Secretum am-2

by Rita Monaldi

  My heart was beating hard. Spada, Albani and Spinola: the same three eminences who had for days and days been meeting secretly at the Vessel and whose trail I and Atto had been trying in vain to follow. So the Spanish succession was the real reason they were meeting, not the conclave!

  I raised my eyes from the letter, frowning. Why had not Atto run to tell me as soon as he had learned the news from Maria?

  Feverishly, I skimmed through the letter. I stopped a little further on:

  Thus, His Holiness has yielded to spirits more tenacious than his own. Will he have the necessary clarity of mind to act effectively on the King's behalf? Here, my friend, I begin once more to have my doubts. What does the Holy Father mean when, as you wrote, he is heard to moan: "We are denied the dignity which is due to the Vicar of Christ and there is no care for us"?

  I switched rapidly to Atto's reply, which gave me even more food for thought:

  Most Clement Madame,

  I have known for some time of the congregation of the three cardinals responsible for drawing up an opinion on the Spanish Question. The matter is common knowledge here in Rome, at least in well-informed circles. If you were among us here at the festivities, you would already have learned of it…

  I doubted those words. Did Atto perhaps want to make Maria believe that he had prior knowledge of everything, so as not to lose face? Melani's letter continued:

  In reality, His Holiness had originally chosen Cardinal Panciati instead of Spinola, which would have been better for France, since Spinola is openly in favour of the Empire; but then the former was obliged to decline on grounds of poor health, so much so that he has not even been able to attend the delightful wedding at Villa Spada.

  You were however informed most promptly, since the assignment will only be made officially tomorrow, on the 14th July.

  No, Atto was pretending nothing to the Connestabilessa. He was telling the truth: to me, however, he had lied. From all these details, which he was setting forth with such confidence, it was clear that Atto had for some time been fully informed of the three cardinals' diplomatic manoeuvres following Charles of Spain's request for the Pope's assistance. But all this he had deliberately kept from me, and that, for a long time.

  Then suddenly I remembered: what was it that I had heard those three spectators saying the evening before, just before the play began? The Spanish Ambassador, Count Uzeda, with the help of others, had at long last succeeded in convincing Pope Innocent XII. To do what, however, that they had not said. Nor had they mentioned the names of those who were supposed to have helped Uzeda by influencing His Holiness: they had only referred to "four sly foxes".

  Now the Connestabilessa's letter made everything clear: plainly, Innocent XII did not wish to involve himself in the question of the Spanish succession, but he had in the end given in to pressure from the Spanish Ambassador. And who were the other "sly foxes" like him if not Albani, Spada and Spinola? That was why one of the trio, whom I had overheard the evening before, had silenced the others with the words " lupus in fabula" as soon as he had realised that Cardinal Spada was approaching.

  In other words, the three eminences had used every means at their disposal to put pressure on the dying Pontiff to assign them the task of dealing with the question of the Spanish succession. But worst of all was the fact that when, on the day before — the 12th — Pope Pignatelli had let himself be convinced to set up the congregation, the three cardinals had already been meeting secretly at the Vessel for a week! Perhaps they were deciding on the tactics to adopt with the Holy Father.

  To keep their meetings well hidden, what better cover than the wedding at Villa Spada? No one would become suspicious seeing them together, since Spada was the master of the house and both Albani and Spinola were among the guests. All that without counting the fact that they were so skilful in their manner of slipping away to the Vessel that the Abbot and I had never managed to catch them in flagrante during their meetings there.

  All in all, it seemed that the poor old Pope no longer counted for anything, as the three guests had commented the evening before.

  I felt bitter about this: alas, it meant that Spada, in his capacity as Secretary of State, was in all probability one of those (together with the Secretary for Breves, Albani, and the Chamberlain, Spinola di San Cesareo) about whom the Pontiff complained that he was denied the dignity due to the Vicar of Christ and treated inconsiderately, as the Connestabilessa had mentioned on no fewer than two separate occasions in her letters to Atto.

  What was the Abbot's role in all this? Now that was clear: Melani's purpose was to spy on the trio, not with a view to the conclave but in order to know whether or not what they decided for the Spanish succession was favourable to France; and perhaps to hold himself at the ready to act on his King's behalf. Had I not read his correspondence with Maria, I would have remained in the dark about all this.

  Discouraged and humiliated, I continued reading:

  … and yet you must not think that His Holiness is in bad hands. From such information as I have been able to gather, he is perfectly and disinterestedly assisted by the Secretary of State, by the Secretary for Breves and by the Chamberlain, who look after all affairs of State with the greatest of care and solicitude. As I have already had occasion to write to you, they have in no way taken the crosier from His Holiness's hand but are only carrying out the difficult task with which the Pontiff has been so good as to entrust them, a task which they accepted humbly and with joy. Fear not.

  So tense did I become at this juncture that I came close to crushing the letter between my fingers, leaving the mark of my clandestine reading. Such impudence! Not only did Atto know perfectly well what those three cardinals were up to during their secret meetings at the Vessel (despite the fact that he had never succeeded in finding them there) but he was speaking of it in unctuous, mellifluous terms. And this despite the fact that among the three was Cardinal Albani, in other words one of the Abbot's bitterest enemies: the one who, only the evening before, thanks to Ugonio's information, we had discovered to be in cahoots with Lamberg. The whole thing was really rather strange; what was Abbot Melani hiding?

  Continuing my reading, however, I found that the subject changed suddenly:

  But enough of this futile chatter! You know all too well how easily I immerse myself in vanities social and political when she who speaks (or writes) to me of such matters is the sweetest, noblest and most enchanting of Princesses one could ever desire to serve. You ought to amuse me with the most superficial of stratagems, even then you would effortlessly ensnare me, for all that issues forth from your mouth, as from your pen, is sublime, enchanting and worthy of love.

  But now it is time to pass on to serious matters. Most clement and dearly beloved Madame, how much longer will you deny yourself the delights of Villa Spada? Barely two days remain before the withering away of the festivities, and still I have not been vouchsafed the Grace of kneeling at your feet. Nor do you even tell me now whether you have been restored to health or when you will be arriving. Do you want my death?

  But if, with your compassion

  All the dear softness which was born with you

  Be not extinguished quite, deny me not

  This one request (although thy soul be cruel,

  'Tis lovely too) to my last farewell sigh

  Return but one, and then will death be pleasing.

  What envious god causes you to turn your back on Lidio and disdain his requests? You know full well: if I am here, 'tis only because you promised Lidio that you would come.

  Here was the truth. How could I have doubted it? He loved her and his love was mingled with that of his king, of whom Atto was but the old messenger. And when he returned to the subject of Eros, the Abbot betrayed the fact that all other things were merely a pretext for conversing, even if only on paper, with the object of his feelings.

  No, there was no mystery here, save that of the lasting love that joined three old persons. The Abbot, it was true,
had been reticent with me about the question of the Spanish succession, persuading me that the three cardinals were meeting to prepare the next conclave. Yet it was also true that the matter was extremely delicate, and Atto had therefore preferred to keep me in the dark. I well remembered from the days when we had met at the Locanda del Donzello, how the Abbot had been prodigal with the most stupefying revelations concerning events distant in time, while he carefully kept the truth about his manoeuvres and projects of the moment to himself. When all was said and done, what else could I expect of a veteran spy? I had to yield to the facts: Abbot Melani would always keep something from me, if only out of his inborn mistrustfulness and the complicated workings of his mind.

  So it was with new eyes that I reconsidered Melani's letter which I had just read, and now I no longer found it so suspect. For example, might not the obsequious tone employed by Atto when speaking of Albani be due to the Abbot's fear that someone might read his letters and realise that he was spying on the three cardinals for the Most Christian King?

  Now it was time for me to be on my way. I left the three letters where I had found them, in the Abbot's wig. The love verses, however, by their very nature resistant to all human will, accompanied me far on my way. They perpetuated the motionless dance of the rhymes along the way home to my bed, where I took out one last time the Cavaliere Guarini's Faithful Shepherd and sought those lines. When at length I found them playing on the lips of Silvio and Dorinda, I smiled at that final confirmation of the truth, for once kinder than my fears. Atto, Atto, although thy soul be cruel, 'tis lovely too,

  I found myself repeating this in that confused whirlpool which precedes sleep, and later, in the mystery of the night hours when the soul feeds on shadows and vain images and loves to discover itself immortal.

  Day the Eighth

  14th J ULY, 1700

  "And what do you mean to say, That I'm an ignoramus?"

  Poor Buvat fell silent at once, shocked by Atto's acid tone.

  That morning Abbot Melani was really beside himself. Buvat had just returned from a walk in town and had found us in close conversation, trying to think up a way of getting into the Congregation of the Oratory while eluding the surveillance of the Philippine Brothers. The moment that he attempted to contribute to the discussion, Atto set to berating him.

  "Never would I dare suggest such a thing, Signor Abbot," the secretary hesitantly defended himself, "only…"

  "Only what?"

  "Well, there's simply no reason to elude the surveillance of the Philippine Brothers because, as I was saying, there is none."

  Abbot Melani and I looked at one another in consternation.

  "What is more," Buvat continued, "Virgilio Spada himself arranged for his collection to be displayed in an accessible place. It is indeed a genuine museum, so arranged as to satisfy the curiosity of many visitors."

  Buvat went on to explain that Virgilio Spada, although he had in his youth soldiered under the Spanish flag, was a most religious, cultivated and erudite man, a good friend of the great architect Borromini whom he had introduced to the court of Pope Innocent X half a century previously. Spada had at the time been instructed by the Pontiff to restore order to the great hospital of Santo Spirito in Saxia, and had subsequently been appointed Privy Almoner to His Holiness. Besides this he had, thanks to his spiritual qualities, been invited to join the pious Congregation of the Oratory, so called because its founder, Saint Philip Neri, had held its first spiritual meetings at the Oratory of San Girolamo della Carita and later in that of Santa Maria in Vallicella, where the seat of the Congregation of the Oratory is now to be found, along with Virgilio's collection.

  "How the deuce do you come to know all this?"

  "You will of course remember that, when I was recently visiting libraries in search of information on the cerretani, among other things, I went to the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, which happens to be just next to the Oratory of the Philippine Brothers. So it was that I got into long and pleasant conversations with them. At that time, I could even have taken a look at the collection of Virgilio Spada, if only you had told me that you thought you might find there these objects which interest you so much."

  Melani lowered his eyes and muttered furious obscenities under his breath.

  "Very well, Buvat," he then said. "Take us to your Oratorian friends."

  "And this must be what you are looking for," said the young monk, turning the key in the lock of a great two-panelled chest.

  The room was gay and luminous, but rendered severe by the display cabinets, walnut chests of drawers and bookcases full of all manner of objects which covered it and made it rather like a sacristy.

  "No one knows that these objects, the ones you're looking for, are here. Perhaps there's someone in the Spada family who remembers," added the monk, with an expression that betrayed the desire to know how we came to be informed of this.

  "Quite. I believe that is precisely the case," replied Atto, in terms that did not address the Oratorian's observation, who was therefore left no wiser.

  We were in the room at the Oratory devoted to the museum: a corner room on the second floor giving onto the Piazza della Chiesa Nuova (that of the church standing next to the Oratory itself), and a narrow alley called the Via de' Filippini.

  We had begun with a detailed visit to the entire collection of Virgilio Spada: Roman coins; medals from every epoch; busts antique and modern; sundials; concave mirrors; convex lenses; gnomons; volcanic rocks; crystals; precious stones; solar sponges; the fangs of monstrous beings; teeth and bones of animals mysteriously turned to stone; the ravenous mandibles of unknown beings; elephants' vertebrae; gigantic conch and mussel shells; seahorses; stuffed birds and hawks; horns of rhinoceros and stags' antlers; turtles' shells; ostrich eggs; claws of crustaceans; and in addition, oil lamps of the first Christians found in the catacombs; tabernacles; Roman, Greek and Persian vases and amphorae; goblets; huge oil jars; lachrymal vases; bone calyxes; Chinese coins; alabaster spheres and a thousand other oddities which kept us suspended between wonderment and impatience.

  After a guided visit lasting half an hour (tiresome but necessary, for if we had asked at once to see what interested us, that would have attracted too much attention), Atto put the fateful question: were there by any chance three objects which the good Virgilio Spada had not integrated into the collection but for which he cared no less, and which were of such and such a kind?

  The Oratorian then led us into an adjoining room, where we at last stopped in front of an orotund and triumphal globe, that of Capitor. The Abbot and I concealed our enthusiasm and examined it with polite interest, as one might any fine product of human craftsmanship.

  "We have it, my boy, at last we have it!" Abbot Melani whispered in my ear, controlling his joy with some difficulty, while our guide led us to the second object: the goblet with the centaur. Once again, we dissimulated.

  "It looks just the same as in the picture, Signor Atto, there can be no doubt about it," I murmured in his ear.

  The crucial moment came only at the end, when the great black key turned in the lock and the mechanism which had guarded the third gift since who knows when gave way at last. The Oratorian opened both doors of the cabinet wide and extracted an object measuring about three feet by six, weighing a great deal and covered with a grey cloth.

  "Here we are," said he, laying it carefully on a little table and removing the cover, "we have to keep it under lock and key because it is particularly valuable. It is true that no one enters here unannounced, but one never knows."

  We barely heard the words of the courteous Oratorian father; the blood beat hard against our temples and we would willingly have exchanged our eyes for his hands the better to discover the object so long and ardently coveted: the Tetrachion.

  Here it was at last.

  "It… is so beautiful," gasped Buvat.

  "It is the work of a Dutch master, so at least we are told, but we do not know his name," the priest added laconically.<
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  After the first moments of emotion, I was at last able to enjoy the refined forms of the dish, the exceedingly fine decoration of the edge, the exotic seashells and most capricious arabesques, and then the wonderful central marine scene, in which a pair of Tritons ploughed the waves drawing a chariot surmounted by a couple of deities seated one beside the other, their pudenda lightly covered by a golden veil; Neptune was grasping a trident, and, entwined in an embrace with her spouse, the Nereid Amphitrite was holding the reins. The pair were embossed in silver and stood out strikingly, being statuettes in the round set in the golden bed of the charger. Just as I was pausing to view the divine couple, Atto drew near to examine a minute inscription.

  I too approached, and read in turn. The inscription was carved at the feet of the two deities: MONSTRUM TETRACHION

  "Would you like to see anything else?" asked the Oratorian, while Atto, without even having asked his permission, took the dish in his hands, and with Buvat's help, closely inspected the two silver statuettes.

  "No thank you, Father, that will suffice," the Abbot answered at length. "Now we shall take our leave. We simply wished to satisfy our curiosity." "The correct meaning of monstrum is 'marvel' or 'a marvellous thing'. But what sense does it make to write monstrum Tetrachion, or 'quadruple marvel'?"

  No sooner were we on our way, moving from the Oratory of the Philippines towards the Tiber than Atto set about trying to work out what that inscription might mean. We had to hasten towards the Vessel. It was almost midday and, as Cloridia had announced to us two days earlier, another meeting between the three cardinals was due to take place, perhaps the last one on which we might have a chance to spy, or attempt to spy, seeing that all our attempts to date had failed miserably.