climb the stairs, and I behind him.
Halfway up the stairs, between the ground and the first floor, we found a little room lit by a candelabrum, with various fine objects in it which we stopped briefly to examine. 1 was astounded by the wealth of the furnishings, the like of which I had never seen before: we must be in the house of a well-to-do gentleman. The abbot approached a little inlaid walnut table covered with a green cloth. He raised his eyes and discovered a number of fine paintings: an Annunciation, a Pieta, a Saint Francis with Angels in a gold-bordered walnut frame, another picture representing John the Baptist, a little picture on paper with a tortoiseshell and gilt frame and, lastly, a plaster octagon bas-relief representing Mary Magdalene. I saw a wash-stand which seemed to me to be in pear- wood, turned with great art and skill. Above it, there hung a small copper and gold crucifix with a cross fashioned from ebony. Completing the little parlour, there was a little table in light-coloured wood with its fine little drawers, and two chairs.
In a few more steps, we reached the first floor, which seemed at first to be deserted and enveloped in gloom. Atto Melani pointed out to me the next flight, leading even higher, and on which the light fell clearer and stronger. We craned our necks and saw that on the wall by the stairs was a sconce with four large candles, beyond which one came to the second floor, where, in all probability, the people of the house were at that moment.
We remained briefly immobile on the stairs, listening intently. There was not a sound; we continued to climb. Suddenly, however, a loud noise startled us. A door on the first floor had been opened and then roughly slammed, and in the interval we heard two men's voices, too confused to be intelligible. Gradually, we heard steps approaching the stairs from the chambers. Atto and I looked at one another in confusion; hurriedly, we rushed up the four or five remaining stairs. Beyond the sconce, we found a second little room halfway up, and there we halted, hoping that the footsteps would not continue up the stairs, in the direction of our temporary hiding place. We were lucky. We heard one door close, and then another, until we could hear neither footsteps nor the two men's voices.
Crouching awkwardly in the little room halfway up the stairs, Atto and I exchanged looks of relief. Here too, a candelabrum afforded us sufficient light. Once we had recovered our breath and allowed our panic to subside, we took a look around us. Around the walls of the second small room, we discovered tall and well-stocked bookshelves, with many volumes placed in good order. Abbot Melani took one in his hand and examined the frontispiece.
It was a Life of the Blessed Margaret of Cortona, by an unknown author. Atto closed the book and returned it to its place. There then passed through his hands: the first of an eight-volume Theatrum Vitae Humanae, a Life of Saint Philip Neri, a Fundamentum Doctrinae motus gravium Vitali Iordani, a Tractatus de Ordine Iudiciorum, a fine edition of the Institutiones ac meditationes in Graecam linguam, a French grammar, and lastly, a book which explained The Art of Learning to Die a Good Death.
After rapidly leafing through this last curious volume of moral reflections, Atto shook his head in irritation.
'What are you looking for?' I asked him in the lowest voice of which I was capable.
'Is it not obvious? The owner. These days, everyone marks their books, at least those of value, with their name.'
So I assisted Atto and there soon passed through my hands the De arte Gimnastica of Gerolamo Mercuriale, a Vocabularium Ecclesiasticum and a Pharetra divini Amoris, while Atto set aside with a snort the Works of Plato and a Theatre of Mankynde by Gaspare de Villa Lobos, before greeting with surprise a copy of Bacchus in Tuscany by his beloved Francesco Redi.
'I do not understand it,' he whispered impatiently at the end of the search. 'There is everything here: history, philosophy, Christian doctrine, languages ancient and modern, devotional works, various curiosities and even a little astrology. Here, take a look: The Arcana of the Stars by a certain Antonio Carnevale and the Ephemerides Andreae Argoli. Yet in no book is there the owner's name.'
Seeing that fortune had thus far remained on our side, and that we had avoided only by a hair's-breadth being surprised by the master of the house, I was about to suggest to Atto that we should be on our way when, for the first time, I came across a book on medicine.
I had in fact been searching on another shelf, where I came across a volume by Vallesius, then the Medicina Septentrionalis and Practical Anatomy by Bonetus, a Booke of Roman Antidotes, a Liber observationum medicarum Ioannes Chenchi, a De Mali Ipocondriaci by Paolo Tacchia, a Commentarium Ioannis Casimiri in Hippocratis Aphorismos, an Enciclopedia Chirurgica Rationalis by Giovanni Doleo and many other precious texts on medicine, chirurgie and anatomy. I was, among other things, struck by four volumes of a seven-volume edition of the works of Galen, all rather finely bound, in vermilion leather with golden lettering; the three others were not in their place. I picked one up, enjoying the feel of the precious binding, and opened it. A small inscription, at the foot of the frontispiece and on the right-hand side read: Ioannis Tiracordae. The same thing, I rapidly established, was to be found in all the other books on medicine.
'I know!' I whispered excitedly. 'I know where we are.'
I was about to share my discovery when we were again surprised by the sound of a door opening on the first floor, and by an old man's voice:
'Paradisa! Come down, our friend is about to take his leave of us.'
A woman's voice replied from the second floor that she would be coming at once.
So we were about to be caught between two fires: the woman descending from the second floor and the master of the house awaiting her on the first. There was no door to the little room and it was, moreover, too small for us to crouch in unseen. We should be discovered.
Hearing, understanding and acting came together in a single movement. Like lizards hunted by. a hawk, we scuttled down the stairs in furtive desperation, hoping to reach the first floor before the two men. Otherwise, there would be no escape.
In less than a second came the moment of truth: we had just come down a few stairs when we heard the voice of the master of the house.
'And tomorrow, do not forget to bring me your little liqueur!' said he, under his breath but in a rather jovial tone of voice, obviously addressing his guest, while they approached the foot of the stairs. There was no more time: we were lost.
Whenever I think back on those moments of terror, I tell myself that only divine mercy saved us from many punishments, which we doubtless deserved. I also reflect that, if Abbot Melani had not had recourse to one of his ploys, matters would have gone very differently.
Atto had a flash of inspiration and energetically blew out the four candles which illuminated this flight of stairs. We again took refuge in the little room where, this time in unison, we puffed up our chests and blew out the candelabrum. When the master of the house looked up the stairs, he was confronted with pitch darkness and heard the woman's voice begging him to light the candles again. This had the double effect of not giving us away and making the two men return, bearing a single oil lamp, in order to fetch a candle. In that brief lapse of time, we groped our way swiftly down the stairs.
Hardly had we reached the ground floor than we rushed into the abandoned bedchamber, then into the kitchen and, thence, to the coach-house. There, in my haste, I tripped and fell headlong on the fine layer of hay, making one of the nags nervous. Atto rapidly closed the door behind us, and Ugonio had no difficulty in locking it in time.
We remained motionless in the dark, panting, with our ears glued to the door. We thought that we could hear two or more people descending into the courtyard. Footsteps moved over the cobbles in the direction of the doorway to the street. We heard the heavy door open, then slam shut. Other footsteps turned back until they were lost on the stairs. For two or three minutes, we remained in sepulchral silence. The peril seemed to have passed.
We then lit a lantern and went through the trapdoor. As soon as the heavy wooden lid had closed on us, I was at last able to inform Abbot Melani of my discovery. We had entered the house of Giovanni Tiracorda, the old court physician to the Pope.
'Are you certain of that?' asked Abbot Melani as we again descended into the subterranean city.
'Of course I am,' I replied.
'Tiracorda, what a coincidence,' commented Atto with a little laugh.
'Do you know him?'
'It is an extraordinary coincidence. Tiracorda was physician to the conclave in which my fellow-citizen Pope
