Secretum

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  I turned sharply: the voice which had recited those verses was Albicastro's and he stood on the threshold with his violin hanging from one hand.

  "Are you calling me mad too, now?" I asked him, surprised by that speech. "Have I perhaps offended you in some way?""Far from it, son, far from it. I was only joking. On the contrary, I wanted to pay you a compliment. Does not Christ thank God for having hidden from the wise the mystery of beatitude, manifesting it rather to the little children, that is, to the fools. For in Greek, nepiois means both little child and fool and is the opposite of sofois, or sage."

  "Perhaps, Sir, my small stature makes me like a little boy, but you should know that you and I are about the same age," said I with a certain embarrassment. "You should also know that you have not offended me in this."

  "I thank you, son," insisted Albicastro, nonchalantly installing himself on a porphyry console, "but I was referring to your spirit, which I find to be still as pure as a child's. Or a fool's, if you prefer," he added with a little laugh.

  "In that case, I'd be in the best of company. Was not Saint Francis called 'God's buffoon'?" I replied, by now completely distracted from my previous meditations.

  "Even better, as the apostle said: 'Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?' and 'God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.'"

  "What should one then do, become mad?"

  "No, not become it, just simulate it."

  "I do not understand you."

  "In the first place, everyone is agreed on the well-known proverb: 'Where reality is missing, the best thing is simulation.' That is precisely why our children are taught early on the verse: 'To simulate folly at the right time is the highest wisdom.'"

  "Simulation does not seem to me to be a great virtue."

  "It is, however, when used to save oneself from cunning schemers. And pretending to be mad is a sign of the greatest wisdom, as well the young Telemachus, Ulysses' son, knew. He was the author of his father's triumph, and do you know how? He simulated madness at the right moment."

  I did not understand what he meant, but just then something else was on my mind.

  "Signor Albicastro," I broke in, "please be so kind as to answer my question: why do you always speak of folly?"To this, the Dutch musician's sole response was to shoulder his violin and start playing his folia.

  "Said Saint Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians," he recited slowly, as he produced the first slow sounds with his bow. '"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.' And do you know why? Because, through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord warned: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will set at nought.'"

  I was intrigued and fascinated by this good-humoured and bizarre disputation on the topic of folly, into which the Dutchman seemed to be taking pleasure in dragging me, while in the background he continued to play the notes of the folia. Perhaps Atto was right: he ate too much cheese.

  "So, in your opinion, true wisdom is masked under the semblance of folly. And why ever is that?" I asked, standing up and approaching him.

  "As Sertorius demonstrates so well, it is impossible in one go to tear out a horse's tail, but one can perfectly well attain that aim by pulling out the hairs of his tail one by one," Albicastro candidly answered, giving three light touches of his bow to the strings of his violin, as though to reproduce the sound of horsehairs pulled out one by one.

  I could not restrain myself from laughing at that funny idea.

  "If during a play someone were to tear off an actor's mask to reveal his true face, would he not perhaps spoil the whole show?" the violinist went on to explain, "and would he not deserve to be driven from the theatre with brickbats? To raise the veil on that deception means to ruin the spectacle. Everything on this earth is a masquerade, my boy, but God has determined that the comedy be played in this manner."

  "But why?" I insisted, while in my soul there awakened a sudden and impatient thirst for knowledge."Just imagine: if some sage, fallen from heaven, were suddenly to start clamouring that, for example, one of the many whom the world adores as lord and master is in truth no such thing and that he's not even a man, because he's nothing more than a piece of living flesh in thrall to the basest passions, like a beast; or worse still, he is nothing but one of the vilest slaves, because he spontaneously serves other infamous lords and masters above him, whom we down here cannot even imagine; tell me, what else would he obtain thereby, save to become odious to all peoples and, what is more, ignored and unheard? There is nothing more damaging, for oneself or for others, than untimely wisdom."

  Having said which, Albicastro descended from the porphyry console and, whirling to the notes of his folia, moved towards the spiral staircase.

  And well we can with Terence state: Who spawns the truth gives birth to hate.

  After declaiming those verses which I guessed must come from his favourite poem which he was forever reciting, Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, he turned once more to me:

  "The world is one enormous banquet, my boy, and the law of banquets is: 'Drink or begone!'"

  I heard Albicastro go down the stairs. I stayed still for a while, with his words still humming in my head.

  "We must yield to evidence."

  I raised my head. Atto Melani had returned.

  "The gifts are not here," he chanted.

  "Perhaps we have not searched thoroughly enough, we should try to. .."

  "No, no use. It is not a matter of searching. It is the very idea that's mistaken."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You told me that Virgilio Spada, the uncle of the Cardinal your master, was the first owner of the parrot."

  "Yes, and what of it?"

  "The good Virgilio, as you too know very well, had a collection of curiosities."

  "That is true, yes, at Villa Spada, everyone knows of it. Virgilio Spada was very religious, but also a man of learning, a sage, and he had this collection of mirabilia, of curious and rare objects, which was rather famous, and. .."

  "Quite. I think that it must by now be clear to you too: when Benedetti decided to rid himself of the three presents and to give them to someone, Virgilio Spada was the ideal candidate."

  "But why should Benedetti have wanted to give away the presents? Was he not instructed by Mazarin to keep them here at the Vessel?"

  "To keep them, yes, but. . . there is a detail I've not mentioned."

  It was thus that Atto disclosed to me what he had passed over in silence four days before, when we came to the Vessel for the first time and he spoke to me of Elpidio Benedetti, the builder and master of the Vessel, and his relations with Atto himself.

  "Well, my boy, every person of influence must every day confront the most varied and unforeseeable intrigues," said he, as a prelude, "and so, he needs faithful and trusted men who accompany him through the myriad uncertainties of daily business."

  "Yes, Signor Atto, and so?" I replied, without concealing overmuch my irritation at that verbose introduction, which served no other purpose than to distract attention from Atto's past reticence.

  "Well, Cardinal Mazarin had, in addition to his official secretaries and officials, a host of... staunch and trusty factotums shall we say, among whose number I myself had the honour to serve."

  These factotums, as Atto explained with a series of elegant circumlocutions, were in fact nothing but spies, straw men and schemers whom the Cardinal used for handling the most delicate and secret personal matters. Money was one of these; indeed, it was the main one.

  "If I told you that the Cardinal was rich, I'd be lying to you. He was... how shall I put it?" said Atto, turning his eyes heavenward. "He was wealth incarnate."Years and years spent in power over the kingdom of France had enabled him to amass a mad, vertiginous, outrageous fortune. Moreover, an illegal one. The Cardinal had nibbled away here, there and everywhere: at taxes, tenders, grants, e
xports. He had mixed his own property freely with that of the crown and, when separating the two, much money from the royal coffers had remained stuck to his fingers.

  Obviously, this enormous estate (at the death of Mazarin, they spoke of tens of millions of livres, but no one will ever know exactly how many) had to be invested with the greatest discretion.

  "My poor friend Fouquet was calumnied, arrested for embezzlement, torn from his family and all he loved and incarcerated for life. Meanwhile, the Cardinal, who was really responsible, was never made to pay for his depredations, which were both heinous and innumerable," the Abbot commented bitterly, "but he must be credited with having succeeded in keeping completely out of trouble."

  Mazarin concealed his clandestine, illegal assets. This secret capital was entrusted to a network of bankers and men of straw, largely abroad, so as to prevent anyone from setting traps for His Eminence. The money was not deposited only with bankers. Mazarin instructed his henchmen to invest in pictures, precious objects and property. They had only to choose. There was nothing His Eminence could not permit himself, and his host of acolytes operated throughout Europe.

  "Here in Rome, for example, Mazarin acquired sixty years ago from the Lante family the grandiose Palazzo Bentivoglio on Monte Cavallo, which thus became the Palazzo Mazzarino. For the past twenty years the Rospigliosi family has rented the palazzo, and my good friend Maria Camilla Pallavicini Rospigliosi has from time to time extended me the exquisite favour of receiving me there as a house guest."

  "So the Palazzo Rospigliosi is really Palazzo Mazzarino!" I exclaimed, a little shaken, thinking of the splendid building near Monte Cavallo which I had again seen when I accompanied Buvat to collect his shoes.

  "Exactly. He paid seventy-live thousand scudi for it."

  "Quite a sum!""That is just to give you a small inkling of what was possible for the Cardinal. And do you know who convinced him to buy that palace?"

  "Elpidio Benedetti?"

  "Bravo. On the Cardinal's behalf, he bought books, pictures and valuables. Among other things, I recall some fine drawings by Bernini, which he made him buy, but at rather too high a price. What are we to say, then, of the Palazzo Mancini on the Corso, where Maria passed her childhood? Benedetti had it restored and enlarged at huge expense; all charged to Mazarin, obviously.

  "When His Eminence sent Monsieur de Chantelou here to buy a few fine works of art, it was Elpidio Benedetti who sent him to Algardi, Sacchi and Poussin, whom you may remember."

  "Of course, the famous artists."

  "Quite. Then he recruited musicians on his master's behalf, to send to Paris, like that simpering Leonora Baroni."

  This time, Atto did not ask me whether I knew that name, but I recalled that many years ago he had told me of this lady, a highly talented singer who had been his bitter rival.

  "Elpidio Benedetti also acted as a secret go-between on Mazarin's behalf. On the latter's death he found himself endowed with funds of which no one knew the real ownership. The Vessel is too large and fine to have been paid for out of Benedetti's pocket. It is no accident that he had it built immediately after the Cardinal's death."

  "So, the Vessel is. .."

  "It was built with Mazarin's money. Like everything that Elpidio Benedetti possessed, including his little house in town. It is, as I have already told you, no accident that Benedetti bequeathed it to the Duke of Nevers, Mazarin's nephew and brother to Maria."

  "He returned the ill-gotten gains."

  "Come, let us not get carried away: is one a thief if one robs another thief?" laughed Melani. So, when the Cardinal had entrusted Benedetti with keeping Capitor's presents, he had imposed an additional condition: those three ill-starred objects were not to be kept on his properties. Forever a prey to his guilt, and to the phantasms which it evoked, he had the obscure presentiment that not only his person but also his property should be kept physically separate from those infernal devices.

  All this, Elpidio Benedetti executed to the letter. He himself was not insensible of the need to ward off evil influences. Thus, when the time came to choose the place to keep the three gifts, he gave up the idea of placing them in his own town house, which in reality also belonged to Mazarin. The Vessel did not yet exist (it was to be completed six years after the death of His Eminence), so that Benedetti had no other choice but to give the presents to someone else: Virgilio Spada.

  "Do you recall the inscription that we read here? 'For three good friends, I did endeavour, but then I could not find them ever.' We already suspected that the three friends might be Capitor's three gifts, but that 'then I could not find them ever' refers perhaps to the fact that only their portrait is here, while the objects themselves cannot be found."

  "Because they ended up in the hands of Father Virgilio," I concluded briefly.

  "Of course, this will not have involved a sale but the placing in trust of the objects," Melani made clear. "For, as I told you, the Cardinal wanted to keep the three objects available for all eventualities. That is why it is possible that the gifts may still be among Virgilio Spada's things."

  "But where?"

  "Villa Spada is small. If Capitor's great globe were there, you would certainly have seen it."

  "True," I agreed. "But wait: I know for certain that Virgilio Spada did possess a large terrestrial globe, among other things, and that, unless I am mistaken, it was made in Flanders."

  "Just like Capitor's.""Exactly. It is now in Palazzo Spada. I have never seen it but I have heard tell of it. I know that visitors come from all the world over to admire the rare and precious collections in the palace; Cardinal Spada is very proud of that. If the globe is in Father Virgilio's museum of curiosities, we shall also find Capitor's dish there. But you should know all this. When we met at the Donzello, I seem to recall that you were writing a guide to Rome. . ."

  "Alas," sighed Atto with a grimace of displeasure. "Do you remember when I broke off writing it? Since then I have not added a word. And, among all the palaces I have visited in Rome, that of the Spada is one of the few that I had still to see. Of course, I know from books and from other guides to Rome of the architectural treasures in which it is so rich, but no more than that. Now we shall have to find a way of getting in there."

  "You could take advantage of the visit to the Palazzo to which Cardinal Fabrizio has invited all the guests next Thursday, the last day of the festivities."

  "For the purpose of completing my guide to Rome, that would suit well; but not for finding Capitor's dish. Only three days remain until Thursday. I cannot wait that long. And then, what an idea! Can you imagine me fluttering from room to room like a butterfly, rummaging in chests and opening cabinets, with the house overflowing with guests?" said the Abbot miming with his arms the flight of a curious butterfly.

  "Palazzo Spada, did you say? That would be no problem!" said a familiar, silvery voice.

  The Abbot started.

  "At last we have found them, Signor Buvat! I told you that they would both surely be here, my adorable little husband and your master."

  Cloridia, followed by Buvat, had come looking for me, and had found me.

  She had news for us. She had obtained all the information that she needed about where Atto and I were going from our two little ones (who, in their Mama's absence, always kept their ears well pricked up, ready to report all that they had heard in the finest detail), had co-opted Abbot Melani's secretary, who was also looking for us, and had entered the Vessel. Such were the strange circumstances under which Cloridia and Atto, after having avoided one another several times over, met at last. Melani was about to repress a outburst of impatience upon hearing her voice when, turning towards her and seeing her face after so many years, his face suddenly changed its expression.

  "Good day to you, Monna Cloridia," Atto greeted her, bowing, and with unexpectedly good grace, after a few moments of silence.

  At the Locanda del Donzello, the old castrato had left a provocative, shameless courtesan of nineteen, and n
ow he found himself facing a radiantly beautiful spouse and mother. My wife was very beautiful, far more so than when he had met her, but it was only at that moment, through the Abbot's admiring look, that I really saw her in all her splendour for the first time, free of the veil of conjugal habit, sweet though that might be. Her locks, no longer blonde and curled with an iron, but naturally brown, fell simply on her neck, freely framing Cloridia's face. Her eyelids free from cosmetics and her pale pink lips gave her a freshness which Atto did not remember in the young harlot of many years before.

  "Forgive us for bursting in on you like this," began my consort, returning Atto's salutation with a curtsy. "I have news for you. The day after tomorrow, there will be a meeting in these parts between the three cardinals who interest you," she announced, coming straight to the point.

  "When, exactly?" Atto asked at once.