Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

haven’t got an army of vultures flying over your head at all hours.’

Cardinal Del Monte.

Zelante or spirituale?

On Carafa’s side, or Pole’s?

Mantuan.

The old dog yawns toothlessly into my face.

Mantuan, like Friar Benedetto Fontanini.

Zelante or spirituale?

*

The bishop’s insignias on the doors of his carriage are splattered with mud. A dozen armed men are bivouacked on the gravel of the courtyard. A lot of people coming and going up and down the stairs. The groom is busy polishing the Episcopal crest with a rag.

The soldiers barely give me a tired glance. The fine clothes I’m wearing must make me look like a courtier.

A slimly-built man trips daintily down the stairs, enveloped in an elegant cape and with a ludicrous hat on his head. He looks about thirty.

He turns to the groom. ‘His Lordship would be grateful for some hot water before his lunch.’ An arrogant and scornful tone.

The man with the whiskers nods with the stupidest expression in the world, stops working on the carriage and hurries up the stairs.

I walk over.

‘The service always leaves a lot to be desired in places like this.’

I take him by surprise, he can only manage a nod: ‘It’s really scandalous…’

‘A man of such calibre…’

He can’t look at me, my cordial manners have knocked him off balance. ‘After travelling for so long, at his age…’

‘And with such terrible worries…’

He decides to react, grey little eyes looking down from above. ‘Are you by any chance from the same parts as His Lordship?’

‘No, sir, I’m German by origin.’

‘Ah.’ He adopts the expression of someone who has suddenly discovered a profound truth. ‘I am Felice Figliucci, secretary to His Lordship.’

‘Titian, like the painter.’ A slight mutual bow. ‘I imagine you’re headed for Rome.’

‘Indeed we are. We set off again tomorrow morning.’

‘Hard times…’

‘Quite so. The Pope…’

We stand there in silence for a moment, eyes lowered, as though reflecting on deep theological questions; I know he wants to say goodbye, but I don’t give him time. ‘If there’s anything I can do for His Lordship, don’t hesitate to ask.

‘Most kind of you… Of course… For the moment, you will forgive me if I dash upstairs and check that all is well.’

Embarrassed, he takes his leave.

*

It’s pouring with rain, but I have a terrible urge to smoke a cigar. Taking shelter beneath an awning, I inhale the smoke as I stare at the storm. No sign of the old dog. A cat’s eyes flash before it disappears through a grille.�

I will baptise people methodically, the people needed to form the nucleus of a genuine sect. Inquisitors are partial to sects, you can go on about them till the cows come home, you can blame them for all kinds of things: popular discontent, plagues, prostitution, your wife’s infertility… I need apostles to go around the place rebaptising people, just as old Matthys did. I already have a few people in mind, from Ferrara, but I’ve got to go further afield than that: Modena, Bologna, Florence. Then there’s Romagna. The inhabitants are said to be the most turbulent of all the Pope’s subjects. It might be interesting to meet up with someone down there. Heresy and rebellion: what else?

I clench the cigar between my teeth and fold my hands behind my back. A shiver tells me it would be better to go back inside. I can’t risk falling ill.

The fire is still lit in the hearth. Someone’s stirring the coals with a poker, a black outline from behind, sitting on one of the inn’s wooden chairs. A flannel shirt to his feet, covering his bulk, and a purple skull cap perched on top of his tonsure.

He turns around slightly when he notices my presence.

I hasten to put him at ease: ‘Don’t worry, Your Lordship, just an insomniac’s footsteps.’

A strange sound, halfway between a mumble and a sigh. Round eyes deep-set above his wrinkled cheeks.

‘Then that makes two of us, my son.’

‘Can I help you in any way?’

‘I was trying to get this fire back to life so that I could read a few lines.’

I pick up the bellows and start blowing on the embers.

‘Insomnia’s a dreadful thing.’

‘You can say that again. But when you’ve reached the age of sixty-six there’s no point complaining, you humbly accept what the good Lord sends. We should be grateful that our eyes are still good enough to read, and take us through the hours of night.’

The fire has starting crackling again, Cardinal Del Monte picks up the book that lies open on the floor. I glimpse the title in the firelight and can’t contain my surprise: ‘You’re reading Vesalius?’

An embarrassed murmur. ‘May the good Lord forgive the curiosity of an old man whose sole pleasure lies in keeping up with the bizarre excrescences of the human mind.’

‘I’ve read that book, too. It certainly is strange, manhandling corpses like that, but what you’re left with, it seems to me, is a wonderful homage to the glory of God and the perfection He has created, don’t you think? If more people cultivated their curiosity as you do, we might avoid a lot of misunderstandings, like seeking evil where there is no trace of it.’

He gives me a crafty look. He’s like an affable old bear, crouched in his chair. ‘So you’ve read it? But what do you mean when you speak of misunderstandings?’

Let’s give it a try.

‘So many fervent Christians today risk being imprisoned for their wish to revive and bring fresh blood to the Roman Church. They are fingered as members of dangerous sects, as alchemists, magicians and plague-spreaders. They are tried as enemies of the Church, Lutherans, when they have never even dared to question the infallible authority of the Pope and the theologians. If only someone would pay one hundredth the attention to their ideas that you are showing now, I don’t think it would be too hard to tell them from the heretics and schismatics beyond the Alps.’

Del Monte gives me a paternal look. ‘My son, sitting by this fire, right now, you and I are merely two insomniacs. Tomorrow morning I will once again be the Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina, and in that persona I could never allow myself to be as liberal as I am about to be. It is difficult to reconcile one’s responsibility of defending a beloved flock with the measures needed to bring back the sheep that have been lost along the way, led astray by their intellects, by bad books and bad logic.’

I decide to take the bull by the horns. ‘What I fear is both the rashness and the excessive caution of the judges, I’m worried that they will destroy the spirit of renewal, that they will lump everything all together…’

The cardinal narrows his eyes: ‘You have something specific in mind, don’t you?’

‘I have. I don’t know if I can risk talking to Your Lordship about it, but the late hour, and the opportunity to talk privately to you, are encouraging me to say a few words about an affair that has been troubling me for some time, and which concerns one of your fellow-countrymen.’

‘A member of my diocese?’

‘A pious man, Your Eminence. Friar Benedetto of Mantua.’

No reaction. I’ve taken my step, I’ll have to keep going.

‘For months he has been isolated in the monastery of Santa Giustina of Padua, accused of being the author of The Benefit of Christ Crucified. He’s suspected of apostasy.’

A brief coughing fit. ‘That little book is threatened with excommunication, my son.’

‘I know, Your Eminence. But follow my reasoning, if you will. The excommunication of the book by the Council of Trent dates back to 1546, and for a very particular reason: it was only then, in fact, that the doctors of the Church definitively fixed the Catholic doctrine of salvation, declaring the Lutheran teaching on the subject to be heretical. Well, Friar Benedetto wrote The Benefit in 1541, five years before the Council’s definitive pronouncement reached us.’

He nods in silence.

I go on: ‘When Friar Benedetto wrote that book, he was driven to do so by the sincere intention of offering a chance of reconciliation with the Lutherans. There is not a single page in The Benefit of Christ Crucified that calls into question the authority of the Pope and the bishops, there’s nothing even slightly scandalous about it. It merely sets out in the clearest terms the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. But You know better than I, Your Eminence, that there are passages in the Bible that lend themselves to that kind of interpretation…’

‘Matthew 25, 34 and Romans 8, 28-30…’

‘And Ephesians 1, 4-6.’

Del Monte sighs. ‘I know what you mean. I’ve read The Benefit, and the fate of brother Benedetto is of great concern to me, too. But there are very delicate balances that must be taken into account, difficult conflicts to resolve…’

I lean towards him slightly: ‘So I hope brother Benedetto’s incarceration doesn’t have more to do with the internecine war currently rocking the Church than it does with the Lutherans. If that were the case, there would be more need than ever for the intervention of important figures independent on both sides, lest any innocent people fell victim to a conflict that didn’t really have anything to do with them.’�

He gives a very faint nod. ‘You’re making your point very clearly. But I assure you that it isn’t easy, particularly now that the Pope is ill, and the gruesome wind of negotiations is blowing in from Rome. It isn’t easy for someone seeking to be a man of peace to stay aloof from the conflict. At the moment, any gesture, even one of the simplest charity, would be interpreted as siding with one party or the other. For those who wish to prevent the punishment of the innocent, the only way forward lies in an appeal to charity and to the good sense of the men of the Church.’

I interrupt him. ‘Humble gestures can sometimes be significant.’

He stares into the dying flames as though searching for something. He looks tired and reigned. ‘I know the General of the Benedictines very well.’ For a moment it looks as though he has nothing more to say. ‘A letter to Monte Cassino is the kind of thing that I might still be able to get away with…’

‘That would be something.’

‘I think I’ll be able to sleep now.’

A fairly explicit message. Time to say goodnight.

‘Your Eminence, such magnanimity as you have shown is a rare thing these days. There aren’t many holy men of the Church who would agree to talk to a stranger in the depths of night, let alone grant him his wishes. My name is…’

He raises a hand. ‘No. Come tomorrow, the bishop of Palestrina won’t be able to afford to make the confidences he has made tonight. As far as I’m concerned, you will simply be the erudite insomniac who happened to keep me company.’

Q’s Diary

Viterbo, 25th June 1549

Farnese is dying. It might be tomorrow, equally it might be in three months’ time. The negotiations are getting more frantic by the day, as the life slips from Paul III’s exhausted body.

Things are not balanced in the zelanti’s favour. The Emperor is backing Reginald Pole, and his fame is sky-high. The champion of the faith seems to be able to bring many different people together. If the Conclave were held tomorrow, the die would be cast. In that case, the plot that Carafa has woven over the past few years would unravel at a