The Wonder Chamber

by Mary Malloy

  She had already spent some time comparing the two images and she quickly pointed out the important differences. “Our Guido Reni Madonna is the central feature of the altar,” she said, “just like it is in our campus chapel. And here is the dell’Arca angel—again in much the same position in our chapel today as in this old picture of the Gonzaga chapel.”

  “There is a pair of angels on the altar in this drawing, though,” Jackie said. “And I don’t see any in the photo from 1959.”

  “And they aren’t an exact pair,” Martin said. He had taken out a magnifying loop and was looking closely at the drawing. “They each have a candlestick on one knee and they are the same size, but they certainly aren’t identical.”

  “Is there a way to tell which one is here at St. Pat’s?” Jackie asked.

  “It’s the one on the right,” Lizzie answered. “You can see that they are right- and left-handed candle holders. If you switched them, the candlesticks would obscure the faces of the angels.”

  “Where is the second one?” Martin asked. “I don’t see it anywhere in this photograph of the chapel.”

  “I haven’t found it yet,” Lizzie answered. “It isn’t listed on the inventory, but neither are any of the relics in the chapel. I have my assistants on the lookout for it in our current sources and will ask about it when I get to Bologna. It would be very cool to unite the pair in the exhibit.”

  The three of them spent another hour looking at the original photos of collections in the rooms of the Gonzaga Palazzo in Bologna, with Martin using his magnifying loop to see more detail of paintings. He was impressed with the collection and told Lizzie he couldn’t believe that with so many important painters represented there wouldn’t be a catalog of it somewhere.

  “I’ve thought there might be a list of paintings, which Cosimo Gonzaga would not have considered part of the specimen cabinet, and consequently not sent to me,” Lizzie said. “But I’m also starting to get the feeling that Cosimo is not the one who really knows about the collection anyway. He doesn’t live in the house.”

  “Is there someone else who knows more?” Jackie and Martin asked simultaneously.

  “One of Maggie’s sons is still living in the house, Patrick or Patrizio, and he is apparently the expert on the collection.”

  “He must be ancient!” Martin said.

  “He’s in his nineties,” Lizzie responded. “And Cosimo says that his memory about the collection is good, but don’t ask him what happened yesterday.”

  As they walked across the bridge from Charlestown to the North End to meet Rose and her father at Geminiani’s Restaurant, they spoke more about Lizzie’s upcoming trip to Bologna, and a jealous Jackie learned for the first time that Martin would join her there for a week.

  “Not fair,” she said with real sense of disappointment in her voice. “I was hoping to go.”

  “You joined Lizzie on her last adventure in England,” Martin countered. “It’s my turn!”

  Lizzie linked an arm with each of them until the sidewalks narrowed where plows had pushed snow up onto the curb, and they had to walk single file. “As you have both acknowledged to me in the last week that my history projects are really dangerous, I hope your desire to accompany me is based on a need to keep me safe.”

  “That is certainly my intention,” Martin said, taking her arm again. “I am here to protect you.”

  “Well I’m not!” Jackie said emphatically. “I’m looking for adventure, and you seem to find a hell of a lot more of it out on the road than I find behind my desk. I have to live vicariously through you.”

  “Interesting,” Lizzie said, “since I often feel that I am living vicariously through the people I’m studying.”

  They reached the door of the restaurant. “And Maggie Gonzaga’s life was filled with real danger, as you shall soon hear.”

  Even though they had come for coffee, Tony Tessitore had insisted on laying out a spread for them and showed them to a table where he pointed out a mousse made of ham, a soft cheese, and herb crackers, all of which he had made himself.

  “How wonderful,” Martin said, putting a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

  Jackie was quickly introduced and Rose provided them with both wine and coffee and promised that she had fresh cannoli when they finished the appetizers.

  “She must always compete with me,” Tony said in a loud whisper.

  “I heard that,” Rose said, halfway to the kitchen.

  The conversation began pleasantly, with Tony describing his childhood in Bologna and his relationship with the Gonzagas. Lizzie had brought copies of the pictures of the rooms in the house and he was enthusiastic in pointing out small details of things he remembered.

  “Do you know anything about the art?” Martin asked.

  Tony replied that he had left there as a teenager and had only been back for short visits since. “I’m sorry I didn’t pay attention to those things.”

  His information was interesting but anecdotal, and there was nothing that Lizzie would be able to use for her research. He didn’t remember any parts of the cabinet beyond the alligator, the mummy, some preserved fishes, and something that was called a “dragon,” but was only about the size of his hand.

  She steered the conversation back to the family. “When Maggie Kelliher married Lorenzo Gonzaga, the American papers said he was a prince, but you said that she never used any title.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “I remember when her husband died, I was maybe eight years old. He was quite a bit older than she was,” he explained. “But there was a crown on his coffin when they took it through the town, and the Gonzaga chapel at St. Paulo Maggiore church is full of crowns. But she never called herself anything but Signora Gonzaga, and her children never used any sort of title. I don’t think she would have let them, especially after the war.”

  “So what was he the prince of?” Jackie asked. “He clearly wasn’t the prince of Italy.”

  “Oh no,” Tony said. “Italy isn’t like Britain, where there is only one royal family. Before the unification in 1861, every city-state had its own nobility. The Gonzagas are most famous for having been the dukes of Mantua, but sons went to other places, like Bologna, and brought titles with them—even if there wasn’t any land or power associated with them. I think at some point all or most of the so-called noblemen in northern Italy were allowed to take the title ‘Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.’”

  “But surely there was a king of Italy during the war,” Lizzie said. She had been reading about the topic as background, but still felt very ignorant about the details.

  “When the city-states were unified to make Italy, one of the noble families, the Savoys, were made kings of Italy, because their leader, Victor Emmanuel, had been rampaging around the country fighting for it, but before that there hadn’t been a monarch over the whole territory since the Romans.”

  Jackie made a comment about Napoleon giving it a try, but her comment passed quickly under the wheels of Rose’s demanding inquiry of her father: “Why don’t we have a king today?”

  “Because we got rid of the whole business in 1946,” her father said. “We voted on it, and for once an election did something good in Italy. The Savoys were ordered out of the country and we became a republic.”

  “I’m pretty sure that I saw a prince from that family on the European version of ‘Dancing with the Stars,’” Jackie said.

  Rose instantly wanted more information but her father gave her a look that silenced her.

  “Last week at your house you said that Italians would never want a monarchy again—that with the politicians, the mafia and the church there were already enough hands in your pockets.” Martin turned his chair as he spoke, so that he was facing the old man.

  “I think that is exactly the reason why Signora Gonzaga found the whole idea so distasteful,” Tony answered. He made
a motion with his hands. “The time for kings and princes had passed. We live in a modern world now.”

  Rose sighed audibly and they all laughed.

  “A modern world with corrupt politicians, organized crime and a powerful church!” Jackie said slyly. “It sounds very medieval to me.”

  Tony gave her a surprised look that turned to an expression of sadness or disappointment. “You’re right, Jackie,” he said. His Italian accent, which had largely disappeared, came through again as he spoke and for the first time that afternoon he showed his age. “When it comes right down to it,” he said, “I guess we Italians are not really all that good at governance.” He chose his next words carefully. “And for that reason we have to be especially wary. It was a vacuum of power in the 1920s that allowed the Fascists to take over.”

  Jackie leaned toward him and said something softly in Italian. He smiled and responded in the same language.

  Rose put two cannoli on Jackie’s plate, so whatever she had said to Tony must have been good, Lizzie thought. Jackie had such a tendency to be a smartass that her thoughtful nature was not always visible, especially to strangers.

  “So how come that guy on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is still called a prince?” Rose asked. “And I think I’ve heard of other Italian princes in recent years who were married to American actresses.”

  “There’s really nothing to prevent anyone from calling themselves anything they want,” Martin said. “I could call myself a prince.”

  “And I would love you even more if you did,” Lizzie said. She leaned over and kissed him, accompanied by moans of disgust from Jackie.

  “Your claim, Martin, would be more convincing if your father and grandfather had also called themselves princes,” Rose said. “It is the heritage of it that is important.”

  Martin made a joke about his father, “a noble gardener” who was one of the Mexican kings.

  “Do you mean the Salsa band?” Jackie asked.

  Rose put her hand up. “I’m serious,” she said. “If your ancestors were kings, can you continue to call yourself a prince when the title is no longer tied to an actual position of power?”

  “Of course not!” Jackie responded instantly. “It is meaningless to say you are the prince of Italy if the Italian people voted not to have a monarchy and kicked your grandfather out of the country.”

  “There are still a number of families in Italy that use those old titles, even though they are now meaningless,” Tony said. “But the Gonzagas are not one of them.”

  Lizzie remembered this the next day when Jimmy and Roscoe told her that Justin Carrere had told several students that he was a prince.

  Chapter 10

  In the hundred-year history of St. Patrick’s College, there had been only five presidents, all Jesuits. The first was William O’Brien, who had immigrated on the same ship with Paddy Kelliher and become his lifelong friend. The most recent was Father Lawrence O’Toole, who had held the post for thirty-two years.

  Lizzie sat in his outer office and looked at the five photographs on the wall opposite her. O’Brien, who had been called “Willie” by Kelliher, had a big smile on his face. The closer you got to the present, the sterner the presidents looked until O’Toole, who glowered in his photograph with such ferociousness that Lizzie thought the picture could only have been chosen to keep people, especially students, from visiting him.

  He was not a mean man, but he had an arrogant assuredness that left no room for alternative opinions and Lizzie always found herself holding her tongue in his presence. She had, however, nothing to complain of in his treatment of her. On the contrary, he had not infrequently taken notice of her over the fifteen years that she had taught at the college. His training had been as a historian and he liked to talk about history with her. He had assigned her the task of writing the biography of Kelliher, and he had sought her advice on how to celebrate the centenary of the College.

  It had been his original thought to have some sort of exhibit about Paddy and his family, and it was Lizzie who first mentioned the “cabinet of curiosities” of the Gonzagas. She had come across several mentions of it in her earlier research, and thought there might be an opportunity for her to study it if Father O’Toole liked the idea. In fact, Father O’Toole loved the idea. It was an opportunity for him to raise money from both sides of the family and he gave an immediate green light to the project with Lizzie as curator.

  In the months since then, Lizzie had corresponded principally with two family members, one on each side of the Atlantic. Jim Kelliher, Paddy’s great-grandson in Boston, who had inherited both the estate and financial acumen of his ancestor, had helped Lizzie with the biography and was willing to underwrite the local expenses of the exhibition. Cosimo Gonzaga, another great-grandson, gave a sizable contribution to the College every year, but was persuaded to increase his gift and become a patron of this project.

  Lizzie had met once with both men, in this office with Father O’Toole. Though the two were distant cousins, they knew each other well. They had been undergraduates at St. Pat’s at the same time and Cosimo had frequently been a guest at the Kelliher home. Both the Kellihers and the Gonzagas had fortunes that were built on textiles but had diversified over the years, and the Italian branch had long been involved in trade as well.

  Lizzie liked both men. They were in their late fifties, smart and energetic. Neither wanted to have an active role in the project, which suited her just fine. Each had agreed to open his home to Lizzie in case she might find useable material, and she had spent a day at Jim Kelliher’s house in Brookline looking at the family papers there, though it turned out that the things the Kellihers had already donated to the college library were more valuable to her.

  “Father O’Toole will see you now, Liza.”

  The voice of the president’s secretary broke Lizzie’s reverie.

  “Thanks Loretta,” she said. As many times as she had told the woman her name, she never got it right.

  The priest gave her a warm welcome. “Lizzie,” he said. “I think you are leaving for Bologna next week and I wanted to get an update before you go.”

  “Your timing is perfect!” she said in response. “I would have contacted you in the next few days to ask for a meeting because there are some questions where I could use your advice.” She had brought her laptop to talk him through the work and she took it out of her book bag.

  He gestured to the conference table in the room and they sat side-by-side to look at her computer screen.

  “First,” she said, “I have to tell you that it turns out that the College has a wonderful archive about this collection that nobody has looked at in years.” She had the 1677 drawing of the cabinet as the screen saver on her computer, but she quickly opened a higher-resolution photograph of the image. “This is the central image around which I hope to build the exhibit,” she said, pointing to several of the now-familiar objects and identifying them.

  “How do you know they still survive?” Father O’Toole asked.

  “They were still in the house in 1959,” she said. “Cosimo Gonzaga sent me a scan of an inventory, and I found the original in our archive here.”

  “So the collection survived the two world wars,” the priest said. “Bologna was occupied by the Nazis in the Second World War, and bombed many times by the Allies. I wouldn’t have been surprised if much of the collection was lost, and once when I was in Rome I heard that they had lost at least one important work of art to Nazi looting in the war.”

  This was the first time Lizzie had heard this and she waited for him to elaborate, but he only said, “It was decades ago that I heard it and I don’t remember any details.”

  “I’ll try to find out more about that when I get to Bologna,” Lizzie said. “For now, I wanted to familiarize myself as much as I could in advance with what I might find in the collection.”

  “There will
be surprises of course.”

  “Of course! I look forward to them!”

  Father O’Toole had lived in Italy, spoke the language fluently, and knew the history of the country better than Lizzie did. She knew more about the history of collecting and had a better sense of the ethnographic and natural history items in the collection, and that gave her confidence that she might otherwise have lacked in the situation.

  He asked her about several of the things that were visible in the pictures and she told him what she had learned.

  “Have you ever been in this house?” she asked.

  He told her that he hadn’t. “In all the times I’ve met Cosimo Gonzaga it has either been here or in Rome. I’ve never been in Bologna.” He spent some time looking closely at the photos. “There look to be some interesting paintings,” he said.

  “I haven’t seen any list of pictures, yet,” she said. “But I will ask when I am there.”

  “Will you borrow works of art for the exhibit?”

  “I’m not planning to at this time, though of course the Guido Reni Madonna and the dell’Arca statue will be highlights.”

  He nodded. “In those I think they might have given us the best of the lot.”

  She agreed. “When the exhibit closes and they go back into the chapel, the college should look into better security for them,” she added, and he told her he had already had that thought as well.

  “Did you say you had some specific questions for me?”

  Lizzie showed him the picture of the chapel in the Gonzaga Palazzo. “There are some wonderful reliquaries in their private chapel. They aren’t part of the cabinet, but if it isn’t sacrilegious to put them into the secular setting of the museum, I’d like to include three or four of them.”