Miracle at St. Anna (Movie Tie-in) (7 page)

Sitting in his tent outside the Cinquale Canal, Driscoll set down the list with the four names on it. No doubt about it. That was him, the giant he'd met that first day in camp. The guy who said the world was too big to fit on one piece of paper.

Too bad, he thought bitterly. The big galoot was sitting in the path of twelve thousand Germans and couldn't even read a map. He hoped the information he had was wrong. If it wasn't, he felt sorry for the poor bastard.

5

THE STATUE HEAD

The statue head that Sam Train found on the bank of the Arno River in Florence and carried into battle began its life as a chunk of rock in a marble mountain in 1590 in the town of Carrara, forty miles northwest of Florence. A marble worker named Filippo Guanio, dangling precariously from a rope strung from the top of the mountain, chiseled a long, straight line down a ten-foot outcropping and attached fourteen metal loops to the rocks. He was pulled up to the top of the mountain by his fellow workers, walked twenty feet over, then descended again, chiseling another line ten feet long and attaching fourteen more metal loops. He then worked his way twenty feet across the bottom, attaching twenty-two metal loops, forming a ten-by-twenty-foot box. He then strung a long, thick rope through each loop so they all were connected and formed a kind of cradle. With five other men, he carefully chipped away at chiseled lines near the loops until the big piece of rock broke loose and dangled freely from the mountain, held by only a single thick rope, and bounced precariously against the ledges while six men and two mules at the top of the mountain hung on for dear life to keep it from falling to earth. The men at the top were successful in defying gravity; the piece did not fall, but it bounced along the side of the ridge like a pendulum, tapping lightly with deep
booms
as it swung back and forth. Unfortunately for the workers who had freed the piece in the first place by hammering at the chiseled lines, there was no one available to pull them to the top since everyone up there was straining to the last muscle and was dreadfully occupied, to say the least. They were on their own, still suspended by ropes and clinging to the sides of the mountain, and as the piece bounded wildly out of control, they desperately scrambled to get out of the way. Filippo saw the chunk coming and frantically tried to move, but the huge piece hit another outcropping of rock and skittered crazily, losing its rhythm and bounding high. It swung wide of the mountain, then blocked out the sunlight as it came down and caught his arm, crushing it and ripping it away. The arm, still clothed in Filippo's sweater from shoulder to hand, dangled from the giant rock as it bounded away—it was as if the giant hunk of marble had deliberately grabbed the arm for itself—before it dropped to the side of the mountain below, where it landed in a pile of marble rubble, never to be found. Only then was Filippo, the nerve endings of his arm dangling jagged and bleeding from its socket, hastily hauled up to the top. He received an extra three hundred
scudi
and four bottles of wine from the mine's owner for his troubles that day, and went back to work two months later as a mule skinner.

The huge marble stone was lowered to the ground and placed on the back of a wagon, then carted eighty miles north to the port city of Genoa by twelve mules and a team of drivers. There, it was placed aboard a ship bound for France, where it was unloaded in La Rochelle and taken by another mule train to the studio of a starving French sculptor named Pierre Tranqueville, who had been commissioned by a duchess de' Medici, wife of the Duke of Florence, to carve one of four statues that would sit atop each corner of the Ponte Santa Trinità,the most beautiful bridge in Florence, whose looping curved arches conform to no line or figure in geometry and are believed to have been drawn free hand by a linear genius, rumored to be Michelangelo. The duchess wanted each statue to represent a season. She assigned the “summer,” “winter,” and “fall” statues to Italian sculptors. Tranqueville, who was commissioned to do spring—
primavera
in Italian—was the only Frenchman. The duchess chose him because he was recommended—indirectly—by one of her chamber-maids whom Tranqueville happened to have had the good fortune to pork on his one visit to Italy, when he'd scraped up enough money to visit the great marble statues created by Michelangelo, of whom everyone had heard. The chambermaid had recommended him to the duke of nearby Barga, whom
she
happened to have had the good fortune to pork on several occasions, and who in turn recommended him to the duchess, in order to show the lovely chambermaid how much sway he had with Her Highness.

The commission was the biggest of Tranqueville's young life, and he worked on the statue like a slave for four years, during which time his wife died, his mistress left him, and his only daughter ran off with a painter at the age of fourteen. Tranqueville cursed the statue every day, because despite the size of the commission, he became convinced that the statue that was to bring him fame and fortune had instead brought him only bad luck. Still, he slaved on. His money ran out, his creditors were breathing down his neck, his landlord waited in the wings to evict him, but Tranqueville worked without pause. When the gorgeous piece was finally completed, Tranqueville sent it back to Italy via the same route of mules and men, along with a gracious note to the duchess, thanking her for her generosity and hoping that his piece was the best of the four she had commissioned. Not receiving a swift reply and being flat broke, having taxed all his resources, soul, and savings, he became disconsolate and heartbroken, feelings which later gave way to rage. Two months after shipping the
Primavera
to Florence, Tranqueville stabbed his former mistress to death, flung his daughter's husband off a cliff, beat his daughter so senseless that for months afterward she had to eat food chewed for her by a nursemaid, then took his own life by swallowing a towel.

The statue, in the meantime, was the toast of Florence. It was mounted on the bridge with the three waiting others and drew flocks of admirers, even peasants, who commented that the
Primavera
's tragic beauty—her long neck, the graceful curves of her shoulders, the swoop of her luscious arms, and her beautiful, shy head tilted forever downward—connoted the deep secrets of a woman's heart as well as the purity of spring for which the statue was named, and the lovely countenance of a young maiden's ever expectant soul awaiting love in the fresh bloom of youth. The duchess, who had secretly harbored some reluctance about hiring a foreign artist, was now so delighted she took several weeks to decide what kind of remuneration to offer the unknown but gifted French sculptor. She finally decided on a commission of four statues for the nearby Ponte Vecchio, which paralleled the Santa Trinità on the Arno River, along with a generous commission to create any five statues of herself in marble that the artist pleased.

The letter bearing this good news from the duchess was sent to Tranqueville wrapped in Chinese silk and scrolled paper edged in gold, with forty-eight gold pieces tucked inside. It arrived nine days after Tranqueville had stuffed the towel down his throat, just as his creditors and landlord were arriving at his studio to clear out his belongings and decide what to do with his daughter, who was homeless, husbandless, and currently living in the back of his studio with an old peasant woman who fed her chewed bread and watery soup twice a day. The creditors and the landlord split fourteen gold pieces among themselves and awarded the rest to Tranqueville's daughter, who though unable to make much sense of the proceedings and the flush of activity that suddenly blossomed around her, was quite happy to receive chestnut soup and chewed wild boar for her twice-daily meals as opposed to crusty, day-old bread covered with the crusty hag's spit. The remaining gold pieces were enough to take care of her for the rest of her days, which, unfortunately, would number very few.

When word of Tranqueville's death reached Italy, the duchess was distraught. She had had no idea of the dire poverty the artist had been living in, and insisted that had she known she would have sent for him immediately and given him a place at her side as a royal artist in her court. She sent enough gold bullion to Tranqueville's daughter in La Rochelle to feed an entire village for a year, then took to her bed in grief for several days, disheartened that her one great artistic discovery had taken his own life before she could introduce his genius to the world at large—and thus immortalize herself in the process, since her future plans for him included several busts of herself.

Meanwhile, the tempest around the statue began. The other three artists, Florentines who had been commissioned to sculpt the works
Fall, Winter,
and
Summer,
were furious about the attention the Frenchman received. This is Florence, they argued. We see no difference between his piece and ours. Cultural imperialism, they cried. French snobs! Several city councilmen from the newly formed city government, seeking favor with the populace and a rival duke, took up the cause, and a good old Italian brouhaha started. There is a saying in Florence that Florentines don't agree on anything. They simply say no to everything and continue saying no again and again, deciding only many months or years later whether to agree, disagree, or stay out of it completely—and this only after several commissions have been formed, everything has been discussed, nothing has been decided, and the whole matter has been completely forgotten. Fourteen centuries of continually getting their asses kicked by successive rulers, dukes, counts, conquerors, Lucchesians, Pisans and Romans have, if nothing else, taught Florentines the value of silent virtue and cautious negativity. That virtue remains in Florence to this day.

In the meantime, the tempest around the statues grew, with the populace taking sides, this side sponsoring tours with rival dukes and duchesses, the other side passing pronouncements declaring that a holiday be named for their favorite of the four statues, and so forth. During this time, the duchess took to her deathbed, and in the wake of sentimental fashion that accompanies the dead and dying, not to mention the duchess's declared dying wishes that the statue be honored for the great art that it was, the value of the
Primavera
skyrocketed. The French ambassador to Florence, hearing of the controversy, took one look at the
Primavera,
hopped a ship to France to see King Louis IV of Mont St. Michel, and returned to Italy with an offer of two hundred thousand French florins for the
Primavera,
arguing coyly that if the Florentines could not agree as to the greatness of a French genius, why the French certainly could. This offer prompted a torrent of outcries from all Italian factions, who sent word to the French ambassador through the newly formed Florentine city council that while the duchess might be ill and dying, the statue was bought and paid for with Florentine money, labor, and blood, and with all due respect to the King of Mont St. Michel and the great nation of France, he could take his two hundred thousand French florins and stick them up his ass. The French ambassador took umbrage, and lawyers were summoned. Tempers mounted. Politicians drew up resolutions. More committees were formed. The French called in a lawyer from the nearby province of Liguria, who argued that there was no contract between France and Florence and that copies of Tranqueville's commission must be produced in order for the Florentines to prove ownership. There was no copy to be found, as the duchess's chambermaid, the lover of Tranqueville and the Duke of Barga, had taken note of the controversy and swiped the document in hope of cashing in on the whole bit later on. Now she was too frightened to reveal her deed and took to her bed, feigning illness. The Florentine city council, unable to produce the document, and by now thoroughly enraged, sent for Filippo Guiano, the marble worker who had lost an arm pulling the giant rock from the marble quarry at Carrara.

When four soldiers on horseback in full knight's regalia from the duchess's court appeared at his door, Filippo the marble worker thought he was either dreaming or going to prison for stealing dozens of limestone slabs off the mountains at Carrara and using his toes and his remaining hand to carve them up into figurines, which he sold for a good price. He jumped through a back window and tried to run. The soldiers caught him, threw him on a horse, and took him to Florence, where city officials stuffed him full of olives and wine, gave him a set of new clothes and a mule, and placed him before the marble
Primavera
on the Santa Trinità Bridge, whereupon the poor man declared to all present, This is indeed the piece of marble that cost me my arm, and I would know it since it is my arm that lay crushed against it and fell down the mountain. Then, to the astonishment of all present, the drunken man cursed the
Primavera
from head to foot, calling the piece “a low, filthy whore of a statue and not worthy of the time of a great duke-in-waiting like myself, and certainly not worth my arm.”

He was quickly hustled away—but the point, the Florentines argued, had been made. The
Primavera
was Florentine. It had been etched in Florentine blood. No Frenchman, be he a lowly ambassador or Louis IV, would touch it. The French ambassador backed down, withdrew the offer, and the squabbling among the Italians about the four statues began anew. It quieted down some after the duchess's death, in 1602, died after the Romans conquered Florence in 1639, was revived again when Italy was united in 1861, then ceased again in 1914, after the First World War began. After the war, the bickering started up anew, as each of the four statues began to show its age and needed repair, and no one could agree as to how—and by whom—they would be repaired. That ended when Hitler's army invaded Italy in 1943 and in 1944 blasted to pieces nearly every bridge in Florence, including the Santa Trinità, destroying every statue on it except the
Primavera,
which miraculously survived. She stood alone now on her corner post, a testament, her proponents murmured smugly beneath their breath, to God's decision as to which was the greatest work after all, though by accident of default or irony, one of her arms was blown off and presumed to have fallen into the Arno River, and like Filippo the marble worker's, that arm was never found. So the score of fate, it appeared, was even.