"In this, women today are truly more inhuman than tigers or other cruel beasts," she continued, "for, apart from women, I know of no animal that is unwilling to give suck to its young. How can a mother, after carrying it in her belly and feeding it with her own blood, not yet knowing whether it was a boy or a girl or a monster, once she has seen her child, recognised it and heard its cries, sobs and sighs calling on her for help, then exile it from her bosom and from her bed, pleased with herself for having given that child its being yet denying it all well- being, as though her breasts had been given her by God and nature as a mere ornament of the torso, as in males, and not to feed her children?…"
I had heard enough. I knew from experience that once she had launched into that subject, Cloridia would without difficulty detain the Deputy Steward for a long, long time.
I returned to Atto and we resumed our search as the first light of dawn filtered into the palace. Soon we had left behind us a long series of rooms superbly decorated with mythological and historical subjects: the room of Amor and Psyche, the room of Perseus, the stucco gallery, and then the rooms of Callisto, Aeneas and the feudal era.
"Tis no good. There's no trace of the globe you spoke of."
At that juncture, we heard a series of screams, followed by a lacerating, interminable howl which almost caused Abbot Melani to faint. We ran to see: the Deputy Steward's wife had given birth. The herbs administered by Cloridia to stimulate delivery had worked more swiftly than our search.
"A bane on your wife and the day when we placed our trust in her," muttered Abbot Melani. "Now we are stuck here and we have discovered absolutely nothing."
At that moment, Cloridia looked up to the window, holding the squalling babe in her arms, already wrapped in a towel, and made a rapid signal in our direction, as though to say, "Go ahead, do not worry."
So we returned to our search, uncertain and cautious. We visited the Achilles room, that of the Tales of Ancient Rome and those of the Four Elements and the Four Seasons, moving on to the Great Gallery, the study and even the chapel.
"There's something here that doesn't square up properly," said Atto. "Let us return to the staircase."
"Why?"
"When we first came up from the ground floor, we turned right. Now, I want to turn left. Then I'll tell you why."
The Abbot, as I was soon to see, had his good reasons. Retracing our footsteps, we realised that, turning left immediately after climbing the stairs, there was a gallery which we had not yet explored. The daylight, which was growing brighter moment by moment, enabled us to see not only the walls, doors and windows, but also the very high ceilings which the eye should enjoy on the first floor of every noble palazzo.
As soon as we entered this new space, we stopped before a great candelabrum on the floor, whose candles we lit with our taper so that there was light all around us. Great was my wonder when we found ourselves facing a broad gallery, with a wealth of all kinds of frescoes, all kinds of works of art and the most precious furnishings.
It was quite clear even to untrained intellects that this room was one of the most splendid and eminent treasures of the entire
Palazzo Spada, one that could not fail to be shown to the benevolent guest in the course of a humble visit.
It was a fairly spacious gallery, in the form of an elongated rectangle. On the one side, the walls were covered with frescoes and paintings, while the opposite side was subdivided into a series of great windows which in the daylight hours brightly lit the whole space, with, between them, a series of fine marble busts. The ceiling consisted of a curved vault which was adorned with an imposing fresco, the order and meaning of which I would, however, have been unable to understand at first glance, were it not for Abbot Melani's explanations.
Atto explained that the magnificent imagery on the ceiling stood for Astronomy and Astrology. I saw cherubs holding up a white velarium on which were drawn lines intersecting on the surface of the earth; at one end of the fresco, one saw Mercury bearing a meridian in the heavens, while the whole assembly of the pagan gods looked on in wonderment. At the opposite end were four female figures representing Optics, Astronomy, Cosmography and Geometry who were also intent upon creating a catoptric meridian, 'midst many other splendid and praiseworthy anthropomorphic figures.
On the walls there was an extensive and unusual series of splendid paintings, for the most part faithful and highly realistic portraits of illustrious men. Although I could not yet make out the details, it did seem almost as though there were a multitude of real faces looking down upon us. A great whitish crab was perched above our heads on the vaulted ceiling and seemed to be sternly observing us.
"Good heavens, Signor Abbot, look up there. Never have I seen so huge a crab, and what's more, creeping along a ceiling. And all white!"
"Well, my boy, here now is an opportunity for you to learn something. This is Palazzo Spada's celebrated Gallery of the Anacamptic Astrolabe."
"Ana- what astrolabe?…" I tried in vain to repeat after him, still keeping a wary eye on the great white crab which did not, however, for the time being show any sign of leaping on us.
"Or catoptric dial, if you prefer, to use the terminology of the learned Father Kircher."
For a moment, I fell silent.
"Did you say Kircher?" I asked, recalling how we had come into rather close contact with that personage in the course of our adventures seventeen years ago.
"If you were to read newspapers from time to time," was his only reply, "you would sooner or later learn something about the marvels of your city."
"Yes, I knew that Palazzo Spada abounded in architectural marvels and that people come to admire it from all the world over, but…"
"I imagine that you at least know what a sundial is," said the Abbot, cutting me short.
"Of course, Signor Atto. It is a clock in which the shadow cast on given points by a certain object, like a stone or a piece of metal, enables one to tell the time."
"Correct. This, however, is a special diaclass="underline" it functions catoptrically, to employ Kircher's terminology. In other words, not thanks to the sun's rays but to reflection. Do you know what there is down there, outside?" said he, pointing to a sort of little window that gave onto the courtyard.
"I do not know."
"A stand with a mirror on it which reflects the light of the sun and the moon. The Spada household has mirrors of various forms and designs which reflect sun or moon-rays and project luminous images like your white crab. This, as you can now see, is nothing but light refracted onto the ceiling of the gallery, which thus gives the exact time."
I looked up again: he was right, the beast was white because it was drawn on the ceiling by a ray of light.
"And it tells the right time?" I asked incredulously.
"Certainly. You too can surely see those lines marked on the vault, which permit anyone who can read them to follow the hours and minutes on the ceiling of the gallery, so long as the light is a little stronger than this candelabrum. For the whole thing is an immense sundial, but upside down. The light does not reach it from above but rather from below. That crab is reflected moonlight, and I suspect that it takes the form it has because in these July days we are in the sign of Cancer, the Crab. This is probably done by using a mirror of the right shape."
Atto's explanation was interesting, but it was I who interrupted it with a cry of surprise.
"Look, there's the Flemish globe! Indeed, there are two of them."
We drew near the better to examine our find. Further down the gallery, there were in fact two wooden globes, one representing the terrestrial regions, the other, the heavens. We read the name of their maker, a certain Blauew of Amsterdam.