CARDINAL CECCAN I kept Olivier’s letter about the
shrine, which was constructed from the Burgundian’s respect, for it gave him an idea that nagged quietly at him in the months after he read his protégé’s words.
By 1347 Ceccani was a star in the ecclesiastical firmament, and had become so powerful that he was richly detested. He had accumulated so many offices that he was all but indispensable for the good running of Christendom. And he had absorbed so many benefices that many whispered he had an annual revenue rivaling that of Pope Clement himself. He was, consequently, a focus of real hatred for all those who either wanted more for themselves or genuinely believed that the gentle shepherd of men would have been appalled to see what he had created.
Ceccani, of course, was as aware of this as he was aware of everything that went on around him. And he was wounded by it, for he was, in his way, a man of the utmost piety and duty. He wore the richest, costliest garments made of silk and cloth of gold because it was necessary to impress men with the majesty and power of the church; underneath he wore a shirt of the coarsest hair, crawling with lice, his flesh covered in suppurating sores. He gave banquets of such cost and magnificence that they endured for days and attracted the disgust of those excluded, yet himself drank only water and disdained the roasts and sweetmeats and fine wines that he pressed so liberally on his guests. He entered church like a prince, carried on a bier and attended by at least a dozen servants, generating more condemnation from those revolted by his arrogance, yet prayed alone three hours every night, on bare knees on the stone of his private chapel, carefully locking the door so no one would see him. He was the greatest lover of learning, using men like Olivier to rescue priceless texts and his money to restore them to humanity, yet condemned all deviation from the orthodoxy of the church and, on two occasions at least, ordered the burning of heretics. Like the church of which he was a faithful servant and perfect reflection, Cardinal Ceccani was a contradictory, inexplicable creature.
He was, moreover, the embodiment of the corruption that had settled on the church like a thick fog since it had fled Rome and come to Avignon, and yet no man in the curia was more aware than he of the dangers of its presence there, nor more desirous that the pope should return to the Eternal City. But he had been too young to stand a chance in 1342 when the Frenchman Pierre Roger instead had ascended the throne as Clement VI, and Clement could live for many years yet. Other means of restoring the head of Christendom to his proper place, accordingly, began to come to his mind.
The chapel of Saint Sophia and the story of her life appealed to him greatly, not least because when he prayed to her for guidance as the papacy was being drawn into the English wars, he found her assistance valuable. He was a man of many vows, and he offered her at that time a gesture of thanks, should her intercession be efficacious. Her name meant wisdom, and wisdom, he considered, had been granted him; the chapel was in his diocese—one of his many dioceses—and it needed a reminder of his power. The area was not entirely quiescent; although the heresies of the previous centuries had not badly infected the region, it had been touched; to have a saint of such antiquity revealed to them in their very midst was a gift from heaven. That she was all but forgotten was better still, if Ceccani could restore her to proper attention.
All these reasons combined to make Ceccani one day summon Luca Pisano and commission him to decorate the chapel with as much speed and grandeur as he could manage. For his part, Pisano was overwhelmed with gratitude until he learned just how isolated it was; for he was only just beginning to be a master of works, and craved attention more than anything. He knew that Martini was unwell, and would either shortly die or return to Italy; the post of chief painter was there for the taking, and although history has largely forgotten him, at that time he was coming to be highly regarded.
But a commission was a commission, and one from a man like Ceccani was doubly valuable; everyone thought he could well be the next occupant of St. Peter’s chair, if the French could be persuaded not to meddle for once. And then, perhaps, the papacy might return to Rome after its long exile in Avignon. Pisano bowed deeply, expressed his profound thanks to His Eminence, and backed out of the chamber to go and organize some money with the cardinal’s pursekeeper. He came away from that encounter somewhat disappointed.
“I think I have you to thank for this, my friend,” he said to Olivier later that day. “It is your doing that I am now a fellow servant of the great cardinal, and must stand and fall with him.”
“I would like to take credit for your good fortune,” Olivier replied. “But I cannot see how I am responsible for anything.”
By this stage, the two men were old friends; both were alone and without any family, having to live off their wits in a town where there were many men and few places. They had gravitated into each other’s company mainly by virtue of sharing the same tastes and ambitions, but little opportunity as yet of realizing them. Each believed in the other, and each was convinced by the other that their abilities would surmount all obstacles.
“Nonetheless,” he continued, “I congratulate you, for it is good fortune indeed.”
“The higher they are, the further there is to fall,” Pisano said.
Olivier laughed. “I do believe you are the most miserable person I have ever met,” he replied. “You have gained work from one of the most powerful men in the world, and all you can think about is that he might not remain so. Even if he does fall, so what of it? A brief spell in his favor is better than never to have been favored by anyone. Besides, you might even do a good job of it, although considering your utter lack of ability, I doubt it very much. But should a miracle occur, then others will want you, too.”
“Why should they?” asked his friend. “No one except shepherds will ever see it. I will quite literally be casting my pearls before swine.”
“But there will be great things to come, no? Decorate the chapel well, then there will be a basilica in the nearest town.”
“Oh, yes. Thirty years’ work, no doubt. And meanwhile the pope will go back to Rome, and I will be stranded here.”
Olivier burst out laughing. Pisano was always superstitious; whenever anything good happened to him, he would spend at least the next day seeking out every possible misfortune that might result from it, on the reasonable grounds that a disaster imagined never occurs. As indeed was the case here; one thing the painter did not foresee was the plague, which ambushed him late one night as he was sleeping beside his donkey on the road back to Italy.
“You can be certain that this pope will never go back to Rome. He listens to Cardinal Ceccani on most things but on this he has cloth ears. My lord will have to chain him up and drag him there. He is a Frenchman, remember, and they do not like to go far from home. Even being in Avignon makes him feel homesick. You must pray for his health and longevity, I think.”
“But I am serious,” the painter protested. “I am to paint a series of pictures which no one will ever see, in a chapel hidden from everyone, about a saint I have never heard of.”
“In that case you can paint anything you want.”
Pisano frowned. “Just because I am frivolous sometimes does not mean you can take liberties, you know. To honor a saint is a great thing. A life of holiness is precious, and to retell it is a heavy duty.”
Olivier studied him, surprised by the somber voice. “I suppose so.”
“And you are my only source for the story.”
“I know very little.”
“That is more than anyone else.”
“I can barely tell you enough for a sketch.”
“That will be enough. Tell me what you know, and prayer will supply the rest.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“If you are sincere, yes. I will pray to the saint and, if my wish is granted, then all the details I need will come to me. If they don’t, then that will mean she does not want her life commemorated, and I will have to tell the cardinal so.”
And so Olivier settled down and retold the story that he had heard from the shepherds on the hill.
“A FEW YEARS after the crucifixion of Our Lord,” he began, “when men were beginning to embrace His teaching, the priests became angry and fearful, and started persecuting the faithful. Mary Magdalen, so privileged that she was the first to hear of Christ’s resurrection, was hounded and spat on, as were the group of women she had gathered around her. A plot was hatched to kill them all, but an angel came to her in her sleep and warned her. ‘Rise up, Mary,’ the angel said, ‘and leave quickly. Gather your friends and depart.’
“Mary did as she was told, gathering half a dozen companions, and went to the shore. Waiting for them was a miraculous boat, empty of sailors, its sails of silk and its hull of pearl. The moment they got in, the sails unfurled and the boat slipped into the water, just as their enemies ran up to stop them.
“The voyage lasted weeks, but no one was afraid. When it rained they did not get wet, when there was a storm the boat scarcely rocked. Angels brought them food and water every day, and kept them cool in the sun by carrying a great silken awning over them. When the time came, the boat turned inshore, even though the wind was blowing strongly in the opposite direction, and came to rest on the beach of a strange land. Again an angel spoke to Mary and said they were to travel throughout the land and tell everyone of Christ’s coming. But some were afraid, and refused to leave Mary’s side, knowing that she was beloved. Only Sophia obeyed, bidding farewell to Mary and converting town after town so that everywhere she went became Christian, tearing down temples and building churches in their place.
“Many miracles attended her; on one occasion a great nobleman called Manlius who had been blind for years came to her.
“ ‘You say God is love and cares for all His creation, yet I am blind,’ he said. ‘How can that be?’
“Sophia took him to one side and instructed him, then passed her hands over his eyes, and instantly his sight was restored. He fell at her feet in gratitude, and the crowd was so amazed that they all did the same. This man spent the rest of his life preaching, and established himself at Vaison, converting the whole area around. He, too, became a saint.
“One day, when Sophia was preaching in a town, the people, incited by the priests, began to shout and threaten her; they took her to jail and sentenced her to death. But her work was not yet done, and an angel appeared to the man she had cured and told him of her plight. Straightaway he was transported to the spot and held up his arms; the guards all fell asleep and the jail doors opened. He then escorted her away from the town, and they walked until they came to a hill. When she died she was buried there, and so many wonderful things happened at her grave that all realized she was a saint. So they built a chapel, and came on pilgrimage.”
JULIEN WAS NOHISTORIAN of the church and, indeed, was rather impatient with the manifest confusions and contradictions that were so much part of its identity. Nonetheless, he read this account of Olivier’s with fascination when he found it amongst Ceccani’s papers, in the same dusty bundle as the
Dream,
not least because of the correspondences with the other manuscripts he discovered at the same time. It would have taken someone very much slower than he not to have noticed that the philosophical discourse by Manlius Hippomanes used its Greek personification, Sophia, as a guide. Nor that Manlius was Bishop of Vaison while the shrine to Saint Sophia lay only two days’ walk to the southwest.
Initially, though, he did not pursue it, not really knowing how to do so. And, in any case, he was distracted by some of the other fragments in the same folder, one of which appealed more to his youthful sense of drama and flair. To begin with he was mainly interested in the mention of Gersonides, as he sat in the Vatican archive one spring, dressed in suit and tie and waistcoat, sweating in the heat, taking endless notes in his neat, precise hand. He never hurried, never skipped a page, but wrote methodically and steadily. It was his technique not to think too much about what he was transcribing; he had discovered that this made him careless.
Rather, he emptied his mind entirely and copied, storing up impressions that he refused to dwell on during his working day. The pleasure of analysis he kept for later, for the evenings when he returned to the École and, after eating with his fellows, went for a walk or for a quiet drink in the Piazza Navona. Here he would sit, watch the world go by, and let his mind wander over all his day’s reading.
Shortly after his discovery, he was taken to dinner by Julia’s father. Julien was pleased by the invitation; he was intrigued by the older man and he was, in any case, kept on a tight financial leash by his bourse and the supplement given to him by his own father, an allowance that was generous by his standards but pitifully small when set against Julien’s Romanized tastes. For he began there the interest in art that was to become a passion for the rest of his life. He spent every lira—a drawing here, a painting, a print—and on several occasions he visited the
monte di pietà
to pledge his watch or his ring to get the cash he needed for another purchase. Every couple of months, more or less, another letter went to Vaison, and his father grumbled, criticized, moralized, then sent the money required, just in time for him to recover the articles he had pawned. Julien never felt any gratitude for the generosity, although he knew he ought to do so.
In Rome also he discovered those more sensual pleasures to which his inner turbulence made him all too susceptible. The series of mistresses he acquired began in Rome and did not end for some fifteen years. Unlike his pictures, he took few pains to retain them once the initial pleasure had faded. He discovered he could be charming, was generous with his time and his money, listened well, but could not be held, always moving on before the slightest hint of disappointment or true intimacy could taint the pleasure.