poop of the Vessel: a great covered loggia rounded in shape, with luminous arcades, looking onto the road in which we stood. From the loggia came the gentle plashing of a little fountain. The poop was supported by the outer wall, which in turn was skilfully sculpted in the form of a reef, with windows and doors sunk into it like marine grottoes and inlets. The Vessel, afloat on imaginary waves, seemed thus to be anchored beside a cliff. In the midst of pines, oleanders, clover and daisies, on the Janiculum Hill, one beheld that delicious and absurd vision of a ship at its moorings.
No one seemed to be keeping watch over the gate to the villa. Nor, as it proved, was there anyone present. Hardly had we passed through the door than we found ourselves in a vestibule which in turn opened onto a garden.
Atto and I advanced cautiously, sure that from one moment to the next someone would come to meet us. From within the villa, voices could be heard, rendered diffuse by the distance; then the echo of a woman's laugh. No one came.
We found ourselves in an ample courtyard with, to our right, the majestically projecting hull of the Vessel. In the centre, a graceful fountain, animated by fine jeux d'eau, politely recited its effervescent logorrhoea, quietly plashing.
We stopped and glanced around us to find our bearings. In front of us and to the left stretched the park, which we began cautiously to explore. There were long, long hedges and vases containing citrus and other precious fruit trees set out in rows alongside; a staircase with nine separate sets of steps; espaliered roses and lines of trees trained across a few pergolas arranged in checkerboard pattern; various fruit trees, likewise espaliered; and then a little grove. The jets of a second fountain, placed on a terrace in the centre of the first floor of the building, provided an elegant and ever new counterpoint.
'Should we not announce our presence?'
'Not yet. We are trespassing on private property, I know, but there was no one guarding it. We shall, if asked, justify our presence by our desire to pay a tribute to the owner of this fine villa. In other words, we shall play dumb in order to avoid having to pay the entry fee, as the saying goes.'
'For how long?' I asked, worried about the possibility of getting myself into trouble so close to my own home and to the Villa Spada.
'Until we discover something interesting about the meeting of the three cardinals. And now stop asking questions.'
Before us stretched a drive covered by a great pergola of various exquisite grapes.
'The grape, a Christian symbol of rebirth: thus Benedetti welcomed his visitors,' observed Melani.
The pergola ended, as we had occasion to observe, before a fine fresco of Rome Triumphant.
To approach the building would have exposed us too much; someone would have arrived sooner or later to interrupt our unauthorised inspection of the premises. Walking among the shady drives of the park, we gradually came on the contrary to feel protected and lulled by the afternoon calm, by the scent of the citrus fruit and the quiet burbling of the fountains.
Wandering around the gardens, we found a clearing with two little pyramids. On the sides of each was inscribed a dedication. On the first, one could read:
GENII AMOENITATI
Qui procul a cur is ille laetus.
Si vis esse talis,
Esto ruralis.
'Well, my boy, here's something for you,' came Atto's friendly challenge.
'I'd say: 'To the amenity of Genius. Blessed he who is free from cares; if you too desire this, live in the country.''
The other pyramid bore a similar epigraph:
AMICITIAE FELICITATI
In secunda, et in adverse fortuna,
Nil solidius amico:
Hunc facilius in rure
Quam in aula invenies.
''To the joys of Friendship. In good times and in bad, nothing is more reliable than a friend: but you'll find one more easily in the country than at Court',' I translated.
For a few seconds, we stayed silent before the two pyramids, each — or so I thought — secretly curious about the thoughts of the other. Whatever cogitations could those maxims suggest to Atto? Genius and friendship… If I had had to say which genius was dominant in him, I'd have thought at once of his two true passions: politics and intrigue. And friendship? Abbot Melani was fond of me, of that I had become certain when I discovered my little pearls secretly concealed close to his heart, sewn like an ex voto into the scapular of Our Lady of the Carmel. But, apart from that, had Atto ever, even for one moment, been my friend, a true, disinterested friend, as he liked to show so ostentatiously whenever it suited him?
Suddenly, a sinuous melody was heard in the distance: a strange song, like that of a grave siren, which seemed to come, now from a flute, now from a viola da gamba, sometimes even from a woman's voice.
'They are making music in the villa,' I observed.
Atto listened attentively.
'No, it is not coming from the villa, but from somewhere around here.'
We searched the park with our eyes in vain. The wind rose suddenly, with a rustling whisper raising from the drives and bushes a colourless mantle of dead leaves, premature victims of the heat.
Now the melody seemed again to be issuing from the house.
'There, it is coming from there,' Atto corrected himself.
He pointed at a window to the side of the entrance courtyard, facing west, which we could see through the foliage of the trees. We turned to face it.
Thus, for the first time, we came within a few paces of the building, just under the windows, from which anyone could not only see but hear us; yet we continued to wander around undisturbed. I was incredulous that no one should have intercepted us and, little by little, I came to feel myself boldly at ease with that place which had hitherto been unknown and mysterious to me.
Our whole attention was focused on what was taking place above us, on that window (in fact, the only open one) from which the music seemed to be coming. Once again, however, the invisible cloak of silence seemed to descend on the park and on us.
'It seems that they are amusing themselves by staying hidden,' joked Atto.
Thus we were able the better to admire the architecture of the Vessel. The fagade under which we stood was divided into three orders; the surface was broken by a recess which at ground level was filled by a fine portico, framed by arches and columns, above which, at first-floor level, there was a terrace. We reached the portico.
'Signor Atto, look here.'
I pointed out to Atto that, above each of the lunettes of the portico, there was a Latin inscription. There were four of these in all:
AERIS SALUBRITAS
LOCI SUBLIMITAS
URBIS VICINITAS
DOMUS COMMODITAS
''Here, the air is healthy, the place is sublime, the city's nearby, the house is commodious,'' Atto translated. 'A veritable hymn by Elpidio Benedetti to his villa.'
There were two other similar inscriptions above the two doors in the facade:
Agricola semper in proximum annum dives est
Laudato ingentia Rura, exiguum colito
''The farmer is always rich… next year. Let great fields be praised, and small ones, cultivated.' Amusing. Look, here too there are inscriptions everywhere.'
Atto invited me to enter the portico. There, running my eyes over the fagades, I found other proverbs, rather faded but most numerous, almost like a creeper that had invaded the walls, grouped three by three on each
