The Wonder Chamber

by Mary Malloy

  Patrizio looked confused. “A girlfriend?”

  “I read in your mother’s correspondence about some visitors that summer, a girl named Theresa Kenney from St. Pat’s, who came with her mother.”

  “Oh yes, Theresa. She wanted to marry me, and her mother wanted it even more. Maybe I should have done it, I have often wondered what my life would have been like if I had.”

  “And Gianna’s German friend, Greta Winkler?”

  Patrizio’s face turned grey at the mention of the name. “She married a Nazi and got what she deserved,” he said softly but intensely. At that, he closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and would not respond to anything more that Lizzie said.

  Chapter 18

  Ulisse Aldrovandi was one of the greatest collectors of the Renaissance. He amassed something like 50,000 objects in his lifetime, and when they outgrew the space available in his family palazzo, he transferred his collection to the University of Bologna in 1590. Aldrovandi was a man of science, and the purpose of the collection was to capture nature, so that it could be organized into categories and understood. For specimens that could not be possessed, because they were too fragile to be preserved by any of the methods known to him, or those which Aldrovandi had observed but not captured, or which had been described to him but never seen, he hired artists to make small drawings and paintings so that they might still be part of his comprehensive catalog of nature, and there were over 8000 of these representations in the collection.

  Unlike the next generation of collectors in Italy, including Ferdinando Cospi and the Gonzagas, Aldrovandi did not collect ethnographic items; he was interested in the world of nature, not the world of humans, and he organized the natural world into three categories: minerals, plants, and animals. In the seventeenth century, the expansion of global trade brought exotic products back to Europe, and collectors like Cospi and the Gonzagas expanded their collecting fields to include them. The new nomenclature of a collection that included both categories was “cabinet of curiosities” and the division of the world was into “natural” curiosities—the sort of thing Aldrovandi had collected and documented—and “artificial” curiosities, the products of human cultures. Many of these collectors were physicians and pharmacists, hoping to find medicinal products among the shriveled plants, earthy minerals, petrified foods, foreign potions, and mummified body parts assembled on their shelves.

  There were also great art collectors at the time. Cosimo di Medici established a private museum in the family palazzo in Florence in 1440 and collected paintings and sculpture by artists who were his contemporaries. That branch of the Gonzaga family who were the Dukes of Mantua had made a similar collection, which was dispersed across Europe around 1630. Unlike scholars with their “cabinets,” from which they hoped to distill useful and scientific information, aristocrats collected to impress, and in their “Wunder Kammer” or “Wonder Chambers” were fine art, antiquities, and things made of precious metals and gemstones.

  As she sat at the library table late in the evening after visiting Patrizio, Lizzie considered the various ways in which Renaissance collections had been organized, and pondered her exhibit. The museum gallery on campus was about the size of the room in which she sat, and she wanted to capture the feel of it somehow if she could. She loved the 1677 drawing of the collection, and still thought it would provide a terrific visual centerpiece for her exhibit, but she now acknowledged that it did not depict any setting in which the collection had actually ever been displayed. That wasn’t an insurmountable problem; the collection was both a physical entity and an intellectual one, and the drawing captured the latter well and the former in its component parts if not in its actual physical construction. Most importantly, it documented things that had been in the collection at that specific time, establishing very early dates for key artifacts.

  Though Aldrovandi had written a whole book on minerals, the rocks on the shelves in this room simply did not have the visual appeal of other parts of the collection as far as Lizzie was concerned, and visual appeal was going to be important for her exhibit. She wanted people to come into the gallery and be wowed by what they saw. Aldrovandi’s book, however—a beautiful copy of which Maggie Gonzaga had given to the college almost a century before—could be exhibited with a few choice examples, and Lizzie decided to identify three or four of the stony hunks in the room that either had interesting descriptions in the catalog, or were particularly wonderful to look at.

  She would also need to choose some of the prepared plant materials, though again, the visual appeal of centuries-old dried plants was minimal. It was difficult to distinguish one from another at this point, but many of them were preserved in beautiful old glass jars, with paper labels attached that identified the contents in a flowing Italian script. Again, she would see if any of them had a provenance that made them particularly interesting, and would otherwise choose the ones that looked best. There were numerous seed pods, small sticks, and pieces of bark, some of which, Lizzie found when consulting the catalog list, were actually examples of spices, including cinnamon, mace, nutmeg and vanilla.

  It was easier to choose among the animals and animal parts, because so many of them were big, impressive, and readily recognizable from the old drawing. Among the smaller animal mounts were several that were completely charming, including the Draco dandinii that her assistant Jimmy had identified as his favorite. There were several fish skeletons, beautifully mounted, and various skulls and bones of animals large and small, including blowfish, chameleons, tusks of elephants and hippopotamus, and rhinoceros horns. The preserved skin of a gigantic snake went on the list. It hung on the wall here in the library, and could be mounted above the cases in the exhibit in Boston.

  It might be difficult to transport marine specimens in jars, but she wanted to include some if possible, especially a large eel, whose head was pressed against the glass, its teeth visible through the liquid solution in which it had been submerged for eons. Eggs, long drained of their contents, though fragile, could be transported with care; they ranged in size from the large ostrich eggs to four tiny speckled eggs, preserved in their nest and tucked into a corner of one of the cases.

  In making a choice among the ethnographic items from all over the world, Lizzie wanted to show as much of a geographical range as possible. Her list already included things made by ancient Etruscans and Romans, and artists and artisans from China, Egypt, Mexico and the Marquesas. Some of the spears and clubs could be arranged into decorative patterns by the exhibit designer, but others were so rare they needed to be set apart and highlighted.

  Now that Lizzie had the luxury of the ledger book of the collection open before her, she spent time perusing the list of objects in it. It was begun in 1659 by Adino Gonzaga, who updated it very regularly for over twenty years, carefully adding entries as new things came into his collection. Adino’s son Lorenzo kept up the work, and after him there were other heirs who, in spurts of enthusiasm, added to either the collection or the document or both, but there were many gaps, some longer than a century, when no work was done. Maggie’s husband and his father, and she and her son Patrick had added additional information in side notes over the years as well, and Lizzie marked those places where she wanted to ask Carmine to translate for her. Most of these things had to do with where objects in the collection had been obtained, including names of travelers and vendors.

  Lizzie took the list again that had been sent by Maggie Gonzaga to St. Pat’s College, on which she had presumably worked with Patrizio, and compared it to the ledger. The two were mostly the same; the notes in Maggie’s hand in English were often translations of marginalia made by earlier catalogers, though there were additional notes on the list like “cannot locate” to indicate items that had been lost over time.

  Lizzie worked long into the night, slept for a few hours and rose early, with thoughts of how the exhibit would be organized still running through her brain. Things could
not be randomly placed on shelves, or simply arranged in order of size or color. The way a museum visitor processed information about an object or artwork was very strongly influenced by what was next to it on the wall or in a case.

  These were ideas that needed coffee and food to attend to so early in the morning and Lizzie went to a café opposite St. Petronio’s, where she had noticed some delicious-looking pastries in the window. As Carmine would not join her today, she decided to buy both rolls and sweet pastry, as well as sliced meat and cheese to take her through the whole day. She got two large cups of coffee and proceeded back across the Piazza Maggiore to the house.

  The courtyard was brighter this morning than it had been at any time since her arrival, and setting her food on the steps and taking one of the cups of coffee with her, Lizzie ambled around the area that was in the recess behind the arches. There was much more archaeological material than she had noted the day she’d stood there with Patrizio. A number of engraved stone plaques were cemented directly to the walls, many of which appeared to be memorial or gravestones.

  One enigmatic plaque showed a naked young boy, his finger to his lips in a gesture of silence. His other hand had broken off, but there was still a remnant of a branch that he had held in it. There were large stones that had been cut into disks, a few feet in diameter and several inches thick. These were deeply carved with images of chariots being pulled by winged horses, and by toga-clad men shaking hands with angels. Around the circumference of each were patterns of leafy vines, or waves lapping against each other.

  There was a pile of amphora in one corner of the courtyard, many of them in pieces. These ancient jars had no flat bottom, but were designed to stick into soft sand when a ship came up to offload its cargo on a beach. There were three of these visible in the 1677 picture of the Gonzaga collection, and Lizzie made a mental note to have Carmine choose that same number from this pile to be sent to Boston. She came around the square to the Etruscan sarcophagi and once more felt the power of how beloved these people must have been to those who survived them, to have been memorialized so sweetly in these stones.

  There were occasional niches in the wall of the courtyard where Roman statues had been placed. Lizzie wondered if she should even ask if they could include one of those. So far she hadn’t seen any marble carvings that didn’t seem to be firmly attached to either their niche or the staircase, but she put that on her growing list of questions to ask Carmine.

  After another long day of work, Lizzie felt confident that she had a good list of what would go into the exhibit, with enough flexibility to delete anything that Carmine might find unsuitable to travel. When next they met they would be able to plunge into the work.

  Chapter 19

  As her first week in Bologna came to an end, Lizzie was able to survey the work that she had done with great satisfaction. She and Carmine had taken a quick look at every piece on her list, and though he had occasionally suggested a replacement, there was nothing important to her that couldn’t be shipped to Boston for her exhibit.

  For two days, Carmine had brought in a team of two helpers to carry in and set up saw horses and worktables. They had also brought in two tall folding ladders and removed the alligator from its long-held position on the ceiling. The iron rod on which the animal was mounted had been fixed to the ceiling on four sturdy hooks and Carmine had replicated those on a frame in the ballroom, so that the alligator would continue to hang until he could build an appropriate container to support it during shipping.

  “It isn’t as heavy as it looks,” he said to Lizzie as he and his workers positioned it in its new temporary home. “The skin is completely dry and there’s not much inside it. I think at some point it must have had straw or sawdust inside it to keep its shape, but that was taken out years ago.”

  A special table was constructed to hold the sarcophagus while Carmine worked on it, so that he wouldn’t be forced to work on his hands and knees. It took the five of them in the room, Lizzie, Carmine, the two assistants from the museum, and the security guard Cosimo had hired, to lift the box from the floor onto the board, some three feet off the ground. Carmine had devised a flexible sling that he slid under the sarcophagus to minimize any need to touch it in the process of moving it. He had also provided a specially coated work surface so that there would be no chemical interaction between the painted exterior of the box and a raw piece of wood, which contained damaging acidity.

  As they positioned it on the table, Lizzie felt something inside the box slide and come to rest against the side. “It isn’t empty like we thought,” she said to Carmine.

  “I know,” he said. “I felt it too.”

  “Is it a mummy?” one of his assistants asked.

  “No way to tell until we open it, and we can’t open it until we remove the glue that’s holding it shut.”

  Both the assistant and the security guard seemed disappointed that they wouldn’t immediately open the box to see what was in it, and Lizzie was sympathetic. She knew Carmine had to go through a careful and well-documented process of conservation before they could see the contents, but that didn’t make her less curious. What she had felt move in the box was solid and it was big. It was definitely not fragments of bone and wrapping.

  It took another day of hard work before everything on Lizzie’s list had been transferred from the library to the ballroom and laid out on worktables. Carmine’s assistants then brought in the drawers of the cabinet from the Chinese Salon, and then the piece of furniture itself. They also brought the Chinese vases that Lizzie had indicated as her preference.

  “The Etruscan burial boxes will stay in the courtyard,” Carmine told Lizzie as they surveyed their work. “There is no need to bring such heavy things up and down the stairs. I’ll crate them down there.”

  “And the gigantic marble foot?” Lizzie asked.

  “That too,” Carmine answered.

  When everything had been moved, Lizzie thanked the museum workers and the security guard, and took them down to the door of the courtyard. They would come back to help when the collection was packed for shipping, but she wouldn’t see them again while she was here. The rest of her time in Bologna would be spent making a condition report for every piece, with measurements, photographs, and Carmine’s conservation assessment.

  When Lizzie came back upstairs, Carmine had poured them each a glass of wine. He stood on the balcony of the ballroom with his back to the courtyard and held a glass out to Lizzie. She tapped it against his upraised glass.

  “To a wonderful exhibit,” he said.

  “I will certainly drink to that,” she said. She looked around the room at all the marvelous things assembled there. “I am extraordinarily lucky to have been given this job. This is a dream collection for me, and to be given the time and support to work on it for the better part of a year is sort of miraculous.” She turned to him and raised her glass again. “And to you, my colleague and friend. I appreciate someone who knows his business and has a good time doing it.”

  He gave her a slight bow and took a long sip of the wine. “We still have a lot of work to do, though,” he said. “Beginning with the sarcophagus. I did an analysis of the glue and it is the worst kind of thing anyone could have put on it. It’s from the 60s and highly acidic. I’ll have to get it out of there before it eats away at the wood.”

  “Do that before I go, if you don’t mind,” Lizzie said. “I want to see what’s inside.”

  Carmine agreed that if she could start with the measurements of each object, he would begin with the mummy case on Monday morning.

  Over the weekend, Lizzie decided to visit Patrizio again. This time she wanted to look at the pictures of the house and of the collection that Maggie Gonzaga had sent in 1959, to see what he would say about them. She had a copy of the inventory list in her bag, but did not intend to show it to him unless he seemed particularly chatty and affable.

 
He did not remember her from any previous meeting either as herself or as Theresa Kenney. Once again she introduced herself as a faculty member from St. Pat’s College, once again he said that his grandfather had founded the place and he had gone to school there. The copy she had brought on her last visit of Patrick Kelliher, Immigrant Industrialist was on his bedside table and she reached for it and handed it to him.

  “I wrote this book about your grandfather,” she said. “I am fascinated by him, and by your mother.”

  He seemed pleased with her company and babbled on a bit about his parents and grandparents, but not so coherently as during their last conversation. Lizzie powered up her laptop and once again placed it on the rolling tray in front of him, then opened the file of pictures that Maggie Gonzaga had sent of the house in 1959.

  “Can I show you some pictures of your house?”

  He looked with interest at the picture of the courtyard, with several of the archaeological fragments visible. “This stone I found with my father, in the hills on the way to Marzabotto. We went there frequently on expeditions with him, as he had with his father.” Lizzie struggled to see the piece to which he was referring, and he turned the screen toward her and pointed to several pieces from that same source.

  She hit the button to bring up the next image, a picture of the Entrance Hall, and Patrizio began to speak immediately, about the great fresco of the family tree first, and then of the portraits, identifying several individuals. Lizzie did not think she could pull out her notebook and start taking notes without making him suspicious, but it occurred to her that she could use the voice recorder on her cell phone to capture whatever Patrick had to say, so she carefully took the device from her bag and turned it on.