Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  Wilkie seemed to gnaw at his cigar. ‘I like that, Mr Colwyn. That’s good.’ He looked again at the graphics David had given him, now strewn about the desk in front of him. He lifted his head. ‘Okay. I’m not saying I’ll bid, but you’ve got me hooked. I’m just wild to know who else you’ve got lined up. I may or may not have my cheque book with me, but I’ll be there, Mr Colwyn. I’ll be there.’

  *

  When David arrived at St Patrick’s the next night it rather seemed to him that half of New York had turned out for the sale. Fifth Avenue between 48th Street and 52nd Street was choked with spectators, the police just managing to keep a thoroughfare open for the people actually invited so that they could be dropped by their cars at the foot of the steps. The steps themselves were also solid with bodies save for an area about twenty yards wide which, again, was kept clear by police. There were television cameras, radio reporters, arc lights galore. It was, in fact, just like a Broadway first night or the Oscars ceremony in LA. The Mafia threat had made the event more, not less, attractive.

  Massoni’s intervention had added spice, too. After news of the Los Angeles attack on the Caravaggio had reached Rome, the cardinal had gone into print again, in Il Messaggero as before. This time the headline was: ‘Villains and the Vatican’ and in his article Massoni castigated the Pope for tangling with the Sicilian underworld and risking the prestige and power of the papacy on a ‘showbiz’ venture in New York.

  David had spent all day at the cathedral, checking the new security arrangements, introduced after the attack in Los Angeles. He hadn’t read the article, he’d only been told about it. Massoni was not dangerous today, he decided. His attack came too late. But, sooner or later, a more controversial issue would come along and find the cardinal as its leader. Then Thomas might be damaged. But this was not the time for worrying about the future. He had to go back to the hotel to change into his dinner jacket. Bess was in New York but, as on other similar occasions, they had been too busy to see each other. They might have a light supper together later on. Much later.

  Returning from the hotel, David’s car edged forward, one in a long line of limousines. Finally he reached the cathedral steps, where he was recognized by a few in the crowd, who wished him luck. He was unable to dodge a cable TV reporter at the door. The woman asked him if he was nervous. ‘Yes,’ said David. ‘Much too nervous to give interviews. Ask me after, if I’m still alive.’ That got him a smile and the reporter let him go. She could, in any case, see a famous ballerina getting out of the next car and she was much redder meat.

  St Patrick’s vast nave was packed. David had wondered about this: he had wanted the occasion to be as exclusive as possible, but limiting the tickets to only a few hundred would have left the cathedral looking empty, which could have had a dampening effect on the whole proceedings. He had, therefore, sent out invitations to about a thousand carefully-chosen guests. In the first place he had invited some of the world’s greatest living painters, from Andrew Wyeth to David Hockney to Sidney Nolan. These had been given a special showing of the pictures earlier in the day.

  Hockney and Nolan were already good friends of David’s but he had never met Wyeth. He found him to be warm and witty if not exactly easy. Most of the artists enjoyed themselves, and were pleased to have been invited.

  David had decided views on fame and what it meant, or ought to mean, so he had not invited the socialites, known mainly for their ancestors and dress sense, on which Park Avenue seemed to survive. But he did invite well-known and well-regarded writers, musicians, academics, politicians, actors and actresses.

  By now the almost non-stop whistling and cheering from outside the cathedral showed that recognizable faces were arriving every minute: Baryshnikov, Mehta, De Niro, Senator Kennedy, Stavros Niarchos, Gordon Getty, Leonard Bernstein. David smiled when, at about eight-thirty, Cardinal Rich arrived, glowing in his scarlet robes. He made his entrance via his limousine like all the other big names – despite the fact that his official residence had its own private entrance to the cathedral. New York is nothing if not theatre and the same may be said for the Church. As nine o’clock approached David went to stand near the rostrum. He and Rich had both decided it would be wrong to use the very fine pulpit as the place from where to conduct the auction. Instead a rostrum complete with desk and microphone stood now in the centre of the nave at the top of the steps leading to the choir. As each work came up for sale spotlights would pick it out around the walls of the church.

  Most people were in their seats now and David nodded to many he knew. He had read, and believed it to be true, that several European national galleries had negotiated special funding with their governments for this sale. All the Hamilton staff were in place now, the men in black tie, the women in long black dresses. For such a turnout he had given a great deal of thought to the seating. This evening might have a first-night flavour but it was a serious sale, and so the serious buyers, not necessarily the best-known names or faces, had to have the better seats. He had put the businessmen, the tycoons, where he could see them easily, and where they could see each other, near the centre aisle. Their rivalry might produce fireworks.

  At about five past nine, decently late, Cardinal Rich climbed the steps to the rostrum: he was to open the proceedings. His scarlet robes gleamed in the light like a fire brick.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he cried. ‘Welcome to St Patrick’s. I am not going to hold up the proceedings for long but I have two announcements you might like to hear.’ As David had at the first Vatican sale, he held aloft a piece of paper. ‘This is a cheque I shall be sending to His Holiness tomorrow. It represents the receipts from visitors who, in the past three months, have been to the cathedral to look at these magnificent treasures’ – and he waved his robed arm majestically around the nave. ‘And the amount is for . . .’ Deliberately he held the cheque in two hands as if to read it for the first time, like an actor announcing the winner at an Oscar ceremony. ‘. . . For one million, three hundred and fifty-five thousand, four hundred and twenty-six dollars –’

  A wave of applause broke over his words, drowning whatever cents he may have been going to add. The cardinal smiled down at the upturned faces in front of him.

  ‘And now I have a short statement which His Holiness sent me – you, us – earlier in the day.’ He paused to reach into his cassock and took from it a slip of yellow telex paper. All other sounds in the cathedral died away. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I send you my blessing on this uniquely momentous occasion. The works of art to be sold this evening represent the highest artistic achievements of mankind. They include some of the most beautiful things ever produced by man. Help us transform this excellence into another form of beauty, an even purer form of love, just as our Lord’s body was transformed after the Resurrection. Help us to help those who cannot always help themselves. Thomas.’

  There was no applause but as Rich descended from the rostrum a buzz of anticipation swept the cathedral. The Pope’s message, in its tone and brevity, had exactly primed the sale, brought people’s minds back from the party atmosphere to the more serious work at hand. Not for the first time, David marvelled at the insight of his employer in Rome.

  He waited for the cardinal to settle himself in the seat reserved for him in the front row. He looked across to Bess. She was standing amid the reporters, still sorting out their problems.

  The cardinal was ready so David mounted the rostrum. His instincts told him that he needed to be as unlike the cardinal as possible: crisp, businesslike, ice-cool, unflamboyant. He spread his catalogue on the desk before him and surveyed the cathedral one last time, to see that his staff were where they should be. The main lights dimmed. ‘Good evening on behalf of us all at Hamilton’s, ladies and gentlemen. The first lot this evening is Giovanni Bellini’s “Lament over the Dead Christ”.’ A light above the painting now came on, drawing attention to it in one of the side aisles. ‘I will start the bidding at fifteen million dollars . . . fifteen million . . . w
ho will bid fifteen million dollars . . .?’

  After the usual heart-stopping pause an arm went up in the third row and he looked down to see Sir Denis May, from the Australian National Gallery in Brisbane. The bidding was on.

  The sale that night was to become legendary in the art world. Just to have been there became one of the experiences to boast about in years to come. Within months copies of the catalogue, which originally had sold for $100, were changing hands for not far short of $5,000 – more if they were signed by Wyeth or Baryshnikov. It wasn’t just the amounts that changed hands, it was the ferocious tussles which developed. Every item did well, even if not everybody got what they came for. The Bellini went to Tokyo, the Perugino to Washington, the Louvre landed the Poussin, the National Gallery in London got the Cranach. The Getty, undeterred by the Caravaggio assault, bought the Leonardo, for ninety-five million dollars, and Galileo’s confession. Brisbane squeezed in with one of the Raphaels they were after, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam paid fifty-three million dollars for the Titian, a record, like all the prices that night. But it was the Giotto, the Martin Luther excommunication deed and the ‘Pietà’ which produced the real contests.

  David had always thought the big museums would go for the Giotto but not even he had realized how ferocious things might be. Shirikin, from the Hermitage, was in there early, as was Jakobson from the Met. Houston wanted it, so did Tokyo, Berlin and even the Italians themselves: Pini was bidding on behalf of Turin – with Fiat money David guessed. Bidding had started at twenty-five million dollars, rose quickly to sixty million dollars, by which time only Tokyo, the Hermitage, the Met and the Getty were still in. Tokyo dropped out at sixty-seven million dollars, followed by the Getty at seventy million dollars – they had already spent an enormous amount on the Leonardo and the Galileo. Given that the New Yorker Jakobson was on his home turf, and that Shirikin was a Russian, it was no surprise that the audience should be partisan. When Shirikin dropped out at seventy-five million dollars, wild cheering billowed through the cathedral and the Hermitage director, justifiably angry, stormed out. David tried to thank him over the microphone but his remarks were drowned in the general din.

  The fight over the Luther manuscript was more predictable, being between two German museums, Dresden and Berlin. Until that evening, the world record for a manuscript was twelve point three million dollars. In St Patrick’s David started the bidding at ten million dollars. At eighteen million dollars both galleries were beginning to hurt and instead of rising in increments of five hundred thousand dollars the directors started calling out bid increases of fifty thousand dollars. David thought it unsuitable to object, especially as the bidding continued on to twenty-one million dollars and then to twenty-three million, five hundred thousand dollars. Eventually, after the longest battle in terms of time and number of bids, Dresden scraped home at twenty-three million, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Nearly double the previous record.

  The ‘Pietà’, Michelangelo’s wonderful white master-work, valued more highly than anything else on the Pope’s list, was saved till last. Introducing it brought David his tensest moment. Some of the major galleries, like the Getty, the National in London, the National in Australia, had almost certainly spent themselves out on earlier works. David was less certain that the ‘Pietà’ would sell than anything else on offer, simply because it was the most expensive. That was one reason why he had tried to involve commercial and industrial giants: he had foreseen this situation. Still, there were certain museums – Houston, Berlin, Osaka, Turin, Munich, Ottawa, Zurich at least – who had bid earlier on but had not yet actually spent anything.

  The bidding started at an incredible fifty million dollars and in the event only four museums even entered the race: Houston, Ottawa, Berlin and, the dark horse, the Louvre which, with the best sculpture collection in the world, wanted this jewel. These museums did not, however, have everything to themselves. In his visits to commercial companies, David had focused on the ‘Pietà’ because, in advertising terms, only Michelangelo’s statue was simple enough, and bold enough, to make sense. And only Michelangelo, with perhaps Leonardo and Raphael, was a big enough name to ensure that any company which bought his work wouldn’t then have to spend another fortune telling everyone who he was. Now, David watched to see whether his efforts would pay off.

  He had noticed with satisfaction during the earlier part of the auction that the businessmen at the sale were totally caught up in the drama of it all. They had sat transfixed as the battles raged back and forth. Some of them, he guessed – he hoped – must be impatient to have a crack themselves.

  He was right. No sooner had the bidding started, and the four museums announced their intention of going for the Michelangelo, than another four hands showed themselves. One was Bob Ward, boss of a Canadian mining conglomerate, another was Felix Seidl, who ran a Chicago-based freight outfit, a third was George Nuttall, whose family had made biscuits for generations and the fourth was Red Wilkie, who had brought his cheque book after all.

  Bidding in five million dollar steps, one hundred and fifty million was reached soon enough but then the pace slowed, and the Canadians, the Germans, Seidl and Nuttall all gave up. That left Houston, the Louvre, Ward and Wilkie. Wilkie went at a hundred and sixty, the Louvre a bid later. David’s money was on Houston but he was wrong. At a hundred and seventy million a new bidder entered: Carl Malinkrodt, who liked to say that his biotechnology firm had made him a billionaire, not overnight but over the weekend. He had been on Betsy’s list but when David had seen him he had seemed totally uninterested in art. The traditional poker face, David supposed. Malinkrodt’s firm also had interests in the defence business and that made him a rival of sorts to Wilkie.

  Malinkrodt’s intervention was superbly timed. Houston and Ward were both a little frightened by the levels they were bidding at, and the new competitor came in with such force that both sought escape as soon as possible.

  But now, stung by Malinkrodt’s last-minute intervention, Wilkie came back in! The bidding rose: a hundred and eighty million dollars . . . a hundred and eighty-five million dollars . . . a hundred and ninety . . . a hundred and ninety-five million dollars. There was not a sound in the entire cathedral save David speaking the figures.

  He was staring down at Malinkrodt – it was his turn to bid.

  Malinkrodt looked at the ‘Pietà’, back to David. Back to Michelangelo’s superlative marble.

  Then he shook his head.

  Within moments David brought the gavel down and the ‘Pietà’ was sold – at a hundred and ninety-five million dollars. The applause and the cheering went on for more than a minute.

  That was the end of the sale and the ordered rows of the audience quickly became a jumble as everyone rehearsed to his neighbour what he had just seen. David felt exhausted, but he knew the evening wasn’t over yet. There were television interviews, triple checking the security since the Mafia threat still hung over them and the actual transfer of the works wouldn’t take place until tomorrow at the earliest, and there was other tidying up to do. And after all that, a reception at the Cardinal’s residence.

  It was there that David finally caught up with Bess. ‘The Veau d’Or will be closed at this hour. I think we’d better try further up town. What’s the matter – aren’t you hungry?’ She looked on edge.

  ‘Sort of,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go back to the hotel as soon as we decently can. There’s something I can tell you only in bed.’

  But it was nearly an hour before the TV crews, the all-night radio news stations, and the newspaper reporters would let them get away.

  Later, David said: ‘Well, what is it? What is it you can only tell me in bed?’

  She lay back, stroking the inside of his leg. ‘Oh that.’ She grinned. ‘I lied – I just wanted to get you back here. It’s been ages since Rome.’

  ‘So there’s nothing you have to tell me? Bah!’

  ‘Oh yes. I have something to tell you.’ She placed he
r hand over his mouth, so he couldn’t interrupt. ‘But it doesn’t need a pillow to say it on. It’s not at all private – everyone will know soon enough . . . Thomas is so delighted with the way you’ve handled these sales, he’s decided some reward is in order.’ She kissed him on the mouth. ‘You’re going to get a papal honour.’

  *

  David’s admiration for Pope Thomas, already very high, only increased after the sale at St Patrick’s. His Holiness clearly had a wider plan and it now began to emerge. He let a couple of weeks go by, to allow discussion of the St Patrick’s sale to exhaust itself. During this period there were reports in the press from all over the world as the works which had changed hands in St Patrick’s arrived in California, London, Tokyo, Brisbane, Paris, Dresden and so on. Red Wilkie, using the graphics David had provided before the sale, announced that his company’s logo would now consist of a simple outline of the ‘Pietà’ and that the statue itself would go on show at the firm’s headquarters in Washington. In Moscow, Pravda, on behalf of a disappointed Shirikin, attacked the commercialism of the sale and everyone outside the communist bloc had a good laugh at that.

  In the west only Italy continued to feel rather affronted by the whole exercise.

  As the New York Times informed its readers in a special edition on the day after the sale, the pictures had netted a total of one billion, two hundred and fifty million dollars and the Italian government seemed to think the amount had been more or less stolen from it. Among the caustic comments from government spokesmen in the wake of the sale was the complaint that, as a result of the auction, one crucial piece of history – the Luther manuscript – had passed behind the Iron Curtain, for ever. But, apart from Massoni’s eve-of-sale attack, the Italian government’s anti-Pope stance was the only sour note to be sounded.

  Then, when interest in the sale had begun to flag, Thomas announced his plans for using the money. At a special press conference, held in the Nervi audience hall, the Holy Father himself outlined what he had in mind. Of the total one billion, two hundred and fifty million dollars, exactly one hundred million, or eight per cent, had to be paid to Hamilton’s as commission. That left one billion, one hundred and fifty million dollars plus the one million, three hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars raised from people viewing the exhibition in St Patrick’s, less one hundred thousand dollars for the copies made, producing a final total of one billion, one hundred and fifty-one million, two hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars. The bulk of the money – seven hundred and fifty million dollars – would, he said, be invested and the income, estimated at somewhere between sixty and eighty million dollars a year would be used to continue with the kind of work already begun in Foligno, Sicily and the Marquesas Isles. In honour of the sale, and the part played in it by the people of New York, the fund was to be known as the St Patrick’s Fund. A commission would administer the money under the direction of Cardinal Rich, who was being promoted to become joint president of Cor Unum and would reside in Rome. His place as Cardinal Archbishop of New York was being taken by Martin Naughton, a Jesuit from Idaho. Thomas also announced that several distinguished people had agreed to serve on the commission. These included Sandro Sirianni, the mayor of Foligno, the Cardinal Archbishop of Palermo, the South American Secretary General of the United Nations, who was a Catholic, the President of the Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican Bank, representatives of two Roman Catholic banks in Switzerland, Credit Lausanne and the Banque Lemann – and, finally, Mr David Colwyn, chief executive of Hamilton’s of London. Mr Colwyn was also, in recognition of his work in organizing the magnificent sales which had resulted in the fund, to receive a papal knighthood, of the Order of St Sylvester.