by Rita Monaldi
"There he is. I present to you Virgilio Spada. As I have told you, he was a member of the order of the Oratorians, followers of Saint Philip Neri, and the portrait here is in accordance with their precepts. He was a wise soul, and quite pious. He helped his order in many ways, above all materially."
All around, I saw portraits of other members of the family, but
Atto barely deigned to spare them a glance. For a while longer, he remained pensive, then he shook his head.
"No, we are mistaken. This is not it."
"What do you mean?" I asked, without knowing where to turn my thoughts.
"Have you looked around you, my boy? Where the Devil is Virgilio's collection of curiosities? I can see no trace of it here. We've not even found one tiny bit of it here. And yet it must be clearly displayed somewhere, seeing that the family loves receiving distinguished visitors and showing them its possessions."
"And so?"
"This portrait tells me something."
"What?"
"I do not know. I must think on that, now I am too tired. Let us go, Cloridia may have finished."
After saying this, the Abbot moved slowly towards the door, bent by the weight of years and fruitless searching.
As I followed him, I continued to feed greedily on the marvellous, but to me, incomprehensible, decorations of the catoptric sundial.
"Signor Atto, all those signs and numbers painted up there, what are they?"
"Those numbers are the houses of the zodiac with the astrological tables for the compilation of the celestial figures, or the birth chart and horoscope, while the other lines that you see show the times in various parts of the world," explained Atto, stopping and looking up.
"Was Father Virgilio also interested in all these things?" I asked perplexed, being well aware of the deadly risks that a churchman could run for showing an interest in horoscopes, especially half a century ago.
"Oh, if that's all you want to know, the Spada have always had a passion for the celestial sciences. Virgilio and his brother loved astrology, including the forbidden forms of it. As I have already told you, I was in Rome when Virgilio died in 1662. It is said that he even possessed books placed on the Index by the Holy Office, as well as some writings regarded as heretical, which, however…"
The Abbot broke off and stood there staring at me as though seized by a sudden thought.
"Boy, you are a genius!" he exclaimed.
I gazed questioningly at him.
"I know where we shall find Capitor's dish," said he.
So it was that Melani explained to me, in a barely audible voice, that Virgilio's great passion had been for judicial astrology, or that which dealt also with horoscopes and predictions; he had studied his own
celestial chart and his father's, and many others too. In 1631, however, this science had been condemned by the Barberini Pope, Urban VIII.
"I remember that well, from the tales I heard at the time when we met, at the Donzello."
"Then you'll remember the ugly death that Abbot Morandi met with when they discovered all those books on astrology in his possession."
I repressed a shiver as I recalled what I had learned at that time.
"When that happened, many prelates with an interest in the subject took fright. Among their number were Father Virgilio and his brother Bernardino: it was said that Virgilio had moved a number of dangerous books by night from Palazzo Spada to the Oratory, where they were kept under lock and key in a great chest until his death."
"In other words, it is at the Congregation of the Oratory that we shall have to search."
"Yes. It will be pretty difficult to evade the surveillance of the Philippine Fathers, and I really do not think that your Cloridia can be of any help to us this time."
After leaving the Gallery of the Catoptric Sundial, we returned to the window whence we could espy my sweet consort. We found her still in full flow of her sermon, while she collected, cleaned and put her things in order together with our two little daughters; while so doing, she turned her sanguine prose to the ever more perplexed Deputy Steward who, in the meanwhile, to regain something of his composure, was caressing and consoling his exhausted spouse.
"It is even worse when, in order to avoid paying a wet-nurse, or because she has grown weary of giving suck, a mother makes her little one drink the milk of beasts. You may be certain that, once her child has tasted of that poison for body and soul which is animals' milk, it will have difficulty digesting and will thus be too full to be drawn to its mother's breast, which it will come to forget."
We waved our arms from the window to let Cloridia know that our search was at an end, that she need trouble herself no longer and could put an end to that flood of words with which she was holding back the Deputy Steward, but all in vain. Caught up in the whirl of her pleading, my wife did not notice us. What was more, we had to take care not to be seen by my little ones who might, in their innocence, give us away.
"The truth is that goat's milk makes children into goats, and cow's milk makes them into oxen. Now, what father or mother would want a child as feeble-minded as a calf or horned like a goat? Or both together? The animal spirit twines itself around the radical humidity of the infant's little body and will not abandon it until it dies. Take a good look at the faces of children who have received cow's milk: the acqueous, bovine stare, the hooded eyelids, the fat head, the swollen members and the flaccid, pallid skin. And what of the nature of these little unfortunates? If it is not tetchy and taciturn, like that of a goat, it will be placid and temperate, like that of a calf. And how proud their stupid mothers are of them! They can do what they will without being bothered by their stolid, bastardised little ones, while they look on with disgust at other mothers, exhausted by giving suck and weary with caring for their tireless, lively little earthquake of an infant."
At long last, Cloridia caught sight of us.
"In conclusion, have a care before giving animals' milk to a being whom God had endowed with a soul!" said she with a voice almost broken by her bombast, while she began to put her equipment back into her bag. "Until three years of age, no child should touch a single drop of the milk produced by beasts. And even after the age of three, this will be most harmful. So everyone, both fathers and mothers and their little sons and daughters, should keep well away from beasts' milk throughout their lives, if they mean to live in good health and clarity of mind. Deo gratias, we have finished."
She crossed herself, as she did after every birth, and we heard her impart her last recommendations to the new mother as Atto and I rushed to the stables and the mule which was to take us back, weary and disappointed, to the Villa Spada.
We were already in the inner courtyard, still asleep under the mists that herald the early morning, when we heard a grim, disquieting sound. It came from our left, where there stretched out an immensely long gallery of singular magnificence, followed by an equally long avenue, flanked by hedges and terminating in a garden.
It was then that we caught sight of a dreadful colossus, a quadruped higher than two men and as long as a carriage, as black as night and covered with thick, disgusting hair. For a few interminable moments (at least so it seemed to me) I was paralysed with terror, almost hypnotised by that infernal monster. I saw it leap over the hedges in the avenue and rush at an unimaginable speed towards us, again emitting the thunderous roar which we had just heard.
With a superhuman burst of speed, I fled, forgetting even Abbot Melani, and in the twinkling of an eye I had shut myself into the stables.
Atto was already there: unlike me, he was clearly unperturbed and had got out of the way at once.
"The monster… the colossus…" I panted, my face contorted with terror.
I looked at Melani. He had a grin imprinted on his face.
"What do you find so funny?" I asked, thoroughly irritated.
"What you too will soon see. Follow me."
A few minutes later, Atto was at the opening of the gallery, seated on the
base of one of the columns, tranquilly caressing the colossus. For it was no colossus at all, but a nice little dog. The creature had been sleeping out in the garden beyond the gallery and, surprised by my arrival, had reacted with a typical canine growl, then drawn near to challenge the invader. What had seemed to me a monster of incredible proportions was in reality a little animal that came up to my knee.
"Do you understand?" asked Melani.
"I think so, Signor Atto."
Yet it still seemed incredible to me. The gallery from which the dog had emerged was a masterpiece of the great Borromini, whom the Spada had often employed to improve and enlarge their palace. It was so constructed as to delude the observer, through a clever play with perspective which only someone who knew the trick could detect. As the visitor entered the gallery, it grew steadily smaller: the pairs of columns by either side became lower, the black and white chequerboard paving went upwards and grew narrower, while the squares themselves became smaller, imitating the flight towards infinity which painters know so well how to simulate in their creations when they depict roads, cities and temples.
Even the stucco mouldings on the semicircular vaulting were formed into an ever smaller quadrangualar grid, so as to keep in proportion to the shrinking of the vault itself. Beyond the other end of the gallery, there was no spacious garden stretching out to infinity, but a modest little courtyard in which, however, imitation box hedges had been carved from stone and painted with two coats of green. With their regular parallelepiped form, these became ever lower and narrower as the distance from the gallery, and thus, from the observer, increased, thus creating the irresistible impression of a distant avenue running to meet the sky. The sky itself, which I had thought I saw behind the hedges, was in fact painted with clever chromatic counterfeiting a few paces beyond, upon the wall that concluded the whole illusion.
I entered the gallery and timidly caressed the first pair of columns, then the second, then the third… each time narrower and lower. Borromini's optical illusion was so cleverly designed and carried out that it had tricked me to the extent even of terrifying me. Besides those sham hedges, even that little dog had seemed to me gigantic. Its growl, distorted and amplified by the echo of the vault, had seemed on reaching me to be the roar of a wild beast.
"We fear what we cannot understand: here, as in the gallery of mirrors at the Vessel," said Melani in paternally admonitory tones as we trotted on our mule back to Villa Spada.
"I had heard tell of Palazzo Spada's gallery in perspective and of its marvellous optica! illusion: princes and ambassadors come to visit it from all the world over. But I did not know what it might be and, caught unawares, I took fright… You know, I am very tired…" said I, trying to justify myself and to cover my shame.
"You saw an immense portico, which in reality was very small. Within a small space, you saw a long road. The more distant they are, the larger small objects can appear, rightly placed," Atto philosophised. "Greatness is but an illusion on this earth, the wonder of art and the image of a vain world."
I knew what he really had in mind: the Vessel. But not the gallery of mirrors. Rather, he was meditating upon those mysterious apparitions which we had witnessed, and upon his faint hope of finding a rational explanation for them in the end.
I therefore said nothing, while we wended our weary way across the Holy City, meeting the first passers-by, still half wound in the coils of sleep, and formless nocturnal cogitations made way for clear thinking.
On our return to Villa Spada, we found a letter for Abbot Melani: the usual one. Atto's reaction upon opening and reading it was no different from the times before: he became sombre and dismissed me hastily, on the pretext that he wanted to take a rest. In reality, he had to reply to the letter, in which the Connestabilessa announced her latest delay.
In the hours that followed, I was unable to enjoy so much as one moment of rest. The programme for the day consisted of a rather demanding entertainment, and Cardinal Spada had repeatedly insisted to Don Paschatio that he was counting on him to ensure its complete success, informing him that any servants who failed to fulfil their duties would be most severely punished. Don Paschatio had for his part ensured that, this time, none would dare absent themselves: he had, of course, sworn as much on all previous occasions, without being proved right. This time, too, a pair of waiters had let the Major-Domo down, on the pretext that they were ill (whereas they had in fact gone fishing on the island of San Bartolomeo, as I had gleaned from their conversation the day before).
There was indeed a great deal of work to be done, nor was it easy to carry out. For the guests' entertainment, there had been laid on a shooting party, the game being birds. This outing was open not only to the gentlemen and cavaliers present but to ladies too, since the hunt for fowls involves no dangers, only joyous recreation. This was, in other words, to be a pleasure party, consisting of many and various kinds of hunting merriment, as had been announced to the guests the day before by no less than Cardinal Spada in person.
The territory of Villa Spada was, however, too small for the beat, which would require much space in which to hide, set up ambuscades and entrap birds. It had therefore been agreed with the excellent Barberini household that the entertainment could also take place in the plot of land adjoining the Spada estate (where, two days before, the falconer had tried in vain to catch Caesar Augustus with his hawk).
The guests were to be organised into groups, according to the means they would be employing. The first squad, consisting of about ten people in all, was to be issued with special bird traps: sham bushes within which had been set a Y-shaped wooden stick. This stuck out from the top of the bush and at either extremity were placed two pieces of iron rather like scissor blades which, operated from a short distance by means of a long, thick cord, would snap shut, crushing the bird's legs.
The second group of huntsmen received a number of artificial trees, to be planted in the earth with the sharp point at the base of their trunk. At the top of these little trees was fixed a horizontal stick which would look quite inviting to birds seeking a perch. At the base of the bush was hidden a great crossbow, pointing upwards, into which was notched a sort of big rake with many sharp points. If fired at the right moment (even from a short distance, by activating the trigger of the crossbow with a stout brown string) the bizarre mechanism would shoot up and impale any unlucky fowl perching on top of the tree.
For other participants, special arquebuses had been prepared, to be set into the ground (by means of a handle with an iron point) to be aimed at some clearly visible branch and fired the moment some passing bird came to rest there. Here too, the arquebuses were to be operated at a distance by means of an invisible thread.
Those cavaliers gifted with sharp eyesight were given fine crossbows of the highest quality with which to shoot at birds in flight.
The most able-bodied gentlemen were equipped with real portable trees, capable of concealing a whole man and his arquebus. These were made from papier mache covered with bits of bark and mounted on an iron frame. They were furnished with false branches covered with an abundance of twigs. So that these could be worn, they were equipped internally with leather belts which made it possible to carry the simulacrum of a tree on one's shoulders while leaving the arms free. The guest could look through two little apertures and freely approach his victim, take aim with his arquebus, slowly pointing the barrel through the appropriate slit, and fire with assured success. This ingenious invention, designed on the basis of the advice of Gioseffo Maria Mitelli, from Bologna, son of an artist and painter of frescoes who had done much work at Palazzo Spada, gave rise to such praise and wonderment that I am providing a drawing of it here:
Others, who were more adventurous, were to attempt the so-called hunt with an ox. In other words, they used imposing sham cows, painted in oils with the greatest verisimilitude on canvases mounted on wooden frames, to be used as screens behind which to stalk the prey without frightening it off, and then shoot it
with an arquebus. To paraphrase more noble examples, one might call these real Trojan cows. I have also provided a drawing of this expedient, but I have other reasons for so doing:
In fact, the cow, as soon as it was set up in the field, scared all the animals on the Barberini estate, and some ladies too. This was because the bovine effigy, being painted in oils, shone with such lucent splendour in the sun that it seemed almost like a burning mirror. It had therefore to be rapidly withdrawn, otherwise all the birds would have flown off in terror.
Of course, in order to be able to attract a sufficient prey, it was necessary to stock the area of the merry hunt with a great number of song birds, so that their warbling would attract their fellows. For this purpose, many cages had been purchased full of chaffinches and goldfinches. Given my occasional role as Master of the Fowls, Don Paschatio had entrusted me with the important task of placing these cages at strategic points on the Barberini estate, making sure that each group of hunters should have the same number of these baits and that they should be uniformly positioned throughout the hunting grounds. To reinforce the effect, I was also to tie other song birds to the stems of plants and to trees, securing their legs with thread.
As I was gathering the cages and carrying them two by two to the Barberini estate, I encountered Don Tibaldutio. As often happened, he felt like conversing a little with me. I have already mentioned that he lived apart from the rest of the villa in a little room behind the chapel, and often felt somewhat lonely. I therefore proposed that he should keep me company while I laid out on the ground, on the trees and in the midst of bushes and shrubs the cages containing the birds which were to serve as bait.
Hardly had the chaplain begun to speak of this and of that when his upright and chaste presence revived like an invisible flame the burning memory of the night before.
