by Rita Monaldi
It was the sound of moaning to my right that caught my attention. I turned and saw Signor Pellegrino, sitting up in bed with his back resting against the wall, holding his head in his hands. Exceedingly surprised and delighted to see him in better condition (since the onset of his illness, he had indeed never raised his head from the pillow) I rushed to him and bombarded him with questions.
His only response was to drag himself with difficulty to the edge of the bed and to glance at me absently, without uttering a sound.
Disappointed, and also worried by his inexplicable silence, I rushed to fetch Cristofano.
The doctor came running at once and, trembling with surprise, began hurriedly to examine Pellegrino. But, just when the Tuscan was observing his eyes at close quarters, Pellegrino emitted a thundering flatus ventris. This was followed swiftly by a light eructation and then more flatulence. Cristofano needed only a few minutes to understand.
"He is somnolent, I would say aboulic; perhaps he has yet to wake up properly. His colours are still unhealthy. True, he is not speaking, but I do not despair that he may soon recover completely. The hae- matoma on his head seems to have gone down, and I am no longer so worried about that."
For the time being, Pellegrino seemed utterly stunned and his fever had gone; yet, according to Cristofano, one could not be completely reassured about his condition.
"And why can one not be reassured?" I asked, understanding that the physician was reluctant to entrust me with bad news.
"Your master is suffering from an evident excess of air in the belly. His temperament is bilious and it is rather hot today: that would suggest a need for caution. It will be as well to intervene with an enema, as indeed I already feared that I might have to."
He added that, from that moment onwards, in view of the kind of cures and purgative treatments that he would need, Pellegrino would have to remain alone in his room. We therefore resolved to carry my bedding into the little chamber next door, one of the three that had remained almost completely undisturbed since the death of the former innkeeper, Signora Luigia.
While I was seeing to this quick removal, Cristofano took out from a leather bag a pump with bellows as long as my forearm. At the end of the pump, he inserted a tube, and to that tube, he joined another long, fine one, which ended with a little aperture. He tried out the mechanism a couple of times in order to make sure that the bellows, correctly used, blew air into the conduit and expelled it through the little hole at the end.
Pellegrino assisted at these preparations with an empty stare. I observed him with a mixture of contentment, seeing that he had at last opened his eyes, and apprehension about his bizarre state of health.
"Here we are," said Cristofano at the end of his testing, ordering me to fetch water, oil and a little honey.
Hardly had I returned with the ingredients, when I was surprised to find the doctor busying himself with Pellegrino's half-naked body.
"He is not cooperating. Help me to keep him still."
So I had to help the doctor to denude my master's posterior rotundities, despite his unwillingness to accept the initiative. In the moments that followed, we came close to a struggle (more due to Pellegrino's lack of co-operation than to any real resistance on his part), and I was able to ask Cristofano the purpose of our efforts.
"It is simple," he replied. "I want to make him expel a good deal of useless wind."
And he explained to me that, thanks to the way in which the tubes were arranged at right angles, this particular apparatus enabled one to perform the inflation on one's own, thus saving one's modesty. Pellegrino, however, did not seem to be in any position to look after himself, and so we had to perform the action for him.
"But will it make him feel better?"
Cristofano, almost surprised by the question, said that a clyster (which is the name given by some to this remedy) is always profitable and never harmful: as Redi says, it evacuates the humours in the mildest manner possible, without debilitating the viscera, and without causing them to age, as is the case with medicines taken orally.
While he was pouring the preparation into the bellows, Cristofano praised purgative enemas, but also altering, anodyne, lithotrip- tic, carminative, sarcotic, epulotic, abstergent and astringent ones. The beneficial ingredients were infinite: one could use infusions of flowers, leaves, fruit or seeds of herbs, but also the hooves or head of a castrated lamb, animals' intestines or a broth prepared from worn- out old cocks whose necks had been duly wrung.
"How very interesting," said I, trying to please Cristofano and conceal my own disgust.
"By the way," the physician added, following these useful disquisitions, "in the next few days, the convalescent will have to follow a diet of broths and boiled liquids and waters, in order to recover from so great an extenuation. Today, you will therefore give him half a cup of chocolate, a chicken soup and biscuits dipped in wine. Tomorrow, a cup of coffee, a borage soup and six pairs of cockerel's testicles."
After dealing Pellegrino a series of vigorous piston strokes, Cristofano left him half-naked and charged me with watching over him until the bodily effects of the enema were crowned with success. This happened almost at once, and with such violence, that I could well understand why the doctor had made me remove my things to the little chamber next door.
I went down to prepare luncheon, which the physician had recommended must be light but nutritious. I therefore prepared spelt, boiled in ambrosian almond milk with sugar and cinnamon, followed by a soup of gooseberries in dried fish consomme, with butter, fine herbs and scrambled eggs, which I served with bread sliced and diced, and cinnamon. I dished this up to the guests and asked Dulcibeni, Brenozzi, Devize and Stilone Priaso when it would be convenient to apply the remedies which Cristofano had prescribed against the infection. But all four, taking the meal with signs of irritation, having sniffed it, sighed that for the time being they wanted to be left in peace. I had a suspicion that such unwillingness and irritability had something to do with my inexpert cooking. I therefore promised myself that I would increase the size of the helpings in the future.
After luncheon, Cristofano advised me that Robleda had asked for me, since he needed a little water to drink. I furnished myself with a full carafe and knocked at the Jesuit's door.
"Come in, my son," said he, welcoming me with unexpected urbanity.
And after copiously slaking his thirst, he invited me to sit down. Curious at this behaviour, I asked him if he had had a good night's sleep.
"Ah, tiring, my boy, so tiring," he replied laconically, putting me even more on guard.
"I understand," said I, diffidently.
Robleda's complexion was unwontedly pale, with heavy eyelids and dark bags under his eyes. It looked almost as though he had passed a sleepless night.
"Yesterday, you and I conversed," broached the Jesuit, "but I beg you not to accord too much weight to certain discussions which we may too freely have conducted. Often our pastoral mission encourages us, in order to excite new and more fecund achievements in young minds, to adopt unsuitable figures of speech and rhetorical devices, distilling concepts excessively and indulging in syntactical disorder. The young, on the other hand, are not always ready to receive such fruitful stimulation of the intellect and the heart. The difficult circumstances in which we all find ourselves in this hostelry may also incite us sometimes to interpret others' thoughts erroneously and to formulate our own infelicitously. Therefore, I beg you simply to forget all that we said to each other, especially concerning His Beatitude our most beloved Pope Innocent XI. And, above all, I am deeply concerned that you should not repeat such transitory and ephemeral disquisitions to the guests of the inn. Our reciprocal physical separation might give rise to misunderstandings; I am sure you understand me…"
"Do not worry," I lied, "for I retained little of our conversation."
"Oh, really?" exclaimed Robleda, momentarily vexed. "Well, so much the better. After reconsidering all that was said between us, I f
elt almost oppressed by the weight of such grave discourse: as when one enters the catacombs and, suddenly, being underground, one feels out of breath."
As he moved towards the door to dismiss me, I was astounded by that sentence, which I saw as being highly revealing. Robleda had betrayed himself. I strove swiftly to devise some argument that might prompt him further to expose himself.
"While standing by my promise not to speak again of these matters, I did in truth have one question on my mind concerning His Beatitude Pope Innocent XI, and indeed all popes in general," said I, the moment before he opened the door.
"Speak on."
"Well, that is…" I stammered, trying to improvise, "I wondered whether there exists a way of determining who, among past pontiffs, were good, who were very good and which ones were saints."
"It is curious that you should ask me this. It was just what I was meditating on last night," he replied, almost as though speaking to himself.
"Then I am sure that you will have an answer for me too," I added, hopeful that this might prolong the conversation.
So the Jesuit asked me again to be seated, explaining to me that there had, over the centuries, been an innumerable succession of statements and prophecies concerning the pontiffs, present, past and future.
"This is because," he explained, "especially in this city, everyone knows or thinks that they know the qualities of the reigning pope. At the same time, they lament past popes and hope that the next one will be better, or even that he will be the Angelic Pope."
"The Angelic Pope?"
"He who, according to the prophecy Apocalipsis Nova of the Blessed Amedeo, will restore the Church to its original holiness."
"I do not understand," I interrupted with feigned ingenuousness. "Is the Church, then, no longer holy?"
"I beg of you, my son… Such questions are not to be asked. Rome has always been the target of the propaganda of the papacy's heretical enemies: ever since, a long time ago, the Super Hieremiam and the Oraculum Cyrilli foresaw the fall of the city and Thomas of Pavia announced visions which foretold the collapse of the Lateran Palace, and both Robert d'Uzes and Jean de Rupescissa warned that the same city in which Peter had laid the first stone was now the City of the Two Columns, the seat of the Antichrist. Such prophecies have one aim: to instil the idea that the Church is to be completely demolished and that the pope is not worthy to remain in his post."
"Which pope?"
"Well, unfortunately, such blasphemous attacks have been directed against all the pontiffs."
"Even against His Beatitude, our own Pope Innocent XI?"
Robleda grew solemn, and in his eyes I noted a shadow of suspicion.
"They include all popes, including indeed His Beatitude Pope Innocent XI."
"And what do they foretell?"
I noticed that Robleda was returning to the subject with a bizarre mixture of reluctance and self-indulgence. He resumed in slightly graver tones, and explained to me that, among many others, there existed a prophecy which claimed to know the whole sequence of popes from about the year 1100 until the end of time. And as though for many years he had had nothing else on his mind, he recited from memory an enigmatic series of Latin mottoes: " Ex castro Tiberis, Inimicus expulsus, Ex magnitudine montis, Abbas suburranus, De rure albo, Ex tetro carcere, Via transtiberina, De Pannonia Tusciae, Ex ansere custode, Lux in ostio, Sus incribro, Ensis Laurentii, Ex schola exiet, De rure bovensi, Comes signatus, Canonicus ex latere, Avis ostiensis, Leo sabinus, Comes laurentius,
Jerusalem Campaniae, Draco depressus, Anguineus vir, Concionator gallus, Bonus comes..?
"But these are not the names of popes," said I, interrupting him.
"On the contrary, they are. A prophet read them in the future, before they came into the world, but he identified them by the symbolic mottoes which I have just been reciting for you. The first was Ex castro Tiberis, meaning 'from a castle on the Tiber'. Well, the Pope designated by that motto was Celestine II who was indeed born at Citta di Castello on the banks of the Tiber."
"So the prediction was accurate."
"Indeed, it was. But so was the next one, Inimicus expulsus, which surely indicated Lucius II of the Cacciaenemici family, a precise translation of the Latin which speaks of expelling enemies. The third pope is Ex magnitudine montis this is Eugene III, born in the city of Grammont, which in French is an exact translation of the motto. Number four…"
"These must be very ancient popes," I interrupted. "I have never heard of them."
"They are of great antiquity, it is true. But even the modern ones were foretold with the greatest of exactitude. Jucunditas cruris, number 82 in the prophecy, was Innocent X. And he became pope on the 14th of September, the Feast of the Holy Rood. Montium custos, the guardian of the mountains, number 83, was Alexander VII, who founded the Montes Pietatis* Sydus olorum, or the star of the swans, number 84, is Clement IX. He in fact lived in the Chamber of the Swans in the Vatican. The motto of Clement X, number 85, was De flumine magno or 'from the great river', and he was in fact born in a house by the Tiber, just where the river overflowed its banks."
"So, the prophecy has always come true."
"Let us say that some, indeed many, maintain that," said Robleda indulgently.
At that juncture, he fell silent, as though awaiting a question. In the list of popes foretold by the prophecy, he had stopped at Pope Clement X, number 85. He knew that I would not be able to resist the temptation to ask about the next one: this was His Beatitude Pope Innocent XI, our Pope.
"And what is the motto of number 86?" I asked excitedly. * Monti di Pieta: a system of pawn offices, now run by the Italian State. (Translator's note.)
"Very well, since you ask me…" said the Jesuit with a sigh, "his motto is, shall we say, rather curious."
"And what is it?"
"Belua insatiabilis," said Robleda with a colourless voice, '"insatiable beast'."
I struggled to hide my surprise and dismay. While all the mottoes of the other popes were innocuous enigmas, that of our beloved pontiff was atrocious and menacing.
"But perhaps Our Lord's motto does not refer to his moral qualities!" I objected indignantly, as though seeking reassurance.
"That is unquestionably possible," agreed Robleda tranquilly. "Now that I come to think of it, the arms of the Pope's family include a lion passant gardant and an eagle: in other words, two insatiable beasts. That could be, indeed it must be, the explanation," concluded the Jesuit with a calmness more conniving than any smile.
"In any case, you need lose no sleep over this," he added, "for according to the prophecy, there will be 111 popes all in all, and today we are only at number 86."
"But who will be the last pope?" I insisted.
Robleda frowned and seemed thoughtful.
"From Celestine II, the series includes 111 popes. Towards the end, will come the Pastor angelicus or the Angelic Pope of whom I spoke to you earlier, but he will not be the last. Five popes will indeed follow, and, at the end, says the prophecy, in extrema persecution Sacrae Romanae Ecclesiae sedebit Petrus romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus; quibus transactis, civitas septicollis diruetur, et judex tremendus judicabit populum."
"In other words, Saint Peter will return, Rome will be destroyed and the Last Judgement will come."
"Bravo, that's it exactly."
"And when will that happen?"
"I told you: according to the prophecy, there is still much time to run. But now it would be in order if you were to leave me: I would not wish you to neglect the other guests listening to these unimportant fables."
Disappointed by the sudden ending of the colloquy, and without having succeeded in obtaining any other useful clue from the mouth of Robleda, I was already on the threshold when I realised that I wanted to satisfy one last, this time genuine, curiosity.
"By the way, who is the author of the prophecy of the popes?"
"Oh, a holy monk who lived in Ireland," said Robleda hurriedly, while closing
the door. "He was, I seem to remember, called Malachy."
Excited by the unexpected and alarming news, I ran straight to Atto Melani's chamber at the other end of the same floor, to inform him of it. Hardly had I opened the door than I found the room submerged in a sea of papers, books, old prints and packets of letters, all spread in disorder over the bed and the floor.
"I was studying," said he, welcoming me.
"It is he," said I breathlessly.
And I told him of the colloquy with Robleda in which the latter had without any apparent reason referred to the catacombs. The Jesuit had then (but only because I had encouraged him to talk) begun a lengthy discourse in which he spoke of vaticinations concerning the coming of the Angelic Pope, and then, a prophecy concerning the end of the world after a series of 111 pontiffs, which speaks of an "insatiable beast," who is said to be Our Lord Pope Innocent XI, and in the end he had admitted that the prediction had been made by the Irish prophet Malachy…
"Calm down, calm down," broke in Atto. "I fear that you are becoming somewhat confused. I know that Saint Malachy was an Irish monk who lived a thousand years after Christ, quite different from the Prophet Malachi in the Bible."
I assured him that I knew that perfectly well too, nor was I confusing anything, and I repeated the facts, this time setting them out more calmly.
"Interesting," commented Atto at the end. "Two different prophets called Malachi cross our path in the space of a few hours: too much to be pure coincidence. Padre Robleda mentioned to you that he was meditating on Saint Malachy's prophecy just last night, while we found the chapter from the Book of Malachi in the underground galleries. He claims not to remember the Saint's name with any certainty, yet it is known universally. And then he comes out with the catacombs. That the thief of the keys should be a Jesuit would come as no great surprise to me: they have done far worse than that. I would, however, like to know what he might have been looking for under the ground. Now, that would be really interesting."
