by Giulio Leoni
Dante looked round. The clerk’s room was decorated very simply, with a few items of furniture that had been rescued from God knows where. Even his desk looked like an adapted church pew, and the two mismatched benches were no better. And yet, beneath their shabby exterior, those rooms concealed a detailed collective consciousness of the city.
‘Messer Duccio, what do you know about a certain literatus, Arrigo da Jesi, who has been staying in Florence for some time?’
The man raised his chin as if his attention had suddenly been drawn by something on the ceiling. He closed his eyes and pursed his lips, repeating the name under his breath. Dante had the impression that he was running through the open pages of a mysterious mental archive, concealed in the folds of his memory.
‘Arrigo … da Jesi. Of course. The philosopher,’ he said after a few moments. ‘He arrived from France not long ago. Not much luggage, and in fact he didn’t pay any duties, except a small amount for the books and writing paper that he had with him. He asked for lodgings at the hostel in Santa Maria Novella, from the Dominicans. In return he sometimes gives lessons at their school.’
‘Are you sure he had nothing else with him? Nothing valuable?’
Duccio half-closed his eyes again. ‘No. But he was transporting something unusual, now that you remind me of it. The customs men couldn’t work out the sum that needed to be paid, so they turned to my office. A chest with a wheel in it. And some small glass objects.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Dante.
‘Yes, a wooden wheel. Or at least that’s how the customs man described it to me, when he delivered his report. More than a wheel, in fact … wait!’ the man cried, striking his forehead with a hand.
A tall stack of papers had accumulated on his desk. He flicked through them quickly, until he settled on one in particular.
‘Here it is, you see?’ he said emphatically. ‘Nothing gets lost in here! There’s the report, with the description of the object,’ he added, holding the sheet out to the poet.
Before his eyes, roughly sketched in ink, was the drawing of two concentric octagons.
‘You see? A kind of wheel, as I told you.’
‘And what did Arrigo tell the customs officer?’
‘Nothing. That it was just an instrument he used for his studies.’
Dante had immersed himself in his thoughts, and went on staring at the drawing.
‘It’s certainly strange,’ he suddenly heard Duccio say.
‘What?’ he murmured, stirring slightly.
‘That Arrigo should have been a guest of the Dominicans.’
‘What’s strange about it?’
‘Lots of things, given the way the brothers think. As a young man, Arrigo had been a Franciscan novice, in the days of Brother Elias, Francis’s successor. And since there’s so little love lost between those two orders – I wonder why he didn’t go to Santa Croce …’
‘Indeed. I wonder why not?’
Midday
THE CLOISTER of the convent adjacent to Santa Maria Novella was full of monks busy with a great variety of tasks. Dante quickly reached the northernmost corner, where a door led to the little classrooms.
He too had been there as a young man, and he clearly remembered the firmness with which the teachers had instilled in them the certain truth of faith.
Of their faith. The black and white of the cloaks wandering around was a reflection of the clarity with which the order distinguished truth from falsehood. Even then he had never managed to enter those spaces without a faint shiver of anxiety, when he became aware of one of the monks standing behind him. And that old insecurity seemed to be returning today, he thought with some irritation, as he tried to shake off the disagreeable sensation with a shrug of his shoulders.
Now he was no longer the nervous student getting to grips with God’s mysteries; he was the prior of the city, the keeper of the keys – those that closed and those that opened. He raised his eyes, which he had kept lowered until that point, instinctively adapting to the manners of the people he noticed around him, and reached the last cell, from which he heard a familiar voice.
Two benches, on which half a dozen men were seated, most of them tonsured novices, faced a simple desk set upon a three-step dais. Sitting on the chair, Arrigo was busy declaiming from a large illuminated manuscript set on a lectern. In a loud voice, the philosopher uttered the words of the text, slowly, articulating them one by one as though the meaning he sought lay in each one, rather than in the sentence that they formed.
Dante immediately recognised the text to which the lesson was devoted: the Book of Genesis, the narration of the first phases of Creation. He sat down on the end of the closest bench. It was then that he noticed in the audience the thin figure of Bernardo the historian, leaning over his wax tablets and making rapid notes. He glanced up and met the poet’s eye. He immediately snapped his tablets shut, nodding Dante a quick greeting.
Meanwhile Arrigo seemed to have reached his conclusion. He quoted the work of some of the Church fathers, lingering particularly over an observation by Lactantius. Then he assigned his pupils the task of preparing a controversy on the subject, to be expounded in the following lesson. As his audience was rising to its feet to pay him tribute, he spoke again, making one final request.
‘I would also like you to try and explain how it was that God created light on the first day, and the stars and the other givers of light only on the fourth,’ he said calmly.
Dante walked to the foot of the desk, past the pupils who were proceeding towards the exit.
Arrigo had closed the manuscript. He looked up and recognised the poet immediately. ‘Messer Alighieri! And you, Bernardo … I am glad you have found the time to listen to my humble dissertation. But come, let us leave this suffocating space. Outside, in the cool shade of the cloister, we will be able to pursue our conversation with greater ease.’
He led them outside. The portico of thin double columns surrounded a luxuriant garden divided into ordered sections, in which the monks cultivated medical herbs for the monastery pharmacy. In one corner a big lemon tree extended its branches towards the shade of the portico, next to a little gurgling fountain.
Arrigo bent down and took a long, greedy sip.
Dante took advantage of this to address the philosopher. ‘I didn’t expect to find you teaching a lesson on the origins of Creation. I thought you were more interested in the form of our world.’
‘The form of the world, as you say, is only the consequence of the manner of its birth: just as each living creature in its adult state is nothing but the necessary development of its infantile form. I am interested in Genesis for the same reason,’ Arrigo replied evasively.
‘I hear the lesson of the great Aristotle behind your words,’ Dante replied, ‘and I bow to you. And yet those same Scriptures teach us that not all that has been created endures through time.’
Arrigo wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘So you too, Messer Durante, accept the thesis of those who assert that Creation was not completed on the first day, but that God attended to it even in the eras that followed, and with different intentions?’
‘That much is written in the Scriptures: God added things to the world. But you, Bernardo, what do you think?’ Dante insisted.
The historian shrugged. ‘I bow to your theology,’ he said drily, looking at Arrigo out of the corner of his eye. He seemed embarrassed. Dante had a sense that he was there to speak intimately to the philosopher, and that by coming he had spoiled Bernardo’s plans.
Arrigo must have noticed something, too. He smiled reassuringly, laying a hand on the historian’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Bernardo, the prior knows this kind of thing better than anybody. He was once my pupil, but nowadays his learning is far superior to mine. Don’t be shy, if you have any doubts that I might resolve.’
Bernardo bit his lips, glancing from one man to the other. At last he made up his mind. ‘You know about the work to which I dedicate my days. There is one point
, in the last years of the Emperor’s life, about which you might be able to enlighten me better. Frederick’s relationship with Elias of Cortona.’
Arrigo closed his eyes for a moment, as if the sound of that name inflamed within him the pain of a wound that had not healed. But suddenly his expression became as serene as ever.
‘The Emperor sent him to the East, in the year of our Lord 1241,’ Bernardo continued. ‘Do you know why?’
‘A diplomatic mission. To resolve the dispute between Constantinople and Vatacio of Nicaea,’ Arrigo replied after a moment’s reflection. He seemed surprised by the question. Dante had a sense that for some reason he had been on the point of not replying.
‘That is what they say, and what the chronicles record. But I wonder if there wasn’t some other purpose for his mission?’
‘I was only a novice at the time. By the time I entered the convent, Elias had already returned from his journey.’
‘But didn’t you hear anything? A hint, a murmur?’ Bernardo pressed him.
‘Nothing when I was there. But, as I have said, I was only a novice, devoted to the humblest of tasks. My fellow-monks certainly didn’t let me into their secrets … if they had any.’
Bernardo bowed his head thoughtfully. He didn’t seem very convinced. He looked back up at Arrigo, and the philosopher firmly withstood his gaze. ‘So that’s how it is,’ he stammered. ‘Perhaps it really is as you say,’ he continued in a louder voice. ‘Fine, it’s time for me to get back to my work.’ He walked away, vaguely nodding goodbye.
Dante and Arrigo watched after him until he disappeared.
‘The dispute between Constantinople and Vatacio of Nicaea?’ Dante repeated after a moment’s pause.
Arrigo smiled weakly. ‘Yes. Not so strange, Messer Alighieri. They were uneasy years, dominated by the demons of the manifold. Many kingdoms, many emperors, many gods.’
Dante pursed his lips. ‘God is one, Arrigo.’
The other man exploded with laughter. ‘Apparently nothing can shake your certainties.’
‘Certainly not that one. In fact I’m curious about the question you put to your pupils: whether light is something other than luminous bodies. How do you expect them to respond?’
Arrigo pushed aside with his foot a stone that was in his way. Then he pointed a finger towards the sky. The sun above their heads burned like a furnace. ‘Clearly they coincide, and Scripture is mistaken. When the sun sinks below the horizon, light and heat are extinguished. I am sure it is the sun’s flame that produces the beam of light, and there can be no light without combustion.’
‘Consider the nature of the heavenly bodies,’ the prior replied. ‘The moon, too, radiates a luminosity, and so do the stars, on clear nights. But no heat comes from them. A sure sign that light exists without combustion. And hence that light is an accident of nature that needs no flame, and could precede it in the order of Creation.’
‘That would be the case if the moon and stars gave off a light of their own. But they are merely inert mirrors. Their bright bodies do nothing but reflect the light of the sun, returning it to us from the great abyss of space. Lucis imago repercussa, images of light in a mirror.’
‘Non potest.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they appear when the sun sets below the horizon, sliding towards the antipodes. From where would they receive the light to reflect, when the mass of the earth is interposed between them and the sun?’
Arrigo couldn’t suppress a look of commiseration. ‘And yet, Messer Alighieri, there is a very simple solution. Think about it, and you will reach the same conclusions as me.’
Dante had blushed. Just then he could not find the rational explanation that the other man took for granted. He decided to change the subject. ‘Did you learn your subtlety at the school of Elias of Cortona?’ he tried to joke.
‘From him, and from others. But it was from Elias that I learned both the heat of research and the chill of reason.’
‘They say that the friar was a close friend of Emperor Frederick,’ Dante continued. Arrigo nodded in silence. ‘Even helping him with his architectural works,’ the poet went on. ‘Apparently it was he who designed a very splendid and unusual castle. Castel del Monte, a work whose significance still remains incomprehensible even to experts in the art.’
‘Perhaps the art of building is not the one most likely to penetrate its meaning.’
‘Which art would be required, then? Or which science?’
‘An art that built its forms with learning as well as with stones.’
‘Alchemy? Is that what you’re thinking of? Is that Frederick’s treasure? The one that everyone is looking for?’
‘Frederick’s treasure …’ the philosopher murmured. ‘Yes, it is one of the Emperor’s treasures. But it can be reached only by passing through the door of reason. Think about it, Messer Alighieri. Find the answer to my question. And as for Brother Elias …’
‘Was he really such a great man as they say? A magician?’ the poet said encouragingly.
Arrigo stared at him for a long time without replying. Then he looked away. ‘Elias was truly great. Not in the dark sciences, however, but in the bright ones of knowledge. Come up to my cell: there’s something I want to show you. Besides, the good friars have served me wine from their vines. A goblet will rinse the dust from your throat, and perhaps the bitterness from your soul.’
Arrigo’s cell was decorated as plainly as the poet’s own. But unlike his, it was full of precious manuscripts. About fifty volumes were scattered around the place, lined up on an oak shelf, on the desk and piled up on the floor like little towers of wisdom.
As soon as he had passed through the door, Dante frantically rushed over to examine them. He quickly looked at a number of frontispieces, before suddenly setting down the last volume that he had picked up. Blushing, he turned towards his companion with a word of apology. Wasn’t snooping around a man’s library like snooping around his soul?
Arrigo had remained in the doorway, surprised at Dante’s excitement. ‘Don’t apologise. Fortune decreed that I should be given the chance to assemble this little collection of the words of the ancients; feel free to use it like a public drinking fountain.’
Dante bowed his head in a sign of silent gratitude, before returning to explore that sea of knowledge. ‘Some people would kill to own all this,’ he murmured, picking up an illuminated manuscript.
‘People always kill so that they may live. And for the wise man, words are the very essence of life.’
‘Your arguments seem to allow for a great deal of passion, Messer Arrigo.’
‘What if someone were to kill not because he was gripped by the passion of the senses, or by the evil of the soul, or by dulling of the brain, but because in some way he was sure of achieving a greater good, of clearing some obstacle from the path of virtue?’
‘No one is permitted to dispose of the life of one of his fellow men, except to defend life and goods against an act of aggression. Virtue is a collective good, and as such it must be defended. Only the people, through their magistrates, have the right to punish those who attack them.’
‘Not even if the first cause of that crime was love? You have paid a great deal of attention to that particular sickness in your writings. And great crimes have been committed for love.’
‘Crime cannot be included within the natural order of things,’ Dante firmly declared.
Arrigo went to a cabinet in the corner, opened the door and took out a bottle filled with amber liquid. Dante had been watching him distractedly, but his attention was suddenly drawn by an object placed on one of the shelves, which flashed brightly in a ray of light from the window.
The philosopher had noticed his reaction. An expression of satisfaction appeared on his face. ‘I knew that would interest you,’ he said, leaning towards the cabinet again, and beckoning the poet to do the same.
What lay on the shelf was a strange brass lamp, more than two feet tall and octago
nal in shape. A little window opened in one side of it, protected by a thick piece of crystal.
The philosopher touched a finger to the metal surface, as if to run it along its pattern. ‘The final work of my teacher, Elias of Cortona,’ he said affectionately.
‘A lantern?’
Arrigo nodded. ‘But one of an extraordinary kind. Brother Elias said its light could cross the sea, even as far as the infidels of Palestine.’
On one side of the strange object there was a little door, held in position by a handle. Dante opened it and peered in. There was nothing inside but a small stove, screened at the back by a parabola, which must have served to concentrate the light towards the little window. He turned towards Arrigo with a disappointed expression.
‘It doesn’t seem much different from any other lantern,’ he remarked. ‘Apart perhaps from its size. But I’ve seen bigger ones on galley-ships.’
‘The wonder of it lies not in its appearance, but in the source of its light. This.’
He rummaged in the cabinet again and took out a sealed ampoule. Through the glass a whitish, sandy substance could be seen. Holding it carefully, Arrigo brought it in front of the poet’s face so that he could see it better.
‘In his last years Elias had immersed himself in the study of alchemy: this powder is his greatest discovery. But he wouldn’t tell me its composition, stressing only that it was extremely dangerous.’
‘And how does it work?’
‘You put the ampoule on the stove and heat it up. It takes only a few moments for it to ignite and give off an astonishing light, white and steady, like the illumination of the sun.’
Dante instinctively held out his hand to take the vial, but Arrigo immediately drew back his hand.
‘Be careful. Even the warmth of a hand is enough to bring this compound to life.’
‘But if it is as you say, why did Elias not reveal his secret to the Emperor? Such a device could have been used to great effect by his armies, to fight in the dark!’