Veritas (Atto Melani) (13 page)

Believe it or not, in this delicate operation I myself, humble chimney-sweep, had a part to play. The oratorio required the presence of some children as extras, but it was not easy to find
families willing to let their offspring out of the house at that late hour. Camilla had therefore asked us to help replenish her troop of children; given my slight stature, we were able to supply
her with not just one extra, but two.

And so, in the solemn setting of the Caesarean chapel, almost every evening we attended the rehearsals of the
Sant’ Alessio
, taking part when necessary in the scenes of action,
and, when our participation was not required, quietly observing the orchestra players and singers as they rehearsed.

It was like being reborn into the world of singing: in my whole life I had never listened to anything other than the voice of Atto Melani singing the notes of his old master, Seigneur Luigi. By
some strange quirk of fate what I was now listening to were not the arias of Luigi Rossi but those of a de’ Rossi, Camilla; almost the same surname, which was now indissolubly linked in my
mind to the idea of singing.

Among the motley crew of orchestra musicians, many of them well established in court circles, my little boy and I, although a little nervous on account of our ignorance of the Euterpean art,
could now boast a few acquaintances. Every evening we were greeted with respect and friendly remarks by the theorbist Francesco Conti, who played several parts as soloist in
Sant’
Alessio
; by Conti’s wife, the soprano Maria Landini, known as the Landina, who sang the role of Alessio’s betrothed; by the tenor Carlo Costa, who played Alessio’s father in
the oratorio; and finally by Carlo Agostino Ziani,
vice-maestro
of the imperial chapel and by Silvio Stampiglia, court poet, both of whom had a high regard for Camilla de’
Rossi’s music and often came to listen to the rehearsals of the oratorio.

With such high-ranking personages, who bestowed their benevolence upon us precisely because they knew us to be friends of the Chormaisterin, we could, of course, only have fleeting contacts. The
only one who would engage in conversations of any length was a singer – an Italian, like most musicians in Vienna. His name was Gaetano Orsini, and he played the leading role in the oratorio.
I greatly appreciated the fact that he was on very free and easy terms with us, something that his rank did not require of him in the least; he was personally acquainted with the Emperor, who held
his art in high esteem and kept him on a salary among his own musicians. From the first moment I spoke to him, I felt as if I had always known him. Then I realised why: Orsini shared with Atto
Melani a feature of no slight importance. He was a castrato.

I arrived at the rehearsal a little late. As I approached the door of the Caesarean chapel I heard that Camilla had already started off the orchestral players. When I entered I was greeted by
Orsini’s singing. The oratorio narrated the moving story of Alessio, a young Roman nobleman on the threshold of marriage. On the very day of his wedding he receives a divine command to
renounce all worldly joys, and so he leaves his betrothed, goes to sea and, taking shelter in distant lands, leads a life of poverty and solitude. When he returns to Rome, disguised as a beggar, he
is given hospitality at his paternal home and stays there for seventeen years without being recognised, sleeping under a staircase. Only on the point of death does he make himself known to his
parents and his erstwhile fiancée.

That evening they were rehearsing the aria with dramatic dialogue between Alessio and his betrothed on the day of the uncelebrated marriage. I had just taken my place among the other extras
when, introduced by the tinkling of the theorbo and the cymbals, and sustained by the concise, reasoning tones of the violins, we heard the anguishing words with which Alessio takes leave of his
betrothed:

In the recitative that followed, she answered just as heart-rendingly:

Despite his bride’s distressed reply and the melodiousness of Camilla de’ Rossi’s music, my thoughts took me elsewhere. In my mind’s eye I saw myself
once again on the Flying Ship where it lay inert in the deserted ball stadium. I imagined its unknown pilot in his monk’s garb, his fate shrouded in mystery: such an arcane affair, I thought,
was worthy of a poem by Ariosto.

Meanwhile Alessio rejected his beloved’s entreaties, and announced his final departure:

I closed my eyes. As the beautiful music of the Chormaisterin of Porta Coeli swirled around the solemn space of the Caesarean chapel, my mind resounded with the roars of the
lions of Neugebäu and the screeching of the birds in their cages.

Day the Second
F
RIDAY
, 10
^TH
A
PRIL
1711

The following day I woke up brimming with robust optimism, eager to return to the Place with No Name to start the job that had been awaiting me far too long, my fingers
tingling with the anticipation of curiosity.

As the bell of the Lauds announced the start of the day for the humble classes, I clambered into the cart with my little apprentice and Simonis.

“This time, Signor Master, I’ll take the southern road. Let’s enter by the side of the gardens, away from the lions, heh heh!” said the Greek, who had been greatly amused
by the account of my flight the previous evening.

While we were on our way, dawn broke. We passed a large church and then shortly afterwards we began to make out a white building in the distance, so white that the stones were dazzling in the
sunlight.

When my pupils had adjusted to the glare, I saw a long set of crenellated walls punctuated with small towers with pinnacled roofs. They could have been military constructions, watchtowers or
something similar, had they not been so minute and graceful, and so unusually rich in decorations that hinted at some indefinable oriental influence. Behind the wall, in the middle distance, were
more buildings of imposing appearance. As we approached, I realised that the outer wall, which was of truly Cyclopic proportions, was quadrangular in form. On the longer side, the one facing the
road from Vienna which we had just travelled along, the wall was interrupted by an impressive gateway, surmounted by a triple keep. We stopped and got out.

We walked through the gateway. Immediately beyond it was an open space. My little boy, who had been greatly excited on hearing about the lion and the Flying Ship the previous evening, kept
asking where such marvels were and insisted on going to see them at once. Simonis followed us rather absent-mindedly.

I was amazed to find myself in an enormous open space, dotted with trees and bushes, containing another set of protective walls, once again with towers but only at the four corners. These towers
were much larger than the ones on the outer walls; at least twice as high, like great bell towers, and not cylindrical but hexagonal. Each had a large domed roof, resting on a drum with windows. At
the top of each dome was a hexagonal pinnacle, culminating in a large peak, also hexagonal. Around the dome were six more pinnacles, corresponding to each corner of the tower, and identical to the
one on the top. On each of the six façades of the hexagon were two series of windows, on as many levels, which suggested that the towers were compartmented and habitable.

The exotic form of the pinnacles, of their tips and of the dome reminded me of the graceful minarets and roofs of Constantinople, as I had seen them in the books bequeathed to me by my
father-in-law of blessed memory. I remembered that the previous afternoon, when I had arrived at the Place with No Name, I had spotted the top of one of these towers, and that in itself had
surprised me; but I would never have imagined the wonders that extended beyond the crenellated wall surrounding the gardens.

Why on earth, I began to ask myself, had this place been abandoned? Our beloved Emperor Joseph I now intended to restore it to its original splendour, but why had his predecessors condemned it
to oblivion?

I was on the point of sharing these questions with Simonis, when I decided not to break the silence, so rare in my garrulous assistant.

A little avenue, flanked by a double line of trees, led towards the interior quadrangle. The moment I entered it my jaw dropped.

Watched over by large Turkish-style towers set at the four corners, there lay before me a marvellous Mediterranean garden. The space was subdivided by flower beds and lawns into four equal
quadrants, each of which was in turn composed of four smaller sectors, each one patterned with delightful geometrical compositions. In the middle, where the four quadrants met, was a splendid
fountain in the form of a bowl, supported by a large decorated pedestal. The enclosure, which from the outside appeared to be a simple wall, on the inside proved to be a magnificent loggia in
dazzling white stone, with imposing columns of exquisite workmanship.

My mind was still taking in this vision when my eyes darted into the distance, towards the wall at the far side of the open space. There in front of me the colonnade opened up to reveal –
sturdy and powerful – an enormous and princely castle.

Dazed by all these wonders, it took me a few moments to focus on some important details. The outer wall, the first one I had passed through, surrounded a garden that was luxuriant but
uncultivated: trees and vegetation of all kinds throve in generous disorder. The interior garden – the one within the porticoed walls – still maintained the graceful forms of the beds
and ornamental lawns, but they were in a state of neglect. The beds had no flowers, nor was there a single blade of grass in the former lawns. Not a drop of water danced in the air above the
beautiful bowl-shaped fountain, and the walls and vaults of the portico showed the heavy marks of time.

I began to walk towards the castle. As I approached it, I thought of the name – or rather the non-name – of this place: Neugebäu, “New Building”. The Place with No
Name known as “New Building”: a strange appellative for a complex that had been disused for years, perhaps even decades. The day before, when we had entered on the northern side, I had
sensed nothing of the marvels that the place concealed. My fellow chimney-sweeps were right: what was the Place with No Name? A villa? A garden? A hunting lodge? A bird enclosure?

I studied the castle in front of me, if I could call it that. It was really a free and original work of fantasy. It had an enormous frontage hundreds of yards in length, all of it gazing
triumphantly on the oriental-style gardens, but it was by no means deep; all in all it was not as large as it had first seemed, but narrow and long, like a stone serpent.

I halted. I wanted to visit the towers and I began with the one in the north-east. Inside, I found to my amazement, traces of beautiful marble and exotic mosaics, and fragments of large baths,
which showed there had once been a thermal system, maybe with tanks of spiced waters and medicinal vapours. Surprised by this further marvel, I promised that I would visit the other towers later
and returned towards the castle.

Curiously the building showed no oriental features, except for a gable roof, glittering with strange coruscations that made me think of the gilded coverings of Turkish pavilions. I noticed that
the roof was covered with tiles of a strange, flickering colour, very different from the usual burnished brown of Viennese roofs. As I observed, my eyeballs were suddenly struck by a kind of
piercing dart – then by another – and then by countless more. I shielded my eyes with my hand and peered through the slits between my fingers. What I saw astonished me: the roof of the
castle, struck by the rays of the sun, glittered like gold. Yes, because the tiles of the castle of the Place with No Name were not of terracotta but of fine gilded copper. When I looked closer I
could see that actually very little was left of the original covering, a prey to the ravages of time or perhaps to human greed. But what little copper remained was enough to refract the fair and
blessed sunlight into sharp and powerful shafts.