For a while, I tried to overcome the periodic waves of anger I felt over the whole business. Thinking back to how it had all started, and recalling the phrase, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, I’d become enraged, frustrated at not knowing how I could have been chosen like that only to be discarded so soon after and left to my fate. At the core of it all, I couldn’t accept the fact that Fovel had simply disappeared without giving me the chance to see him one last time.
In this way, little by little, worn away by the steady erosion of time’s passing, Luis Fovel and the text of his little puzzle lost themselves in the oblivion of my notebooks. Only God knows why I now suddenly felt the need to retrieve them and share them with whoever has managed to make it to these last pages. Twenty years later I’m still no wiser as to why all of this should have happened to me, only this time, having put it all in writing for the world to see, I hold out the faint hope that someone out there will finally figure out the meaning of the puzzle that Father Juan Luis entrusted to me at El Escorial the last time I saw him. Who can say? Perhaps this patient reader will manage to find the mysterious Master and put to him the question that I could not.
If that should happen, please let me know.
For now, all I have to prove to myself that this was not merely a dream are these lines, left forgotten for so long in the pages of an old book in the library of El Escorial:
Do not pursue me
Though I hold the key
You seek my name
Unable to see
All of these paintings
I’ve kept from the start
Know that my source
Lies in their art
Against all your efforts
With tooth and with nail
I will keep rending
That terrible veil
Giordano, Titian, Goya
Velázquez, Bosch, and Brueghel
They all went in pursuit
Of that desire universal
Square up to death
In fate put your trust
With eyes opened you know
I will do what I must
Also by New York Times bestselling author Javier Sierra
The Secret Supper
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The Lost Angel
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Lady in Blue
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The Fifth World
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JAVIER SIERRA, whose works have been translated into forty languages, is the author of The Lost Angel, The Lady in Blue, and the New York Times bestselling novel The Secret Supper. One of the most accomplished authors on the Spanish literary scene, Sierra studied journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid. El maestro del Prado spent a year on the bestseller list in Spain, gaining the admiration of art experts, aficionados, and critics. A native of Teruel, Spain, he currently lives in Madrid with his wife and two children.
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NOTES
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Epigraph
1. Synod of Arras, chap. 14 in Sacrorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, ed. by J. D. Mansi, Paris and Leipzig, 1901. Cited by Alberto Manguel, Leer imágenes, Alianza, Madrid, 2000, p. 151.
2. Cited by David Freedberg, Apolo, David, santa Cecilia: música y pintura en algunas obras de Poussin en el Prado, en VV.AA., Historias inmortales, Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores, Barcelona, 2002, p. 240.
3. Juan Rof Carballo, Los duendes del Prado, Espasa-Calpe, Madrid, 1990, p. 80.
4. Ramón Gaya, El sentimiento de la pintura, Arión, Madrid, 1960, p. 167.
Chapter 1: The Master
1. Luke I:5–25.
2. Doctor Fovel is referring to the painting The Visitation (ca. 1517) by Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni, based on a drawing by Raphael.
3. Luke 1:39–45.
4. St. Teresa said something similar: “This vision, though imaginary, I never saw with my corporeal eyes, nor with any others but the eyes of my soul.” The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, 28:5.
5. Read the chapter by Josephine Jungic, “Prophesies of the Angelic Pastor in Sebastiano del Piombo’s Portrait of Cardinal Bandinello Sauli and Three Companions,” in Marjorie Reeves (ed.), Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance Period, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992.
6. This was suggested by a former director of the Prado, Diego Angulo, in response to other unconfirmed theories identifying the subject as Juan de Silva, Marqués of Montemayor and Chief Justice of Toledo.
7. “Prophesies of the Angelic Pastor.”
Chapter 2: Deciphering Raphael
1. Édouard Schuré, Les prophètes de la Renaissance, Perrin, Paris, 1920, p. 181 (a Spanish version exists: Leonardo da Vinci y los profetas del Renacimiento, Abraxas, Barcelona, 2007, p. 162).
2. I devoted an entire chapter of my book, La Ruta Prohibida (Planeta, Barcelona, 2007, p. 285) to the amazing story of the multiple versions of The Virgin of the Rocks.
3. Giorgio Vasari, Las vidas de los más excelentes arquitectos, pintores y escultores italianos desde Cimabue a nuestros tiempos (Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects), Cátedra, Madrid, 2002, p. 524.
4. Ibid., p. 525.
5. Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner, Los secretos de la Capilla Sixtina, Aguilar, Madrid, 2010, p. 52.
6. Not everyone agrees with this identification. Some have thought it to be Archimedes or Pythagoras.
Chapter 3: The New Apocalypse
1. This peculiar idea has been emphasized by some experts on Amadeo and his era, and more recently by Martijn van Beek, The Apocalypse of Juan Ricci de Guevara. Literary and iconographical artistry as mystico-theological argument for Mary’s Immaculate Conception, in Immaculatae Conceptionis Conclusio (1663), in the Anuario del Departamento de Historia y Teoría del Arte de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 22 (2010), p. 220.
2. Contract dated April 25, 1483, and made out by the notary Antonio de Capitani. This was the first document to confirm Leonardo’s arrival in Milan.
3. From 1454 to 1457.
4. Without explicitly citing John, Pseudomateo, chap. XVIII mentions the episode of the cave where the Holy Family stayed on the way to Egypt.
5. BNE, ms. 8936, f. 3r.
Chapter 4: Making the Invisible Visible
1. Pier Carpi, Las profecías del papa Juan XXIII, Martínez Roca, Barcelona, 1977, p. 55.
2. Ibid., p. 104.
3. Ibid., p. 127.
4. This is how Christian Jacq described it years later, in El Iniciado, Martínez Roca, Barcelona, 1998, p. 15.
5. Moreover, Christian tradition also refers to Thomas as Dídimo, which in Greek also means “twin.”
6. In his Estudios sobre iconología (Alianza, Madrid, 1972), the erudite Erwin Panofsky defined Florence’s Platonic Academy as, “A select group of men united by friendship, a shared liking for ingenuity and human culture, a near-religious veneration for Plato and the greatest admiration for the generous and kind sage, Marsilio Ficino.” I cannot think of a better description for the place where the seed of the Renaissance was originally planted.
7. Marsilio Ficino, On the Platonic Nature. Instructions and function of the Philosopher, in Meditations on the Soul, Inner Traditions International, Rochester, VT, 1996, p. 88.
8. See my novel Las puertas templa
rias (The Templar Gates) (Martínez Roca, Barcelona, 2000) for a full treatment of this idea in fictional form.
9. Manuel Ríos Mazcarelle, Savonarola: una tragedia del Renacimiento, Merino, Madrid, 2000, p. 132.
10. Marsilio Ficino, In Platonis Alcibiadem Epitome, bibl. 90, p. 133: Est autem homo anima rationalis, mentis particeps, corpore utens.
11. Marsilio Ficino, Theologia Platonica, III, 2, bibl. 90, p. 119.
Chapter 5: The Two Baby Jesuses
1. I ended up publishing an article based on those notes entitled “Prophesies and War,” in the magazine Más Allá de la Ciencia, in a March 1991 issue devoted to the Gulf War, pp. 30–35.
2. “Paiporta: los ángeles y el Libro de las dos mil páginas,” in Más Allá de la Ciencia magazine, 14 (April 1990), pp. 76–83. I also used part of his story in a book that I wrote years later with Jesus Callejo, La España extraña, DeBolsillo, Barcelona, 2007, pp. 239–42.
3. Thomas Aquinas, Suma Teológica, part 1, question 51, objection 3.
4. Romano Giudicissi and Maribel García Polo, Los dos niños Jesús: historia de una conspiración, Muñoz Moya y Montraveta, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 1987.
5. Ibid., p. 25.
6. This idea fully developed in Giorgio I. Spadaro’s The Esoteric Meaning in Raphael’s Paintings, Lindisfarne Books, Great Barrington, MA, 2006.
Chapter 6: Little Ghosts
1. Carta de Victorino Novo and G. M. Curros, in El Heraldo Gallego, July 18, 1876.
2. VV.AA., Corona fúnebre a la memoria del inspirado escritor y poeta gallego Teodosio Vesteiro Torres, El Correo Gallego, Orense, 1877.
Chapter 7: Botticelli, Heretic Painter
1. Francesc Cambó, Memorias (1876–1936), Alianza, Madrid, 1987, p. 403.
2. David Cast, Boccaccio, Botticelli y la historia de Nastagio degli Onesti, en VV.AA., Historias inmortales, Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2002, p. 74.
3. This happened around 1478. The tavern was named Sandro and Leonardo’s Banner of the Three Frogs. The two artists jointly designed the sign, which is now lost.
4. Giorgio Vasari, Las vidas, p. 414.
5. The first person to establish a connection between the sermon—which we know by reference only—and the painting was John Pope Hennessy, in Sandro Botticelli, the Nativity in the National Gallery, The Gallery Books, London, 1947, p. 8.
6. In the original:
ΤΑΥΤНΝ ΓΡΑΦНΝ ΕΝ ΤΩΙ ΤΕΛΕΙ ΤΟΥ Χ ΣΣΣΣΣ ΕΤΟΥΣ ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΤΑΡ[ΑΧ]ΑΙΣ ΤНΣ ΙΤΑΛΙΑΣ Α ΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΕΓΩ ΕΝ ΤΩΙ ΜΕΤΑ ΧΡΟΝΟΝ НΜΙΧΡΟΝΩΙ ΕΓΡΑΦΟΝ ΠΑΡΑ ΤΟ ΕΝΔΕΚ/ΑΤΟΝ ΤΟΥ ΑΓΙΟΥΙΩΑΝΝΟΥΕΝ ΤΩΙ ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΕΩΣ ΒΩΙΟΥΑΙ ΕΝ ΤНΙ ΑΥΣΕΙ ΤΩΝ Γ ΚΑΙ НΜΙΣΥ ΕΤΩΝ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΑΒΟΛΟΥ ΕΠΕΙΤΑ ΔΕΣΜΟ ΘНΣΕΤΑΙ ΕΝ ΤΩΙ ΙΒΩΙ ΚΑΙ ΒΛΕΥΟΜΕΝ . . . ΝΟΝ ΟΜΟΙΟΝ ΤНΙ ΠΡΑΦНΙ ΤΑΥΤНΙ.
7. This is how it was described in his Convivio de’ segreti della Scriptura Santa, published around 1508.
8. Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1969, p. 438.
9. John Dee is one of the pivotal historical characters in my novel, El angel perdido (The Lost Angel) Planeta, Barcelona, 2011. I recommend this book for anyone who wishes to know more about him.
Chapter 9: Titian’s Secret
1. His paintings include Orillas del Azañón (1858), Desembocadura del Bidasoa (1865), Torre de las Damas (1871), Alcalá de Guadaira (ca. 1890), and his magnificent Vista de Venecia (ca. 1900).
2. See my book, La ruta prohibida y otros enigmas de la Historia, Planeta, Barcelona, 2007, where I discuss this.
3. Instructions from Charles V to Philip II, Augsburg, January 18, 1548. Cited by Manuel Fernández Álvarez in Carlos V, el César y el hombre, Espasa, Madrid, 1999, p. 705.
4. Juan de Mariana, Historia de España, vol. VII, bk. 5, Francisco Oliva Impresor, Barcelona, p. 497.
5. Cited by Gabriele Finaldi in La Gloria de Tiziano, in VV. AA., Tiziano y el legado veneciano, Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2005, p. 115.
Chapter 10: Charles and the Lance of Christ
1. The steel and gold armor in which Charles V posed for this painting can be found in the armory of the Royal Palace in Madrid. In comparing the actual armor to the painting, one can see just how faithful Titian was to the original.
2. John 19:34–37. “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.”
3. A good summary of these myths can be found in Trevor Ravenscroft’s El pacto satánico, Robinbook, Barcelona, 1991.
Chapter 11: The Prado’s Holy Grail
1. Good examples include the Holy Basin, in Genoa, a hexagonal plate recovered during the First Crusade in Caesarea Maritima, between what are today Haifa and Tel Aviv; a marble glass kept in Troyes Cathedral, in France, which was destroyed during the French Revolution; the chalice of O Cebreiro, on the Way of St. James, which brought about the depiction of the Holy Grail on the shield of Galicia; or the Chalice of Ardagh, a piece of metalwork dating from the eighth century. Others believe that it still lies buried in Rosslyn Chapel, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, or on Oak Island, or in Glastonbury, none of which are very likely historical candidates to be the resting place of this invaluable relic.
2. Antonio Beltrán, Estudio sobre el Santo Cáliz de la catedral de Valencia, Instituto Diocesano Valentino Roque Chabás, Valencia, 1984.
3. November 8, 1982. More recently, Pope Benedict XVI did the same, on July 8, 2006.
4. Around twenty different paintings of Christ with the Eucharist were thought to have been produced by Juanes or his studio over the years. Almost all of them show the Holy Grail either in front of Jesus or in his hands. Aside from the two in the Prado (one of these—depicting the conventional chalice—came from Fuente la Higuera and is thought to be the first one painted by the artist; the other one shows the St. Lawrence grail), there are other notable examples in the Valencia City Hall and Cathedral, in the parish of Sot de Chera (Valencia), the parish of Jávea (Alicante), in the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest, in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano in Madrid, and in the John Ford Collection in London and the Grasses Collection in Barcelona. There are also the Benimarfull (Alicante), Sueca (Valencia), and Segorbe (Castellón) examples, and others in various parishes around the Spanish Levante, though their exact whereabouts are unknown. Many were undoubtedly destroyed during the Spanish Civil War.
5. Antonio Palomino, El museo pictórico y escala óptica, vol. 3: El parnaso español, pintoresco y laureado, Aguilar, Madrid, 1947, p. 88. The original work, also in three volumes, is from 1715–24.
6. Barón de Alcalahí, Diccionario biográfico de artistas valencianos, F. Domenech, Valencia, 1897, p. 173.
7. Marcos Antonio de Orellana, Biografía pictórica valenciana, edition prepared by Xavier de Salas, in Fuentes literarias para la Historia del Arte español, Madrid, 1930, p. 57.
8. This story, mentioned by the painter Francisco Pacheco, was included by Richard Cumberland in his Anecdotes of eminent painters in Spain, vol. 1, J. Walter, London, 1782, p. 149; and before this, also by the Jesuit Father Juan Eusebio Nieremberg in Firmamento religioso de luzidos astros en algunos claros varones de la Compañía de Iesús vol. 2, María de Quiñones, Madrid, 1644, p. 553.
Chapter 12: Mister X
1. Some historians have referred to this belief of the king’s, albeit in passing. One notable reference is Geoffrey Parker’s Felipe II: la biografía definitiva, Planeta, Barcelona, 2010, p. 951.
Chapter 13: The Garden of Earthly Delights
1. Fray José de Sigüenza, La fundación del monasterio de El Escorial, Aguilar, Madrid, 1
988, p. 367. The original work is from 1605.
2. Juan Rof Carballo, op. cit., p. 153.
3. “Gens absque consilio est et sine prudentia. Utinam saperent et intelligerent ac novissima providerent.” Deuteronomy 32:28–29.
4. “Abscondam faciem meam ab eis et considerabo novissima eorum.” Deuteronomy 32:20.
5. I’m not imagining this. In fact, the painting is also known as The Painting of the Strawberry Tree, possibly because of this one detail, which would have been unmistakable to the inhabitants of Philip II’s Madrid. In 1593, when Philip acquired it and had it sent to El Escorial to add to his collection, it was recorded in the monastery’s register of acquisitions, as, “a painting of the variety of the world, called ‘of the Strawberry Tree.’ ” As everyone is aware, since the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the symbol of the bear and the fruit tree have represented the inhabitants of this part of the Iberian Peninsula. Why this should appear where it does in The Garden of Earthly Delights is yet another of the painting’s mysteries.
6. Genesis 1:18.
7. Wilhelm Fraenger, Hieronymus Bosch: Il Regno Milenario, Abscondita, Milán, 2006, pp. 82–83.
8. Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion (Adversus haereses), LXXII.
9. St. Augustine (Augustine of Hippo), De haeresibus, XXXI.
10. This idea was most recently suggested by Hans Belting, in El jardín de las delicias, Abada, Madrid, 2012, p. 71ff.
The Master of the Prado Page 24
