Q - Luther Blissett (interesting novels to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Luther Blissett
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Could The Benefit of Christ Crucified become a double-edged weapon, which might strike the one who forged it? And how?
Ensure that the Council excommunicates it immediately, and unmasks its authors? Attribute it to Pole and his circle of friends?
No, the Englishman would deny everything, his credibility is too high for him to be charged with heresy, and there is no proof that he wrote the book. If he managed to exonerate himself, he would emerge stronger than ever. My lord knows this; he is too prudent to concede such an opportunity to his greatest adversary.
It would be better to make a net into which all the cardinals who look favourably upon the reformers will fall, one after another. A book passing from hand to hand, from library to library and contaminating everyone who touches it. And when you haul in the net, you get all the big fish all in one go. It’s important to let it go on circulating, even if the Council excommunicates it, to allow Pole’s friends to read it and to be fascinated by it, just as they are fascinated by that fine English intellect. Meanwhile Carafa works away, slowly building the machine that will enable him to get them all at a stroke. Yes, that’s how my lord’s mind is working. But such a game could get out of hand; it could grow too big even for his ubiquitous mind.
On the Council
29th June 1542: publication of the Papal Bull convoking the ecumenical Council.
21st July 1542: papal bull Licet ab initio establishing the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.
Between these two dates, resumption of the war between Charles V and Francis I.
It would appear that if there is no Council there will be war, it doesn’t make much difference whether it’s fought out between armies or intellects.
De Concilio: a veiled defence of the theses contained in the Benefit of Christ Crucified. The Spirituali wish to turn the Council of Trent into the chief arena for tackling the question of justification. They want the Council to become the opposing force to the Inquisition, which is becoming ever more robust under Carafa’s astute leadership. There is no doubt that my lord will do all he can to ensure that the theses of the Benefit are condemned even before they have been discussed.
On Carafa
One might wonder what Vesalius, that necrophiliac, would find were he to dissect this man whose eyes seem forever fixed upon a remote, unearthly horizon. Perhaps all the fear that he has at his command. Or the divine grace of the unfathomable mind of the Creator concealed beneath the lineaments of cruelty.
Who on earth is this man?
My patron is a monk, a master of simulation and dissimulation, born to command. A bishop, before he took the vows of a poor Theatine. Enemy of the Emperor, whom he dandled on his knee when he was a child, hating him already; possessed of an intuition that would seem diabolical if he did not have faith; supreme architect of the Holy Office, reborn for him and in his charge, the custodiant of its secrets and aims, nurturing it like a beloved child, with boundless energy, at an age when most men have already been long underground and keeping company with the worms; apostle of that which he exalts above all things: spiritual war, the inner and the outer struggle, giving no quarter, battling against the seductions of heresy, in whichever form they may appear.
Who on earth is he?
On myself
Carafa’s eye.�
St Gotthard Pass, 17th May 1545
I should never have done it. Am I going to go back over my movements, my thoughts?
Funny, sublime, terrifying vision.
Or abandon myself altogether?
The undulating woods of the Mittelland down to the Aare, then slowly on the flat, wide boat via Olten, Suhrsee and finally to Lucerne, at the very end of the dark lake of the cantons where it meets the Reus. From there, on mule, two mules, one for the luggage and Perna’s books, among the hundreds of burdened creatures puffing their way up the grim slopes of Mount Pilatus, along paths often almost impassable, but filled with traffic and human beings and carts and animals. Up and down this unavoidable tract of sunlit slopes and alpine pastures, wonderful wild woods, surrounded by sharp crags, swept by bitterly cold air cut at the summits by the wings of the peregrine falcon. A clear spring morning, I inhale the bracing intoxication of the heights. I observe the improbable threshold of a new season, the pass leading from Andermatt to Airolo, St Gotthard looking out over Italian soil.
I must be out of my mind. An old madman rolling down from the mountains towards the great brothel of the world, staring the Turk in the face.
A vision both funny and sublime
Panic spreading torpor through my limbs. A chamois darts between the trees.
I could die right now. In the grip of a terrible euphoria, in the paralysis of hot sun on aged, aching muscles. Now. Without knowing who I am. Without a plan, and with two heavy bags of books. Before the absurd inertia returns, before the crazed intellect returns on the back of that mule. Two bags. I contemplate the steep Italian valleys leading down to the plain, all the way the sea. To meet the ghosts, at the sign of the Well. Come with me, roofer, because I don’t know who I am. And my legs aren’t as solid as they were. Now.
*
Bergamo, Republic of Venice, 25th May 1545
So, just a few drags on those long rolled leaves, the aromatic cigars from beyond the sea that I had brought with me from the Netherlands: can they induce such intense and unbalanced emotions among these dizzying peaks?
I’m still agitated. But mostly with that fear that is like the vertigo of disorientation, the fascination of the unknown, extreme possibilities, regions unexplored, depth of vision. Not like the drunkenness you get from wine, beer or spirits. Without the blurred head you get, the curious mishmash of thoughts, the crazed logorrhoea.
Another creature within you. Which fades away quietly, leaving no traces on the body, your questions unaltered.
Along the Ticino River to the little village of Biasca. From there, accompanied by a guide, across the mountain paths, eastwards towards Chiavenna, crossing the valleys of Calanca and Mesolcina, on Perna’s commission, to bring books to the exiled reformers who are flowing from Northern Italy into the Swiss Republic.
On the banks of the river Mera, a place marshy and treacherous, obstructed here and there by the remnants of old landslides, where dry land meets the waters of Lake Como and high, sterile mountains impede access. Chiavenna, key to the valleys: apart from its strategic position and the autonomy that make it an ideal refuge, not a place to recommend to travellers.
Two days’ break to rest my bones after my march through the Alps, north to south, to the point where the Adda emerges into Lake Lario. Half a day to reach Lecco, within the borders of the territory of Venice, La Serenissima.
From there, after so much climbing, the road runs straight across the plain, to Venice. With good connecting services, four days’ journey.
Venice
Venice, 29th May 1545
When you see it in the distance for the first time, still veiled by the mist that makes the sun a white disc, you can’t tell if the mirage is floating on the sea that you are crossing, when in fact it’s on dry land; you can’t be sure that the palaces and churches resting on the water might not really be fantastic architectural rock formations.
Then the boat enters a wide canal. Windows, balconies and gardens dance in bright patches of colour that spread between the banks.
Alleys open up on either side, navigable by one small boat at a time, some of them so narrow that the roofs of the houses seem to touch, preventing the rays of the sun from filtering through. Perna has talked to me of churches, palaces, squares and brothels; but I wasn’t expecting the miracle of the waterways, the impressive number of boats of every kind and dimension that replace carriages, sedan chairs and horses. The city seems to be a stranger to the wheel, and to main streets crowded with traffic. It’s an absurd construction that challenges all the laws of architecture and seems almost to be floating on the sea, making Amsterdam and the Netherlands, dragged from the ocean by the tenacity of the northern people, fade into insignificance.
The gulls cut through the pale sky and come to rest on stout, thick poles, many of them colourful and decorated with shields, which protrude from the canal bed like tree trunks in a forest, serving as moorings of various shapes and sizes.
The narrow horizon gradually widens to embrace another island on the right, and a majestic set of constructions in muted colours, surmouned at a great height by a stout, square bell-tower as pointed as an arrow.
Another waterway opens up to the left, a real undulating street, with the doors and staircases of the buildings leading directly to the water, something I have never seen before in any country with a river or anything like it. The city and the sea seem to have grown up together.
The boat moors just below the magnificent balcony of a palazzo entirely clad in pink marble, next to a column bearing the statue of the winged Lion and what I take to be the stage for public executions. The symbols and instruments of the power of the Venetian republic are designed to be the first images that strike the stranger.
Barely have I set foot on dry land, however, when I’m struck by the hubbub, the throngs of people coming and going, the shouts, the crowds, the greetings, the quarrels; perhaps the only element that separates the sea, a place of muted sounds, from the rest of the city.
Barely have I set foot on dry land when I’m immediately recognised — by what particular characteristics I don’t know — as a German-speaking stranger, and surrounded by about twenty boys determined to explain to me that it’s impossible to get around Venice without an intimate knowledge of the place, that there’s a terrible� risk of getting lost, of ending up in the wrong hands, getting swindled; and while they are politely enumerating these dangers, they are trying every way they can think of to slip their hands into my wallet.
‘Your magnificence, your lordship, over here, over here, follow me, my great lord, you want somewhere to sleep? You do? Come with me, O most illustrious one, I’ll show you the loveliest city in the world, where’s your luggage, O finest of lordships ? At the station? Bad place, sir, not worthy of a great man such as yourself.’
The voice issues from a completely toothless mouth and sounds decidedly like that of an old man, but the boy who has offered to show me the city for a handful of coins can’t be more than fifteen.
‘Come on, come on, you want to drink some wine? You don’t? You want a woman? Here you’ll find the most beautiful women between Constantinople and Lisbon, not expensive, sir, not expensive, no, come on, you want a woman? I’ll take you where you’ll find the most beautiful ones of all, very clean, no diseases, no, no, very young. Are you here on business, most noble lordship? Silk? Spices? No? I’ll take you to the right place, it’s not far from here, come on, lovely place, great lords like
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