Michelangelo sniffed. “Sì, before the Vatican.”
As if called forth at the mention, the artist swept his hand toward the west. Clearly visible across the sparkling Tiber River snaked the outlines of the Leonine Wall surrounding Vatican City, distinct against the clearing sky, the pointed obelisk rising up into the air. Just to the east of it, they could see the daunting silhouette of the fortress of Sant’Angelo.
“Shall we make our way there?” Michelangelo suggested, his young company agreeing heartily.
As they trudged down the hill and through the narrow, winding streets, Michelangelo continued his monologue, detailing the history of every church and palace, temple and ruin they passed, rising to the role of guide with palpable relish.
The city roiled with a bevy of activity, humming with noise and dynamic energy. Though its population had declined greatly in the scourge of plague that passed but five years ago, still a bit more than half a million people called Rome their home. There could be no avoiding the odors of life with such a populace, though the municipal improvements had done much to keep it but a thin tang lost almost in the redolence of cuisine and cultivation.
He brought them through the Campo Fiori and its vast marketplace scented by the fecundity of fresh vegetables, cheese, fruits, and flowers. They scuttled through rows of colorful stalls and the crowds, the conflux of languages spoken creating a pastiche of sound.
“Rome is not a city unto itself, but many within the one.” Michelangelo raised his gravelly voice over the din. “There are Germans, Arabs, French, and more, each with their own quarter, even the Jews. It is a celebration of mankind, but one that could easily become a riot with the utterance of a single wrong word.”
He preened as he guided them, like a cock of the walk, and though he did not stop to speak to anyone—avoiding the need for introductions—he displayed them by his side with a protective pride bordering on the possessive. Many recognized Battista and called him greetings and good cheer, but he dallied no more than demanded by good manners, guarding Aurelia’s anonymity as stridently as Michelangelo.
“What draws those people?” she asked of her guide as they meandered through a small intersection, a crowd of people gathered before a curved wall.
Michelangelo clapped his hands together. “Wonderful. There must be a new posting. You will find this most interesting.”
The triumvirate approached the gathering, peering over and around the dozen or so people. One fresh piece of vellum, its ink clear and its edges untattered, stood out upon the layers of others much less intact, and gummed to the stone base of the oddest-looking sculpture Aurelia had ever seen. Missing both its arms—a rusted metal rod protruded from one shoulder—and both its legs—one cut off at the knee, the other at the hip—the face of the figure had all but vanished as time and weather had worn it down.
“What manner of lunacy is this?” she whispered, incredulous.
Michelangelo smiled. “It is, or was, a bust of Menelaus,” he explained. “The creator has never been definitively attributed. However, common thought places its genesis in the Hellenistic period, a few centuries before the birth of Christ, or thereabouts. But only recently did the gentleman obtain his current moniker. They call him Pasquino.”
Aurelia raised a brow at him. “Pasquino?”
“Indeed.” Battista smiled, taking up the story, clearly one he warmed to, though he lowered his mouth closer to Aurelia and his voice dropped in his throat. “Censorship is strong in Rome, perhaps more so than elsewhere on the peninsula. It has become the custom for those who wish to speak against the popes and the Vatican to post their criticisms on such effigies scattered throughout the city.”
“Talking statues,” Michelangelo interjected.
Battista nodded. “Just so. This one in particular has become quite famous. For many years, it was the site of the most erudite and scathing slander made against the pope. It became clear to the locals that the broadsheets were the work of the tailor, one who served the papal court, whose shop lay very near to this spot. Just around the corner, there.” He pointed to the narrow road running off to the east. “He was as widely known for his intellect and wit as for his skill with needle and thread. Not long after the neighborhood folk surmised that the tailor, Pasquino by name, was the author did he go missing. Never to be seen or heard from again.”
“Never?” Aurelia’s voice squeaked.
“Never,” Michelangelo and Battista chorused.
As the word died upon his tongue, the slim and slight Michelangelo turned, slipping sideways into the crowd, leaning close to the parchment with squinting eyes.
“What is it?” Battista asked as his friend rejoined them.
Michelangelo shook his head. “Nothing. It is ... no, nothing.”
“Are you sure?” Battista put a hand upon the artist’s shoulder. “You seemed troubled.”
“Not troubled. Thoughtful, no more. Come, there is much left to see.”
The sun, now fully revealed, beat down upon their heads from its early afternoon perch and the stream of people in the streets thinned as the residents made for their repasts and their rests.
“I shall take you to the Hostaria dell’Orso. It is not only the cleanest inn in the city, it is my favorite,” Michelangelo chirped as he led them through the Piazza Fiammetta, so named for the mistress of Cesare Borgia, the son of the pope, and on, to the shade of the Palazzo di Riario. Diagonally across from the square angles of the cream stone building stood the Inn of the Bear. The tables, set out on a flagstone terrace, were tucked into the coolness of a vine-covered arbor edged with classical columns.
Both staff and owner of the hostaria greeted Michelangelo with the acquaintance of family, seating them at the best table, in the far corner snuggled deep in the shadows, only pinpoints of dappling sun dusting the cubby with its light. They sat at the round cherrywood table—their backs to the vines with the little yellow flowers—one on each side of Michelangelo, as instructed. From here, they could see the comings and goings on the crisscrossing streets and the other tables on the terrace.
“Just beyond that turn, on the Via Sistina, is my old house, my first home here in Rome.” Michelangelo pointed the way with a small snigger. “It was very small and very cold, and yet some fond memories linger.”
“People have a wonderful capacity to forget the pain and remember only the pleasure,” Aurelia said.
“You speak the truth, my dear, for the preservation of our hearts and our souls. And yet we must learn from our pain, while we forget it.” He raised a tankard in salute. “To the human conundrum.”
Michelangelo ordered them all a serving of the soup of the country, crusty loaves of bread scooped out and filled with fish and tomato gravy. Aurelia ate greedily, soon finishing the broth, spicy with oregano and garlic, and the chunks of tender fish, and began tearing off pieces of the edible bowl, now soaked and flavorful, and munched on them slowly, enjoying every morsel. The activity of the morning had done much to restore her spiritless appetite, and the fresh air—the tang of the river just to their north—did much to reinvigorate her thirst. Once more, she found herself swelling with joy at forbidden adventure.
Her hearty feasting continued unabated, the indulgent smiles of her companions as they watched her unnoticed.
“It is not often I find myself in the company of such beautiful people,” Michelangelo mused, sitting back, taking his tankard with him. “I am a lucky man to have such companions.”
“We are equally as grateful for your company, amico mio,” Battista assured him, taking a last bite of his bread and a hand-covered belch, having eaten every bite put before him.
Michelangelo grinned. “I agree. We three make a fine group. But I regard your physical beauty.” The artist’s critical appraisal brushed along the curves of their faces and the dichotomous yet equally pleasing shapes of their bodies.
“What there is between you enhances each other’s beauty,” he continued, ignoring the shared tender gaze
between them and the slight bloom warming Aurelia’s cheeks. Michelangelo threw back a gulp of wine and leaned forward, elbows on the table as he looked keenly at her.
She smiled back at him curiously, as if she could see all the thoughts working behind his amber eyes.
“You know, I rarely paint women; I find more that is interesting and worthy in the structural power of the male form, as I was taught.”
He did not say it as an insult, though it would be easy to perceive the words as such, and Aurelia did not take it so.
“But when I look at you, Monna Aurelia.” His gaze, burning now with creative passion, flitted between them. “When I look at you two together, I cannot help but wish for a brush and some canvas. Perhaps I shall put you both in a painting.”
She sputtered out the wine like water from a busted well, spattering the table and her face with red splotches.
Battista jumped to her side and dabbed her chin, blotting the drips of wine clinging there as he slapped her gently on the back.
“Are you all right?” he asked, hovering with concern.
Aurelia could only nod as the coughing spasm subsided.
“Does the thought not please you, Aurelia?” Michelangelo chortled as a serving maid rushed over and cleaned the table with a stained, damp rag.
“No ... I mean, yes ... but no.” Aurelia’s tongue tangled in her mouth, bereft of any coherent word to ply upon it. There was so very much of the absurd in the turns of her life—especially those encountered on this adventure—but that would be one far too bizarre to abide. She turned her acuity from Battista’s frowning inquisition and settled herself with a deep breath.
“Of course, messere, to be rendered by the master Michelangelo would be the greatest compliment of a lifetime.” She smiled with only the slightest quaver of deceit upon her lips. “However, I fear there is no time. As I am so much healed, I believe Battista and I will soon be continuing our quest.”
“Ah, sì, your quest.” Michelangelo seemed satisfied by her reply, if not pleased. He stood, the legs of his chair scraping against the stone terrace. “Then let us continue our tour. There are things you must see before you leave Rome.”
He brought them across the bridge at Sant’Angelo and slowly passed the towering cylindrical edifice, guarded and topped by stone angels.
“It was a mausoleum, first and foremost,” Michelangelo told them, “built by the Emperor Hadrian in the first century.”
“Second,” Battista corrected, but without a peep of superiority.
“Ah sì, sì. The second,” Michelangelo nodded his thanks. “It did not become a fortress until the late thirteenth, under Nicholas the Third. See that passageway?”
Aurelia followed the artist’s gesturing finger, her gaze finding and trailing the path of an elevated walkway, the Castel Sant’Angelo anchoring one end, the Vatican the other. Continuous parapets crowned the covered corridor of pale russet stone as the arches held it up from below.
“It provides safe passage for the pope, should a quick guarded retreat be needed.”
Battista glared with ill-disguised disdain at the fortress.
“You care not for this place, do you?” Aurelia asked him.
He looked down at her, crinkles of contempt smoothing away, though not completely. “No, I do not. Many a good citizen has been imprisoned in those walls.”
“Yes, it serves as a prison, and a place of execution,” Michelangelo said. “And in its center, it is rumored, there lies a treasury, a safe room for all the riches obtained by the popes, the art and the relics of both ancient and current civilizations.”
“Relics?” Battista stopped, staring at the castle, curiosity replacing his disdain.
Michelangelo pursed his lips with a vague shake of his head. “If the relic you seek was in the possession of the Vatican, I can assure you, any evidence of its existence ... and any who know of it ... would have disappeared long ago. Never underestimate the power within those walls, a force that has nothing to do with God.”
It was a respectful condemnation, if such a one existed, but a truth. She had heard the same from her guardians as they warned her never to come to this place.
Michelangelo led them west, to the right, and along the curving Borgo Santo Spirito. The crowds around them grew, cramming the lane with many a bowed and hooded head, many a rattling prayer bead. A tranquil hum filled the air, the sound of voices low with mumbled prayers. Soon, the looming wall surrounding the Vatican rose up before them.
As they turned into a vast courtyard, as soon as Aurelia placed one foot onto the pale, uneven flagstones—worn rounded and smooth by hundreds of years and thousands of pilgrims—she stopped, clutching her good arm over the injured.
“What is amiss?” Battista grumbled, throwing one arm protectively about her shoulders as his gaze flitted warily about the crowded courtyard. He pulled her close to the massive walls—at least seven stories high and fortified with circular towers—surrounding the grounds, the cool stone creating a shaded oasis.
“No, I am fine. Truly, Battista,” Aurelia assured him, touched by the fierce gentleness of his concern. “I just felt ...” Her voice trailed away and she turned to Michelangelo. “This is the place of St. Peter, isn’t it?”
“It is.” Michelangelo stretched out his arms. “All of this land, stretching to the castle, was part of what the ancients called the Ager Vaticanus, the Vatican Field. And it is just there where Peter was martyred, there he was crucified upon an inverted cross.” He pointed to a pink stone obelisk rising into the air, just to the south of the Basilica.
Aurelia shivered and Battista pulled her closer. She smiled up at him. “I can feel his spirit embrace me.”
“Many visitors say the same,” Michelangelo said. “Though it is only those who possess great spirit themselves.”
Stepping out of the walls’ shadow, he took them into the sunlight. As the crowd milled around them, Michelangelo pointed out the other highlights of the compound, the churches and palazzos, monuments and chapels, an ever-expanding hodgepodge of buildings, with each pope contributing his own touch to the structural composition.
“In the Basilica, you will find Giotto’s mosaic.” Michelangelo faced due west and the old building surrounded with scaffolds and men. “It has been under construction for years now. I sometimes think it will be lifetimes before it is complete.”
He moved toward it, as if impelled by his own eagerness to see it finished. “I have seen Bramante’s plans. It will be one of the greatest buildings known to man, if they can construct it.”
Aurelia stepped up beside him. “I have no wish to see any but your masterpiece.”
The artist ducked his head humbly. “Then far be it from me to deprive you.”
With Battista, he led her east, to an enclosed marble staircase and two large bronze doors at the top, two halberd-armed guards stationed to each side. With a barely perceptible tic of their heads, the guards parted for Michelangelo, who murmured a soft, “Grazie.”
“What do you think of their uniforms?” Michelangelo waggled his brows and flicked his head at the guards left behind, his low voice echoing in the empty passageway.
Amused, Aurelia turned back. Brilliant and distinct with bold stripes of yellow and blue, the soldiers’ puffed pantaloons matched their stockings and their doublets, the latter accented with edges of bright red beneath crested breastplates. The skullcaps beneath their pointed, shiny helmets bore the same stripes.
“Quite debonair,” she proclaimed.
To which Michelangelo smiled broadly and, with a finger over his lips, declared, “I designed them as well.”
Aurelia’s face burst with stunned delight, turning to Battista and finding confirmation in his prideful grin.
Inside the portal, a barrel-vaulted hallway bright with whitewashed walls and multibranched chandeliers split in two directions.
Aurelia followed Michelangelo, staring curiously about, unable to contain the puzzled expression from creeping onto
her face.
“I am sorry to disappoint you, my dear,” he said. “But we must traverse a part of the Apostolic Palace in order to reach the chapel.”
“What of its own entrance?”
“There isn’t one, really,” he told her. “Nothing large or ornate at any rate. It can only be reached through the palace. But none of its grandeur is lost for it. On the outside, it is but a plain rectangular building, as Pope Sixtus wished. There is no external decoration or architecture of any note. There is nothing to miss.”
“How extraordinary,” Aurelia breathed.
“It should not be overly crowded,” Michelangelo said as he led them through a series of small though resplendent rooms and passageways. “It is not open to the public at this hour and only a few are permitted access at this time of day.”
The hallway let out into a courtyard, which led to a small door in the side of a nondescript brick building. But just beyond lay Heaven itself.
A few steps in and Aurelia’s gaze, her whole head, lifted, and lifted still more, her whole body almost toppling backward at the exquisite vision opening above her. If not for Battista, and a steadying hand at her back, she would have fallen to the floor.
They were alone in the chapel, as Michelangelo had predicted, and she almost wished she could—dared—abandon all propriety and lie upon the cold stone at her feet, all the better to see the splendor overhead.
“T ... tell me,” she eked out the words, voice strangled through her bent throat, nostrils full of thick incense and burning wax.
Michelangelo snorted but with little glint of humor in it.
“It was nothing but blue paint and gold stars. The commission offered was enormous, or so I thought at the time. But the pope paid far more to others for far less work.” Michelangelo rubbed the space between his eyes, hand held almost protectively over his distinctive nose, the lines of struggle etched tellingly across his face. “It must have been Raphael’s charm, my own could never compare to it, which brought him such treasures.”
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