Midnight Angels (7 page)

“Riddle me this, young lady,” Edwards said.

Kate covered her face with the fingers of her right hand. “I am not good at this,” she said.

“Not yet, you aren’t,” he said. “But you’ll get it right eventually. Luck along with skill will dictate the time. But this is one you should be able to figure out.”

“Only if you make it an easy one,” she said.

“A defective chunk of marble,” he began, not bothering to hide his smile. “A debt that must be paid. A job that must be finished. And time is not your friend. Now, what does all that give you?”

Kate thought for a second and then nodded. “The naked man,” she said.

“Known in some circles as the David,” Edwards said.

“So I got it right?”

“Not quite on the money,” Edwards said, “but close enough.”

“But what does the naked man have to do with the snowman?” she asked.

“They are two sides of the same coin,” Edwards said. “Both were jobs that, for their own reasons, needed to be completed quickly. And both came along at a time when Michelangelo was in need of funds and, as was true for most of his life, well behind on his assigned work.”

“What was he working on when he did the snowman?” Kate asked.

“The statue of Hercules,” Edwards said.

“Have I ever seen that one?”

Edwards shook his head. “No,” he said. “Neither have I, nor has anyone else since the eighteenth century. When the piece was finally finished, it was sold to a man named Alfonso Strozzi, and then, years later, Francis I, king of France, took possession. It was kept in the Fontainebleau gardens, and there it remained until very early in the eighteenth century.”

“And then?”

“And then it vanished, much like the snowman—only in his case, the disappearance could be traced to natural causes.”

“I bet it’s really hard to steal a statue,” Kate said.

“If it
was
stolen,” Edwards said, moving toward a wooden bench, the young girl fast by his side.

“You said it vanished,” she said. “Doesn’t that mean someone stole it?”

Edwards sat down and looked at Kate standing across from him, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the endless row of city high-rises. “In most cases it would, yes,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s what happened with the Hercules.”

Kate glanced up at him, absorbing his words and attempting to grasp their intent, and then she nodded. “Michelangelo hid it,” she said, an excited tone to her voice.

“If not him, then someone working on his behalf,” Edwards said, leaning forward, hands folded, arms resting on his knees. “And it probably
wasn’t the only time. If what I believe can ever be proven, then at least forty percent of his works are hidden in various parts of Europe. I’m not alone in thinking that way. Your parents believed it as well, and they did considerably more research on the matter than I have.”

“But why would he do that?” she asked. “Why go to all the trouble of doing the work if all he was going to do at the end was hide it?”

“There are a number of reasons,” Edwards said, “and they all make a great deal of sense when examined closely.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it could have been done at the behest of the Medici family. They were consumed with the notion of power and knew their grip on the city could not last forever. Hiding works of the greatest sculptor of the day would ensure that they would never lack for funds, no matter how precarious their situation might become.”

“Do you think Michelangelo would agree to that?”

“I doubt he would have had much say in the matter,” Edwards said. “Remember, he was essentially their employee for large portions of his life, and he was as loyal to them as he was to anyone. So, in this case, I don’t think he would put up much of a fight, as long as he was paid in full for his work.”

Kate sat on the bench and stared up at the cloudless sky, her legs stretched out, two squirrels rummaging on the grass nearby. “Would he hide some of his works for the same reason as the Medici family?”

“Most likely,” Edwards said. “Especially during the times he was either feuding with them or, worse, hiding from them. He was arrested and held prisoner by the Medicis quite a few times for infractions that would be seen today as minor offenses. And if anyone knew the true worth of Michelangelo’s work, it was the master himself.”

“Have any of the works been found?”

“Now and then,” Edwards said. “Your parents uncovered a lost work very early in their careers, a small piece of sculpture done by a very young Michelangelo. They gifted it to the city of Florence.”

“Have you found any yet?”

He shook his head. “I’ve come close a few times,” he said, “or at least I thought I had, but all my leads came up empty.”

“Do you think I’ll ever find any?” she asked.

“I don’t
think
so, Kate,” he said. “I
know
so. I
know
it with all my heart, and I’ve known it since you were first born.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because you will be the best one of us,” Edwards said. “You will be guided by me and by the notes left behind by your parents, but you will take it further than any of us ever dared. That’s what I believe.”

Kate stood and began to walk back toward the Great Lawn, her head down, hands by her sides, lost in a swirl of a young girl’s thoughts.

CHAPTER
8

K
ATE AND MARCO STEPPED INTO THE ENTRY OF THE VASARI
Corridor and came to a quick stop. They gazed down the sloping hall, portraits wrapped inside gilded frames hung on both sides of the cream-colored walls, small circular windows letting in shards of late afternoon light, the sheer majesty of the room overwhelming them both.

“It’s like it was frozen in time,” Kate said. “The way it looks now is the way it looked when it was first built.”

“They’ve added a few hundred more portraits and painted it a half-dozen times,” Marco said, “plus they put in security cameras. But if you take all that away, we are in the city of Florence as it was in 1564.”

The Vasari Corridor was built by designer and author Giorgio Vasari in a five-month period, ostensibly to commemorate the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici and Johanna of Austria. Its true mission, however, was to serve as a link between the Pitti Palace, where the Grand Duke lived, and the Uffizi offices, where he worked, allowing him the ability to rule the city under the protection of one roof. The stone-covered walkway is just under a kilometer long, an overhead passageway that begins on the west corridor of the gallery and then moves toward the Arno River, following the flow of the water to the Ponte Vecchio. There it crosses over the tops of the shops, cutting through the Church of Santa Felicita and over the houses and gardens of the Guicciardini family before coming to an end under the arches of the majestic Boboli Gardens.

“The Grand Duke must have been such an arrogant man,” Marco said as the two began their slow walk up and down the steps of the corridor,
accompanied by an elderly guard, who stayed a few feet behind them. “And a frightened one as well.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The Ponte Vecchio used to be the local meat market at the time Vasari began his work,” Marco said. “It was the Grand Duke who had it moved, replaced by the gold merchants who remain there today. You know why?”

“He couldn’t stand the smell of the butchered meat,” Kate said, “especially during the summer months.”

“And that doesn’t sound like the action of an arrogant man?” Marco asked.

“Maybe he was just a sensible one,” she said, stopping to gaze at one of the seven hundred paintings which, along with five hundred artists’ self-portraits, hung on each wall and ran the full length of the corridor.

The Vasari Corridor was designed and built as a place to observe the daily activities of the town without any fear of being seen. The small windows can barely be discerned from streets below. Today, an unarmed guard walks the full length of the corridor every hour on the hour, and a series of prison bars blocks access from one section to another. While security cameras are clearly visible throughout the corridor, there is no alarm system.

“You would think with all the valuable art hanging here, there would be a higher level of security,” Kate said.

“Truth is, not many people even know it is here,” Marco said, “and that may well be the best security system of all.”

“It’s still a target,” she said. “What about that car bombing in 1993? The one that killed five people? It happened just down the street from this window.”

“That was a tragedy,” Marco said, “but it had nothing to do with the corridor, even though a few paintings were damaged and one or two ruined.”

“Some of the articles I read attributed the attack to homegrown terrorists,” Kate said. “They had to be looking to damage either the museum or the corridor.”

“If you want to call the Mafia homegrown terrorists, then those articles are correct,” Marco said. “The bomb was set off to show displeasure
at police crackdowns on their activities. The car was parked where it was because it was near the center of town, no other reason.”

“You never think of the Mafia having any business at all in a city like Florence,” Kate said. “I don’t really know why, but the two images don’t seem to fit together.”

“If you spend enough time in Italy,” he said, “you will see the Mafia leave their fingerprints everywhere. They are our original sin and we may never be free of their grip.”

They turned into the second part of the corridor, crossing above Via della Ninna, which links one end of the Uffizi with the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of the Florentine government since the thirteenth century.

“The windows are so small,” Kate said, peeking through one to gaze at the bustling street below. “But even so, you can see pretty much everything you need to see.”

She and Marco walked down a short flight of wide steps and stood before two large windows, the only two of their kind in the entire corridor, both offering a wide view of the Arno and the apartment buildings lining both sides of the river.

“These were not part of the original design,” the elderly guard explained. “And they should never have been built, if you ask me.”

“Why were they?” Kate asked.

“In 1938, Hitler came to Florence and decided he wanted to give a speech from inside the corridor,” Marco said. “Not even Mussolini could talk him out of it. There was no other choice but to build the windows and allow him access to the people below.”

“That dark day was the first and last time the windows have been opened,” the old guard said, a look of pride on his face. “In return for the gesture of the windows, the Nazis blew up all the bridges in Florence except for the one you see standing on this spot. The same one Hitler saw, the Ponte Vecchio.”

Kate and Marco walked in silence for a few moments, their footsteps muted on the carpeted stairwells, the guard following slowly behind them.

“He walked the same path we’re walking now,” Kate said, her eyes fixed on the white stone steps and the rich ornate tapestry covering them. “Most likely alone, lost in thought, troubled or relieved over one job or another.”

“Who?” Marco asked. “Hitler?”

“Michelangelo,” Kate said. “He would have had a dozen different reasons to walk through here, regardless of the time of day, most of them business-related, no doubt. But some of those walks were for reasons having nothing to do with work.”

“Like what?”

“He was a celebrity, or as close to one as they had in those days,” Kate said, always keen to reduce Michelangelo to basic human terms. “It must have been difficult for him to walk the streets without attracting public attention and running the risk of being stopped and asked questions he might not have been in the mood to answer.”

“Like Mick Jagger,” Marco said, smiling.

“Well,” she said, “it’s not crazy to think of him in those terms. Like a Renaissance rock star.”

“So, if Michelangelo is Jagger, does that mean da Vinci was one of the Beatles?” he asked.

“Anyone but Ringo, I suppose.”

“This corridor was probably used for so many purposes,” Marco said, gazing up at a Bernini painting. “You walk through the streets of the city and you don’t even notice its existence. Visible to all, but seen by none. In its own way, it is the ultimate Renaissance invention.”

“If you feel that way, then you must believe some of the rumors are true,” Kate said.

“As I am sure that you believe
all
of them,” Marco said.

“Not all,” she said, “just most. I never thought the rulers of the day kept prisoners here or used this place to dispose of bodies. There were too many other hidden haunts in the city to serve that purpose. Besides, this corridor wasn’t built for bloodshed. It’s too elegant, too regal to be stained that way. The Medicis were a methodical bunch, each movement planned, each site designed for its own specific purpose.”

“Correct,” Marco said, standing across from her now, his back against a stonewashed white wall, arms folded casually across his chest. “The purpose of the Vasari Corridor was to allow the rich and powerful a way to cross from one end of the city to the other without any worry of being seen. I don’t think there was anything more sinister to it than that.”

“That was only one part of it,” Kate said. “They had other plans for this corridor, and they shared those plans with only a handful of people.”

“Look, I love Oliver Stone movies, too,” Marco said. “And I’m the first to listen to any plausible conspiracy theory, but I never lose sight of the fact that they are nothing more than what they are—theories.”

“This was more than just a showroom, and a lot more than a passageway,” Kate said, scanning the walls. “This was a hiding place, a long corridor that was both secure and free of prying eyes. This was the perfect place.”

“To hide what?”

She turned and faced Marco. “What mattered most to the Medicis,” she said. “Their treasure. You know from all the reading we’ve both done that the family’s one fear was to lose the fortune they had amassed, either by takeover from another ruler or a fall from power. They were no different than any other rich family, back then or even today. It just makes sense that they would look to make sure they were covered, in the event that hard times ever hit them.”