Secretum

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  The cavaliers wore splendid costumes, made of rich cloth of gold and silk, and even the servant's jerkin was lined with the finest skins of wild beasts. The fishermen's nets which appeared on the beach were of fine gold and the apparel of nymphs and shepherdesses, too, threw down the gauntlet to meanness.

  While the actors drew the applause and laughter of the noble public, I cooperated backstage with the other servants in producing the most varied scenic effects. We simulated a stupefyingly realistic shipwreck. For thunder, we ran a large stone across the wooden floor; for lightning, we reeled across the stage a spool covered with sparkling gold which flashed just like the real thing. For sheet lightning, I stood behind the wings holding a little box in my hand with powdered paint in it and a lid full of holes; in the middle of the lid, there was a lit firework, of the kind that creates rather good effects of lightning. We put all the effects - thunder, lightning, flashes - together at the same time, with the greatest possible success.

  The shipwrecked voyagers landing on the beach in Cyprus were warmed on stage by means of a fire which we lit using a firework and the most potent aqua vitae, and it lasted a long while, to the amazement of the spectators.

  While I was thus working backstage, my mind was busied with very different matters. To what were the gentlemen referring whom I had overheard saying that the Spanish Ambassador, Count Uzeda, had at last succeeded in convincing the Pope? By the sound of what they were saying, it seemed that he and others had put pressure on the dying Pope to induce him to do something of which Innocent XII was clearly not convinced. Concerning Uzeda, I knew only what I had read in the correspondence between Atto and the Connestabilessa: the SpanishAmbassador had transmitted to His Holiness the request for help from Charles II.

  Whatever could they have wanted to convince him of? And who were the other "sly foxes" who were supposed to have worked so unscrupulously with Uzeda to persuade the old Pontiff to yield? The three gentlemen whom I had just overheard were sincerely sorry for the Pope, who was suffering and seemed no longer to have any power. Did not these words bring to mind similar considerations on the part of the Connestabilessa? She had written that the Pope was often reported as saying, "We are denied the dignity which is due to the Vicar of Christ and there is no care for us." Who dared thus ill-treat the successor of Saint Peter?

  Lupus in fabula, one of the three gentlemen had whispered when Cardinal Spada appeared, whereupon the conversation had broken off suddenly. What did all that mean? That my most benign master, Cardinal Fabrizio, was perhaps one of the "sly foxes" in question?

  "I am delighted to find that what the most learned Father Mabillon said about the libraries of Rome is still true, for they are still in the same excellent condition as when I first came to Italy many years ago," said Buvat enthusiastically.

  After the performance, Abbot Melani had returned to his apartments, followed by myself, and had asked his secretary to report to him on what elements he had succeeded in gathering in the course of his research. The time had at last come to know what Abbot Melani's faithful servant had been up to in the course of his peregrinations across the city.

  "Buvat, forget that Father Mabillon and tell me what you have succeeded in doing," Atto urged him.

  The secretary examined a little pile of papers hastily annotated in minuscule handwriting.

  "In the first place, I obtained the advice of Benedetto Millino, the former librarian of Christina of Sweden, who. . ."

  "I am not interested in what he advised you. What did you find?" Buvat said that this was precisely what he was on the point of explaining: he had been to the library of La Sapienza, to the Angelica, to the Barberini Library at the Quattro Fontane, to those of the College of the Penitentiary at Saint Peter's, the College of the Minor Franciscan Fathers at San Giovanni in Laterano, then the Penitentiaries of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; to the Vallicelliana near the Chiesa Nuova, the library of the Collegio Clementino, the Colonna or Sirleta, the libraries of Sant'Andrea della Valle of the Theatine Fathers and of Trinita dei Monti, belonging to the Minim Fathers of San Francesco di Paola, to that of the most Eminent Cardinal Casanate of happy memory, now taken over by the Dominican Fathers, as well as. . .

  "Go on, go on. The main thing is that you have not set foot in the Jesuits' or the Vatican libraries. They are nests of spies and they would have registered and checked on everything."

  "I did as you ordered me, Signor Abbot."

  "And I hope that, in the third place, you abstained from visiting the private libraries of cardinals, like the Chigiana or the Pamphiliana."

  "Yes indeed, Signor Abbot. That would have been far too visible, as you yourself did not fail to point out to me."

  That triple abstinence had in fact cost him no little trouble, since in the Apostolic Vatican Library or that of the Jesuits, as well as in the libraries of cardinals' families, Buvat would have had far less difficulty in finding the manuscripts which he was looking for.Fortunately, showing his accreditation as a scribe at the Royal Library in Paris, he had at once been well received at the other great libraries which he had visited. He had been able to touch and even to turn the pages of a Greek codex eight centuries old containing the famous Commentary on the Dream of Nebuchadnezzar composed by Saint Hippolytus, Bishop of Oporto; then he had for the first time been able to consult the famous Antiquities of Pirro Ligorio in eighteen volumes; and also, the works of sacred and profane erudition of the Cavaliere Giacovacci and a Latin codex with the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon emended from the original. His palms had then touched with trembling the personal library of Saint Philip Neri at the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, in which are to be found the Life of Saint Erasmus, Martyr written by Giovanni Soddiacono, a monk at Monte Cassino, who subsequently became pope under the name of Gelasius II (of which, Buvat stressed, the eighteenth volume contains, as is well known, the ancient Collation of Cresconio), a most important codex of the Venerable Bede on the Lunar Circle and the Six Ages of the World and the collections of Achille Stazio Portoghese, Giacomo Volponi da Adria and Vincenzo Bandalocchi, not to mention the famous repertories of the lawyer Ercole Ronconi.

  But the most moving visit had been that to the library of the College of the Propaganda Fidei, famed for its printing press where, with magnanimous and providential zeal, and for the benefit of all nations, books are printed in no fewer than twenty-two languages. A special glory of this library, recounted Abbot Melani's secretary, is the most accurate set of indexes of the books in its possession, including the most unusual books printed in foreign nations, listed by languages, varieties of customs, strange religious usages and habits; writings in the most exotic characters, emblems, ciphers, hieroglyphics, colours; and those with mysterious lines traced on elephant's leather, pork rind, fish membranes and dragon's skin.

  "Enough, Buvat, enough, damn you!" cursed Atto, beating his fist on his knee. "What do I care about books printed on fish skin? How is it that, whenever you have to do with books or manuscripts, you always allow yourself to be distracted?"

  Silence descended upon our trio. Humiliated, Buvat said nothing. I was impressed by the number of libraries which the French scribe had visited; within a short space of time, he had been through a great part of the bibliographic resources of the city - admittedly situated a short distance from one another — which were universally known to be immense, thanks to the accumulation over the centuries of books both printed and manuscript by dozens of popes and cardinals. Clearly, only a boundless passion for letters and scripture could have inspired so extensive and detailed a search. What a pity, then, that Atto's secretary found it so difficult to pass from analysis to synthesis."Buvat, I sent you out to search through books because in this city, everyone talks about certain things yet no one knows what they are talking about. Report to me only on what I ordered you to investigate: the cerretani," the Abbot requested. "So, what have you to tell me about their secret language?"

  "It is very difficult," answered Buvat, this time in a distinc
tly less enthusiastic tone of voice. "The catchpolls can, it is true, learn a few rudiments, but only regular daily practice can enable one to understand correctly what it is that they mutter to one another. It is an ancient language but, from time to time, when they realise that it is no longer impenetrable, they renovate it a little, with minor changes, just the minimum necessary to make it completely incomprehensible once more. Rigid cerretano tradition requires that their king, or Maggiorengo Generale, and only he, may dictate the new rules. He writes them with his own hand (for which reason he cannot be illiterate) and the script is read at a general meeting with representatives of all the sects, who then arrange to spread the new codex far and wide. Thus, for centuries, only they have spoken their language, nor can anyone inform against them, not even when they steal the military secrets of the realm and pass them to an enemy."

  "Espionage!" snarled Atto. "There, I knew it! That accursed Lamberg!"

  "But how do they obtain secrets?" I asked.

  "First of all, they always pass unobserved. No one pays any attention to an old, seemingly half-witted, beggar slumped by the roadside," said Buvat, "and yet he always sleeps with one eye open, observes when you enter and leave the house, sees who's with you, listens to your conversations from under the window and, if the opportunity presents itself, steals things from under your nose. What's more, there are so, so many of them, and word gets around very fast among them. Supposing one sees something, ten will know of it at once, then a hundred. No one can tell them from one another, for they all look the same, ugly and dirty, and above all no one can understand a word of what they say when they talk. Their sects..."

  "Hold on: did you look in that book which I told you of?""Yes, Signor Abbot. As I thought, Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools contains a chapter on German canters. They too have a secret language and are in close contact with the Italian cerretani. So much so that among Italian vagabonds there are groups known as lanzi, lancresine or lanchiesine, probably because those names come from the German landreisig, meaning stray and homeless. What's more, every group of.. ."

  "Ah, so they're in close contact. Good, excellent; go on."

  "Yes. The Ship of Fools is an excellent historical source for the study of canters and cerretani and their customs, 'tis perhaps even the first such book since it was published in Basel for the Carnival of 1494, while the so-called Liber vagatorum, which is regarded as the oldest surviving document on canters, was already circulating at the end of the fifteenth century but was printed only in 1510. . ."

  "Get to the point."

  Buvat hurriedly drew a sheet of paper from his pocket and read:

  They speak a sort of pedlars' French;

  They beg and thus their thirst they quench,

  Their doxies clothe and bed and board'em

  By mumpin', filchin' and by whoredom.

  They limp their way across the city,

  In robust health, arousing pity.

  And what they win, the canter soaks,

  Then rolls false dice the bens to hoax.

  He'll beat his heels and begone quick

  As soon as he has pinched the wick-

  He always plays it fast and loose -

  He'll snitch a hen or swipe a deuce,

  Which he unleashes, grins and sells

  To please the heels, and charm the dells.

  In the wide-open, in the mud,

  He'll cheat the chewers of the cud.

  Every which where, through town and village,

  These beggars scrounge and steal and pillage.

  "Here at last we have the gibberish, their secret language. Translate!""The doxies are the bawds, mumping and filching are begging and stealing, to soak is to drink, a ben is a fool, pinching the wick means to defraud, to beat one's heels means to run for it, the wide-open means the countryside, deuce is a goose, to unleash means to strangle, to grin means to cut off someone's head, the heels are the accomplices in crime, dells are buxom young wenches, and lastly chewers of the cud are the bumpkins and riff-raff."

  Buvat had rattled all this off in one long breath, without the Abbot or I understanding a word of what he had said.

  "Good, good," commented Atto. "Excellent, my compliments. So now, at least, the cant language is no longer a secret to us."

  "Ummm. . . to tell the truth, Signor Abbot," stammered the secretary, "I did not translate the gibberish quoted by Brant: the edition which I consulted was annotated."

  "What? Are you saying that you found no other terms for the cant language. ..?" Melani assailed him.

  "No dictionary, manual or list. Nothing whatever, Signor Abbot Melani," confessed Buvat with a sigh. "So the language of the cerretani remains completely undecipherable. I guarantee you, no glossary exists which. .."

  "Are you telling me that you have been loafing at my expense for days on end in libraries," roared Atto, "sifting through old papers and scribbling, wasting precious time on Greek codexes, the acts of Church councils and other such idiocies, all to come up with this?"

  "Really. . ." the secretary attempted to object.

  "And I, who went so far as to intercede on your behalf to get you an increase in pay from that miser of a chief librarian of yours!"

  "In any case, he did not grant me any..." Buvat dared contradict with a quavering voice. "But, getting back to the dictionary which you requested of me, Signor Abbot, you must believe me..."

  "There's no time: we must act now."

  Ugonio had kept his word. As agreed, through a filthy little boy who acted as his courier, he had informed Sfasciamonti where we were to meet him.The ride on horseback was initially free from danger or discomfort. The rendezvous was in a place outside the city walls, beyond Piazza del Popolo, at the cemetery of the harlots.

  As we rode, I was able to question Atto without being overheard by Sfasciamonti, who went some way ahead of us, while Buvat trailed wearily behind.

  "Yesterday, you said that Buvat was collecting evidence with which to entrap Lamberg. I must confess that your words were something of a mystery to me."

  "It is quite straightforward. Unless one has a burning desire to arrive at the truth, one will never get at it," he replied with a smile, as though challenging me. "Anyway, it really is simple; just listen to me. The cerretani ambushed the bookbinder who, whether it was fate or something less, died as a result. What did they want from poor Haver? My treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave. This was a theft on commission, for those tramps would certainly not know what to do with such a thing. From Haver, the cerretani took all that they could. But afterwards, examining the stolen goods, the person who ordered the theft found that my treatise was missing."

  "Because you had already withdrawn it from the coronaro?'

  "Exactly."

  "And you are quite sure that Count Lamberg is behind all this."

  "But of course. The prime mover, as one can see from the whole context, has excellent connections in Rome - men, money, protectors - and is interested in matters of high diplomacy. He knows full well that Abbot Melani too enjoys discreet support from several quarters and knows facts and persons that could prove decisive at the next conclave. All of this fits in perfectly with Count Lamberg."

  While the clip-clop of the horses' hooves echoed between us, I chewed over Atto's explanation. I thought of the grim figure of the Imperial Ambassador, of his sphinx-like expression and the sinister fame that accompanied the Empire's meddling in Spain's affairs: the conspiracies, the mysterious deaths, the poisonings...

  "The break-in at Haver's place was carried out by the cerretani'," Atto resumed, "and just bear in mind the coincidence that in theGerman-speaking lands there also exist other canting sects which are somehow linked to the Italian ones. Lamberg may perfectly well be familiar with suchlike rascals who, thanks to their accursed skills, are capable of getting up to just about anything. Add to that the fact that our dearly beloved tomb robber Ugonio, alias the powerful German, who is in cahoots with the cerretani, also happens to come from Vienna
. And this brings us to the next stage. Since the move against the bookbinder failed, Ugonio came to look for my treatise at Villa Spada. And this time, they found it."

  "And the wound to your arm?" I asked, already guessing at the explanation.

  "Easy. Lamberg wanted to intimidate me; and seriously. He hoped that I'd take fright and run away."

  "So he did not mean to kill you. There is, however, something I do not understand: why, among all the diplomats and agents of His Most Christian Majesty present here in Rome should Lamberg have taken aim at you?"

  "But it is quite obvious, my boy! He knows that my words and writings are heard and read by influential persons and that I can act on some of the most eminent members of the Sacred College, who are preparing. . . well, they're preparing for the next papal election, a matter which is obviously close to Lamberg's heart."