by Mary Malloy
“I’ve seen in my own dabbling into this that the Gonzagas were a big family, with at least one saint and a bunch of cardinals and bishops.”
“They were the Dukes of Mantua for about four hundred years, and sent younger sons across Northern Italy and even into France to form new dynasties. Our branch reached Bologna in the late sixteenth century.”
“So where does the ‘Prince’ title come from? Of what was Lorenzo Gonzaga the prince?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Lizzie said. “I haven’t found any reference to it except in the engagement announcement in the New York Times and in other information that was put out by the Kellihers.”
“You don’t think Paddy-boy made it up do you? To cash in on some of the notoriety of American heiresses marrying European nobility? It was rather a fad in the early twentieth century.”
Lizzie shook her head. “I can’t believe he’d make it up out of thin air. There must have been something there to base it on. I think I’ll ask Rose’s dad. Martin says that he hangs out at her restaurant in the afternoon.”
“Let me know when you decide to go. I’d like to meet him and hear what he has to say.”
Lizzie assured her that she would let her know when she was going.
“So tell me about the other collection,” Jackie said, “so I’ll know what I’m looking at if I find anything.”
“The Mantua part of the Gonzaga family had one of the great Renaissance art collections; Peter Paul Rubens actually worked for them for a time,” Lizzie said. “That collection, which took six generations to assemble, was largely dispersed by 1630, in wars over the succession.”
She described to Jackie a large number of paintings that had been acquired by King Charles I of England, including works by Titian, Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Correggio and Guido Reni. “One of the best collections ever sold,” she said enthusiastically. “Then after Charles was executed, most of the collection went to Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, and from him to Catherine the Great of Russia.”
“Did any of that collection end up in Bologna?”
“Hard to tell. I haven’t found any record of it, but they might have something in the house there. Paintings known to have come from Mantua are scattered around Europe, including in the British Royal collection and at the Louvre. More than thirty of them were in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg until 1930, when the Soviet Government sold them to Andrew Mellon. Some of them were used to start the National Gallery in Washington, and others were purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in New York.”
“But no alligators or mummies.”
Lizzie smiled. “No, and that is the big difference between the two collections. The Mantua Gonzagas collected fine art; the Bologna Gonzagas made a specimen cabinet, but I have a feeling there was plenty of fine art in the house as well. Look at those two gems in the chapel from their collection.”
Roscoe stopped by to say that he had finished scanning the letters and was going to leave for the day. Lizzie thanked him and looked at the clock.
“I’ve kept you too long again,” she said to Jackie.
“I live to serve,” her friend answered. She was starting to turn off her computer when she remembered something. “I found two somewhat bizarre articles in a literature search for you. You won’t be able to use them, but they show a dark side to human nature.”
“I’m all ears,” Lizzie answered.
“The first is mostly bizarre because I don’t know why anyone would undertake such a project in the first place. It’s an article describing how some guy took the skull of a woman purported to be Eleonora Gonzaga, who lived in the early sixteenth century, and superimposed images of it on a portrait of the woman by Titian.”
“Yuck,” Lizzie said. “Next?”
“This one is much worse. It tells the story of how Vincenzo Gonzaga, the Crown Prince of Mantua, had to prove to the Medicis that he could father a child before they would let him marry their daughter.” Jackie gave Lizzie a look of disgust before continuing. “They basically took a girl out of the local convent orphanage and had him rape her to prove he wasn’t impotent.”
Lizzie was silent for several moments. “Happily, I don’t need to process that thought very much, but just out of curiosity, when did this happen?”
“1580.”
“So the Mantua family was in their last few decades of power.”
“A strange time, obviously.”
“And violent.”
“Obviously. Once again we see how easily the poor and powerless get swept up in the politics of the rich and powerful.”
“That is pretty much a constant theme with us, isn’t it?”
“Well, Lizzie, if you are going to be a historian, that’s what you’ve got to deal with.”
“The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where I usually concentrate on British and American mariners, are rather more straightforward I think, but I’m finding these violent, passionate Renaissance Italians rather compelling. I mean how many families can claim a rapist, a saint, and collectors of great art and alligators?”
“I don’t think I’d use that on the posters to advertise the exhibit if I were you, but it is a thought to motivate.”
“I’ll call Rose and see if we can set up coffee with her father early next week,” Lizzie said. “He may be able to give us more insights into the modern parts of the family.”
“I look forward to it.”
Chapter 6
Since Lizzie was devoting both her January and Spring terms to working on the exhibit, she commandeered a small classroom as a workspace to organize the voluminous materials that needed to be processed. She had a bulletin board installed on the back wall that was five feet high and more than ten feet long, in the center of which she tacked an enlargement of the 1677 drawing of the cabinet. Every time she, Roscoe, or Jimmy identified an object from the drawing, either in a photograph or on the list, they tacked a note or picture around the image. Photographs of rooms in the house sent by Maggie Gonzaga in 1959, which Lizzie assumed must have been taken at that time, each had their own galaxy of accompanying notes and pictures on the board.
The missing piece was a catalog list from before 1959. Lizzie was certain that such passionate collectors as the Gonzagas must have had one at the time they had their cabinet drawn in 1677, and supposed that updates or new editions had been created over the centuries since. But Maggie did not seem to have known of one when she sent her material, and Cosimo Gonzaga hadn’t located one either. She wondered if Maggie might actually have inventoried the collection herself and made the list that they were now using. It could have been a project to help her recover from the losses of the war.
Now that she had pictures of rooms in the Gonzaga house up on her board, she could see that there didn’t seem to be anything quite like the cabinet shown in the drawing, but there were plenty of glass-fronted cases with shelves filled with rarities and oddities.
When Roscoe and Jimmy arrived she walked them through the pictures and asked what they had found. It was possible, they discovered, to actually find sections of the list that corresponded to adjacent items in the photographs, which supported Lizzie’s theory that Maggie Gonzaga had made the inventory, or had someone do it, at the same time the pictures were taken.
Roscoe and Jimmy were enthusiastic participants. Jimmy got so excited every time he found something on the list in one of the pictures that he was constantly sending Lizzie email messages with connections he had made, and his notations on the board were filled with exclamation points. Even his name was frequently followed by one in his messages:
“Hi Prof. Manning, I found the Etruscan bronze dancing figure described on the list! It is in the case on the left side, third shelf down, three objects over, in picture no. 17! Jimmy!”
Roscoe was quieter than Jimmy, and a steady and careful worker. The photograph
s were of high quality and he had blown up portions of them so that even small things resting on shelves at the end of a room were identifiable. He had also found an architectural drawing of the palazzo and had placed the photographs of the rooms on it.
“The house is a gigantic square,” he explained to Lizzie, using the drawing as a guide, “built around a big open courtyard. The main floor, which they call the piano nobile, is up these grand staircases, which are to your right and left when you come through the main door. There’s no hallway on this floor, so you go from one room into the next all around the square.”
There were six rooms on the piano nobile, and there was now a photograph of each of them on the wall in Lizzie’s classroom.
“There are names for each room on the back of the photographs,” Roscoe said, “and I’ve added them to this drawing.”
“That’s great,” Lizzie said. “Let’s use those names to refer to them from now on and label them on the board.”
Up the left staircase from the courtyard, one first reached the Entrance Hall, then proceeded from there through the Yellow Salon, the Chinese Salon, the Dining Room—which was on the far wall of the house opposite the front door—and from there to the Library and Ballroom, which was obviously set atop the other staircase so that visitors could reach it without walking through the rest of the house.
“I’m sorry these pictures aren’t in color,” Lizzie said. “The Yellow Salon and the Chinese Salon look pretty fabulous.” She was sorry that the color in the photos in Tony’s album had faded too much to do justice to the rooms.
“There is also a chapel up on the third floor, but we only have one mediocre picture of it,” Roscoe added. “There is something lying under the altar that looks like a body.”
Lizzie took the picture from him as he pointed to what was clearly a corpse. “Yup, that is a body,” she said. “Probably a saint. I’ve seen them under altars like this before in churches, but never in a private house.” She could make out several reliquaries in the picture and commented on them. “These hold body parts of saints for veneration. I’ll see if we can’t arrange to bring a few of those here for our exhibit.”
Her assistants asked if she might bring the whole corpse, but she shook her head. “I think the reliquaries will add to an exhibition on Renaissance collecting, but a desiccated body would only distract museum visitors from the rest of the collection.”
The picture reminded Lizzie that she wanted to go again to the chapel on campus and look at the two pieces there that would appear in the exhibit, and when Roscoe and Jimmy had shown her everything they were working on she walked across the campus green, past the statue of Paddy Kelliher. It was only about three o’clock but it was snowing lightly and the sky was dark.
The chapel was unlocked, and Lizzie thought that the time had probably come to do something to better secure the valuable treasures that were kept there. As she pushed open the door she made a mental note to say something about it to Father O’Toole the next time they met.
It was dark inside, with little light being pushed through the dark stained glass windows depicting scenes from the life of St. Patrick. Lizzie found switches near the door and turned on the hanging lamps that lit the front half of the church, and several spotlights aimed at the main altar and at two smaller altars set into niches to its right and left. On the right was a large statue of St. Patrick, surrounded by mementos that had been left there by visitors to the church, including dozens of crosses made of rushes from Ireland. Memorial cards for deceased Irishmen were tacked or taped to boards on either side of the image of the saint, along with notes begging the saint to intercede with higher authorities on their behalf for causes as heart-rending as a child dying of cancer, and as trivial as a good grade on a mid-term exam.
To the left of the main altar was an alcove that had an inscription in stone that said “Gonzaga Chapel.” The Guido Reni painting of the Madonna and child was situated in a marble arch at the center of the small altar, surrounded by a golden frame. Lizzie had frequently admired the painting but had never really studied it carefully. She went through the short gate that separated the alcove from the transept of the church and took a few steps to stand at the painting. The Niccolo dell’Arca angel was positioned in front of it to the right, near enough for her to reach out her hand and rest it on the cool marble of its wings. She thought again that there was nothing to prevent either of these pieces from being stolen and resolved again to bring it up with Father O’Toole.
It was an irresistible temptation to step around the altar and put her arms around the angel. It was only about eighteen inches high and she found that she could lift it; there was nothing cementing it to the marble slab on which it sat. It was also, she noted, neither too heavy nor too big for her to put it into a case and carry out of the church.
She lowered it carefully and looked closely at the details of the carving. The face was exquisitely carved, with an expression of such serenity that Lizzie felt calm simply to be in its presence. The angel was depicted as a young boy, with long curls hanging down to his shoulders. He genuflected onto his left knee and rested a large candlestick on his right, keeping it steady with his delicately carved hands; his feet peeped out from under the hem of the gown he wore. Though the statue was carved of hard stone, everything about it looked soft, the folds of drapery that fell from the angel’s sleeves and long robe, his curly hair, and the feathers of his wings.
The sculpture and the painting were great works of art and Lizzie felt how lucky she was to be able to include them in her exhibit. She also appreciated that in giving them to the college Lorenzo Gonzaga not only had made a very generous gift, but had separated himself and his family from masterpieces that had been treasured for generations. It seemed to indicate that he had really loved Maggie, and she liked that.
When Lizzie returned to her office she found Justin Carrera sitting on the floor outside her door. She got out her keys and invited him in.
“Where have you been the last few days?” she asked him.
“Sick,” he answered. He coughed as he said it, as evidence.
“Why didn’t you contact me to let me know?” Lizzie said, barely disguising her irritation.
“I told you, I was sick,” he said, coughing once again.
“Were you able to get any work done on the list?”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling a notebook from his backpack. “I finished it.” He tore two pages out of the notebook and handed them to Lizzie. On them was a scribbled list that looked remarkably similar to the original.
Lizzie sat in the chair behind her desk and gestured to him to sit in another one opposite.
“So what did you find?” she asked, scanning the list.
“It was pretty much just straightforward stuff.”
“I see you have a notation here about the mummy,” she said. “You say it is from the eighteenth century.” She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “How is that possible? It appears in a picture of the collection drawn in the seventeenth century.”
“That’s what it said.”
“And what is ‘Itrusken,’ which you have written here?”
“You know, those guys who lived before the Romans.”
“Etruscans?” she asked.
He nodded, but didn’t look at her.
“I told you that you would have to look up spellings in English if you didn’t know them.”
He was silent.
“Well,” Lizzie said, folding her hands on top of the papers. “I’m not quite sure what to do with you. Do you actually want to work on this project?”
“I have to,” he answered. “My Uncle Cosimo told me I had to do it.”
“Are you interested in the objects in the collection?”
“I guess the alligator is pretty interesting.”
“So would you say you are interested in the natural history mater
ial, the shells and corals and other animals?”
“No, not really.”
“How about paintings or sculpture?”
He shook his head and shrugged. He also started to move his leg up and down in a nervous motion on the other side of her desk, hard enough that Lizzie could feel the floor shake.
“Would you like to do a genealogy of your family, from the time they started the collection to the present? That might be useful.” It was almost the only thing she could think of that could keep him out of her hair, and he might even find something that she could use.
“I guess so,” he said, still not looking at Lizzie. “I think I’ve seen one on the wall at my Uncle Cosimo’s house, and my mom is kind of interested in that stuff.”
“Good!” she said, standing up and going to the door. “So you have a place to start. Why don’t you send me a report of what you’re finding at the end of every week and we can meet when we need to.”
She waited at the open door as he quickly closed his pack and stood up.
“Okay, thank you,” he said as he left. He seemed just as relieved to have been assigned a task that would not tax him as Lizzie was to have him sidetracked from the main work at hand.
Chapter 7
Over the weekend, Lizzie had a chance to bring Martin up to date on the work. She appreciated his eye as an artist and wanted to get his opinion on the house and the collection, especially the drawing of the cabinet.
“I really need to see the original,” he said, looking at the image on her laptop.
“Come over one day this week,” she invited. “In fact, Jackie wants to meet Tony Tessitore and I thought I might try to arrange for us to have coffee with him on Tuesday. Come to the College that day, see the stuff, and then we can all go over to Rose’s restaurant.”
Martin was making a noise of assent as he forwarded through the pictures on Lizzie’s computer. “Nice collection of paintings,” he said. “Are you planning to borrow any of them?”