La Santissima Annunziata' said one of the three.
'That for which Cardinal Ottoboni wrote the text?'
'That one.'
'What was the Cardinal's verse like? Was it good?'
'Terrible. Far from an Ottobonbon, 'twas truly awful — just a load of Ottobombast,' replied the other.
The three gentlemen laughed heartily as they joined the audience's applause welcoming the actors.
'Apropos things terrible, what do you think of Giovan Domenico Bonmattei Pioli's play?'
'The one that was published in January last year?'
'A real horror. It was commissioned by Ottoboni, who is a member of the most learned Academy of Arcadia, but Pioli's plays are really quite nauseatingly crude.'
Smiles all round. It goes without saying that the Scarlatti oratorio in March, a good four months earlier, was by no means the last spectacle the gentleman 'remembered' attending… What was, however, abundantly clear was the trio's scant sympathy for the Ottoboni faction. This cardinal enjoyed a considerable following at that moment and they were — like all good theatregoers and participants in the Roman social round — enjoying the opportunity for malicious gossip, with an elegant exchange of salacious jokes at their victim's expense.
'His Holiness must again be suffering from poor health,' said the third gentleman, changing the subject. 'Today was the ninth anniversary of his accession. At the Quirinale, they held a service in the Pontifical Chapel, but he did not attend.'
'I can tell you what was wrong with him: he was suffering from the jostling he's been given by the Spanish Ambassador and his cronies.'Really?' said one of the other two. 'Do you mean that they have at last succeeded in convincing him?'
'A sick old man like him could hardly stand up for long to sly foxes of that calibre.'
'Poor man, the thing must have lasted until lunchtime,' added the third speaker. 'His Holiness came out only in the afternoon, when he went forth into the city and received much applause.'
'All merited, for that poor saintly, martyred Pope.'
'Let us hope that the Lord will soon call him to his glory, to put an end to his sufferings; after all, there's nothing to be done now…'
'Quiet, lupus in fabula,' said the third, pointing towards the drive from which Cardinal Spada was arriving, followed by the bridal couple, greeted by a renewed salvo of applause.
With a brief gesture, the master of the house called for the play to begin. This was a farce from the pen of the Roman Epifanio Gizzi, entitled Love, the Prize of Constancy. Both title and content were consonant with noble sentiments and with the gifts of fidelity and perseverance called for by the sacred bonds of matrimony.
The stage, still empty of actors, opened onto a series of effects most pleasing to the spectators. The architect had arranged for a number of sets of little lay figures to be prepared, cut out from thick cardboard and coloured, and these crossed an arch placed on stage, running along a wooden rail placed on the ground with a dovetail joint. The operator, who was none other than the architect himself, remained hidden behind the arch and the scene was accompanied by quiet music both vocal and instrumental. At the same time and by means of the same cardboard cut-out technique, the moon and the planets crossed the heavens, pulled invisibly by a black wire. The operetta was well made and the public enjoyed it no little. The scene was set on the Isle of Cyprus. The protagonists were two gentlemen, Rosauro and Armillo, the latter accompanied by his coarse servant Barafone. With numerous ups and downs, the pair vied for the favours of two damsels, Florinda and Celidalba. After innumerable tricks and turns of fate (duels, shipwrecks, famines, disguises, fires, attempted suicides) it was revealed that Armillo was really called Alcesti and that he was Celidalba's brother, while her real name was Lindori. Florinda, meanwhile, after several times disdaining Rosau- ro's attentions, gave in at the end and even married him, thus showing that love is indeed always the prize of constancy.
The cavaliers wore splendid costumes, made of rich cloth of gold and silk, and even the servant's jerkin was lined with the finest skins of wild beasts. The fishermen's nets which appeared on the beach were of fine gold and the apparel of nymphs and shepherdesses, too, threw down the gauntlet to meanness.
While the actors drew the applause and laughter of the noble public, I cooperated backstage with the other servants in producing the most varied scenic effects. We simulated a stupefyingly realistic shipwreck. For thunder, we ran a large stone across the wooden floor; for lightning, we reeled across the stage a spool covered with sparkling gold which flashed just like the real thing. For sheet lightning, I stood behind the wings holding a little box in my hand with powdered paint in it and a lid full of holes; in the middle of the lid, there was a lit firework, of the kind that creates rather good effects of lightning. We put all the effects — thunder, lightning, flashes — together at the same time, with the greatest possible success.
The shipwrecked voyagers landing on the beach in Cyprus were warmed on stage by means of a fire which we lit using a firework and the most potent aqua vitae, and it lasted a long while, to the amazement of the spectators.
While I was thus working backstage, my mind was busied with very different matters. To what were the gentlemen referring whom I had overheard saying that the Spanish Ambassador, Count Uzeda, had at last succeeded in convincing the Pope? By the sound of what they were saying, it seemed that he and others had put pressure on the dying Pope to induce him to do something of which Innocent XII was clearly not convinced. Concerning Uzeda, I knew only what I had read in the correspondence between Atto and the Connestabilessa: the SpanishAmbassador had transmitted to His Holiness the request for help from Charles II.
Whatever could they have wanted to convince him of? And who were the other 'sly foxes' who were supposed to have worked so unscrupulously with Uzeda to persuade the old Pontiff to yield? The three gentlemen whom I had just overheard were sincerely sorry for the Pope, who was suffering and seemed no longer to have any power. Did not these words bring to mind similar considerations on the part of the Connestabilessa? She had written that the Pope was often reported as saying, 'We are denied the dignity which is due to the Vicar of Christ and there is no care for us.' Who dared thus ill-treat the successor of Saint Peter?
Lupus in fabula, one of the three gentlemen had whispered when Cardinal Spada appeared, whereupon the conversation had broken off suddenly. What did all that mean? That my most benign master, Cardinal Fabrizio, was perhaps one of the 'sly foxes' in question?
'I am delighted to find that what the most learned Father Mabillon said about the libraries of Rome is still true, for they are still in the same excellent condition as when I first came to Italy many years ago,' said Buvat enthusiastically.
After the performance, Abbot Melani had returned to his apartments, followed by myself, and had asked his secretary to report to him on what elements he had succeeded in gathering in the course of his research. The time had at last come to know what Abbot Melani's faithful servant had been up to in the course of his peregrinations across the city.
'Buvat, forget that Father Mabillon and tell me what you have succeeded in doing,' Atto urged him.
The secretary examined a little pile of papers hastily annotated in minuscule handwriting.
'In the first place, I obtained the advice of Benedetto Millino, the former librarian of Christina of Sweden, who…'
'I am not interested in what he advised you. What did you find?' Buvat said that this was precisely what he was on the point of explaining: he had been to the library of La Sapienza, to the Angelica, to the Barberini Library at the Quattro Fontane, to those of the College of the Penitentiary at Saint Peter's, the College of the Minor Franciscan Fathers at San Giovanni in Laterano, then the Penitentiaries of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; to the Vallicelliana near the Chiesa Nuova, the library of the Collegio Clementino, the Colonna or Sirleta, the libraries of Sant'Andrea della Valle of the Theatine Fathers and of Trinita dei Monti, belonging to the Minim Fathers of San Francesco di Paola, to that of the most Eminent Cardinal Casanate of happy memory, now taken over by the Dominican Fathers, as well as…
'Go on, go on. The main thing is that you have not set foot in the Jesuits' or the Vatican libraries. They are nests of spies and they would have registered and checked on everything.'
'I did as you ordered me, Signor Abbot.'
'And I hope that, in the third place, you abstained from visiting the private libraries of cardinals, like the Chigiana or the Pamphiliana.'
'Yes indeed, Signor Abbot. That would have been far too visible, as you yourself did not fail to point out to me.'
