain, animated by fine jeux d'eau, politely recited its effervescent logorrhoea, quietly plashing.
We stopped and glanced around us to find our bearings. In front of us and to the left stretched the park, which we began cautiously to explore. There were long, long hedges and vases containing citrus and other precious fruit trees set out in rows alongside; a staircase with nine separate sets of steps; espaliered roses and lines of trees trained across a few pergolas arranged in checkerboard pattern; various fruit trees, likewise espaliered; and then a little grove. The jets of a second fountain, placed on a terrace in the centre of the first floor of the building, provided an elegant and ever new counterpoint.
"Should we not announce our presence?"
"Not yet. We are trespassing on private property, I know, but there was no one guarding it. We shall, if asked, justify our presence by our desire to pay a tribute to the owner of this fine villa. In other words, we shall play dumb in order to avoid having to pay the entry fee, as the saying goes."
"For how long?" I asked, worried about the possibility of getting myself into trouble so close to my own home and to the Villa Spada.
"Until we discover something interesting about the meeting of the three cardinals. And now stop asking questions."
Before us stretched a drive covered by a great pergola of various exquisite grapes.
"The grape, a Christian symbol of rebirth: thus Benedetti welcomed his visitors," observed Melani.
The pergola ended, as we had occasion to observe, before a fine fresco of Rome Triumphant.
To approach the building would have exposed us too much; someone would have arrived sooner or later to interrupt our unauthorised inspection of the premises. Walking among the shady drives of the park, we gradually came on the contrary to feel protected and lulled by the afternoon calm, by the scent of the citrus fruit and the quiet burbling of the fountains.
Wandering around the gardens, we found a clearing with two little pyramids. On the sides of each was inscribed a dedication. On the first, one could read:
GENII AMOENITATI
Qui procul a cur is ille laetus.
Si vis esse talis,
Esto ruralis.
"Well, my boy, here's something for you," came Atto's friendly challenge.
"I'd say: 'To the amenity of Genius. Blessed he who is free from cares; if you too desire this, live in the country.'"
The other pyramid bore a similar epigraph:
AMICITIAE FELICITATI
In secunda, et in adverse fortuna,
Nil solidius amico:
Hunc facilius in rure
Quam in aula invenies.
'"To the joys of Friendship. In good times and in bad, nothing is more reliable than a friend: but you'll find one more easily in the country than at Court'," I translated.
For a few seconds, we stayed silent before the two pyramids, each - or so I thought - secretly curious about the thoughts of the other. Whatever cogitations could those maxims suggest to Atto? Genius and friendship. . . If I had had to say which genius was dominant in him, I'd have thought at once of his two true passions: politics and intrigue. And friendship? Abbot Melani was fond of me, of that I had become certain when I discovered my little pearls secretly concealed close to his heart, sewn like an ex voto into the scapular of Our Lady of the Carmel. But, apart from that, had Atto ever, even for one moment, been my friend, a true, disinterested friend, as he liked to show so ostentatiously whenever it suited him?
Suddenly, a sinuous melody was heard in the distance: a strange song, like that of a grave siren, which seemed to come, now from a flute, now from a viola da gamba, sometimes even from a woman's voice.
"They are making music in the villa," I observed.
Atto listened attentively.
"No, it is not coming from the villa, but from somewhere around here."
We searched the park with our eyes in vain. The wind rose suddenly, with a rustling whisper raising from the drives and bushes a colourless mantle of dead leaves, premature victims of the heat.
Now the melody seemed again to be issuing from the house
.
"There, it is coming from there," Atto corrected himself.
He pointed at a window to the side of the entrance courtyard, facing west, which we could see through the foliage of the trees. We turned to face it.
Thus, for the first time, we came within a few paces of the building, just under the windows, from which anyone could not only see but hear us; yet we continued to wander around undisturbed. I was incredulous that no one should have intercepted us and, little by little, I came to feel myself boldly at ease with that place which had hitherto been unknown and mysterious to me.
Our whole attention was focused on what was taking place above us, on that window (in fact, the only open one) from which the music seemed to be coming. Once again, however, the invisible cloak of silence seemed to descend on the park and on us.
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