exact time.'
I looked up again: he was right, the beast was white because it was drawn on the ceiling by a ray of light.
'And it tells the right time?' I asked incredulously.
'Certainly. You too can surely see those lines marked on the vault, which permit anyone who can read them to follow the hours and minutes on the ceiling of the gallery, so long as the light is a little stronger than this candelabrum. For the whole thing is an immense sundial, but upside down. The light does not reach it from above but rather from below. That crab is reflected moonlight, and I suspect that it takes the form it has because in these July days we are in the sign of Cancer, the Crab. This is probably done by using a mirror of the right shape.'
Atto's explanation was interesting, but it was I who interrupted it with a cry of surprise.
'Look, there's the Flemish globe! Indeed, there are two of them.'
We drew near the better to examine our find. Further down the gallery, there were in fact two wooden globes, one representing the terrestrial regions, the other, the heavens. We read the name of their maker, a certain Blauew of Amsterdam.
'Alas, if this is indeed a terrestrial globe like that of which you have heard tell, it has nothing to do with Capitor's globe,' said he in weary, opaque tones.
'It is not the one?'
'No.'
The globe which stood before us did not in fact much resemble that in the picture, and it did not even have a golden pedestal.
'So, what now?' I asked.
'It is no good. We have made a mistake. Once again, we have got everything wrong,' groaned Atto, sitting wearily on a chest.
I raised my eyes, drawn by something on the wall opposite. My gaze drew near to the series of portraits decorating the windowless wall and stopped deep in thought at one of them. This was the likeness of an individual with a severe face, whose expression was strong but gentle, his forehead broad, the mouth decisive and the beard bristling. He wore a tricorn hat similar to those of the Jesuits, and an embroidered surcoat with on its breast a heart betwixt two branches.
'There he is. I present to you Virgilio Spada. As I have told you, he was a member of the order of the Oratorians, followers of Saint Philip Neri, and the portrait here is in accordance with their precepts. He was a wise soul, and quite pious. He helped his order in many ways, above all materially.'
All around, I saw portraits of other members of the family, but
Atto barely deigned to spare them a glance. For a while longer, he remained pensive, then he shook his head.
'No, we are mistaken. This is not it.'
'What do you mean?' I asked, without knowing where to turn my thoughts.
'Have you looked around you, my boy? Where the Devil is Virgilio's collection of curiosities? I can see no trace of it here. We've not even found one tiny bit of it here. And yet it must be clearly displayed somewhere, seeing that the family loves receiving distinguished visitors and showing them its possessions.'
'And so?'
'This portrait tells me something.'
'What?'
'I do not know. I must think on that, now I am too tired. Let us go, Cloridia may have finished.'
After saying this, the Abbot moved slowly towards the door, bent by the weight of years and fruitless searching.
As I followed him, I continued to feed greedily on the marvellous, but to me, incomprehensible, decorations of the catoptric sundial.
'Signor Atto, all those signs and numbers painted up there, what are they?'
'Those numbers are the houses of the zodiac with the astrological tables for the compilation of the celestial figures, or the birth chart and horoscope, while the other lines that you see show the times in various parts of the world,' explained Atto, stopping and looking up.
'Was Father Virgilio also interested in all these things?' I asked perplexed, being well aware of the deadly risks that a churchman could run for showing an interest in horoscopes, especially half a century ago.
'Oh, if that's all you want to know, the Spada have always had a passion for the celestial sciences. Virgilio and his brother loved astrology, including the forbidden forms of it. As I have already told you, I was in Rome when Virgilio died in 1662. It is said that he even possessed books placed on the Index by the Holy Office, as well as some writings regarded as heretical, which, however…'
The Abbot broke off and stood there staring at me as though seized by a sudden thought.
'Boy, you are a genius!' he exclaimed.
I gazed questioningly at him.
'I know where we shall find Capitor's dish,' said he.
So it was that Melani explained to me, in a barely audible voice, that Virgilio's great passion had been for judicial astrology, or that which dealt also with horoscopes and predictions; he had studied his own
celestial chart and his father's, and many others too. In 1631, however, this science had been condemned by the Barberini Pope, Urban VIII.
'I remember that well, from the tales I heard at the time when we met, at the Donzello.'
'Then you'll remember the ugly death that Abbot Morandi met with when they discovered all those books on astrology in his possession.'
I repressed a shiver as I recalled what I had learned at that time.
'When that happened, many prelates with an interest in the subject took fright. Among their number were Father Virgilio and his brother Bernardino: it was said that Virgilio had moved a number of dangerous books by night from Palazzo Spada to the Oratory, where they were kept under lock and key in a great chest until his death.'
'In other words, it is at the Congregation of the Oratory that we shall have to search.'
'Yes. It will be pretty difficult to evade the surveillance of the Philippine Fathers, and I really do not think that your Cloridia can be of any help to us this time.'
After leaving the Gallery of the Catoptric Sundial, we returned to the window whence we could espy my sweet consort. We found her still in full flow of her sermon, while she collected, cleaned and put her things in order together with our two little daughters; while so doing, she turned her sanguine prose to the ever more perplexed Deputy Steward who, in the meanwhile, to regain something of his composure, was caressing and consoling his exhausted spouse.
'It is even worse when, in order to avoid paying a wet-nurse, or because she has grown weary of giving suck, a mother makes her little one drink the milk of beasts. You may be certain that, once her child has tasted of that poison for body and soul which is animals' milk, it will have difficulty digesting and will thus be too full to be drawn to its mother's breast, which it will come to forget.'
We waved our arms from the window to let Cloridia know that our search was at an end, that she need trouble herself no longer and could put an end to that flood of words with which she was holding back the Deputy Steward, but all in vain. Caught up in the whirl of her pleading, my wife did not notice us. What was more, we had to take care not to be seen by my little ones who might, in their innocence, give us away.
'The truth is that goat's milk makes children into goats, and cow's milk makes them into oxen. Now, what father or mother would want a child as feeble-minded as a calf or horned like a goat? Or both together? The animal spirit twines itself around the radical humidity of the infant's little body and will not abandon it until it dies. Take a good look at the faces of children who have received cow's milk: the acqueous, bovine stare, the hooded eyelids, the fat head, the swollen members and the flaccid, pallid skin. And what of the nature of these little unfortunates? If it is not tetchy and taciturn, like that of a goat, it will be placid and temperate, like that of a calf. And how proud their stupid mothers are of them! They can do what they will without being bothered by their stolid, bastardised little ones, while they look on with disgust at other mothers, exhausted by giving suck and weary with caring for their tireless, lively little earthquake of an infant.'
At long last, Cloridia caught sight of us.
'In conclusion, have a care before giving animals' milk to a being whom God had endowed with a soul!' said
