by Rita Monaldi
Not only that: fearing that the infant, when he grew, might show too much of a resemblance to a neighbour or some other person above suspicion, Cloridia, even before the confinement, and immediately afterwards, would with tireless loquacity instruct the new father and the wary relatives, explaining that a woman's imagination could render her newborn child similar to a thing seen or imagined during coitus. She was always delighted, upon her return after a confinement, to tell me how, when and before what audience she had prepared her favourite story. In all those years, she had repeated it to me perhaps a thousand times, at every confinement spicing it with new or invented details, each time attributing to herself new ideas and discoveries. She loved that I admired her and took pride in her deeds, and the way in which I laughed when she wanted me to laugh and pretended to be surprised when she expected that. My desire was to see her gay and satisfied, and I played along for her.
Nevertheless, that afternoon, I simply could not do it. I had so much, indeed, too much, to tell her and I desperately needed her advice.
"I told the factor: 'Do you perhaps not know the story told by Heliodorus which shows how the imagination can produce creatures similar to the thing imagined? It is known the world over! Listen here,' I told him: 'Heliodorus tells, in the book of his Aethiop histories, how a beautiful white-skinned girl was born of a black mother and father, namely Idaspe, King of Aethiopia, and his Queen Persina. And this was a consequence only of the thought, or rather, the imagination of the mother, with whom the King conjoined in a chamber in which were depicted many actions of white men and women, and in particular the amours of Andromeda and Perseus; the Queen took such delight in the sight of Andromeda in the act of venery…"'
Obviously, I knew the rest of the tale inside out, and while, docilely but distractedly, I accepted Cloridia's sweet pressures on my body, I repeated mentally after her: the Queen took such delight in the sight of Andromeda in the act of venery that she became pregnant with a maiden similar to her; this explanation was given by the Gymnosophists who were the most learned men in that land. And Aristotle confirms…
I could console myself, I thought as I impatiently awaited the end of the tale: if the great Hippocrates, and Pliny and Avicenna too, had had the impudence to perjure themselves before a judge, coolly inventing such tali stories in order to save the lives of a mother and her child, my spouse was in good company.
"Alciatus, and before him Quintilian," continued Cloridia while she disarranged my clothing and gave ampler freedom to her appetites, "freed another woman from the same accusation who had given birth to a black daughter, her husband being white, because there was in her chamber the painted figure of an Aethiopian."
"And then? Did you tell him the tale of Jacob's sheep?" I asked her in order to please her, as I was beginning to fear the outcome of her manoeuvres.
"Obviously," she replied, without allowing herself to be distracted from her intentions.
"And your theory that even mere food could influence the appearance of the newborn child?" I asked, caressing the palms of her hands with my lips, so as to keep her under control and to distract her from the inspection which she was obstinately intent upon carrying out.
"Mmm, no," she replied with a hint of embarrassment. "Do you remember, when I attended the confinement of the wife of that Swiss coffee-house owner? Well, when I tried to assuage the suspicions of the husband, explaining to him that in animals one finds more resemblance than in men, because they eat always the same food, while men eat different foods, he replied with an ugly expression that in his part of the world Alpine men and women ate nothing but chestnuts and watered-down goat's milk, despite which they were born with the same differences as ourselves."
"And what did you say to that?"
"I still managed, using the story of feminine imagination. I swore that it was universally known to be true, indeed most certain, that a strong imagination and the fixed thought of a woman could mark the body of her child with the semblance and image of the thing desired. Do we not see every day infants who are born marked with pig's skin, or wine, or grapes, or other similar stains? A strong imagination can then mark in a woman's womb a body already fully formed, so much as to imprint the most varied forms on its skin, for these represent the woman's thoughts. So in the end I told him: 'You who exploit your poor wife night and day serving coffee at table now have your just deserts: the poor thing, by dint of spending so much time looking at coffee, has produced for you a son of the same colour!'"
Alack and alas. As we can read in the works of Cesare Baronio, the great Tertullian, a man of great fame, let himself be persuaded by a vile woman of no account that the souls of the just were coloured. Then just imagine my sharp-witted and erudite Cloridia allowing herself to be caught out by some cuckold coffee-house proprietor and, what's worse, with the thick skull of a Switzer. With this mute consideration, I accepted with resignation the account of my lady's prowess, while she in the meanwhile had resumed her effusions.
"Is a man's imagination worth nothing?" I asked, feigning astonishment and surprise in order to free myself a little of her over-active embrace.
"Here, there arises a considerable doubt. According to Aristotle, yes. According to Empedocles and Hippocrates, whose view I praise, a man's imagination will succumb to a woman's, which is most vehement," said she, while she acted most vehemently. "Save in a single case. That of the wise father with a foolish son. Why should a foolish son sometimes be born of a wise father? It is not possible that the mother should desire this. And yet, yes, that is the case. Most studious husbands are of ever-melancholy humour, and melancholy is sister in the flesh to madness: both especially hated by women when it comes to lovemaking. It may then be that during the carnal act their imagination may run to desiring a happy fool rather than a melancholy sage. Quite apart from the fact that distracted husbands do not pay sufficient attention to that task…"
I winced for shame. Cloridia was right. I had not responded to her ardour and had remained melancholy and absent. Not even when she had put all her womanly arts into play, from the most subtle to the most manifest, had she succeeded in calling my anxious member to his sweet and sacrosanct conjugal duties. And to think that only a little earlier I had so longed for her! The Devil take those damned thoughts of the Abbot, the bookbinder and the thieves and all those things which had so horribly cast me down into that pit of anguish.
"Would you then prefer a silly but happy consort, dear wife?" I asked her.
"Well, a happy and foolish man is always a good thing for the quality of the offspring, for he greatly pleases the woman in their encounter and will make her desire wisdom to be united to so much gaiety, so that, through the power of the imagination, she will succeed in generating a son who is both joyful and wise in spirit."
I smiled, embarrassed. She sat up and laced her bodice.
"Come, what's so perturbing you?"
Thus, I was at last able to tell her: of Atto's arrival, the theft of my memoir, the task of serving as the Abbot's biographer during this time and, at last, of my suspicions and lacerating doubts, without forgetting Atto's wounding, the strange death of the bookbinder, as well as the double raid on our home and against Buvat. But above all I told her of the mysterious Maria, who had then turned out to be Madama the Connestabilessa Colonna, with whom Atto was secretly in correspondence, and of the disquieting visit to the Vessel. Lastly, the news of how the incursion had turned our nest upside down caused her a shudder.
"And only now are you telling me?" was Cloridia's sole response as she looked at me wide-eyed, as though she had suddenly discovered that she had married an idiot.
My prickly consort had already forgotten how long I had had inanely to await the end of her chatter. She calmed down quickly enough: learning of the tidy little sum which the Abbot had already paid us put her in a good mood at once.
"And so Abbot Melani is again in these parts, doing damage," commented Cloridia.
My wife had never had much sympathy
for the Abbot. Through me, she knew of all the base deeds of which the castrato had been capable, and thus was not in the least impressed either by the diplomat's eloquence or by my experience of countless adventures by his side.
"He sends you his greetings," I lied.
"You may reciprocate," she replied with a hint of scepticism. "And so your castrato abbot has been pining for a woman these thirty years," she added, in a tone halfway between sarcasm and satisfaction. "And what a woman!"
Cloridia, being a good tattler, had already heard tell of Maria
Mancini and knew from high authority of her Roman vicissitudes as the wife of the Constable Colonna.
On the visit to the Vessel and the enigmatic apparition which I had witnessed, she made no comment. I should very much have liked her to enlighten me with her wise opinion, for she had once been so expert in the occult arts such as reading the palm, the science of numbers and guidance by the ardent rod, but my wife passed directly to the next phase: she would ask around, among her women, in order to help us with our inquiries. She would set in motion the powerful and secret network of feminine word of mouth; a thousand eyes would keep vigil — observing, following, memorising for us, shooting astute glances — unseen, behind the deceptive appearance of an expectant mother's calm contemplation or the languid eyelashes of a spouse.
We talked for a long time and as usual she was prodigal with politic advice, wise recommendations and exaggerated praise of my virtues. She knew me well and knew how much encouragement I would be needing.
I had no more doubts. Now that I had told her all and had put my trust in her, my fears had dissolved, and with them the weight which drained my senses of all strength and tumescence.
We lay together and at last we loved each other. In the shade of the great beech, like some new Titirus, I sweetly modulated my flute in honour of my woodland muse.
We had by now been overtaken by nightfall. Freeing myself from my Cloridia's embrace, I discreetly rearranged her apparel and walked slowly towards the great house and my meeting with Abbot Melani.
It was then that, my soul being touched by the grace of conjugal love, I first beheld the gardens of the villa in the gay fullness of their splendour. Cardinal Spada had spared no expense to bestow upon the festivities every imaginable perfection. Villa Spada was smaller and more modest than other noble dwellings, but its master desired that it should for the occasion be among the foremost in the display of magnificence. He had not failed to enhance that which, more than all else, makes Roman villas so very special and different from those in all the rest of the world, namely their unique situation; for, wherever their site may be, there is perforce a most delightful conjunction with the vestiges of ancient Rome.
The statues, marbles, inscriptions and all the other things which ignorant workmen had brought to light in the gardens of Villa Spada were, by order of Cardinal Fabrizio, raised from oblivion in the cellars or under the invasive maidenhair ferns and so arranged as to punctuate the modern gardens with majestic whiteness.
The beautiful concentric flower beds with shrubs along their borders, divided up by radiating drives arranged for the occasion by Tranquillo Romauli, the Master Florist, had been adorned with columns, sarcophagi and steles, while along the outer wall, fragments of capitals alternated with espaliered citrus trees; even at the main gates, above the stairway of a ruin, rose a pergola supported by trellises, as though time, waving the green banner of nature, wished to signify the overthrow and vanity of human endeavours.
But Villa Spada was but a small example: Rome's villas often enclose temples which remain almost intact, or even entire sections of aqueduct. In the Villa Colonna at Monte Cavallo there was for a long time preserved (and then, alas, thoughtlessly demolished) a fine piece of the gigantic Templum Solis. In the Villa Medici on the Pincio, the Templum Fortunae was to be found. In the Villa Giustiniani on the Lateran Hill, the boundary was marked by the aqueduct of Claudius, flanked by other enormous, anonymous ruins. Even the interior of the Mausoleum of Augustus, a glorious and solemn vestige of the greatest of emperors, was transformed into a garden when it was the property of Monsignor Soderini. On the Palatine Hill and on the Celio, villas and ruins, edifices new and old stretched in a single inextricable web. And likewise, the little Gentili Palace backed onto the ancient Aurelian Walls, of which it had even incorporated a tower; while the Orti Farnesiani (the inestimable work of Vignola, Rainaldi and Del Duca) fused harmoniously with the vestiges of the imperial palaces on the Palatine. Even Cardinal Sacchetti, when in his villa in the Pigneto he wished to offer a sepulchre to his favourite ass Grillo, used ancient Roman remains which had come into his hands there, on his own lands, where one had only to sink a spade into the ground to strike marble from the centuries of Cicero and Seneca.
In the Villa Ludovisi a pavilion had been erected for the sole purpose of housing the statues, while at Villa Borghese, Cardinal Scipione had devoted most of the space to his collection of busts and figures.
However, antiquities were not the only items employed for the embellishment of the vineyards and casino of the Villa Spada. The avenues which led to fountains and nymphaeums, as well as the little wood, had been adorned with obelisks, as at the Del Bufalo Garden at Villa Ludovisi; or then there was the obelisk in the Medici Garden, of which I had admired splendid engravings in the books of my late father-in-law. However those at the Villa Spada were ephemeral, made of papier mache in imitation of the admirable architectural designs of the Cavalier Bernini erected in the Piazza Navona or the Piazza di Spagna to celebrate the birth of princes or other worthy events, wonders destined to last only for the duration of a few nights' festivities.
Every Roman villa was a place conceived for repose and pleasure, as in the days of Horace (and so I believe it will still be in the centuries to come), and thus also a venue for games, extravagances and all manner of delightful distractions. And Villa Spada seemed to be rising to the present nuptial occasion as a veritable compendium of all these things.
I would have liked to stop and admire one by one the thousand delights and marvels which the villa offered, but the evening was advancing. Taking leave of my reflections, I hastened on my way to my appointment with Abbot Melani; and with the Connestabilessa who, according to what I had read in her letter to the Abbot, was expected after Vespers.
"Good heavens, dear boy, whatever have you been doing to yourself? I seem to be receiving a delegation of Arcadian shepherds."
I lowered my head in response to Atto's remark and took an embarrassed look at my clothing, crumpled by amorous activity and stained by the grass on which I had lain with my wife.
"Buvat, put some order in these rooms," he ordered his secretary suddenly, as though he were addressing some slovenly manservant. "Wipe the floor with some cloths, and if you can find none, use the sleeves of your jacket, as you never change it. Pile up my papers, and go and get something to eat. And do it quickly, for heaven's sake, I am expecting guests."
Although unaccustomed to performing servants' duties, and wondering why Atto did not instead employ an ordinary valet de chambre, yet Buvat dared not rebel, seeing his master's extreme nervousness. So he began at random to tidy up the Abbot's documents, the ornaments, the remnants of luncheon still strewn on the divan and the numerous piles of books encumbering the floor here and there. Such was Buvat's inexperience that, despite the fact that I gave him a hand, instead of diminishing, the chaos only increased.
I saw that the Abbot was rubbing his injured arm.
"Signor Atto, how is your wound?" I asked.
"It is getting better, but I shall have no peace until I know who reduced me to this state. The strangest things have been happening in the past few days: first, my arm is wounded in the bookbinder's presence, then the poor man's death and, to cap it all, the attempt to rob you two…"
At that moment, someone knocked at the door. Buvat went to open it. I saw him take delivery of a letter from a messenger which, after closing the door, he hastened t
o hand to Abbot Melani.
Atto broke the seal and read swiftly. Then he stuffed the letter into his pocket and, speaking in a low voice, told us reluctantly of its contents.
"She will no longer be coming. She has had to stop, owing to a light attack of fever. She begs to be excused for her inability to advise me earlier, et cetera, et cetera''
A few minutes later, Abbot Melani showed us the door. The reason, as had also been the case the day before, lay in the letter from the Connestabilessa, which Atto wished to read properly, far from our curious looks.
Once I had closed the door behind us and taken my leave of Buvat, who was going to take a look at the library of the great house, I began to feel ill at ease. What had the Abbot summoned me for if he was now dismissing me without having commanded, asked or said a single thing? Bad news of the Connestabilessa's unexpected delay had indeed arrived; besides which, my task of keeping a chronicle had only just begun the day before. Yet, when I came to think of it, Atto had used me more as an informer (as at dinner the evening before) than as a biographer. Not only that: about the nature of that little book which seemed to lie at the heart of a singular series of misadventures, the Abbot had been distinctly sparing with information. Yet, hardly had he learned of the death of the bookbinder than Atto had rushed in furious haste to recover it.
Buvat had rejoined Melani, who was conversing with other guests in the gardens of Villa Spada when, an hour later, keeping the Abbot under frequent observation with his own spyglass, I set to work looking for the little bound book. When the binder had delivered it to him, it had been wrapped in a blue velvet cloth, and that now made it impossible to identify the appearance and colour of the binding.
I searched the apartment from top to bottom and examined all Abbot Melani's volumes one by one, but alas, not a trace did I find of a newly bound book: all the tomes showed signs of wear and frequent consultation. It was quite clear that Atto had brought with him to the Villa Spada only those books he most needed. Consequently, a brand new binding would certainly have caught my eye. For a few moments, I stopped again to peruse a few pages containing piquant episodes concerning cardinals: these had already proved very useful to me when it came to following the allusions and jokes which the eminences exchanged at dinner. Then I searched everywhere once more, but of that little volume there was no trace. Perhaps the Abbot had lent it to some other guest? If that were the case, the matters dealt with in the book could not be so very confidential.
