Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

presence in Milan, Miches spoke of an imminent meeting with the Governor Duke Ferrante Gonzaga regarding an intercession with the Emperor to free some of the family’s properties in Flanders.

He denied any kind of involvement in the distribution of the Benefit of Christ Crucified, but he admitted his interests in the printed word, explaining that he was a business associate of the biggest Venetian printers: Giunti, Manutius and Giolito. Miches added that he was aware of the existence of the Benefit of Christ Crucified, less so of its contents, which don’t really interest him. He also said that he was amazed by our interest in him, given that it related to a piece of writing that has been circulating freely in Venice.�

The next day, after a second discussion, of which there is no written record, Miches was released. In reply to my question about this omission, brother Anselmo replied that the second occasion brought to light nothing that they had not heard the previous day.

First piece of evidence: Giovanni Miches is, without a doubt, a cunning character who brags about having the most surprising contacts. You don’t show off about such elevated contacts if you’re not in a position to prove them.

Who is Giovanni Miches?

Brother Anselmo isn’t telling the whole truth: too much hesitancy, too many gaps.�

Why weren’t Miches’ colleagues arrested?

Why is there no trace of any written record of the second interrogation?

I took notes today. Tomorrow I’m going to give some substance to brother Anselmo’s ill-concealed fears.

Milan, 3rd May 1547

In brother Anselmo’s cell. No one eavesdropping.

It took less than I thought: Carafa’s name provokes blind terror.

Miches paid up.

The monk began to blab the minute I told him to stop talking balls. He trembled, sitting on the couch, with me standing bent over him. It was time before he started justifying himself.

They were informed in advance: Miches really is acquainted with the Governor of Milan. Many fine gentlemen do business with him, they depend on his purse. They don’t do things hereabouts the way they do in Rome. Here it’s the Emperor who calls the tune, and Gonzaga doesn’t like his friends getting into trouble. It isn’t like Rome here, you’ve got to be careful.

They were informed in advance: A big shot, a powerful family. That’s why the others weren’t arrested. Bankers, the Emperor has borrowed from their coffers. How are you going to keep someone like that locked up in the dark? The Duke’s own guards would have come to get him out. So they figured they might as well get something out of it. Something for the monastery. It isn’t a matter of corruption, this is difficult work, you face a thousand hurdles. It’s not like Rome here.

He begged me not to report him to Carafa. Blind terror.

I told him that from today he’s going to be working for me, giving me all the useful information he can think of.

He thanked me, he kissed my hand.

Alejandro Rojas. Special Councillor to the Archbishop of Milan. Or Carafa’s Spanish informer.

He has grown old, and much fatter: thanks to the bishop’s table. He confirmed everything, and added extra information.

Juan Micas, alias Jo�o Miquez, alias Jean Miche, alias Johan Miches, alias Giovanni Miches. Of the rich Sephardic Miquez family that married into the Mendez family, bankers to the Emperor.�

A considerable inheritance and a convoluted past. Always on a knife-edge between glory and ruin, but always able to find a way out. Their conversion to Christianity didn’t stop their former friends from turning into their persecutors a day later. Peerlessly skilful and cunning, their fortune is tempting many, but they have learned to defend it. Some years ago they were transferred to Venice, where they undertook various commercial activities.

Converted Jews. Unscrupulous bankers. Known to the courts of half of Europe.

What interest could they have in distributing The Benefit of Christ Crucified? A simple business matter? I find that hard to believe.

Secret allies of the Spirituali? Check that.

Certainly they have the means and the contacts to distribute the book very quickly indeed.

Other factors to take into consideration: the machine that Carafa has been constructing day after day is still far from perfect. Not everyone can be trusted. Milan and Venice aren’t Rome. Each state has a patron, each patron establishes the acceptable levels of corruption.

Carafa is going to have to take that into account.

Milan, 4th May 1547

I can leave now. Brother Anselmo and the rest of the cowards leap to comply with my every request. The movements of the Miquez brothers or their associates in these parts will not go unobserved. Collect all useful details. I’ve got them all by the balls.

Letter sent to Bologna, to the Ecumenical Council, from the ducal city of Ferrara, addressed to Gianpietro Carafa and dated 13th June 1547

To the most illustrious and reverend cardinal Giovanni Pietro Carafa in Bologna

My most reverend lord, I have resolved not to tell Your Lordship the results of my inquiries until now, because that is how long it has taken me to obtain the elements required in order to compose the picture as a whole.

And I should add that in spite of this I can still not speak with absolute certainty on the subject on which I am about to expound, because the people we are dealing with here are unusually cunning and far-sighted.

But let us get to the facts. After travelling between Milan, Venice and Ferrara, and making contact with the Inquisitors in those cities thanks to the letters of introduction given to me by Your Lordship, I managed to collect sufficient clues to assert that the inexplicable distribution throughout the whole of the Italian peninsula of The Benefit of Christ Crucified is to be imputed to one of the most important Jewish families in Europe, whose members, having converted to the true religion, are known at the imperial court as Mendesi, after the late Francisco Mendez, a Spanish banker close to the Emperor, and consort of Donna Beatrice de Luna. The latter should be considered the matriarch of the family, and is resident in Venice today. She has always taken an interest in publishing and in literature in general, as well as business and commerce. Along with her nephews, she finances not only the majority of publications on subjects related to Judaism, but also Christian authors, thus profiting from their own dual religion.

It is not a very extended family: Donna Beatrice has a daughter, Reyna, and a sister, one Brianda de Luna, who is widow of none other than the brother of Francisco Mendez, Diego, and who is in turn the mother of a girl of marriageable age, Gracia la Chica.

The men of the family are the sons of a brother now deceased: Giovanni (whom the Venetians call Zuan) and Bernardo Miquez. No more than six relations in all, four of them women.

Nonetheless, the Mendesi family does an incredible volume of business with the most important Venetian merchants and ship-owners. Their wealth must be vast, and their interests extend to some of the oldest patrician families in Venice.

But what will without a doubt be most interesting to Your Lordship is the intense trade in books. Here they enjoy the role of patrons and associates of the printers, and in which they are, not least, active as distributors. During my time in Venice over the past month I have carried out considerable research into this last activity, and my discoveries have been quite fascinating, enough so to bring me here, to Ferrara, on the trail of the forbidden book.

But we must proceed one step at a time.

In Venice I came across certain clues concerning the involvement of Jo�o Miquez in the distribution of the Benefit.

The only person I thought capable of giving me some useful information was Bernardino Bindoni, the first printer of The Benefit of Christ Crucified. Bindoni is a small printer, rancorous in his dealings with the big players such as Ciunti or Manutius, mean and all in all reticent and disinclined to talk about the affair; an affair to which he always referred in the past tense, on the few occasions when he alluded to it at all.

But while I left his shop disappointed, he dared to suggest that if I was at all interested in acquiring a consignment of The Benefit of Christ Crucified, I would have to turn to the Jews.

This was amply confirmed.

In the end it was the Jewish printer Daniele Bomberg who pointed me towards his colleagues Usque of Ferrara.

And here I am in the territories of Duke Ercole II d’Este. If I had to print a book that had been declared heretical by the Council, beyond a doubt this is the place that I would choose. Here, where the Inquisition’s hands are tied by the Duke, a fiery character, intolerant of any attempt at interference on the part of Rome. Ferrara, halfway between Venice and Bologna, between La Serenissima and the Papal State, a small independent region with easy access to the sea.

It has been slow work, involving a great deal of waiting, but it has been worth the trouble. River-boats come down the branch of the Po that leads from Ferrara to the coast, where they load the cargo on to merchant ships heading south. There are good reasons for assuming that the Usques are using the same means to bring their consignments of books to the Venetian ships that put in a few miles down the coast. That would explain the distribution of the books along the Adriatic, via the ships supplied by the Mendesi in Venice, which are sent along the Ferrara coast to add the books to their normal cargo, and then dispatched southwards, to circumnavigate the Italian peninsula.

And yet none of this tells us anything. Because, my most honourable lord, what still eludes us is the reason why a wealthy Sephardic family would be interested in distributing a Christian book.

In order to favour Your Lordship’s enemies, to bring aid to Cardinal Pole and the Spirituali. That is the likely answer. To make it more and more difficult to isolate and strike the promoters of the heretical book, in accordance with Your Lordship’s intentions.

In Venice I was able to observe the subtle survival strategies adopted by these wealthy Jews. The Mendesi finances rely on finely tuned balances of power, exchanges of favours, commercial involvements, bribery. That is how they have always managed to escape persecution in the past. People such as these would have everything to lose from an increase in the power of the Congregation of the Holy Office, from the advent of intransigence. In all likelihood they hope that it will be people like Reginald Pole who defeat the zelanti, that is, moderate and tolerant men of letters who are willing to engage in dialogue and negotiations with the Lutherans today, and might well do so with the Jews tomorrow.

These people are quite powerful in Venice, not so much so as to be untouchable, but certainly difficult to reach using normal channels. The Jews in general are an essential component of the life of this city, they are so much a part of it that without them Venice would risk sinking into the sea. As Your Lordship is very well aware, the state of order in La Serenissima depends on a delicate interlocking system of powers and authorities, politics and commerce, a system that is almost unbreachable. To attack a family like the Mendesis would be to touch a live nerve in Venice, with all the resultant consequences.

For the moment I shall stay in Ferrara, waiting for a reply from Your Lordship and seeking to collect additional elements about the development of the