He is standing in the entrance of what appears to be an elliptical playhouse. Lit by stands of tallow candles, tiers of concentric wooden balustrades curve away on either hand, each set back a little from the one below, rising towards the high domed ceiling. Each has its own exterior staircase and a narrow door giving onto a gallery so narrow that only one man may stand between the back wall and the edge without the risk of tumbling into space. The top two tiers are nothing but naked wooden beams, workmen’s planks and scaffolding thrown across the void. Nicholas can see labourers perched precariously some thirty feet above the floor, working with mallet, awl and plane. It dawns on him that this whole edifice is indeed a theatre. But no living actor will ever declaim upon the man-sized rectangular platform that is the focal point for those standing in these galleries. There will be no stirring victory speeches given here, no tragedies played out to their tearful end. This, he realizes, is a theatre in which the leading character is already dead. The player who lies here will give a very different performance from any Nicholas has seen at the Rose theatre on Bankside. He will reveal to his audience not emotion, but the inner complexities of his own body. This is an anatomical theatre, designed for dissection.
At once he is taken back to a hot Lammas Day in London. In a stuffy, airless guildhall – quite unlike this magnificent construction – he is attending a lecture given by the holder of the chair of anatomy at the College of Physicians, Sir Fulke Vaesy. He is looking down on the dissecting table as a small, cheery, bald-headed barber-surgeon, working to Vaesy’s instructions, pares back the muscles and sinews, the blood vessels, connective tissue and fat around the inner organs of an infant boy, whose name he will not learn until much later. So much of what has happened to Nicholas in the intervening years can be traced back to that one moment. He recalls now what Hella Maas said to him at Besançon: You know the danger that lurks in seeking knowledge, I know you do. I can sense it in you. And he remembers his reply, clearly: It was a lack of knowledge that brought me misery, not a surfeit of it.
Seeing in his mind the scalpel slice into the dead child’s waxy white flesh, he thinks now that even if he had known what was to come, it would have changed nothing. All the knowledge in the world isn’t enough to prevent one single hour running inexorably into the next.
An unrestrained rustic cough from Galileo brings Nicholas out of his reverie. In the centre of the theatre Professor Fabrici is in conversation with an architect in a sober gown. They are poring over plans and diagrams. The anatomist is a compact little man of around sixty, with a high round forehead, arched eyebrows and a neatly trimmed iron-grey beard.
‘Magister Galileo,’ he says, looking up as the mathematician approaches, ‘have you come to argue with Signor Sarpi here about his calculations? You’re a little late. We can’t ask the carpenters to tear it all down and start again.’
‘Heaven forefend, Magister Fabrici,’ Galileo says. ‘I’d hate to delay the opening of the most expensive butcher’s shop in Padua. I look forward to buying my sausages and my hams here, just as soon as the Podestà declares it open.’ He lays a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. ‘May I present to you Signor Nicholas Shelby, from England. He is physician of some reputation there, I understand. He has recently arrived in the city.’
The curiosity gleams in Fabrici’s old eyes. ‘We have a few of your nation here at the university, Dr Shelby,’ he says pleasantly. ‘Fewer, of course, since England abjured the true faith and turned to heresy. Some want to learn, but for the most part they tend to prefer the sightseeing – rich fellows with too much time on their hands. Which are you, if I may be so bold as to ask?’
‘Definitely the former, Magister,’ Nicholas assures him. Then, looking around at the galleries, he says, ‘This is remarkable. We have nothing like it in England. Our College of Physicians thinks that getting one’s hands bloody is the preserve of a tradesman. They leave it to the barber-surgeons.’
‘It was the same here until not so very long ago, young man. As you can see, I have shaken things up a little. Have you any practical experience in surgery?’
‘After Cambridge, I served as a physician in the Low Countries–’ He stops mid-sentence, conscious that he’s about to put his head into a noose. If he admits his ministrations were to the Protestant forces of the House of Orange, he is going to fatally undermine his claim to be a recusant fugitive. ‘I was idealistic – I thought I might bring healing to the people of a land ravaged by war. But I learned a lot.’ He glances up at the workmen on the scaffolding above. ‘For a start, I learned how to saw quickly; how to pull out bits of iron that had been driven into places they weren’t meant to be.’
Fabrici looks at him with new respect. ‘Nothing to be reticent about, young man. The great Ambroise Paré made his reputation doing that, and we now count him amongst the finest of surgeons. You will be welcome to attend my lectures while you are here, Dr Shelby. With God’s will, we might teach each other a thing or two.’ He gives Nicholas a friendly tap on the shoulder. ‘If you are not pressed for time, I will be conducting a private tutorial on optics. Perhaps you would care to observe?’ He glances at Bruno. ‘Your friend, too. If he has the stomach for it.’
‘I am a son of Padua,’ Bruno assures him loftily. ‘I have the stomach of a lion.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ says Fabrici, giving him a knowing smile.
In a small chamber with a ceiling plastered and painted like a chapel, a dozen or so young men are gathered. They are a mix of nationalities, though Nicholas is the only Englishman. He and Bruno make polite small-talk until the professor arrives and calls them to gather around a table draped with a square of embroidered Bergamo linen. Prayers are said in Latin. Then Fabrici claps his hands and two servants enter. Each carries a small walnut chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The smaller box is laid in the centre of the table. The larger is set to one side and opened with a discreet little click of its brass lock. Inside is a collection of scalpels, lancets, trocars and probes, all lying on red silk.
‘Signori,’ Fabrici begins, ‘the ancients from whom we take our guidance are wont to consider the human body a singular thing – a man in his entirety.’ He places one hand over his heart. ‘I believe we can do better. It is not enough to learn how a limb functions. That is not true knowledge. A leg is nothing if it is to be considered only as a collection of bones, sinew and muscle. How can a runner imagine the triumph of victory, if his legs are no more to him than that? Therefore we must look deeper into the structure. We must consider purpose… the beauty of the effect… the promise… A man is so much more than the sum of his parts. He is made in the image of God. The purpose of those parts is to give him his godliness.’
Fabrici snaps his fingers. One of the servants steps forward and opens the second box. The students peer closer. Resting upon a bed of chipped ice, like a pair of shiny pickled onions, are two human eyeballs. At his side, Nicholas hears Bruno make a strangled little gasp.
‘Plato tells us the human eye is fiery in its humour,’ Fabrici runs on, ‘and that it mirrors the cosmos, in that – like the earth – it is at the centre of perception, surrounded by crystalline spheres. Galen holds that it is filled with pneuma, the life spirit. Aristotle suggests that the humour pertaining to it is aqueous. What are we to make of these conflicting claims?’