Perhaps the explanation for this last mystery lay in an annotation in one of the other works:
Arteries are long and hollow with a double skin to convey the vital spirits; to discern which the better, they say that Vesalius the anatomist was wont to cut men up alive.
Had that rumour offended the devout Mortensa’s Christian spirit so much that he would not allow a copy in his library?
Every day something memorable occurred. Once he took down a set of matching “volumes” with no labels and found they were false books full of mounted cameos and intaglios, each set enriched at the centre with a gold Tiberius. Most exciting of all, when he examined the section of the shelves devoted to architecture, he found that the copies of Vitruvius, Alberti, Palladio and the anonymous Sepulchres of Etruria, were all annotated by Mortensa himself!
At least they were in part so annotated. Summers found two similar but distinguishable hands, and realised with a flutter of excitement, that here before him was the first record of a relationship mentioned by Vasari.
For surely the second hand must belong to Antonio Borsini, Mortensa’s protégé, who had been groomed to take over the master’s mantle, and had so spectacularly betrayed him by disappearing with their work on San Bartolomeo scarcely begun, escaping just before anonymous denunciation for heretical and blasphemous activities.
On first reading Vasari’s account, Summers had been humbled by Mortensa’s Christian forbearance. Such a blow might have justified a bitter denunciation from the great architect, but this was a man who habitually dressed in skull-cap and cassock, and donated many holy relics to the churches he built. All that he had allowed himself was a gentle statement of disappointment and a heartfelt offer of forgiveness and support, if only the young man would return.
The two hands were similar, but Summers thought he could discern which was which by the tone of the annotations. This surely was Mortensa, writing of The Knowledge of perfect proportions, the harmony which produces beauty, and beside an exquisite little sketch of the human form within a church ground plan, the words The interior of the body is a divine secret. The character of Borsini, on the other hand, was readily identified in such passages as Some divide demons into nine degrees, standing contrary to the nine orders of angels. The first of these are called false gods, who would be worshipped as gods and would demand sacrifices and Adorations. Another example, on sculptural decoration, recorded, The rams heads refer to the power of destruction as the ram is the acknowledged symbol of Pluto, Lord of the Dead. And perhaps worst of alclass="underline" Even as our brother in the divine Counsels of Night, Morto da Feltre, descended into the subterranean fastnesses of Rome’s ruins, there to draw the grotesques, and from such inspiration invented sgraffito, whereby a design in white is only delineated by the presence of its black ground, so do we seek the ancient wisdom that we may build in marble that which depends, for its true meaning, upon the Four Strengths of Shadow.
Perhaps Mortensa had been too kindly and naïve to recognise the dangerous drift of such comments.
Summers came upon another troubling example of Borsini’s influence on the Mortensa Library during these first days, a huge canvas-bound folio among the architectural volumes. As he turned the pages he found a fabulous scrapbook of carefully tipped-in drawings, on carta bombasina, of mythological scenes. The style and the medium—bistre, Chinese ink and chalks—were so reminiscent of Tiepolo that a less academic mind might have become excited. Summers had seen enough of such works in researching his books to know that drawings in the style of great Venetian artists had been a speciality of many highly talented contemporary fakers. Still, even if these works were to be categorised as “After Tiepolo”, they were still very fine.
What did shock Summers slightly was the subject matter. There must have been twenty or more studies of the Centaur Nessus raping the nymph Dejanira, and a very large number depicting what he could only describe as families of satyrs eating, dancing, making sacrifice to their gods and even making love.
Now this would not be surprising in the library of almost any other architect of that era—all of whom were in some way products of the classical tradition—but Mortensa had been such a devout man, all but saintly in his embodiment of the Christian virtues.
The clue lay in the annotations that accompanied certain drawings, quotations from Pomponius Mela on the subject of satyrs, and extensive references to the Diversorum veterum poetarum in Priapum Lusus, an Aldine edition published in Venice in 1517. All were in the same hand as the previous annotations on demons. Summers recognised here, quite literally, the hand of Borsini.
A single bell began to toll mournfully from the tower of San Bartholomeo. The clouds had parted and the sun was beating on the rooftops of Venice. He would get some fresh air, and perhaps visit Mortensa’s church at last, before a bite of lunch.
Crossing the canal by the nearest bridge, Summers navigated a tangle of calli and cortes to the church. Before entering, he could not resist a look back at the windows of Ca’ Mortensa, thinking how strange it was that he had been inside that beautiful building only minutes before. A shadow passed across the library windows. It was so fleeting that he could not tell its shape. The source must be some passing bird, but it troubled him enough to pause and satisfy himself that there was no recurrence before entering the church.
If Mortensa had been aiming for terribilità with his exterior, the intention inside must have been very different. Summers had never seen a more pious, contemplative church interior in his life. Austere enough indeed to justify the claim once made that Mortensa was the Savanarola of architecture! The green, yellow and black marble created a soothing, submerged atmosphere that suited the rippling greenish light from outside. Summers wandered around in quiet delight, wondering why this architect had never been numbered among the great. Perhaps it was the obvious piety and Christian virtue of the man that was out of step with the tenor of these cynical times. There were no concessions to irreligious sensibilities.
There was a particularly gruesome martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew after Tiepolo (a good deal further “after” than the drawings in the library), and Summers’ eye was also caught by an oblong of murky light that turned out to be a case full of sacred relics. These included some implements of torture, a few leathery rags of skin stretched over ornate frames, and some shrivelled, unidentifiable body parts including a delicately beautiful human head, all mummified by time.
Kneeling there, he tried to see them devoutly as holy objects, but found that he could not banish from his mind the guilty idea of condemned meat in some nightmarish butcher’s window.
There was a danger that this would spoil his lunch. In any case, a cleric in a cassock was approaching, no doubt with some prepared lecture he did not want; he left swiftly.
On his way to the trattoria, Summers thought the cleric had followed him as far as the bridge, but the dazzle of the low sun was playing tricks, for the shivery reflection in the waters below showed a bridge but no figure.
A good meal and a half carafe of red wine later, Summers made his way happily back to the palazzetto. The late Contessa’s devotee was leaving as he let himself in by the landward door, and she tried to engage him in conversation. He could understand little of her quickly-spoken Venetian dialect, and merely nodded politely as he pushed by. Clearly, Bramanti had failed to pass on the message that he was not out to pillage the relics of her devotion. In her distressed state, the oddly pronounced slang was all but impenetrable, but he caught enough words to feel offended. She seemed to be calling him an uninvited intruder, and used words such as monstrous and horrible. The pleasant mood created by his lunch was quite ruined.