Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  ch'io mi lamenti,

  lascia ch 'io mi quereli.

  Non ti chiedo merce,

  no, no, non ti chiedo merce...*

  He emphasised the last phrase, and repeated it ad infinitum. What, I wondered, could so torment him, that in his discreet and subdued song he should exclaim broken-heartedly that he would ask no pity? At that moment, Cristofano arrived behind me. He was do­ing his rounds.

  "Poor fellow," he whispered to me, referring to Atto. "He is suffer­ing from a moment of discomfort. Like all of us, what is more, in this wretched reclusion."

  "Yes, indeed," I replied, thinking of Dulcibeni's solitary dis­course.

  "Let us leave him to relieve his feelings; I shall come and visit him later and make him drink a calming infusion."

  We went on our way, while Atto sang unceasingly:

  Lascia ch'io mi disperi...**

  * Ah Hope, let me lament, / let me complain. / I ask you no mercy, / no, no, I ask you no mercy...

  **Let me despair...

  Night the Fifth

  Between the 15th & 16th September, 1683

  *

  My mood was rather melancholy when the abbot called on me to descend yet again under the ground. The supper of cows' teats had given fresh heart to our lodgers; but not alas to me, weighed down as I was by the sequence of revelations and discoveries concerning Mourai and Fouquet, not to mention the gloomy judgements of Dul­cibeni. Nor had the task of writing my diary improved matters.

  The abbot must have sensed my state of mind, for while we went on our way, he made no effort to enliven the conversation. Nor was he in the best of moods, although visibly more tranquil by comparison with the desperate laments which I had heard him singing after dinner. He seemed to be suffering under the weight of some unspoken anxiety, which rendered him unusually taciturn. As might have been expected, Ugonio and Ciacconio did what they could to make the situation worse.

  The two corpisantari had already been awaiting us for some time when we joined them under the Piazza Navona.

  "Tonight, we must clarify our ideas a little concerning the under­ground city," announced Melani.

  He produced a sheet of paper on which he had traced a series of lines schematically.

  DONZELLO

  "Here is what I would have liked to obtain from these two wretch­es, instead of which we have to depend upon ourselves."

  It was a rough map of the galleries which we had explored to date. On the first night, we had descended from the Donzello to the open­ing onto the Tiber, taking a gallery which Atto had marked with the letter A. In the roof of that gallery we had, later, discovered the trap­door through which we had taken the passage which led to the ruins of Domitian's Stadium, under the Piazza Navona, corresponding to the letter B. From the Piazza Navona, through the narrow hole in which we had to bend double, we took passage C. From that point, there began a long curve (marked E) along which we had followed Stilone Priaso and which had led us to the space painted with frescoes, in all probability beneath the Palace of the Chancellery. Thence, we had emerged at the Arch of the Acetari. Finally, passage D branched out from the left-hand side of passage C.

  "There are three galleries of which we know the beginning but not the end: B, C and D. It would be wise to explore them before undertaking any further pursuits. The first is the left-hand branch of the gallery which one takes upon emerging from the trapdoor. It goes in the general direction of the Tiber, but we know nothing else about it. The second gallery is that which turns off from the Piazza Navona and proceeds in a straight line. The third deviates from that gallery to the left. We shall begin with the third one, gallery D."

  We advanced cautiously until we reached the point where Ugonio and Ciacconio had stationed themselves the night before when they assaulted Stiione Priaso. Atto made us stop there to check our posi­tion from the map.

  "Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio, to catch our attention.

  A few paces in front of us, an object lay on the ground. Abbot Melani ordered us all to halt and advanced first to examine our find. It was a small green glass phial from which there had spilled a (now dry) stream, then clear drops, of red blood.

  "What miracle have we here?" sighed Abbot Melani with a tired voice.

  It took no little time to calm down the corpisantari, who were convinced that the phial was one of the relics for which they were forever searching. Ciacconio had begun to patter around it, gurgling frenetically. Ugonio had attempted to seize the phial, and Atto had been compelled to thrust him back., without sparing him a few blows. In the end, the corpisantari ceased their agitation and we were all able to gather our ideas together. It was clearly not the blood of a martyr: gallery D, in which we had found the blood was neither a catacomb, a columbarium, nor indeed any ancient holy place, Abbot Melani re­minded us, exhorting the two treasure hunters to calm down. Above all, however, the blood which it contained was hardly dry, and had even spilled onto the ground: therefore it belonged to a living being, or to one not long dead—not to a martyr who had lived centuries ago. Atto wrapped the phial in a fine piece of cloth and put it in the pock­et of his doublet, erasing with one foot the blackish traces of liquid remaining on the ground. We decided to continue our exploration: perhaps the solution to the mystery would be found further on.

  Melani said nothing, but it was all too easy to guess his thoughts: yet another unexpected find, yet another object whose provenance was hard to determine; and yet again, blood.

  As on the night before, the underground passage appeared to turn gradually to the left.

  "That, too, is strange," commented Abbot Melani. "It is what I least expected."

  Finally, the gallery seemed to be leading back towards the sur­face. Rather than a stairway, this time we encountered a rather gen­tle incline. Suddenly, however, a spiral staircase appeared before our eyes, with stone steps skilfully set into the ground. The corpisantari seemed unwilling to go any further. Ugonio and Ciacconio were ill-tempered: after having to give up the page from the Bible, the phial, too, had been snatched from before their eyes.

  "Very well, then, you are to remain here until our return," Melani reluctantly conceded.

  As we were beginning our ascent, I asked the abbot why he was so surprised that gallery D, which we had just traversed, should curve to the left.

  "It is quite simple: if you have carefully studied the map which I gave you, you will understand that we have returned almost to our point of departure, in other words, to the vicinity of our hostelry."

  We climbed the stairs slowly, until I heard a muffled noise, fol­lowed by Abbot Melani's lamenting. He had struck his head against a trapdoor. I had to help him push until the wooden lid opened.

  Thus we gained access to an enclosed space in which the air was acrid with urine and damp with the reek of animals. We were in a stable.

  Standing there was a small two-wheeled carriage, which we briefly examined. It had a leather hood, protected by waxed canvas stretched over a metal framework embellished with smooth iron knobs. Inside, a rosy sky was painted on the roof, while the seats were made com­fortable by a pair of cushions. Next to it stood a more ordinary but larger carriage, with four wheels, and again a cowhide hood; and near­by, silent, but somewhat perturbed by our presence, stood two rather old and neglected horses.

  Taking advantage of the faint light of the lamp, I looked inside the coach. Hanging behind the back seat, I discovered a large crucifix. From the wooden cross there hung a little iron cage which contained a glass sphere, within which was visible a small, indistinct brownish mass.

  Atto too had approached, to illuminate the interior of the carriage.

  "It must be a relic," said he, bringing his lantern closer. "But we must not waste time."

  All around us lay buckets for washing the carriages, and combs, currycombs and horse-brushes (which almost caused us to trip up noisily).

  Without tarrying any longer than necessary, we identified a door­way which, in all probability, led i
nto a house. I tried the door care­fully. It was closed.

  In disappointment, I turned towards Abbot Melani. He too seemed to be hesitating. We could certainly not dream of forcing the lock, thus risking being surprised by the house's inhabitants and perhaps facing a double sentence, for escaping and for attempted housebreaking.

  I was just thinking how fortunate we had been not to chance upon anyone in the stables, when suddenly I saw a monstrous hooked hand clutch at Abbot Melani's shoulder. I somehow managed to stifle a scream, while Melani stiffened, preparing to confront the stranger who was attacking him from behind. He told me to grab something, a stick, a bucket, anything and to strike the attacker. Too late. The individual was between us.

  It was Ugonio. I saw Atto blanch with terror, so much so that he suffered a fit of dizziness and had to sit down for a few minutes.

  "Idiot, you almost killed me with fright. I told you to remain down below."

  "Ciacconio has scented a presence. He desiderates to be commandeered."

  "Very well, let us return down the stairs and... but what have you in your hand?"

  Ugonio held out both his forearms and looked questioningly at both his hands, as though he did not know what Atto was referring to. In his right hand, however, he grasped the crucifix with the relic which we had seen hanging inside the carriage.

  "Put it straight back," ordered Abbot Melani. "No one must know that we have entered this place."

  After grudgingly returning the crucifix to its place, Ugonio ap­proached the closed door and brought his face close to the keyhole, examining the lock.

  "What are you wasting time with, animal? Can you not see that it is closed and that there is no light on the other side?" Atto rebuked him.

  "It may be that the portal can be unclavitated. To obtain, of course, more benefice than malefice," replied Ugonio, without losing his composure. And from his filthy overcoat he produced as though by enchantment an enormous iron ring to which were tied dozens, indeed hundreds of keys of the most varied styles and dimensions.

  Atto and I were astounded. At once, Ugonio began with feline rapidity to sort through that clinking mass. In a few moments, his claws stopped at an old half-rusted key.

  "Now Ugonio unclavitates and, if one is not to be a rustic phy­sician, by fulfilling one's obligations the Christian's jubilations are increased," said he, cackling with laughter as he turned the key in the lock. The mechanism opened with a click.

  Later, the two corpisantari would explain this last surprise of theirs. To gain access to the underground city, they often needed to make their way through cellars, store-rooms or doors which were locked or padlocked. In order to resolve the problem (and, as Ugonio insisted, "by decreasing the scrupules rather than increasing the scruples") the pair had dedicated themselves to the methodical corruption of dozens of servants, serving-maids and menservants. Well aware that the owners of the houses and villas who possessed the keys would never, but never, allow them to lay their hands on them, the two corp- isantari had haggled with servants to obtain copies of those keys. In exchange, they passed some of their precious relics to the servants. They had, of course, made sure that in the course of such traffick­ing, they did not release the best items of their collection. At times, however, they had been constrained to make painful sacrifices; for the key to a garden through which one obtained access to catacombs near the Via Appia, they had, for instance, had to give up a fragment of Saint Peter's shoulder-blade. It was less than obvious how they succeeded in such bargaining, what with Ciacconio's garglings and Ugonio's circumlocutions, yet it was clear that they possessed the keys to the cellars and palace foundations of a goodly part of the city. And those doors for which they did not possess the keys could often be opened with one of the many other more or less similar ones in their possession.

  Therefore, once the door from the stable had been opened with Ugonio's key, we could be sure that we were in an inhabited house. Muffled by distance, we could hear sounds and voices drifting down from the upper floors. Before extinguishing the only lantern that we still had lit, a few seconds remained in which to take in our surround­ings. We had entered a great kitchen, full of dishes, with a huge caul­dron, three smaller ones, iron pans, basins large and small, copper cooking pots, moulds with iron handles, various stoves, kettles, jugs and coffee pots. All the kitchen equipment was hanging on the wall or kept in a sideboard of silver poplar wood or in a small cupboard, and almost all were of the best quality, as I would have wished the few utensils at my disposal in the kitchen of the Donzello to be. We crossed the room, taking care not to make any noise by tripping over one of the cooking pots that lay on the floor.

  At the opposite end of the kitchen, there was another door; and through this we entered the next room. We were forced to light the lantern for a moment, but I covered it prudently with my hand.

  We found ourselves facing a four-poster bed with a striped yel­low and red satin cover. On either side stood a pair of little wooden tables and, in a corner, a simple chair, covered in worn stamped leath­er. Judging by the old furnishings, and by a certain stale and stuffy odour, the chamber must have been in disuse.

  We gestured to Ugonio to go back and wait for us in the stable: in the event of our having to beat a rapid retreat, two intruders might perhaps succeed in escaping, but with three, we should certainly be in worse trouble.

  The chamber which we had just visited also had a second door. After again extinguishing the lantern, we listened carefully at that doorway. The residents' voices seemed distant enough for us to risk opening it, which we did most delicately, entering another, fourth, space. We were now in the entrance-hall of the house. The front door, as we could sense despite the almost complete darkness, was to our left. In front of us, at the end of a little corridor, began a spiral staircase, set into the wall and leading to the upper storey. From the top of the stairs, there filtered an uncertain glimmer which just ena­bled us to find our way.

  With extreme caution, we approached the stairs. The noises and speech which we had first heard in the distance now seemed to have almost died out. Mad and foolhardy though the idea seemed to me, Atto began to climb the stairs, and I behind him.

  Halfway up the stairs, between the ground and the first floor, we found a little room lit by a candelabrum, with various fine objects in it which we stopped briefly to examine. 1 was astounded by the wealth of the furnishings, the like of which I had never seen before: we must be in the house of a well-to-do gentleman. The abbot ap­proached a little inlaid walnut table covered with a green cloth. He raised his eyes and discovered a number of fine paintings: an Annun­ciation, a Pieta, a Saint Francis with Angels in a gold-bordered walnut frame, another picture representing John the Baptist, a little picture on paper with a tortoiseshell and gilt frame and, lastly, a plaster oc­tagon bas-relief representing Mary Magdalene. I saw a wash-stand which seemed to me to be in pear-wood, turned with great art and skill. Above it, there hung a small copper and gold crucifix with a cross fashioned from ebony. Completing the little parlour, there was a little table in light-coloured wood with its fine little drawers, and two chairs.

  In a few more steps, we reached the first floor, which seemed at first to be deserted and enveloped in gloom. Atto Melani pointed out to me the next flight, leading even higher, and on which the light fell clearer and stronger. We craned our necks and saw that on the wall by the stairs was a sconce with four large candles, beyond which one came to the second floor, where, in all probability, the people of the house were at that moment.

  We remained briefly immobile on the stairs, listening intently. There was not a sound; we continued to climb. Suddenly, however, a loud noise startled us. A door on the first floor had been opened and then roughly slammed, and in the interval we heard two men's voices, too confused to be intelligible. Gradually, we heard steps ap­proaching the stairs from the chambers. Atto and I looked at one an­other in confusion; hurriedly, we rushed up the four or five remaining stairs. Beyond the sconce, we fou
nd a second little room halfway up, and there we halted, hoping that the footsteps would not continue up the stairs, in the direction of our temporary hiding place. We were lucky. We heard one door close, and then another, until we could hear neither footsteps nor the two men's voices.

  Crouching awkwardly in the little room halfway up the stairs, Atto and I exchanged looks of relief. Here too, a candelabrum afforded us sufficient light. Once we had recovered our breath and allowed our panic to subside, we took a look around us. Around the walls of the second small room, we discovered tall and well-stocked bookshelves, with many volumes placed in good order. Abbot Melani took one in his hand and examined the frontispiece.

  It was a Life of the Blessed Margaret of Cortona, by an unknown au­thor. Atto closed the book and returned it to its place. There then passed through his hands: the first of an eight-volume Theatrum Vitae Humanae, a Life of Saint Philip Neri, a Fundamentum Doctrinae motus gravium Vitali Iordani, a Tractatus de Ordine Iudiciorum, a fine edition of the Institutiones ac meditationes in Graecam linguam, a French grammar, and lastly, a book which explained The Art of Learning to Die a Good Death.