Secretum

'The picture is… really splendid, Signor Atto.'

'I know. They told me of it, but I myself never saw it. You can see that even the description of Capitor's presents which I gave you was faithful. My memory does not betray me,' he added with ill-concealed satisfaction.

'I had, however, thought that the painting had remained in Paris. Did you not say that Mazarin kept it with him?'

'I too thought that it was in France. But as we explore the Vessel, I am becoming more and more convinced of one fact.'

'And what would that be?'

'That Capitor's gifts are not here, or rather that they are no longer here.'

'What do you mean?'

'I too believed that they had been entrusted to Benedetti to be kept here, at the Vessel. The picture was to stay with Mazarin as a surrogate. Instead, here I find the surrogate and no trace of the presents. That is not, of course, what we hoped to find but it is still better than nothing. As one of the maxims we have just read put it, ' The sage knows how to find all things in little'.'

Once again, I reflected in astonishment, the Vessel had had the bizarre capacity to foresee (and to respond to) the intimate questionings of persons visiting it.

'The presents must have been sent to some other place,' Abbot Melani was meanwhile thinking aloud. 'But where? The Cardinal never left anything to chance.'

We again turned to the painting, at once sublime, enigmatic and ill-omened.

'It is unbelievable. The parrot really does seem to be Caesar Augustus,' I observed.

The Abbot looked at me as though I were an idiot.

'It does not seem. This is Caesar Augustus.'

'What are you saying?'

'I did not remember you as being so slow of understanding. Do you think it possible that there could exist two parrots like this, one painted on canvas and a second, identical one, in two almost neighbouring cities without the one being a portrait of the other?'

'But this picture was painted in Paris,' I protested, irked by the Abbot's sarcasm.

'It cannot be a coincidence. If you remember properly, I told you that the madwoman Capitor had a passion for all things feathered. She always had a flock…'

'… of birds that kept her company, 'tis true, that you told me. Then you yourself, many years ago, perhaps saw Caesar Augustus! Many years have passed since then, but parrots are rather long- lived.'

'Of course, I may have seen him then — who knows? She had so many parrots around her, the madwoman. Besides, I have never been too fond of those beasts. To tell the truth, I have never understood the vogue for keeping them in one's house, as so many do, what with the filth, the stink and the noise they make. I may even have seen your bird, but my memory would not hold such things today.'

'It is simply impossible to believe that Caesar Augustus could have ended up in the aviary of the Villa Spada!' I exclaimed, still sceptical in the face of the Abbot's reasoning.

'For heaven's sake, it could not be clearer. Evidently, Capitor left Caesar Augustus in Paris, perhaps as a present for someone, or else she somehow left him behind, who knows? You can well imagine what Mazarin decided to do as soon as he learned that the madwoman had also left that wretched bird on his hands, in his city.'

'Well, he'll have… sent it as far away as possible.'

'Together with the three gifts. So much so that he had his portrait painted alongside them. And now, you tell me, what do you know of the creature?'

'I know only that the parrot was once the property of Cardinal Fabrizio's uncle, the late lamented Monsignor Virgilio Spada. It seems he was a strange man, a lover of antiquities and various sorts of curiosities. I do know that he also had a collection of natural curios.'

'I know that too. I had been in Rome for about a year when Virgilio Spada died. He was very keen on castrati. I think he had studied with the Jesuits and they wanted him in their order; but Virgilio chose the Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri because he was in love with the voice of the great Girolamo Rosini, the famed cantor of the Oratory. Virgilio was also friendly with Loreto Vittori, the castrato who was master of Christina of Sweden, and he personally took another young singer, Domenico Tassinari, into his service, who however abandoned music in the end and became an oratorian like his patron.'

While Atto was complacently boasting of Spada's friendships among his castrato colleagues, I was reflecting.

'There is one thing I do not understand, Signor Atto: how come Caesar Augustus changed owners, passing from Benedetti to the Spada family?'

'Elpidio Benedetti and Virgilio Spada knew one another very well: 1 heard at the time that the Vessel contained many of Virgilio's ideas, for instance the fact that the villa should contain far more curiosities than luxuries, and that it should be a fortress of deep speculations on the Faith and on knowledge, whereby to attract the visitor and induce him to reflect.'

'The Vessel as an Ark and school of wisdom, in other words,' I commented, with a touch of surprise at the bizarre correlation.

'So, in exchange for Monsignor Virgilio's suggestions, Benedetti may have given him his parrot to place in his aviary.'

'Or perhaps that extravagant creature, instead of flying away from the Villa Spada to the Vessel was wont in those days to flee in the opposite direction and may have ended up by being adopted by the Spada household, with Benedetti's consent. On our own, we have no means of knowing, and Caesar Augustus will not tell us, all the less so as we've not yet succeeded in catching him. But his time will soon be up.'

'How do you think you'll capture him?' I asked, perplexed by the Abbot's certainty.

'What a question… For example, with a parrot caller, if such a thing exists. Or with with the help of his favourite titbits, like chocolate. Or perhaps with a fascinating female parrot made of straw, why not?'

I avoided commenting on Atto's complete incompetence in the matter of fowls.

Meanwhile nightfall, to which the Vessel too had at last yielded, made it necessary to get back to the Villa Spada. As were retraced our footsteps, we heard Albicastro's voice in the distance:

Who would be wise by reputation

But isn't blessed with moderation Engages in pursuit absurd;

His falcon is a cuckoo bird.

Melani turned sharply in the direction of the voice. Then, taken with a sudden idea, he smiled and set off once more on his way.

'How are we to capture Caesar Augustus? We shall need a little help. I already have an idea of how to begin, and with whom.'

We were both utterly worn out when we reached the gates of Villa Spada and without the least desire to get involved in the festivities and their trivial sophistication. All the way back, Atto had uttered not a word. He seemed weary of prying and meddling among the guests and desirous of retiring as soon as possible to his own chamber, there to meditate upon the many and surprising events of the day, which had multiplied unceasingly until our latest discovery of the painting by Pieter Boel.

We took leave of one another almost in haste, agreeing to meet the next day, but without specifying any time. Better thus, thought I. Perhaps I might tomorrow wish to take another solitary walk, as I had that morning. Or I might at long last get a chance to see my Cloridia and our two little ones. Or again (but this secret preference, I dared not admit even to myself), seeing that my adored consort and the little ones were in no danger, and Cloridia was surely rather busy, I wished I could find the time and the means to reflect deeply by myself upon all that was happening. The day which was now drawing to an end had dispensed a series of strange and suggestive occurrences which needed to be sorted out, yet the means of understanding them all were still missing; just as children know that they have human faculties of understanding and reasonably enough ask to be treated like adults, forgetting that they are still infants.

First, before awakening, there had been the nightmare of the old mendicant; then the procession of the Company of Saint Elizabeth, the brief conversation with the priest and the longer one with the innkeeper and the