Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  The presenter of the programme then turned to Mulreahy, as a noted canon lawyer, for clarification of the law on the sale of the painting. Mulreahy was a smooth Irishman. David knew of him as a Northern Ireland priest, a frequent thorn in the side of whatever British government was in power. He had not realized Mulreahy was a canon lawyer as well and was apprehensive of what he might have to say. Hamilton’s legal advisors had done their homework, but there were always grey areas.

  ‘Sir Anthony is quite wrong, I’m afraid,’ purred Mulreahy, and David relaxed. ‘The law is perfectly clear. His Holiness is an absolute monarch in temporal matters. His word is absolute from the moment he is elected Pope, provided it is by a proper conclave, until the moment his successor is elected, also by a proper conclave. There are all sorts of conventions and traditions in Vatican life – but that’s all they are. For example, it has been the convention for recent Popes to donate to charity only the gifts they have received themselves, or gifts presented to their immediate predecessor. Anything else is deemed to be part of the patrimony of the Holy See. But, I repeat, this is only a convention and a Pope may change it at any time if he wants to. And especially if he sees there is a pressing need, as I believe there is now. As to the Lateran Treaty, I have actually read it, which Sir Anthony may not have.’ David could see that Mulreahy was enjoying himself. He wondered if there was some personal animosity between the two men. ‘It consists of twenty-nine clauses, of which only clause eighteen relates to the treasures of the Vatican. It is three lines long, and although hardly a complicated legal document it is in fact a touch vague in the original Italian. It says that His Holiness must keep the tesori of the Vatican open at all times, for the public, students and scholars. Now tesori has two meanings: treasures and treasuries. If the Pope wanted to, therefore, he could choose to understand the treaty as reading that his obligation is to keep open the treasuries, the treasure houses of the Vatican, the museums and galleries! The Lateran treaty does not necessarily apply to any one single work of art.’

  David was delighted now that Mulreahy had gone before him. He had entirely redressed the balance after Hardy’s attack.

  The presenter turned back to Sir Anthony for his reply.

  ‘I think Father Mulreahy is quibbling. Maybe the Pope is not acting illegally, strictly speaking, but he is certainly doing something he ought not to. And, in my view, he wouldn’t be able to if he wasn’t abetted by auction houses like Hamilton’s. They seem to think that the most important thing about a painting is its price. They are profiting by other people’s misfortune.’

  Swiftly and smoothly the presenter turned to David. ‘Mr Colwyn, what do you say to that? Accessory to a crime, profiting by others’ misfortune: heavy charges, eh?’

  ‘And entirely mistaken,’ said David quickly, trying to get into his voice all the enthusiasm he felt about the sale. ‘I think we’ve just heard from Father Mulreahy here that there’s no question of the sale of this painting being a crime. I never for a moment imagined that there was. As to Sir Anthony’s argument that a great painting should not be bargained for I think that’s a wholly misplaced view, too. Many of the paintings in the National Gallery, of which he was the distinguished director for several years, were themselves bargained for in just this way – as, for example, when large numbers of works of art came on to the market after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. This painting, too, was looted by Napoleon’s troops, so it is not all that dissimilar.’

  ‘Forget the law, then,’ said the presenter. ‘What about the charge that the Pope has no moral authority to sell the painting?’

  ‘Who is to decide?’ said David. ‘If a Pope doesn’t have moral authority, who does? But even if he were not Pope, think about the reason why the sale is taking place: 1,200 dead, thousands homeless. What better moral authority can there be than Christ’s own words, that we should help the poor?’

  Again the presenter slid in. ‘And what about the charge that Hamilton’s are profiting from other people’s misfortunes, that the most important thing for you is the price of a picture?’

  ‘Those arguments are naive and not a little snobbish,’ said David. ‘It’s like saying that doctors profit from misfortune, or nurses, or the police. Our organization will be helping to make a huge amount of money available to the disaster victims: that has to be a good thing.’

  ‘But the prices are obscene.’ It was Hardy again.

  ‘Are they?’ said David, taking a slip of paper out of his wallet. ‘I did a bit of research before coming to the studio. Back in 1909 Holbein’s “Duchess of Milan”, now in the National Gallery, changed hands for £72,000: that would be over six million pounds today. The Leonardo cartoon, not even a proper painting, cost £800,000 in 1962, close to twelve million pounds now. That’s in the National Gallery too. I could go on: Velasquez’s “Juan de Pareja” was sold for £2,320,000 in 1970, nearer nineteen million pounds today.’ These details had everybody’s attention, so David swept on. ‘Sir Anthony says we in the auction houses are only interested in prices. Not true – but we don’t try to pretend that art is only about aesthetic appearance. That’s the most important thing, yes, but not the only one. That’s why I think he and a number of other academic art historians are naive and snobbish. Should artists work for nothing? Of course not. And unless you want art kept only in museums, which is clearly nonsense, there are going to be private collectors. Why then shouldn’t museums and collectors buy and sell their collections, like anything else? That’s all the art market is. Yet Sir Anthony Hardy, and his colleagues, when they write art history, write only about the appearance of pictures. Why ignore the fact that money changes hands, and why ignore the fact that art works are more expensive at some points in history than at others? When the Duke of Orléans wanted to raise money during the French Revolution to finance his political ambitions and settle his gambling debts, he sold the family’s collection of paintings, the best in all France, perhaps in the whole world. Who was the first man to whom it was offered? James Christie, the very same who founded the distinguished house that still exists today. Who brought some of our greatest pictures, like the Altieri Claudes, all the way from Italy in the face of the entire French navy patrolling the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay? Not art historians but art dealers.

  ‘When the Orléans collection finally arrived in England who was it who arranged an exhibition unlike any that had been seen by the British public before, which changed our tastes for ever and was so popular it ran for six months? Michael Bryan, a dealer.’

  David’s mouth was dry by now, but while he had the floor he pressed on. ‘As to the claim that the Vatican is the spiritual home of the picture I would like to point out that the “Madonna” has not been hanging in St Peter’s or any other church. The picture is in a museum and, after the sale, will most likely go to another museum. So just as many people will be able to see it as in the past. It’s not being destroyed – it’s simply being sold.’ He could see the studio manager waving at the presenter to wind up the show so he finished quickly. ‘We have advanced His Holiness a substantial sum against the sale of the Raphael, so that he can offer aid to the earthquake victims promptly – in fact, even as this programme is taking place. That could not have been done before modern banking techniques and modern auction house practices. It could not have been done by anyone else in the art world. That has to be a good thing.’

  The presenter was trying to slide in again but David had one more sentence. ‘And, in view of the reason for the sale, we have agreed to reduce the commission we are charging.’

  David sat back and reached for the glass of water on the desk in front of him. As the presenter began to wind up the programme, Hardy, a television professional, had the last word. Loudly, he shouted across the studio: ‘Conscience money, Colwyn. Blood money.’

  *

  David slept badly that night, afraid that Hardy’s final comment might have ruined the impression he had been trying to make.

 
When he got to Hamilton’s office in St James’s Square next morning, however, all of his colleagues had seen the show, and they thought he had had by far the best of the argument. The Earl of Afton, chairman of Hamilton’s and a descendant of the original Hamilton family, founders of the auction house in the eighteenth century, was very encouraging. ‘Always thought that Hardy fellow was unstable,’ he confided in David. ‘Now I know he’s not only unstable, but nasty, too. Blood money indeed.’ He sniffed.

  Afton had appointed David three years before, after his discovery of the Raphael ‘Madonna’ in Sweden. Since then David had always found the old man very supportive. When David had told him, two days before, about the deal with the Pope, he had slapped his thigh and chuckled. ‘Bet you’re nervous, eh? Don’t be. Of course there’ll be a fuss, but always keep at the back of your mind poor old Stanley. If this thing comes off we’ll really have given him something to cry about.’

  Stanley Rice was the millionaire owner of Steele’s, Hamilton’s main rivals, and a man who, notoriously, always looked miserable. Together Afton and David had pushed the Vatican sale through the emergency board meeting that had to be called to ratify the decision to advance twenty million dollars to the Pope. David had his rivals on the board, an American called Sam Averne especially. But Afton had despatched him. Indeed, David thought that Afton was enjoying all the ‘fuss’ more than he was himself. And the Earl would be seventy-eight next birthday.

  Not that opposition to the sale was quite as great as David had feared. Staff at the small office Hamilton’s maintained in Rome reported after a couple of days that, in fact, the Italian press was curiously split on the issue and far less hostile than the Italian government. After all, the press, although much criticized by people it attacked, was actually more in touch with public opinion than anyone else, and its editors clearly realized that, away from Rome and the rarified world of art historians, the Pope’s decision to sell the painting was very popular. A snap opinion poll in the Milan-based Corriere della Sera, for instance, showed that fifty-nine per cent of people approved of the sale of the painting, only twenty-three per cent were against, and eighteen per cent didn’t know.

  Another reason why press criticism was blunted was provided by Elizabeth Lisle. In a very astute move, before making the announcement, she had obtained a reaction from Sirianni, the mayor of Foligno. Not unnaturally he was absolutely delighted, effusive in his praise of Pope Thomas, and he immediately withdrew the much-publicized remarks he had shouted at the Holy Father. Thus anyone who attacked Thomas’s plan was by implication forced into taking a position against the earthquake victims. Moreover, since Sirianni was a communist, the communist papers in Italy, which might have been expected to be virulently anti-Vatican, were in fact very welcoming of the Pope’s initiative. Opposition leaders in Italy sided with His Holiness also, making the telling point that the government itself had done so little to help the Foligno victims – the old story – that they were ill-equipped to speak about ‘moral authority’ in anything.

  Around the rest of the world, it seemed to David, following the press cuttings closely, that once people got over the shock of a Pope actually having the courage to sell the painting, most of them approved. Indeed, press criticism soon gave way to speculation about who the most likely buyers were, and what the ‘Madonna’ was worth. When asked, the directors of the National Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Getty in Malibu and the Alte Pinakothek in Munich all said they would love the picture for their collections. But not one of them would discuss the price. They weren’t about to talk the picture up.

  By the weekend, it seemed to David that the Pope had won the argument, as he had predicted he would that evening in the Vatican picture gallery. The final accolade came on the following Tuesday when the American President, James Roskill, himself a Catholic, was asked by a reporter at his weekly news briefing to comment on the new American Pope’s ambitious plan.

  ‘As you know,’ said the President, ‘the United States has promised half a million dollars aid for the Foligno victims and as yet we are one of only a very few foreign governments – Great Britain and West Germany are the others – who have done so. I therefore welcome this initiative by Pope Thomas. It seems to me he’s bringing American-style imagination, as well as true compassion, to his sacred duties. As an American, and as a Catholic, I applaud what he is trying to do. And I am sure that, were he alive today, Raphael of Urbino, itself not so very far from Foligno, would also approve the Pope’s actions.’

  *

  In Italy, although grumbles continued spasmodically and art historians in general remained unconvinced, elsewhere everyone quickly got used to the idea. Nevertheless, because of all the publicity, it did not prove at all difficult for David to keep the ‘Madonna’ newsworthy.

  To begin with, Venturini, the Vatican curator, was mortified by the thought of selling the Raphael; but he now put his back into ensuring that everything went off as well as possible – and soon came up with a spectacular discovery in the Vatican’s Secret Archives. He found a document, dated Christmas 1519, in which the then Pope, Leone X, Giovanni de’ Medici, had written to Raphael offering to make him a cardinal. This was a story that had often been rumoured but invariably discounted by the historians. But here was the document, confounding even the best authorities. Its importance lay in the way it established the enormously high status of artists at the beginning of the sixteenth century: they were no longer just craftsmen but on a par with cardinals and, by implication, Popes. There was no reply from Raphael in the archive – at that point he didn’t have long to live anyway – but it didn’t matter. Venturini’s discovery made the front pages of the newspapers and even began to soften up the Pope’s critics among professional art historians. This new research would not have taken place, and produced results, but for His Holiness’s initiative.

  As Elizabeth Lisle had promised, the picture was transferred to Hamilton’s care after insurance had been arranged. David used the transfer as an opportunity for a photo-call: he guessed rightly that most picture editors would not be able to pass up the chance of being in the company of such a great painting, and the turnout by the press and networks was magnificent. Also, since he had decided the picture would not go on public display just yet, the sale being some way off, for a select few, distinguished collectors, government ministers in the relevant departments, art historians, other prominent personalities, the word was put round that a private viewing could be arranged. He was taken to task about this, however, when Elizabeth Lisle came to London after a month or so to check that everything was going smoothly. It was his chance to repay her hospitality, so he picked her up at Westminster Cathedral, where she was attending mass, and took her on to dinner at Wiltons in Jermyn Street.

  In the car on the way to the restaurant David noticed her fiddling with her watch and holding it to her ear. ‘What’s wrong? Not working?’

  ‘Listen.’ She held up her wrist. Faintly, he could make out a voice, speaking in Italian.

  ‘A speaking watch?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s a watch and a radio. I have it tuned to the Vatican station so I can keep up when I’m away.’

  He must have looked perplexed for she added, with a smile, ‘Don’t mind me. I’m gadget crazy. You’d be amazed at the junk I collect.’

  After they were seated at the restaurant, Elizabeth Lisle chose the whiting, waited till it was on the table, then challenged him. ‘I hear that if someone is fancy enough he can get to see the “Madonna”. But you have to be on a list of – what’s it called? – the “Great and the Good”.’ Her brown eyes were fixed on him. Again, he noticed her grip her tongue between her teeth. ‘Is that the right image we want to give? Thomas asked me to ask you.’

  ‘I’m absolutely certain it is,’ David replied without hesitation. ‘I’m trying to make the picture “fashionable”. And to do that I need to make it exclusive. I have to limit its accessibility – just as the S
outh Africans limit the accessibility of diamonds or gold. We’ll put it on general show later, but the present arrangements are part of my overall plan. For instance,’ he went on, ‘I don’t just let people see the picture. It’s made perfectly clear to them that, in return for the privilege, they are expected to make a donation to the Foligno appeal. Now, some of the people we’ve invited have been leaving cheques for quite impressive amounts. We’ve had three for a thousand pounds already. That way the Foligno fund benefits and for the people we are talking about, the viewing becomes not entirely self-indulgent: they can go off and tell their friends that they are not only privileged to have seen the picture, but they are holy too.’

  She swallowed some fish and smiled wryly. ‘Ingenious – but a shade cynical, uh?’

  ‘Not really,’ David countered. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I like the people I’m talking about. They may have their foibles, but then so do we all. And to be a businessman, an art dealer, and entrepreneur, you have to know how people are, what makes them get up in the morning. Now,’ he went on in a less serious tone, ‘tell me your news.’

  Elizabeth Lisle put down her fork. ‘Well, first off I’m instructed to tell you that the Holy Father is delighted with the way things are going. He was most impressed when the twenty million turned up on time. We had the hospitals fixed in two days. Within four days everyone had electricity and enough food. The water took a bit longer but even that was operational within a week. The prefabricated houses arrived by the Monday eight days after the quake and the school was able to begin classes after two weeks. We’ve put in extra teachers, extra nurses, extra plumbers and electricians. We’ve given a thousand dollars each to roughly two thousand families. Demolition experts have been hired to clear the rubble. They started at the end of last week. Fresh building starts the week after next but we’re obviously hampered by not knowing exactly how much we can spend until the painting has actually been sold. What about that? Are you tagging it on to your ordinary Old Master sale, or is it going to be a one-off?’