enormous banquet, my boy, and the law of banquets is: 'Drink or begone!''
Would I then never have any other choice? Did the authority invested by God no longer count for anything?
Autumn 1700
About a month had passed since Atto Melani and his secretary had abandoned me. Day after day of hatred, fury and powerlessness had followed. Every night, every single breath had been marked out in seconds by the remorseless clock of humiliation, injured honour and frustration. Perhaps it was no accident that I was tormented by that nasty tertian fever from which I had not suffered for years. It had consoled me little that, about a month before, a notary had come to Villa Spada in search of Atto: he said that the Abbot had instructed him to draw up an act of endowment but had failed to turn up to the appointment at which he was to sign it. Now I had the confirmation: Melani had not premeditated breaking his promise; simply, the instinct to flee had in extremis got the better of him.
Cloridia was sorry for me; despite her anger and humiliation as a mother at being denied her daughters' dowry, she was soon able even to make light of it all. She said that Melani had just been doing his job as a spy and a traitor.
Obviously, I had never set my hand to the memoir for which the Abbot had paid me. He was not really interested in it. I had thought thus to keep the money as partial compensation for the dowry he had failed to make over to my little ones. On 27th September, however, I did take up my pen, impelled by an event the gravity of which put my selfish suffering in the shade. I began to keep a little diary, which I am setting out below.
21th September 1100
The sad day is upon us: Innocent XII has passed away.
On the last day of August he had suffered an alarming relapse, so much so that the Consistory planned for the next day had to be postponed. On 4th September (as I had gradually come to learn from the broadsheets which the Major-Domo read out to the servants) his health had improved, and, with that, hopes had revived for his recovery. Three days later, however, his state again worsened, this time seriously. Yet his constitution was so strong that the illness lasted even longer. On the night of the 23rd and the 24th he was administered the Eucharist. On the 28th, he ordered that he was to be brought to the room where Pope Innocent XI, whom he had so revered, had breathed his last.
The physician Luca Corsi, no whit less capable than his illustrious predecessor Malpighi, had done all in his power. Human assistance was, however, no longer of any avail. Spiritual support was provided by a Capuchin friar to whom the Pope made his general confession.
'Ingredimur via universae carnis', 'we are taking the way of all flesh,' said he, moving to tears those who accompanied him in his extreme travail.
Yesterday night, his sufferings were aggravated by sharp pains in one side; however, it proved possible to restore him with a few sips of broth. But at four in the morning, he gave up the ghost.
The body will be brought from the Quirinale to Saint Peter's in a plain wooden coffin chosen by the Pope in person. He leaves behind him an exemplary reputation as father of the poor, a disinterested administrator of the Church's estates and a pious and just priest.
Now the betting is truly open for the election of the next Pope. Prognostications for this or that cardinal can be voiced aloud without any fear of offending the honour of the Holy Father and his poor sick body.
This should have been Abbot Melani's finest hour: at long last exploiting his network of acquaintances, making friends among those attending the conclave, getting wind of indiscretions, proposing strategies, propagating false rumours to demoralise the other side..
None of that is to be. No clever interpreter of political manoeuvring, no magus of Vatican alchemy will be by my side. I shall observe the conclave from the outside, wide-eyed and with my soul in a state of suspense, like all the other members of the public.
8th October
Tomorrow, the cardinals go into conclave. The factions are on a war footing, all Rome is holding its breath. The city is full of gazettes and broadsheets setting out the composition of the parties that will be entering the lists. Satires, dramas and sonnets flourish, lampoons abound.
Plays are circulated quite without shame or fear of God, lambasting the whole Sacred College, while according special attention to Cardinal Ottoboni and his particular tendencies: in La Babilonia, he is given the role of the chambermaid Nina; in L'Osteria, he becomes Petrina; in Babilonia Crescente, Madam Fulvia, in Babilonia trasformata, a certain Venetian Angeletta. Everyone kills themselves laughing.
The other day, I came upon a sonnet in which poor Pope Innocent the Twelfth (' Duodecimo') becomes Innocent Duodenum. Out of modesty, I shall not reproduce it here.
Besides all the jokes, serious information also circulates. The imperial and Spanish cardinals number eleven, at least on paper. The French are in equal numbers. The party of the Cardinal Zealots is the most numerous, numbering nineteen. Some of these (Moriggia, Carlo Barberini, Colloredo) I have seen at Villa Spada. The group of the Virile are ten, and include the Chamberlain Spinola di San Cesareo; likewise the Drifters. The Ottoboniani and Altieristi (called after the family names of the popes who raised them to the purple) are twelve. These include my master, Cardinal Spada, together with Albani, Mariscotti and, obviously, Ottoboni. Then come the other popes' appointments, the Odescalchini, the Pignatellisti and the Barberini..
According to the gazettes, the divisions cut across all party lines, and so are infinite. Some see rivalries and alliances according to age groups, gifts, aspirations, caprices, even tastes: there are the bitter cardinals, in other words, those known for their ill humour (Panciatici, Buonvisi, Acciaioli, Marescotti), the good-natured and easy going (Moriggia, Radolovich, Barberini, Spinola di Santa Cecilia), the middling ones (Carpegna, Noris, Durazzo, Dal Verme) and lastly, the unripe ones, who are less than seventy years of age and therefore too young to be elected (Spada, Albani, Orsini, Spinola di San Cesareo, Mellini and Rubini).
Negroni is seventy-one years old but has made it clear that he is not willing to be elected; he will vote for whoever merits the appointment, so he swore, and against the undeserving. The latter, of this everyone is convinced, are the overwhelming majority.
Even upright souls will, however, find the way difficult. No favours will be granted, even to those who have all their affairs in good order. Carlo Barberini, for instance, is about the right age, but has to contend with the hatred of the Romans for his relatives (which has lasted for the best part of eighty years), as well as the hostility of Spinola di San Cesareo and, above all, his own stupidity. Accaioli is opposed by Tuscany and France. Abroad, Marescotti is hated only by France, but in Rome also by Bichi (the feeling being entirely mutual). Durazzo is envied for the fact that he is related to the Queen of Spain. Moriggia is too close to Tuscany, Radolovich to Spain. Carpegna is not in good odour with any of the crowned heads of Europe, Colloredo is detested by the French and despised by Ottoboni. Costaguti is notoriously incompetent. Noris suits no one because he is a friar. For whatever reason, Panciatici is favoured by no one.
Many foreigners will not come, being taken up with urgent business of their own (these are said to include the Austrian Kollonitz, the Frenchmen Sousa and Bonsi and the Spaniard Portocarrero). But the struggle will be very hard indeed, so much so that the eminences may wish to opt for a more rapid solution in order to avoid bloodshed. Some say that white smoke may emerge within a fortnight or so, perhaps even less.
18th November
Nothing of the kind. A month and a half has passed since the beginning of the conclave, yet there's not so much as the shadow of a new Pontiff. The Sacred College of Cardinals seems in fact quite indifferent to the election of the new Pope. We have in fact seen nothing but fruitless manoeuvres whereby candidates have been ruined and burnt out. Everything is blocked by France, Spain and the Empire, in a crossfire of vetoes which implacably bars the way to candidates who do not meet with their approval. The independence and prestige of the Church are obviously in pieces, but the cardinals care nothing for that.
