Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

time talking to him. He has the same opinion of the Inquisition as we do. He’s against the methods of Carafa and his friends. He knows that if he gives them carte blanche we’ll end up with a massacre of the innocents. He promised me he would personally intercede with the General of the Benedictines to get Fontanini out of prison.’

‘What Fontanini? Benedetto of Mantua? The author of the_ Benefit_?’

‘He’s out now. Isn’t that a sign that we can breathe a bit easier? We’ll have to hold our council as soon as possible, before the balance shifts again, perhaps even forcing the Pope’s hand. I’m almost certain that Julius III is basically open to dialogue with the reformed faith, except that he can’t say as much or state it explicitly, because he knows that his election was the result of a compromise. He has to behave accordingly. What is it you lot say? Run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.’

‘If you think it’s the right thing to do, I’m with you.’

Pietro Manelfi walks beside me down the Via delle Volte. I met him in Florence: he was a cleric from the Marche, an unruly subject of the Pope. His spiritual torments had begun years ago, leading him to abandon his seminary and slide ever faster down that thin line that separates mystical inspiration from heresy. I gave him the answers he was looking for, and he attached himself to me like a dog to its master: Titian’s first disciple. To put him to the test, I sent him to his own part of the world to recruit proselytes. Then he joined me here, full of hope. He prays too many times a day, but he has an exceptional memory, he remembers the home towns, names and professions of everyone who’s been baptised, and he helps me to stay in contact with all the brothers. He tells everyone about me: outside of Ferrara no one knows anyone else apart from the mysterious Titian. If they were to be arrested, they couldn’t betray each other: just Titian, the hare, the target.

We pass underneath the arches that stretch over the street, a street that never sleeps: a great hubbub of tanners, blacksmiths and cobblers by day; breasts and thighs by night. We slip silently into the alleyway, without a backward glance. We stop and pretend to chat: no one is following us.

We carry on till we to the house: three knocks, then another one.

‘Who is it?’

‘Pietro and Titian.’

*

Ferrara’s fine. It’s a city where everything moves at a particular pace, where everything fits together nicely. But it isn’t like Venice. Venice is complicated, in Venice if you so much as move a pin you always run the risk of sticking it in a giant’s arse.

Ferrara is small and clings to the edge of the river, but even so you can still get lost in the older alleyways. Ferrara is freer, lighter, less crowded, without so many cops and spies. In Venice there’s always someone keeping an eye on you, not here, you walk without ever having to stop, pretend you’ve taken a wrong turning, see if there’s someone in yet another absurd disguise walking behind you. A salutary habit, but pointless in Ferrara, you can rest easy here. Ercole II is wreathed in smiles about the new Pope, but at the same time he allows the most active and dangerous minds in Italy to find refuge here. He likes to have his palace filled with men of letters, and he never allows the flame to go out on the tomb of the poet Ludovico Ariosto, whom the people here venerate like a saint. It really must be irksome for him to know that that there’s no one of that calibre in his court. Then there’s Ren�e, the widow of Alfonso d’Este, who has no scruples about displaying her Calvinist sympathies. A considerable number of people have taken refuge behind the princess’s skirts, to escape the police and the inquisitors.

As in Venice, no harm is done to the Jews, but here they chiefly practise usury, lending money at a lower rate of interest than their cousins in the lagoon, and they do excellent business. The money keeps on circulating, it never stops, and that’s a sign of the city’s good health. Justice is administered equably, without too many magistrates and policemen and courts taking months to decide the respective competences if someone died during a brawl. They act swiftly here, if you attract too much attention they walk you to the border. If you kill someone they walk you to the executioner, an old drunk who lives on the northern walls and sings obscene ditties to himself as he works. If two people have a score to settle they make an appointment to meet in the duelling alley, a narrow little street closed on both sides by densely-barred gates: two go in, only one comes out. It’s all done without too much noise, without disturbing the city’s peaceful activity.

My Anabaptist is right in his element here.

I’ve assembled half a dozen adepts, not all of them Ferrarese, who are willing to leave for other towns to spread the new faith and go around rebaptising. At the same time I’m taking care of the other part of myself, meeting Beatrice in her house, which I enter via a narrow passageway at the back.

The Miquez brothers have brought me messages sent by Chi�, landlord of the Gorgadello, the best cellar in the city, right beside the Cathedral. It’s said that Ariosto used to go and get drunk there, and some of the regulars can even remember hearing him declaim the verses of his Orlando Furioso on more than one occasion. Chiucchiolino, or Chi� as he’s known to everyone who’s run up a tab with him, is an impressive creature: he has eyes on either side of his head, like a toad, pointing in different directions. His forehead is covered with a leonine mane of black curls, thick and coarse like a boar’s bristles. He’s an important man, an essential part of the city. If you have a problem you can talk to Chi� about it, and he’ll be able to recommend someone who will almost certainly be able to sort out your difficulties. Chi� is the bank of secrets. You can tell him everything and be sure that he won’t open his mouth to anyone, he’ll accumulate information in his safe and return it to you with interest in the form of advice, names and addresses for you to make use of as you will. My secrets are in that bank as well. The key: a few conventional signs. Wine: no news. Spirits: important information.

Spirits today. To the Miquez house at dusk.

Across town to my house. A little room where I can shed Titian’s clothes for a bit and get a few hours’ rest.

I light the fire in the little hearth and put the water on to heat up. Venice has got me accustomed to washing frequently, so much so that it’s become a habit. An inconvenient and expensive habit for someone who’s always on the move.

I stay naked, and investigate what the accumulation of fifty years has done to my limbs. Ancient scars and the odd white hair on my chest. Fortunately I’ve never given my muscles time to relax too much: the strength is still there, it’s just more solid and leathery. But I have permanent rheumatism. It only ever lets up in the summer, when I stretch out in the sun like a lizard, drying out all the humidity of these low lands. I’ve also discovered that I can no longer bend my spine completely, or I get the most terrible pains, and where possible I avoid riding on horseback.

Strange how in old age you learn to appreciate simple actions, how you’re more willing to waste time rocking yourself in a comfortable chair, in the shade of a tree, or rolling over in bed trying to think of a good reason to get up.

I meticulously dry every corner of my body, lie down on the bed and close my eyes. The minute I find myself shivering I take my clean clothes out of the trunk that is the only other piece of furniture in the room. My elegant Venetian clothes. A broad-brimmed hat to hide my face, my sharp stiletto to wear in my belt. The bells: it’s almost time to go.

*

The black hair on her shoulders smells of rich perfumes. I become aware of that warm body, still pressed against mine, that I can wrap in an embrace of hands and legs and feet.

They could barely believe what I told them. My meeting with the future Pope, his intercession to free Fontanini.

I can’t see her face, but I know it’s awake and possibly smiling.

A paradox. Either the Council was wrong to excommunicate The Benefit of Christ… or else the Pope’s a heretic, Jo�o said.

I’d like to tell her something, something to describe the emotion that’s clenching my stomach and almost making me cry.

Neither a zelante nor a spirituale, Julius III is performing a balancing act. In the end he’ll come down on whichever side wins. The game is still open.

I’m too old to talk about love, something I’ve relegated to the dusty corners of life, and which I’ve always managed to sacrifice, denying myself the intimacy of moments like this one. I’ve denied myself the chance of extending those moments over the years, allowing them to change my life.

How were we to get out of this stalemate, Duarte asked. What were we going to do with the Benefit, now that it was top of the list of forbidden books that has just been promulgated by the Venetian Inquisition?

It must be much the same for her. Our stories are basically similar. Stories we haven’t told each other. Questions we haven’t asked.

Keep at it, she said. Confident, surprising us once again. The Inquisition can’t do a thing without the support of the local authorities. Venice can defend itself against interference from Rome. Keep at it. Keep on fomenting discontent against the Church.

Beatrice lies motionless and lets me listen to her breathing, as though we both had a natural sense of what mattered, as though we were both thinking the same things.

‘Have you found him?’

‘Who?’ My voice sounds as though it’s echoing from a cave.

‘Your enemy.’

‘Not yet. But I can feel that he’s nearby.’

‘How can you be sure?’

I smile ironically. ‘It’s the only thing that could give me the strength not to stay here with you until I die.’

Q’s diary

Rome, 17th April 1550

The new Pope has reformed the Congregation of the Holy Office: Carafa and De Cupis, zelanti, Pole and Morone, spirituali, Cervini and Sfondrato, non-aligned. He wants to keep everyone and no one happy. Julius III is a temporary armistice, a cover that the zelanti and spirituali will fight over to the death.

Carafa spends his days in close negotiations, as though the Conclave were still going on. He wrote to tell me that he caught lice ‘among those old men, more dead than alive’. Seventy-four, older than the Pope, and he hardly ever sleeps.

I wish I had his energy. Instead here I am, waiting for orders, not moving for weeks, strolling aimlessly among the hills of Rome, enjoying the mild climate of the season, like an old fool at the end of his days.

I have written once again to the inquisitors of half of Italy for information about Titian. Still nothing.

Rome, 30th April 1550

Titian in Florence.

Pier Francesco Riccio, butler and secretary to Cosimo de’ Medici.

Pietro Carnesecchi,