Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  She had allowed him time for a quick shower at the Hassler, then had picked him up and brought him on here. ‘Nowhere too touristy tonight,’ she had said. ‘We can’t have you being recognized. And nowhere Vaticany either. I don’t want to be spotted. Manetti’s is somewhere we can talk.’

  There had been an embarrassing mix-up over the seating. The head waiter, misreading the situation, had shown them to a banquette, where they could sit side by side. They insisted on sitting at an ordinary table, face to face, where they could talk. The wine waiter had misread the situation, too, giving David the Merlot to taste. Elizabeth had put the man firmly in his place.

  But at last they were settled. David drank more wine and closed his eyes in pleasure. ‘Who – or what – is Manetti?’

  ‘An enemy of Savonarola’s. The restaurant is based on the idea that the proper use of burning is cooking. It’s a rather bloodthirsty Italian joke. But there’s no need to make conversation, Mr Colwyn. We have enough to talk about, don’t you think?’

  David nodded. ‘I’ll say.’ He defused her tartness with a grin. ‘But I talk – and think – better on a full stomach and all I’ve had today is an Alitalia whisky and soda. Let’s order first and get it out of the way. Then we can concentrate.’

  The waiter took their order and disappeared. The events of the day, and the wine, were overtaking David. Despite the fact that this was a business dinner, a feeling of wellbeing arose in him that he found incongruous but impossible to control.

  Elizabeth Lisle began to speak again.

  ‘The “Madonna” has already been taken down, Mr Colwyn. It will travel to London first thing tomorrow morning, in the diplomatic bag. Just to be on the safe side. For a few days it will be kept in the residence of the apostolic delegate. New photographs can be taken there for your catalogue and for publicity. Presumably you have to arrange insurance. Once you have done that, and once the money has been received – the twenty million dollars, I mean – we shall hand the painting over to you. His Holiness would obviously like to know as soon as possible when the sale might be.’

  The first course – rigatoni – arrived and David waited for it to be served before answering. ‘Let’s see. We are now in the second week of April. We shouldn’t hurry things too much. There will be a lot of press attention following the announcement tomorrow, but after that we want to let the drama build. If Venturini has any unpublished research about the picture, we could release that at a later date. We – Hamilton’s that is – might invite the mayor of Foligno to London to be present at the sale. At our expense, of course. The timing of that announcement would help keep the publicity alive, too – add to the sense of theatre. We could make a feature out of the security arrangements: they will obviously have to be rather special. Nearer the time we can organize a series of special receptions for particular notables to view the picture. There’s a lot we can do to keep the picture in the public eye – once I set my mind on it.’

  Elizabeth Lisle smiled, fingering the gold cross held on a simple chain around her neck. ‘Good, I like all those ideas. I suppose you had better let us have a report on your security arrangements before we let the “madonna” leave the delegate’s residence.’

  ‘Before the end of the week.’

  ‘Will it be a special sale – an auction all to itself?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll ask my colleagues about that. Our big Old Master sale of the season, when everyone who can afford a picture like this is in London, is on 11th July this year. The “Madonna” could be the last lot in that sale – but I honestly don’t know. An evening sale of just one picture – black tie, champagne, TV cameras etc. – may be the best way for us to help you. But we shouldn’t rush that decision. Also, I’d like to gauge the public’s reaction, once the news gets out. If there’s a lot of protest then a quick sale is probably called for, so that protesters have less time to organize themselves. If not, if Pope Thomas convinces others that what he is doing is the right thing, we can afford to wait, to create a sense of anticipation.’

  The waiter removed their plates.

  ‘This is an unusual sale, remember. Unique. At the moment we have no way of knowing who, besides the obvious galleries, will be interested in it. It could be that big businesses run or owned by Catholics might want to own a picture that was once in the Vatican. Even among the galleries, I can never be sure from one month to the next who is going to have the funds. Apart from the European and American museums, the Japanese are showing more and more interest. And now the Australians are following in their footsteps. Then again it might be that devout Catholics in a rich parish – New York or Chicago, say – might club together to buy it for their cathedral, especially in view of the Holy Father’s motive for selling. Who knows? The possibilities are not endless but, with the right kind of presentation, the right kind of research, we may persuade a lot more people that they could own this painting.’

  David had Elizabeth Lisle’s full attention. When she concentrated she had the habit of gripping the tip of her tongue between her teeth. The action flexed the muscles in her neck.

  David was enjoying himself now. One of the most creative auctioneers in the business, he was only just warming to the situation. He had only really started thinking about it in the shower at the Hassler, but he already knew that there were some wonderful possibilities, the chance to break new ground. And it would put Hamilton’s far ahead of its rivals . . . He smiled at Elizabeth Lisle, a smile that said he was on her side in wanting to make a success of the sale, and a smile of confidence which showed her that he knew what he was talking about, he was a professional. From the warm smile which she returned to him, he knew he had convinced her.

  The main course arrived, and he refilled their glasses. Elizabeth Lisle had chosen a Tuscan dish, arrosto misto, mixed roasts of chicken, rabbit, pigeon. They ate in silence for a moment, then she said: ‘Mr Colwyn, we shall be working together a great deal in the next few weeks. I think we should get the terms of your commission out of the way tonight, don’t you?’

  This was the critical part of the evening, he knew. He suspected she was going to try to beat him down – with charm. He said, as levelly as possible, ‘Ten per cent is the normal arrangement.’

  ‘But this is an unusual sale, Mr Colwyn, you said so yourself. The very fact that it is a Vatican picture means that most of your publicity is done for you. Say the picture does fetch sixty million dollars. The auction will last – what, two minutes? At most . . . don’t you think that six million dollars is a little excessive for two minutes’ work?’

  ‘Miss Lisle,’ he said, wondering if she had French blood, ‘you know perfectly well that we do a lot more for our ten per cent than two minutes’ work. The organization, arranging the money, helping to research the picture, checking its condition. I’m already here, working, and the sale is ages away. As for the publicity you talk about . . . this sale could backfire, so it’s a risk from our point of view. And there’s always uncertainty over price. It might only fetch twenty or thirty million dollars. There are those receptions I was talking about, the photography. We shall send people around the world, talking the picture up. You came to us, don’t forget, and ten per cent is our rate.’

  ‘What about the reason for the sale? The earthquake victims. Don’t they mean anything to you? If you were to reduce your commission to – say – five per cent that could be your contribution to the victims.’

  ‘No. Our contribution is organizing the sale so that we get you the best price for the painting. Our contribution is advancing you twenty million dollars for maybe three months and not charging you interest – which, after all, would be about five hundred thousand dollars at current rates.’ He bit into his ossubucco. ‘But I won’t go on arguing with you over money, Miss Lisle. I will reduce our commission this time to eight per cent but no further. If that’s not good enough, you’ll have to find someone else to sell the “Madonna”.’

  ‘Done,’ she said quickly. ‘I can see
that’s as far as I am going to get. Thank you for coming down a bit, anyway. His Holiness will be pleased when I tell him. It means more for those people of Foligno. Now let’s drink to a successful sale.’

  Chapter Two

  The outrage created by the Vatican’s announcement that it intended to sell the ‘Madonna of Foligno’ was quite as shrill as David had predicted and he wondered whether, in involving Hamilton’s, he had made the right decision. Europe’s – and particularly Italy’s – anti-Americanism surfaced: a spokesman for the Italian government condemned the proposal, claiming that, whatever the strict legal position of the Vatican as a sovereign state in its own right, the Pope did not have the moral authority to sell off treasures that had been on the Italian mainland for so long. He ended, bitingly, ‘An Italian Pope would not have done this.’

  This was almost certainly true. But the government spokesman had missed the real point of Thomas’s plan, which was to take the Church into new waters. Change was coming to Rome.

  The conclave which had elected Thomas had been the longest and most bitterly contested in nearly two centuries. Although the previous Pope, Pius XIII, as unlucky and as unpopular as his number implied, had reigned for only three years, for many people those years had been a disaster. Introspective and deeply conservative, Pius had much resented the liberal turn which the Church had taken under his predecessor, a man who had instinctively understood the role of the media in the modern world and who, by making the Church seem more relevant, had in fact made the Papacy more popular and effective. But Pius chose to see only showmanship where others saw substance, moral decline where others saw liberalization, self-indulgence where others saw happiness. As a result, on assuming office, Pius had sought to undo much of the work of the previous years. A series of papal encyclicals castigated the modern world and, albeit in beautiful Latin, reiterated and upheld traditional practices. Chaos ensued. Priests found themselves having to teach almost the opposite of what they had taught before. As an inevitable result, numbers attending mass declined sharply. Collections slumped. The press became hostile. Men left the priesthood in droves. Pius didn’t seem to care. ‘Better one Holy soul than a thousand Hollywood ones,’ he liked to say in his tortured English.

  To make matters politically even worse, before dying Pius fell ill and lapsed into a coma for three months. During that time the Church had no real leadership and ambitious cardinals began manoeuvring for position, an unedifying sight that did not go unnoticed in the world at large. When Pius finally did die there were three broad camps which converged on Rome for the conclave. The liberal faction was mainly made up of cardinals from the Anglo-Saxon countries, the more conservative group was from the Latin and Mediterranean areas, while the Third World cardinals were in general uncommitted.

  The liberal candidate in the early conclave was Cardinal Hans Wendt, archbishop of Berlin, a man who had made his reputation by being rigidly anti-communist in political matters but was very flexible on social issues. It was an attractive mix for many people. His conservative opponent was Massoni, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the old Holy Office which had once been responsible for the Inquisition. As such, Massoni was felt to be one of Pius’s preferred successors, a fact which probably lost him as much support as it earned him.

  In the early ballots both men attracted a similar number of votes and after two days it was clear that the conclave was deadlocked in a way unknown in recent times, though perhaps not uncommon in earlier centuries.

  Normally, in such a case, the search for a compromise candidate, though never easy, would not take more than a day or two. On this occasion, however, the compromise choices all ended up with more opponents than supporters and a week passed with no agreement. As the deliberations went on and every day black smoke poured from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, indicating that agreement had not been reached, world interest grew in the Catholic Church’s evident crisis. Then, after a further forty-eight hours of deadlock, it was rumoured outside the Sistine Chapel that a group of Third World cardinals, frustrated by the Europeans’ obduracy, had sought to find a compromise candidate of their own. At first they had put forward the cardinal from Chad but he had not accepted the nomination. Their second choice was the archbishop from Buenos Aires. But it then became clear that, since the new military government of that country was so dictatorial, an Argentinian Pope would be considered too controversial for the church at such a dangerous time. It would look as though the Church condoned dictatorships. That was when eyes had first turned to North America.

  Attention almost immediately focused on two people: the archbishop of Montreal, and Thomas, who was then working in Rome as Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops. Many of the European cardinals, from long experience, took the view that if they were so divided among themselves, they should elect an elderly Pope, one who could not be expected to reign for too long. And then, by the time of his death, a natural successor might be apparent. At seventy-four, the cardinal from Montreal was this school’s obvious choice.

  The Third World cardinals took a different view. They argued, strongly, that the Church had just come through several short papacies, and the resulting upheavals had been disastrous for the Church, had made it confused and rudderless. Their dioceses needed the stability of a long papacy. At fifty-nine, Thomas might be young to be Pope, but as Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, his responsibilities included the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and a similar commission for the pastoral care of migrants and itinerant people, and many of the black and yellow bishops already knew and liked him.

  There were other reasons why they supported him. As a young man, after studying in Rome, Thomas had been sent on a special mission by the then Pope to Thailand. From there he had secretly entered Kampuchea where he had been shot at by guerrillas, and wounded in the leg. His account of life under the Khmer Rouge had been a best-seller and turned into a film, and his royalties had been used to help the refugees of the Khmer atrocities. In later years, too, he had spent time in South America, Argentina especially, where his talent for secret missions had again paid off. He had helped to trace several people who had been ‘disappeared’ by the military authorities. Three of these had already been executed but the publicity associated with his discoveries had eventually brought about the release of the others. To the Third World cardinals, no less than to Jasper Hale, Thomas Murray was a doer. Furthermore, he had been a cardinal now for five years and so was widely known throughout the Church.

  Thomas’s election was anything but straightforward, however, even with the Third World faction behind him. Though all agreed in principle that, sooner or later, an American as Pope had to come, neither Wendt’s liberals nor Massoni’s conservatives were happy with the idea. The deadlock had been eased but not entirely removed. After twelve days Thomas was still short of the necessary majority – two thirds of the votes plus one. Then two things happened.

  First, the cardinal from Brussels, Jaime Salvin, died. He was seventy-one but even so, his death made the lack of agreement in the conclave begin to look frankly irresponsible. Second, the cardinal from Toulouse, a supporter of Massoni, was found with a radio transmitter concealed about him. He had been using it to communicate with a French TV station which had thus been able to broadcast unsuitably accurate accounts of the divisions within the conclave. This so disturbed his fellow cardinals that Thomas quickly obtained the extra votes he needed, and after thirteen days white smoke above the Sistine Chapel roof finally showed a by now rather disenchanted world that it at last had a new Pope.

  A Holy Father from North America was a novelty, of course, and Thomas had added to that novelty by retaining his name on assuming office – only the third Pope to do so and the first since Renaissance times. In this, and in many other ways, he was obliged to move swiftly. Unlike any of his predecessors, he was faced with the fact that the whole world knew of the divisions within the Church, knew what unholy bargaining had gone o
n in the conclave. His authority was thus fundamentally undermined and, from the word go, Thomas had to fight to rebuild it.

  Thomas was a liberal by temperament, and of the other candidates, Massoni was the most different, the most unlike in his attitudes, beliefs, in his whole approach to Vatican affairs. That was why Thomas had offered him the job of Secretary of State. He was sending a signal to the rest of the Church, and to the world, that he would remove the divisions they had been gloating over. It wasn’t quite a joint leadership he was offering Massoni. Nonetheless, by the time of the Foligno earthquake, although few really understood his intentions yet, the papacy was changing. The Raphael sale was the first, bold move in Thomas’s crusade for change.

  *

  It was not only the Italian government which objected when the news about the Raphael sale was divulged. Demonstrators outside the Vatican museums and the American embassy in Rome carried placards saying: ‘Take your Pope home!’ Customs officers at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport said they would examine all London-bound baggage for the picture and refuse to load it. When they learned that the painting had already left, they mounted a go-slow. Car stickers were printed by the million in Italy which showed the Raphael above the words: ‘The Missing Madonna – have you seen her?’ Overnight, the ‘Madonna of Foligno’ became the most controversial painting on earth.

  In London, David was invited on to the BBC late-night current affairs show to defend Hamilton’s involvement. A group of art historians – Italian, British and American – had written to The Times, condemning the sale as outrageous and arguing that it was illegal. Italian students in London had protested outside Hamilton’s St James’s offices. David was faced on the programme by Sir Anthony Hardy, a retired director of the National Gallery, and Monsignor David Mulreahy, assistant to the Archbishop of Westminster. Hardy spoke first, repeating the arguments of the letter in The Times, which he had co-authored, saying that the Vatican was the natural home for religious art of the quality of Raphael and that under the terms of the Lateran treaty, which the Holy See had concluded with Mussolini in 1929, the Pope was not allowed to sell off the Vatican’s art anyhow. He also threw in a criticism of Hamilton’s saying they were ‘aiding and abetting the crime of the decade’.