by Chad Brecher
Pietro’s voice seemed pressured. The nervousness and excitement on the other end of the phone startled the director as he pushed aside the paperwork on his desk.
Pietro was a well-known figure in Venice — a blue-collar celebrity of sorts. As a city engineer, he was routinely consulted on the flooding issues that plagued the city. Sitting at the southwest corner of the Piazzetta San Marco across from the Doge’s Palace, the library was on the front line — a stone’s throw from the Bacino di San Marco, the major basin at the mouth of the Grand Canal. More recently, he had been hired to help supervise the elaborate construction of a wooden ramp that was to serve a dual role of protecting the stone entranceway into the library as it was being renovated and providing wheel-chair accessibility. Not yet completed, the ramp was going to ferry visitors for the upcoming exhibit celebrating Cardinal Bessarion’s initial donation of codices, manuscripts, and books in 1468, which served to turn the library into a truly public forum for research and discourse. Dr. Gozzi had high hopes for the exhibition.
Dr. Gozzi listened as Pietro muttered about having acquired several items of historical importance from a recently expired uncle. Due to the potential lucrative nature of these particular pieces, he was inquiring if Dr. Gozzi would discreetly examine them and offer an opinion as to their worth. Dr. Gozzi exhaled, thankful that the library was not at risk of being flooded before the exhibition could begin.
He suggested that as he was not an appraiser; perhaps Pietro would be better served by contacting an antiquity dealer. Pietro was quiet for several seconds before responding that he trusted Dr. Gozzi’s opinion above all others and that he, more than anyone, may appreciate the “uniqueness” of this find. Succumbing to a mixture of boredom and intrigue, Dr. Gozzi invited him to come by the library after it had closed and the staff departed.
Dr. Gozzi glanced down at his watch and shook his head. It was almost nine p.m. Pietro was already a half-an-hour late. The director sighed and strolled around the library, his hands loosely clasped behind his back.
The library felt eerie. The street lights cast jagged shadows against the walls and the tap-tap of his shoes against the marble only seemed to reinforce his solitude. He paused at a marble column framing an arched passageway and bent forward until his nose nearly touched the surface. Dr. Gozzi ran his finger across the marble and his fingertip came away with a thick coating of gray dust. The director withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and began to clean the column. What would Titian think of this mess? Dr. Gozzi wondered, reflecting on the artist whose paintings graced the ceiling of the library.
In the distance, he could hear the clunk of heavy footsteps slowly moving up the wooden ramp and the front door creak open. Dr. Gozzi made his way to the door and arrived just as the darkened form of Pietro emerged from the doorway, holding a chest against his body. Pietro’s face glistened in the yellow light as he struggled forward, gripping the chest tightly.
“Are we alone?” Pietro questioned with a sudden look of paranoia. His eyes darted around the room.
Dr. Gozzi nodded and motioned with an outstretched hand for Pietro to come forward and deposit the clearly heavy chest on one of the many long wooden reading tables. Pietro inched up the table, set the chest down with a final grunt, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. Before Dr. Gozzi could speak, the engineer retreated back to the front door, poked his head through the opening, and scanned the Piazzetta. It was empty except for a handful of wandering tourists. After a moment of inspection, Pietro silently pushed the front door closed with a clunk.
“Signori, this may appear odd, but I would feel better if we could lock the door,” Pietro uttered with a bashful look of concern, like a child asking for a nightlight to be turned on before going to sleep.
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Gozzi replied. He shuffled over to the door, slipped the oversized key into the lock, and turned it until a clunk was emitted that echoed throughout the library.
Satisfied, Pietro stumbled back to the table and sat down on a chair with a look of exhaustion.
“You never realize just how big the Piazza is until you have to lug around something this heavy,” Pietro mumbled with a pained smile and motioned with his chin to the chest resting on the table.
The director responded with an awkward grin and mechanically extended his hand. Pietro grasped it tightly. The grip made Dr. Gozzi suddenly uncomfortable and he withdrew quickly, finding the palm of his hand wet. “How are you, Pietro? You seem a bit flustered. I must admit, when my secretary came into my office and told me there was an urgent message from Pietro Zeno, engineer to Venice, I frankly assumed the worst. I was afraid that the Adriatic was getting ready to swallow up the library.”
“No, Signori. It is nothing like that. But it is something that can’t wait,” Pietro replied. Dr. Gozzi shot a puzzled look at the engineer.
“Now, I must say, this is all very mysterious — the nighttime meeting, locking the door, a curious chest. This is much too much excitement for an old librarian.”
Dr. Gozzi inched forward until his generous belly spilled onto the table and brushed up against the chest. “How very interesting,” Dr. Gozzi muttered under his breath as he hunched over the chest. He pulled his glasses further down the bridge of his nose and squinted.
Though the crest on top of the chest had seen better days, it was still spectacular. The oval crest was framed by an elaborate, ornate decorative flare that appeared to be painted in gold. The central crest was divided into three parts. The paint was chipped, peeled, and in places bubbled upwards, but it was still vibrant. In the top left, there was a wedge of yellow. In the top right, there was a wedge of black. The bottom half of the oval was a tan color.
Dr. Gozzi looked at Pietro with surprise. “Do you know what this is? Do you know whose family this crest belongs to?” the director asked with excitement.
“Not right away, Signori. I could tell you the tidal patterns of the lagoon by heart, but this is far out of my comfort zone. I did do a little research, however. It is amazing what one can uncover on the internet these days if you search hard enough,” Pietro responded with a devilish smile. “I was able to find a drawing of a similar crest from an article you had written many years ago.”
“You should know that it was an article that was disparaged throughout the academic community. I wouldn’t give it too much weight…” Dr. Gozzi’s voice trailed off as if in a trance. He continued to stare down at the crest. The name dribbled out between his lips before he was even aware of it. “Falier.”
Pietro responded with a nod. Dr. Gozzi’s thoughts drifted.
Marin Falier was a unique figure in Venetian history. His tale was taught in history classes throughout Italy with some relish by teachers who would whisper the sordid account as if reciting an old ghost story. Falier, the infamous Doge of Venice, was the only Doge in the history of the Republic to be executed for high crimes against the state. He was a Venetian Guy Fawkes of sorts, without the bang of explosives.
The conventional teaching was that Marin Falier, hungry for absolute power, crafted a devious plot to overthrow the Republic in 1355. At the time, Venice was a Republic primarily controlled by the powerful nobility who ruled through the Maggior Consiglio — Great Council — and through a special division of government called the Council of Ten. The Council of Ten consisted of nobles with the mission of providing security for the Republic and battling threats against it from outside and within. As such, they served as a powerful intelligence organization.
Elected by the Great Council, the Doge was chosen for life, typically as a reward for prior service to the Republic. The position was purely decorative. The Doge would entertain foreign dignitaries and paternalistically preside over councils. Monitored closely by six Counsillors, the Doge was ultimately under the control of the Venetian nobility that had placed him there. So limited was the power of the Doge that he could not even leave the plush Ducal Palace without the permission of the nobility and an escort. The grand Du
cal Palace was little more than a gilded prison.
As the traditional account is told, Marin Falier was enraged after a noble who insulted his wife’s reputation went unpunished for his slander. Convinced that he must subjugate the elites, Falier crafted a scheme to lure the nobles to the Piazza San Marco under the pretense of an impending Genoese invasion. Once the nobles had clustered in the Piazza, armed men loyal to the Doge would come to the “defense” of the Doge and massacre the nobles. With the nobles annihilated, Marin Falier would be named Prince of Venice and the Republic would come under his control. As it was told in the history books, Falier’s plot was leaked to the nobles before the plan could be set in motion. The Doge was arrested and later executed for these crimes.
Dr. Gozzi was intrigued by the story of Marin Falier. As a historian with a tendency to support unconventional views, he was convinced that the whole story of the ill-fated Doge had not been told. He was determined to investigate why such a distinguished man with a lifetime of service to the Republic would want to overthrow what he spent decades protecting. The orthodox teachings all seemed too convenient for the director. He was reminded that, “history is written by the victors,” and had wondered, Why was Marin Falier really deposed and executed?
He began to wonder what truly happened on April 15, 1355 when the plot suddenly unraveled. While researching his seminal work on the life and voyages of the great Venetian explorer, Marco Polo, a clue to the mystery surfaced. Obsessed with Polo’s travels throughout the East, Marin Falier began to quietly collect as many manuscripts and artifacts related to his voyages as he could find. So vast became his collection that Falier dedicated a room in his palace specifically for it. On that fateful night in 1355, there were rumors of missing items from this room. There were stories that circulated among the Venetian populace of seizure of the Doge’s property and frantic searches by the Council of Ten and their hired goons through palace grounds. Several letters suggested that the Doge was interrogated and tortured for days within the deepest recesses of the prison without result. Dr. Gozzi became convinced that the standard story of Falier’s betrayal was ultimately concocted by those in power trying to hide a deadly secret. In the end, there remained as many questions as answers. Who was ultimately behind the Council of Ten? What were they looking for? What became of it? What was the connection to Marco Polo?
Dr. Gozzi had decided to revisit the story of Falier in a long article. Having recently written the well-received work on the life and travels of Marco Polo, he was somewhat insulated from being seen as a mere academic hack. He advanced the theory that the Doge was forced from power and executed, not for any plans against the Republic, but because he possessed something so valuable that powerful people were willing to stage a coup and murder for it. What this item — or items — was, Dr. Gozzi could only speculate, but it possibly could have been connected to the equally enigmatic figure of Venetian history, Marco Polo. The article was initially met with raised eyebrows and shakes of the head by his academic colleagues. Some questioned if Gozzi had finally gone off the deep end, allowing his own obsessions with Falier and Polo to get the best of him. The article was quietly put in the category of speculative history, the depository of wild theories without concrete evidence, and ultimately ignored.
Pietro’s voice broke through the director’s recollections.
“Open it,” Pietro urged.
“I must admit that I’m afraid of what I may find. I hope it isn’t Falier’s skull,” Dr. Gozzi whispered back.
“Open it, Signori,” Pietro reiterated.
The director reached out, gripped the lid, and swung it upwards. He found himself uttering the only words he could find.
“It is true…it is true.”
Pietro looked into Dr. Gozzi’s wet eyes. “I guess I found the right man.”
11
Dr. Gozzi stared in silence at the opened chest. Is it possible? he thought with excitement.
“May I?” asked the director, pointing to the items in the chest. Pietro nodded his approval and watched as Dr. Gozzi retrieved a long piece of acid-free paper. Stretching it across the length of the table, he weighed it down with two discs of stainless steel. He then disappeared for several minutes deeper into the library and returned with a pair of archival gloves that he used for examining rare manuscripts. Reaching into the chest, he proceeded to delicately remove the contents and place them on the table before them. With the chest finally empty, the director silently circled the table, periodically bending down to more closely inspect an item before shaking his head and snorting with satisfaction. Pietro’s eyes followed the director’s movements as he analyzed the contents.
Dr. Gozzi finally broke away from his inspection and turned to Pietro.
“Do you realize what you have?” the director asked, seemingly exasperated with the find.
“Is it valuable?” Pietro asked.
Dr. Gozzi snorted like a bull. “I’d say it is priceless. What do you know about Marco Polo?”
Pietro shrugged. “The usual, I suppose. He was an explorer who left Venice and went to China. When he finally returned to Venice after a long time away, he wrote a book about his travels.”
“That’s the basic storyline, at least the one that has been taught in school. What if I told you that there are those who do not even believe that Polo ever journeyed to the East, that he never reached China? Now I always love a great conspiracy theory, but this one did not make a whole lot of sense to me. What was he doing during those seventeen years if not traveling? When he died, he was said to have left items from his trips. These have been searched for but none have been found, at least until now.”
Dr. Gozzi walked around the table and faced Pietro. “If I may…” The director pointed to a thick fur-lined blanket lying at the corner of the table. “This is bedding, no doubt of Mongol workmanship.” He then pointed to a single feminine sandal. “And over here is a sandal from China, or as it was called in Polo’s time, Cathay. And next to it is a beautiful silk brocade, richly woven with gold and silver thread. Polo visited Tenduc in China during his travels and writes about such woven fabrics.” Dr. Gozzi continued to walk around the table. “And over here is a Buddhist rosary.”
Pietro rose to his feet and peered at the wooden beads.
“It’s called a japa mala, or mala for short. This was probably made from a sacred wood in Eastern cultures, the Bodhi tree. If we count the beads, I bet it will have 108 beads — one for each human passion.” Dr. Gozzi emitted a short chuckle.
The director maneuvered towards the end of the table and paused in front of an elaborate silver girdle from a Mongolian knight. Beside it was an exquisite headdress adorned in silver and peals. “These two items must have been gifts: the first, the gilded girdle of a Mongol warrior and the second, the headdress of a woman of great stature.” Dr. Gozzi stopped in front of a foot-long tablet of gold emblazoned with a gerfalcon. A hole was bored through one end, likely to accommodate a metal chain that could be hung around the owner’s neck. This item evoked Pietro’s greatest interest.
“And this?” Pietro asked.
“It’s called a Paiza or tablet of authority. During the Mongol dynasty, the great Khans had these tablets fashioned out of gold and given to men of great importance. When these individuals traveled through Mongol-controlled territory, these tablets were symbols of power. If that person needed food, a horse, or a place to stay, merely displaying this tablet would send people running to help. The tablet was an extension of the Great Khan and the Great Khan was all-powerful. It was a magnificent thing to have, because in those days the Mongol Empire was massive. Few seem to know it these days, but at the height of their civilization, the Mongols controlled an area that stretched from Korea and China through the Middle East and India and even into Eastern Europe. In fact, if it wasn’t for infighting within the Mongol tribes, most historians believe that all of Europe could have fallen to the Mongols. So powerful were they that the Roman Catholics wondered if demons h
ad escaped from hell to annihilate all civilization.”
The two men were silent for a minute as they stared at the items on the table. Dr. Gozzi finally broke the silence.
“These are important historical items. They prove that Marco Polo did indeed travel to the East, that his tale was not a work of fiction.”
“What about the last item?” Pietro queried and pointed at a leather bag. Dr. Gozzi had not paid it much notice, enraptured by the stunning silk and jewelry.
“I skipped right by it, imagine that,” Dr. Gozzi replied. He lifted up the leather pouch and pulled out two items. The first was an object constructed out of metal in the shape of a flower. It was the size of his hand. The second was a long, thin metal rod with a black bird at one end and an elaborate set of hatch marks at the other.
Pietro leaned over. “What is it, Signori?”
Dr. Gozzi continued to look at the items closely. “I don’t know what these objects are.”
The director felt a wave of tiredness wash over him and he sat down in a chair by the table. “Pietro, I feel obligated to ask you this. Where did you get this chest from?”
Pietro hesitated. “My uncle…he passed away and gave it to me.”
“Where did he get it?”
Pietro sighed. “Signori, I cannot lie to you. I did not get this from my uncle. I found it in a drained canal behind San Marco. It has been underwater for a very long time.”
Dr. Gozzi looked over at the chest. He stood up and examined the chest more closely. The craftsmanship was extraordinary. There was an inner lining within the chest and a resin-like material that sealed the chest from the inside. Centuries under the canal and not a drop of water! It was either a miracle or an engineering marvel. The chest had certainly been prepared for the elements.
“There is something else I must tell you, Signori. You were not the first person I have shown this to. I regret this very much. I showed it to an antiquity dealer, Girolamo Paolo. He was very excited about the finding and urged me not to tell anyone of it. He said that he could find a patron who would pay a considerable sum for the items. He said we would both be rich. Two days later he was found dead, murdered.”