Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

nodding, some grimaces, Perna dangles his legs and indolently turns the pages of the books in his lap.

Joris is standing behind the Frenchman, tall and blond, waving a white hand: ‘Listen, if Calvin and Luther managed to get their hands on some of the people there they’d do the same to them. What does the Council matter to us? Even if we accept that it’s really going to happen, it’s going to be a trap for everyone, and if one of those old crows from Geneva or Wittenberg walks into it, I’m not going to feel sorry for him!’

Oporinus interrupts to put people’s minds at ease. ‘No, Joris, you mustn’t say that. The disagreements separating some of us from Luther and Calvin shouldn’t make us lump everything all together. And I don’t even agree with your opinion about about the Council.’

The Dutchman shrugs and sits down again. ‘If you allow this Council to happen, they’ll end up imposing one single opinion.’

‘As I see it,’ the printer goes on, over the noise that the Anabaptist’s intervention has provoked, ‘Calvin and Luther will do everything they can think of to exclude us from any negotiations, and if they ever do reach an agreement with Rome, it will be damaging to anyone who is not fully in accord with their proposals. What will become of people like Michael Servet, Lelio Socini, S�bastien Castillon?’�

Oporinus’s eye runs across the sequence of faces. ‘What will become of us, brothers?’

From the furthermost chair, at the end of the row, the preacher Serres from Basle intervenes: ‘There will be no agreement, Oporinus, because the Papists will never give in on the doctrine of justification by good works, and Luther and Calvin aren’t willing to budge an inch from justification by faith. As far as they’re concerned that would leave room for the Pope, the Antichrist, for indulgences, for the buying and selling of faith…’

‘We can’t be absolutely sure of that, Serres. Some Italian cardinals, remember, value the idea of reaching a peaceful accord with the Protestants, and appreciate Lutheran theology. There’s already a literature on the subject, small things, perhaps, but important signals nonetheless. You’ve all read The Benefit of Christ Crucified. Its author is said to be a friar backed by important Italian men of letters, and even by a� cardinal! These are facts, my brothers, we cannot ignore them. If there is a chance that this Council might represent a chance for the reunification and radical reform of the Roman Church, I say that we must not leave the initiative to Calvin and Luther alone. Our liberty depends on it.’ His eye runs across the row of heads until he comes to Perna’s bald pate: ‘I’d like to hear your opinion, Messer Perna, you are better informed than anyone about Italian affairs.’

The little man stretches out his tiny short arms, he hadn’t expected to be called to account, he scratches his forehead and gets to his feet, still not rising above the heads of the assembly.

A long sigh: ‘Signori, I have heard many fine words, but no one has managed to get to the heart of the problem.’ Everyone looks at him in puzzlement, craning forward to catch the Italian’s curious pronunciation. ‘You can write or commission the finest theological works of the century if that makes you feel better, but you won’t change the reality of the facts. And the reality, gentlemen, is that it won’t be doctrinal questions that decide the fate of the Council, but politics.’

A sepulchral silence has fallen, little Perna is a stranger to half measures, I can see that his logorrhoea is about to seize hold of him. ‘If this Council does take place, it will be because of the pressure that the Emperor is exerting on the Pope. It is the Habsburg who wants to reunite Catholics and Protestants, because the Empire is slipping out of his grasp and the Turk Suleyman, a man who, it is said, can satisfy twenty women in a single night, and who is not called “the Great” for nothing, is giving him serious problems. Charles V doesn’t care what agreements the theologians reach or how they do it, he’s interested in reunifying Christians under his banner to resist the Turks and retake control of his borders.’ He shakes his head. ‘Now, and listen to me carefully, down in Rome there are a considerable number of cardinals who take great delight in burning people at the stake. But you mustn’t imagine that these holy men are dying to see Luther, Calvin, Bucer and everyone else roasted on a spit. Because, you see, as long as these heretics, as they are called, are in circulation, they will be able to unleash the Inquisition on anyone whose way of thinking fails to fit in with theirs, prime among them their political adversaries within the Roman Church. Since the beginning of time, external enemies have been handy when it comes to going after enemies within. Oporinus is right when he says some cardinals are in favour of dialogue with the Protestants, and that’s exactly what the Emperor is counting on to carry his project through. But let’s see who’s lined up on the other side.’ Perna counts on his fat fingers. ‘Right: we’ve got the German princes, which is more or less the same as saying Luther and Melanchthon. If they’re to maintain their autonomy from Rome and the Empire it’s not in their interest to send their theologians to the Council. Indeed, if the Council decides that they’re all apostates, the Emperor won’t cry l�se-majest�, and will resign himself to losing the German principalities. Then there’s the king of France, which means all the French cardinals: twenty years of war bear witness to the enmity of Francis I feels towards the Habsburg Emperor. Doesn’t that in itself tell you that the French cardinals are going to vote against possible reconciliation? Finally there are the hard-line Roman cardinals of the Inquisition, who are standing in the way of dialogue with the Protestants.’

Perna draws breath, everyone looks utterly astonished, as though a dancing bear had come into the room. A moment later the Italian is on the attack again. ‘The Council, gentlemen, will be a settling of scores among the powerful men of Europe. Write, write as much as you like, write all the theological treatises in the world, but it won’t be you, or Calvin, or Luther playing this game. If you want to survive you’re going to have to come up with something else.’

*

‘Pietro, wait!’

The little man stops struggling on through the mud, turns around just enough to see me and comes to a halt in the middle of the road.

‘Ah, it’s you. I thought…’ I’m too far away to catch the rest of the sentence.

I catch up with him. ‘What did you mean by that? What do you mean they’ve got to come up with something else?’

The Italian smiles and shakes his head. ‘Follow me.’ He drags me by an arm to the edge of the street, and we slip into an alleyway. His ridiculous skipping gait puts an irreverent smile on my face. Strange how the man always manages to lift my spirits.

‘Listen, mate. There’s nothing more to be done here. All your friends…’ He stops at my raised hand. ‘Forgive me: all the friends of� Oporinus, very nice people, you know? But they’re not going anywhere.’ His little dark eyes search the wrinkles of my face in search of something, ‘They aren’t interested in anything beyond divergence or agreement between their way of thinking and Calvin’s. And people like me, and like you, my friend, are very well aware that that isn’t how the world works, you know?’

‘What are you getting at?’

He pulls my arm again. ‘Come on! Let’s not beat around the bush: if it takes an Italian bookseller to tell them what’s what, it means that those fine minds can’t see beyond the end of their own noses! They write theological treatises for other doctors, you know? And when all of a sudden they find themselves tied to a stake with a pile of kindling underneath it, maybe that’ll open their eyes! Except of course by then it’ll be too late. What I mean, my friend, is that the die is cast. Up in Germany you made a bit of noise, and pretty damned impressive it was too, and then there were the Dutch, jolly characters they were, mad as hatters, and now you’ve got the French and the Swiss, and Calvin who’s becoming the star of the revolt against the papacy. All complete nonsense, my good sir, power, power, that’s what they’re after. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that old Luther doesn’t believe in it all, I’m not saying that our stout friend Calvin isn’t convinced of it, but they’re just pawns. If they didn’t happen to suit the powers that be, those prelates would be nobody, I’m telling you, no-bo-dy!’

I free myself from his grip, drunk on words. Perna shrugs and spreads his unbelievably short arms. ‘I get on with my job, you know? I’m a bookseller, I travel around, I see a load of people, I sell books, I discover talents hidden under mountains of paper… I propagate ideas. Mine is the riskiest job in the world, you know? I’m responsible for the distribution of ideas, maybe the most awkward ideas in existence.’ He points towards Oporinus’s house. ‘They write and print, I distribute. They believe that a book has its own value per se, they believe in the beauty of ideas as such.’

‘You don’t?’

A glance is enough. ‘An idea has value if it’s spread at the right place and time, my friend. If Calvin had printed his Institutio three years earlier, the king of France would have burned him in the wink of an eye.’

‘I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.’

He skips nervously round on the spot. ‘For fuck’s sake, will you just pay attention?’ He takes a yellowing book out of the bag he always carries. ‘Take The Benefit of Christ Crucified. Small, handy, clearly written, fits in a pocket. Oporinus and his friends see it as a sign of hope. But do you know what I see in it?’ A short pause for effect. ‘War. This is a low blow, this is a powerful weapon. Do you think it’s a masterpiece? It’s a mediocre book, it’s a watered-down and synthesised version Calvin’s Institutes. But where does its strength lie? In the fact that it tries to make justification by faith compatible with Catholic doctrine! And what does that mean? That if this book is distributed, and if it enjoys success, perhaps among the cardinals and the doctors of the Church, then perhaps you and Oporinus, and his friends, and everyone else, won’t have the Inquisition breathing down your necks for the rest of your days! If this book wins approval from the right people, the intransigent cardinals risk finding themselves in the minority, you know? Books only change the world if the world is capable of digesting them.’

He draws breath and looks at me for a moment, then, with his eyes narrowed: ‘And what if the next Pope was disposed to dialogue? What if he was one of those opposed to the methods of the Holy Office?’

‘A Pope is always a Pope.’

A gesture of disapproval. ‘But being alive and saying what you think is very different from dying at the stake.’

He’s about to pick up his bag and go but this time I’m the one who holds him back.

‘Wait.’

He stops. I look at him, shrewdness and strength emanating from all his pores. There’s something of Eloi in his flashing eyes, something of Gotz von Polnitz in the determination of his words.

‘What