Veritas (Atto Melani) (24 page)

Headache, shaky limbs, muddy mouth. The riotous night spent with the students had robbed me of those lively forces so essential for a fresh start to the day.

The bizarre ceremony of the Deposition had finished around two o’clock. When I got back to Porta Coeli (of course I had a copy of the keys to the gate) I was in a state of feverish
excitement, which kept me awake almost till dawn. Yielding to the friendly insistence of Simonis’s friends, during the ceremony I had ended up accepting a tankard of good beer myself, which
had been followed by a second, and then a third. To avoid the effects of the carousal, Simonis and his study companions had each knocked back a glass of vinegar and had wrapped a cloth soaked in
freezing water around their pudenda. Infallible remedies, they claimed, but I had not been persuaded. And I had been wrong: although I had avoided total inebriation, I woke up with all its
symptoms.

When I opened my eyes, roused by the Bell of the Turks, Cloridia was already at work in Prince Eugene’s palace. Our little boy must have already gone off to work with Simonis. That morning
we had two urgent jobs in the Josephina area, cleaning flues. Simonis and my son would be there on the spot already, waiting for me with all the tools. The idea was that I would work with them for
a while and then let them finish on their own, while I went to see the work that was being done at our own house, situated not far away, as the master-builder had been wanting to consult me about
it for a few days now. However, it was not too late, and after saying my prayers there was still plenty of time for me to have breakfast.

As usual my consort had left a little bread and jam near the bed, and something interesting to read. Whereas in Rome hearing or reading the news (always full of murders and acts of violence)
would leave me feeling anguished and dismayed, in Vienna I often enjoyed leafing through the gazettes, and it was also highly recommended by Ollendorf, our German teacher, as a way to fill those
deplorable gaps in my learning.

Unfortunately (for him), in Vienna there were only two gazettes, and the older of the two was Italian. To be precise, it was
written
in Italian. As I have already had occasion to
mention, it was called
Corriere Ordinario
. It came out every four days from van Ghelen, the Italian court printer, and had been founded by Italians about forty years earlier. It was of
little use for the purposes intended by Ollendorf, but much more enjoyable to read.

I thought back to the evening spent with the students, in which I had spoken Italian almost the whole time. Simonis’s friends had all studied in Italy – in Bologna and in Venice
– and they still felt nostalgic for those days. To feel really at home, I said to myself joyfully, in Vienna you just had to speak Italian. Glowing with pride in my origins I picked up the
Corriere Ordinario
.

As I idly leafed through it, I thought how hard life must have been for Abbot Melani in Paris. I knew from his stories, and from the
vox populi
, that in France the Italians had almost
always been despised, hated and persecuted. The famous Concino Concini, Louis XIII’s Italian favourite, had been executed after his removal from office, after which the Parisians had taken
his corpse, cut it into pieces and eaten it. Then along had come Cardinal Mazzarino (or Mazarin), a truly Italian schemer, who had imported our country’s music and theatre into Paris. The
excessive power he had accumulated, and the arbitrary way he had used it, had made him unpopular with everyone. During the Fronde, Italian artists had been subjected to all kinds of cruelties:
Jacopo Torelli, the stage designer of
Orfeo
, had almost been lynched by the mob, despite having Frenchified his surname into Torel, while Atto himself and his master Luigi Rossi had had to
flee Paris. After the Cardinal’s death, the Italian musicians had been packed off back to Italy. Having driven them out, the French had been very happy to replace them with their own
Jean-Baptiste Lully (forgetting that his real name was Giovan Battista Lulli, and he was from Florence). So just what would the French say if they ever saw Vienna?

The Italians here were not only numerous, well respected and influential. In Vienna, quite simply, it was like
being
in Italy.

Ever since my arrival I had been very pleased to discover that the corporation I belonged to, the chimney-sweeps, was in the hands of my fellow countrymen. But that was only the start of it.
Everything, every corner, every living being that did not belong to the vulgar mass, seemed to speak my language. Among Viennese gentlemen one conversed, dressed, courted, handled money, preached,
planned, wrote and read in Italian. Letters were dictated, goods bought and sold, friendships made, loves and hatreds formed using the idiom of Dante and Petrarch. We Italians were admired, much
sought after, and, if not loved, certainly respected. At court our tongue was actually the official language.

As I meditated along these lines, taking a complacent pride in my origins, at the foot of the bed I spotted the German-Italian phrase book that Atto Melani had given me. It had been printed in
Vienna, but its author, the tutor of the imperial family Stefano Barnabè, was an Italian friar. Even the works in German by the court preacher, the barefoot Augustinian Abraham from Sancta
Clara, were printed by the
Italianissimo
typographer Viviani. We had St Francis, Dante and Columbus, the discoverer of America; we were a people of saints, poets and navigators. Why be
surprised that Vienna’s first newspaper was also our work? I began reading.

The first correspondence was from Lisbon, and reported tumults in the Kingdom of Portugal. Despite the war, the news had arrived quite quickly: the article was dated 23rd February, just a month
and a half ago. It was followed by a report on the meetings of the parliament in London and news on the war from Saragossa in Spain, where Joseph I’s brother, Charles, was competing for the
throne with the French Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV. I skipped to the second page where, after leaving aside sad military news from Aslan in Crimea and Danzig, I at last found
something interesting:

There followed a description of the audience, up to the leavetaking between Eugene and the Agha. All this was well known to me since I had either been present myself or had
heard Cloridia’s account of it. The anonymous chronicler provided just one new detail:

As I have had occasion to say, it was well known that Prince Eugene was longing to leave for the front again. Now it seemed that having received the Agha with all honours he had
decided it was time to set off.

There followed some reports from Madrid on the appointment of major generals and brigadiers, and then lesser news from Paris and the Low Countries.

While I put the
Corriere Ordinario
back on the ground, another bundle of papers slipped from its inner pages. Cloridia had been concerned about my German, and had also bought the
Wiennerisches Diarium
, or the Diary of Vienna, the city gazette in German which every three days or so reported the latest events. It was, essentially, the paper the good Ollendorf wanted
me to read. Like the
Corriere Ordinario
, the Diary of Vienna was today’s issue; Cloridia must have bought it as usual at Rothes Igel, the little palace of the Red Porcupine, in
Tuchlauben, or at the Portico de’ Tessutari, where the gazette was on sale.

I began to work my way painfully through the first item. Screwing up my eyes and drawing on my scanty resources I managed to make out that on Wednesday, three days earlier, the Emperor had
appointed as member of the Secret Council the Count of Schönborn, otherwise known as Hugo Damian, Lord of Reichelsperg and Hepenheim, Count of Wiesenthaidt and Old Biesen. Pleased at having
grasped at least the gist of the article, I went on to the second page. Here an account was given of the arrival of the Turkish Agha. Not wishing to attribute too much importance to the dreaded
Ottomans, they had compressed the news into just ten lines, while the appointment of Count Schönborn as Secret Councillor took up twenty-five.

There followed various reports from Hungary, from Poland and Russia (the Czar was preparing for war against the Tartars), from Naples (earthquake in the city of Reggio), from Rome (Cardinal
Gozzadini blessed the Bishop of Perugia). I then read news of the war in Spain (the French General Vendôme was withdrawing with 4,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry towards the Dauphiné)
and many other items from every part of Europe. As time was now pressing, I passed quickly to the last pages. Here were bulletins that the Viennese read avidly: the list of people of every rank who
had arrived in or departed from Vienna, and that of the new baptisms, weddings and deaths. I myself often enjoyed glancing through this section, looking for names I knew, such as my clients, but
today there was no time. I was just about to drop the
Wiennerisches Diarium
onto the floor alongside the
Corriere Ordinario
when my eye fell on the bulletin of new arrivals in the
city, and on one name in particular:

My eyes remained glued to the page of the gazette. I cast another glance at the second announcement:
Herr Milan
, “Il Signor Milani” if translated into Italian,
“Official of the Imperial Post, coming from Italy, alighted at the Post Station.”

“Il Signor Milani.” Milani?

It was as if all the bells in the city were sounding the fire alarm. Surprise was mixed with disappointment: after immersing myself for so long in the Italian conquest of Vienna, I had stumbled
on this priceless item not in the Italian newspaper but in the Viennese one.

I got dressed at lightning speed, dashed out of the room slamming the door behind me and rushed towards the convent gates. Where was the Post Station? Could it be on the Wollzeile, the Wool
Road, as I seemed to remember? I mentally prepared a question for the first passer-by I should encounter, cursing my awkward German: “Excuse, I look for Post Station . . .”

I ran into the street, my breath steaming in the cold morning air, and immediately turned right into the Rauhensteingasse. It may have been the icy breeze but at that moment everything came
together in my head: the memory of the previous evening, when we had met a young man talking to a servant outside the convent, the proverb about eagles and crows that I had overheard; and before
that the two porters carrying a heavy trunk full of clothes to the convent; the thought that Porta Coeli had a second guest house, round the corner, right on the Rauhensteingasse; the announcement
in the
Wiennerisches Diarium
; finally, as I ran headlong into the side road, like a ray of sunlight cutting through the fog, that voice:

“. . . and later we’ll go and look for the boy.”

I smiled at “the boy”, something I had not been for a while now, and tripping on the cobbles in my haste, and perhaps also from a sudden whirling dizziness, I found myself staring
upwards. Gazing down at me was a pair of curious dark glasses above a large, lead-whitened nose, in a face half concealed by a large green cloak and a black hat. I did not recognise him, but I knew
it was he.

By his side, the young man from the previous evening stared at me in surprise.

“I’m . . . I’m here, Signor Abbot,” I stammered.