Before they parted, at three in the morning, they agreed they would return to the gazebo at the same time – ‘But not tomorrow,’ Letizia whispered sweetly. ‘If we do it every night, we will look exhausted, it will show on our faces.’ And so, for the rest of his stay, it was one night on and one night off – their trysts unnoticed and their behaviour, in the company of the count and Letizia’s other admirers, no different from what it had been before.
Six
1
The Castel Sant’Angelo, the huge cylindrical fortress on the west bank of the Tiber, had been built in the early second century as a mausoleum for the Emperor Hadrian and members of his family. Three hundred years later, it was converted into a fortress – surrounded by ramparts and crowned by castellated walls within which were barracks, the papal treasury, prison cells and elegant quarters with frescoed walls in which popes and cardinals, when necessity demanded, could take refuge from their foes. In 1753 a magnificent bronze statue of St Michael the Archangel wielding his sword had been erected on the pinnacle of the castle reminding anyone who might choose to besiege it that supernatural as well as natural forces could be enlisted in its defence.
The principal duty of the soldiers who formed the garrison of the Castel Sant’Angelo was to guard the papal treasury and protect the pontiff should the city of Rome fall into the hands of his enemies: this had happened in 1527 when the unpaid German soldiers of the Emperor Charles V ran amok – murdering, raping and pillaging the inhabitants of the Holy City while the then Pope, Clement VII, looked on helplessly from its ramparts. But there was a secondary duty, which was to act as gaolers of the prisoners consigned to the Castel Sant’Angelo. These were not ordinary criminals but those convicted by the Holy Inquisition of moral sedition, or committed by a lettre de cachet of the Pope – an order that could not be disputed in the courts and that was used sparingly, often as a favour to some illustrious family to prevent a spendthrift son running up more debts, or a lovelorn heir marrying an unsuitable bride.
In Spain or in Venice, the Inquisition was feared for its arbitrary and despotic powers. In Rome at the time it was a relatively benign institution whose main concern was to preserve the integrity of the Catholic faith. One or two prisoners such as the occultist Cagliostro had been imprisoned for dabbling in black magic, much in fashion at the time. Freemasonry, also in fashion, was considered a serious crime and those who attempted to found lodges would be sent to the Castel Sant’Angelo: so too those, whether or not they were Freemasons, who disseminated the dangerous ideas put forward by the French philosophes that priests were parasites and there was no God.
The half-dozen or so prisoners whom Scarpia had charge of during his tours of duty were housed in rooms with views towards St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Palace. They were allowed to read and to write and to receive visitors, though, since the visitors would themselves become suspect, there were few of them. The chief source of suffering, then, beyond the deprivation of liberty, was boredom, and, given the approval from the Pope for a compassionate regime, Scarpia sometimes alleviated that boredom – and, indeed, his own – by entering into conversation with some of his prisoners.
One in particular, Count Vicenzo Palmieri, was agreeable company, and Scarpia liked to spend time talking to him in his cell. He was around the same age as Scarpia – thin, good-looking, but with, on occasions, a crazed look in his eyes. He came from an ancient Roman family, and had been sent on a tour of Europe north of the Alps from which he had returned with a mind filled with new ideas – democracy, which he had witnessed in England, industriousness, which he had seen in the Netherlands, and, finally, the free thought of Voltaire and the philosophes he had found in France. In Paris he had joined a Masonic Lodge that included pupils of the painter Jacques-Louis David. David was then at the French Academy in Rome, and on his return Palmieri had looked him up and was shown David’s work in progress, Oath of the Horatii. Intoxicated with the idea that the Romans should throw off their tyrannical ruler and re-establish a republic like that defended by the Horatii, Palmieri had set out to recruit some of his friends into the Masons and conspire with them to depose the Pope.
Palmieri’s project never got off the ground. The writings of ‘Monsù Voltaire’, as he was known by the Romans, were regarded as ridiculous and malign – the work of the Devil from which one was protected by a quick sign of the cross. The only Romans who took an interest in the French Encyclopaedists were the spies of the Inquisition. Free-thinking was tolerated among the French students at their Academy, but in a native Roman it was considered seditious. Palmieri was arrested, summoned before the Inquisition and, after refusing to recant, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Castel Sant’Angelo.
Scarpia had read some of the works of ‘Monsù Voltaire’ in his father’s library; and had discussed with his father the ideas of the Encyclopaedists. He was therefore curious to know why the young Palmieri was so sure of his convictions. At first Palmieri would not be drawn; he treated his gaoler with a simmering contempt, calling him the Pope’s sbirro, the Romans’ derisive term for a policeman. He received the few favours that Scarpia granted him with no word of thanks, as if it were Scarpia who should feel grateful to be of service to a Roman patrician. Then, little by little, he lowered his guard, dropped his stern demeanour and began to give Scarpia looks of appreciation, if not gratitude, that seemed to acknowledge that two men of the same age and speaking the same language might have something in common.
‘Are you not ashamed of what you do?’ he once asked Scarpia when he was making a routine inspection of his cell.
‘It is one of my duties,’ said Scarpia, as he cursorily sifted through Palmieri’s belongings.
‘Yes, of course, you must obey orders, and the gaoler must search his prisoner’s cell. But you might be ashamed of serving a relic from the Middle Ages, the supreme hypocrite, who even as he claims to be the successor to a Galilean fisherman, lives the life of a pagan despot.’
Scarpia, unused to hearing the Pope referred to in this way, controlled his indignation. ‘He lives according to tradition. He is not simply the successor to St Peter and Bishop of Rome. He is also sovereign of the Papal States.’
‘An absurdity based upon a fraud,’ said Palmieri. ‘The famous Donation of Constantine has been shown to be a forgery; and anyway, a state belongs to its people, not to any emperor, and so was not Constantine’s to give away.’
‘So you are a democrat?’ asked Scarpia, using the term that most Romans would find insulting.
‘Of course I am a democrat,’ said Palmieri. ‘It is not the will of a priest that should govern a nation, but the will of the people.’
‘And how is that will to be expressed?’
‘By elections to a parliament, as in England.’
‘Don’t the English have a king?’
‘Yes, they have a king.’
‘And not everyone has a vote, I understand.’
‘No, not everyone has a vote. But here no one has a vote.’
‘Except the cardinals. It is they who chose our oriental despot.’
‘Cardinals who have been appointed by a previous pope.’
‘Some of them good men, and so some popes are good men.’
‘Some may be better than others, but whoever they are they live extravagantly off the widows’ mites and share the spoils with members of their family – Duke Braschi, for example, who has built a palace to rival that of the Farnese.’
‘It is the custom,’ said Scarpia.
‘A corrupt custom. The endowments made by the devout over the centuries were to provide for those who would pray for their salvation, not for the idle and grandiose living of prelates or the relatives of the Pope.’
‘No one starves in Rome. There is much charity.’
‘Charity indeed! They divert a trickle to the people from the flood of revenues from the universal Church. What cardinal lives in evangelical poverty? What parasitic priest would, if he truly believed in Ch
rist, be able to look Christ in the face at the Last Judgement? I tell you, they don’t worry about judgement because they don’t believe in the whole farrago any more than I do! But why question a system when it provides for them so well?’
Scarpia frowned. ‘You fail to distinguish between weakness and treachery. St Peter was weak; he disowned the Lord and the cock crew; but Judas was treacherous: he sold his Saviour to the Chief Priests. His Holiness may be weak like Peter, but today’s Judas is a French philosopher. He denies and he betrays.’
‘For fifty pieces of silver? No. Our reward is persecution and imprisonment, while it is the priests who receive the fifty pieces of silver – and more!’
Palmieri’s contemptuous tone – lèse-majesté veering on blasphemy – made Scarpia uncomfortable, and he now finished his search of the prisoner’s quarters in silence. However, he continued the dialogue in his mind. And when he returned the next day he had prepared a reply.
‘There are a hundred reasons why things are as they are. First, the Church must be resplendent and the faithful want it to be so: think of the Transfiguration of Christ. And with riches comes power, and with power authority, and with authority the establishment of truth.’
‘What truth?’ asked Palmieri contemptuously.
‘The truth of the Gospels. The truth that God became man and died to secure our salvation.’
‘Salvation from what?’
‘Why, from damnation.’
‘Damnation! A fairy tale to frighten the people into submission.’
‘So, after death? What awaits us?’
‘Nothing. It’s the end.’ Palmieri swatted a fly with the palm of his hand. ‘Like that. The end.’
‘There is no eternal life?’
‘No.’
‘No God?’
Palmieri hesitated. ‘A Supreme Being, perhaps, who has designed a universe that we can understand through scientific discovery, but not a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – that absurd concoction of nitpicking theologians.’
‘And how does this Supreme Being tell us what is right and what is wrong?’
‘There is no need. It is self-evident, as the Americans say in their Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”’ Palmieri, who spoke some English, recited the famous phrase parrot-wise in that language to impress Scarpia and then, with a look of condescension, gave his own Italian translation.
‘All men are created equal?’ said Scarpia. ‘Yet some of the gentlemen who wrote these fine words own slaves!’
Palmieri blushed. ‘It is an institution that will wither with time.’
‘Like the papacy, perhaps?’
‘We will not wait for that to wither. The tyrant will be overthrown.’
2
Scarpia’s arguments with Palmieri invariably ended with the prisoner growing excited, standing (if he was seated), looking away from his gaoler to an imaginary gathering and declaiming as if to a crowd. This was the moment for Scarpia to withdraw and, while he could well understand why a young man who was so eloquent and personable but had such seditious ideas should be prevented from infecting others, he could not see his foolishness as evil and admired his passion for justice – even if his idea of justice would, if implemented, turn the world upside down.
Certainly, his discussions with Palmieri were more interesting than the exchanges with most of those he met at the conversazioni in the palazzi where he was now made welcome. There were a few, he realised, who held views similar to those of Palmieri – even the odd suave abate who had spent time in Paris and, in the same way as a woman might return wearing a dress in the latest French fashion, would discreetly drop hints that they had adopted some of the philosophes’ ‘enlightened’ ideas. They never said anything that would land them in trouble should it come to the ears of the Inquisition, but would whisper and perhaps giggle as they let it be known that they had in their possession some racy novel such as Thérèse Philosophe; and, with even greater discretion, persuade some hesitant lady that the bon ton in Versailles considered both clerical celibacy and wifely chastity as vices rather than virtues.
Scarpia considered himself immune to contagion by these new ideas – whether whispered in the salons or proclaimed by the would-be Brutus, Count Palmieri. First of all, he did not see his liaison with the Contessa di Comastri as a virtue; nor the asceticism of a priest like Father Simone as a vice. He preferred the gentle ‘philosophy’, if it can be called that, of Ludovico di Marcisano, whom he encountered at the Marcisanos’ receptions. Ludovico was tall, with a gangling figure, even features and the kind of aquiline nose found on the senators in ancient Rome whose busts lined the galleria of the Palazzo Marcisano. Ludovico was aware of this likeness and, after the friendly glance that welcomed Scarpia, he rarely looked into his eyes, or those of anyone else, keeping his head in profile as if posing for the sculptor. He was proud of belonging to one of the thirty leading families of the Roman aristocracy, and would frequently bring up his descent from the Roman consul Lucius Porcius Cato: ‘Of course it can’t be proved, but it has been a rumour in the family for the past thousand years.’
Unlike Count Palmieri, Ludovico had not made a grand tour of northern Europe; indeed, he had never travelled outside the Papal States. Like Scarpia, he had been taught by a former Jesuit and from him had learned Latin and history – the former important not because he envisaged a career in the Church, but because, combined with history, it enabled him to research his ancestry and establish, if possible, that his descent from Lucius Porcius Cato was not just a rumour but a fact. He hunted, gambled for small sums and played pelote with his friends. He felt it his duty to go to receptions in the other palazzi and be seen in his coach on the Corso. He belonged to a number of religious fraternities and regarded doing charitable works necessary to his self-respect. Following the example of his father, he welcomed anyone who wished to look at the works of art that formed his family’s collection, though he himself knew little about the masterpieces assembled from the time of the Renaissance, seeing them simply as part of the decor suitable for the dwelling of a prince.
Ludovico di Marcisano was three years older than Scarpia, who at first felt flattered that the prince should treat him with such familiarity, then noticed that he treated his grooms and footmen in just the same way – as likely to ask his coachman for an opinion on a new opera as one of his noble friends. The touchy Scarpia then felt foolish for having assumed that the young prince’s friendliness was specific to him; but later saw that Ludovico in fact sought out his company and was almost in awe of both his heroics in the Apennines and his ability to discuss and dismiss the ideas of the French philosophes. He could, of course, speak French, but he considered reading books a pastime for clerics, not princes. He was no simpleton, but felt that his faith was a sufficient source of wisdom, and that it was therefore futile to unpick the certainties of religion with clever arguments and preposterous speculation.
It reassured Ludovico that Scarpia, who had at least read some of the books in question, shared his views. He liked to recruit him, and cite him as an authority, in arguments with his sister Paola who, though by no means a free-thinker, liked to taunt her brother with difficult questions. Would Jesus approve of the successor to St Peter living in numerous sumptuous palaces? How does Jesus’s admonition to turn the other cheek fit in with the halberds of the Pope’s Swiss Guard, and the raising of a pontifical army – this with a impertinent sidelong glance at Scarpia. Did he not rebuke Peter, who cut off the ear of the Chief Priest’s servant with a sword? And what of Jesus’s injunction to the rich young man to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor? Did her brother mean to do that when he came into his inheritance? ‘No,’ replied Ludovico, ‘only your dowry.’ ‘Who cares about a dowry?’ said Paola. ‘If I were to marry – if – it would be to a ma
n who loved me for myself, not for my dowry.’
Paola, being unmarried, was kept under strict surveillance, and Scarpia was only tangentially involved in these conversations. Unlike Ludovico, who made no distinction between Scarpia and his other friends – most from the patrician families – she never addressed Scarpia directly. However, it often seemed as if she was in fact addressing Scarpia through Ludovico. She rarely looked him in the eye – but directed darting looks at him every now and then to judge his reaction to something she had said.
Such a look was aimed at Scarpia after what she had said about a dowry. Her head did not turn towards him; her eyes were momentarily half closed as if their direction could be somehow camouflaged by her long eyelashes; but Scarpia caught it all the same and was puzzled. Was he expected to make a rejoinder? What was he expected to say about dowries without which no girl could hope to get married?
‘It is something of a luxury to forgo a dowry,’ he said. ‘Something only a princess could afford.’
Paola frowned. ‘How so, a luxury?’
‘Because she knows that her parents would never let her starve, whereas a girl from Trastevere, say, who brought no dowry to a marriage, would have no roof over her head.’
‘Love should be above such sordid calculations.’
‘Love, perhaps, but marriage is about more than love.’
Ludovico moved away, apparently afraid that the topic might turn from the general to the particular – a husband for Paola and a wife for himself. And as soon as he was out of earshot, Paola for once did look Scarpia in the eye, her voice low, her cheeks scarlet, and said: ‘Were you thinking of a dowry when you rescued that Spanish girl from a Turk in Algiers?’
Scarpia now blushed as deeply as she did. ‘You know about that?’
‘Of course. Everyone knows. We were told by Azara.’
Scarpia Page 10
