The Glassblower of Murano (25 page)

The palace already was. Sitting in new work clothes, the
leather of his apron and wrist bands smelling sweetly,
Corradino sat with his back to the half built palace facing
the gardens. His back rested on newly-hewn masonry
warmed by the setting sun, he watched the gardeners
shaping the gorgeous green lawns for as far as the eye
could see, while waterworkers diverted natural sources into
the huge ornamental lakes which began to fill before his
eyes - great mirrors themselves. Despite the distant chink
of the mason's hammer and the banging of carpentry
Corradino felt at peace for the first time since he arrived
in France. A shadow cut his sun and he looked up - a
gangly youth with tousled hair and dark eyes held a hand
to him.

`I'm Jacques Chauvire.'

Corradino took the hand and pulled himself to his feet.
The boy, expecting a handshake, smiled at the unexpectedness of the action. Corradino's eyes were level with his.
The boy had good eyes, dark and true. He had no need
to search for their meaning like he did with Duparcmieur.
Nor was it lost on him that the name Jacques was the
French version of Giacomo, the family he had left
behind.

`Let's get to work, Jacques,' said Corradino. He threw a
friendly arm around the boy's shoulders, turned his back
on the vista and they walked together to the foundry.

The boy will do.

When I entered the fornace at Versailles I was at home at last.

As Jacques opened the secret chamber to which only he
and his new master had the key, Corradino saw that all
that he had asked for had been given to him. There were
the water vats, the silvering tanks. There was the furnace,
with the coals stoked and ready, and a glowing red gather
of cristallo glass at its heart. There were his pontelli, his
blowpipes, his paddles. There were his scagno saddles and
borselle pliers. There were his pigments; lapis blue, scarab
red and leaf gold among them. There were his bottles and
flasks of nitrates and sulfates and mercuries. Here then, at
home, he could work once again.

His printless fingers itched to touch the rods and pigments, to make something again after his long month at
sea and on road. The presence of Jacques at his shoulder
felt incongruous, so used was he to working alone. But today was the day he must at last share his methods, and
he felt a sick reluctance in his chestspoon. Not because he
thought the boy's skills would ever exceed his, but because
he alone had made mirrors in this way for ten years now,
and he felt he was giving away a precious possession; a
part of himself, a skill which had defined him for so
long.

A skill which has saved my life, for 'twas for this that The Ten
spared me. Once this has gone from my grasp what do I have
to protect me from the King?

Would Louis decide, once Corradino had told his secret,
that he would be better out of the way? And yet what
choice did he have? He was in Purgatory, waiting for
Leonora to be brought to him, and the sharing of his
methods had been part of the bargain which would bring
her to these shores. He was in Limbo. A wholly unwanted
memory of Dante's couplets chimed in his head. He recalled
that, in Il Purgatorio, his namesake had been killed by a
French King. Corradino, the doomed Prince of Sicily, was
executed by Charles of Anjou following an unsuccessful
coup. That Corradino's father, King Manfred, had been
murdered too.

But as he turned and met Jacques' warm brown eyes -
eager and shining, reflecting Corradino's own love of his
trade - he felt comforted and set aside such gloomy
thoughts. He had no son to pass his skills to, and perhaps never would, so this was his chance to share in his knowledge and enjoy teaching if he might.

There is Leonora of course, but no woman has ever been a glassblower, nor ever will.

All he hoped for his daughter was that she would be happy,
marry well, and enjoy the family life that had been wrested
from him.

`So,' he said to Jacques, with a firmness that belied his
doubts, `we begin'

He took up the largest blowpipe, and reached into the
fire for the molten cristallo. As he felt the heat blast his face
he thought again of the words of Dante, but this time his
favourite couplet: `Even so rained down the everlasting heat,
And, as steel kindles tinder, kindled the sands.' Corradino was
kindling the sands now, coaxing crystalline beauty from a
quintessence of dust. He took such a large amount of
gather on the end of his pipe that he had to constantly
turn the rod as he blew the parison.

Jacques looked confused, and tentatively questioned his
master. `Maitre, I thought we were to make a mirror, not
to blow glass?'

Corradino slid his eyes sideways as he blew. There was
merriment there.

When the parison was blown Corradino spun the bubble
on the end of the pipe and transferred it to his pontello.
He then took the parison to the water tank and let it rest there, floating like a buoy. As it cooled he took a sharp
blade and cut swiftly down the length of the bubble so
the sides of the cylinder relaxed flat onto the surface of
the water tank, and the amber glass cooled on the surface
to a flat clear pane.

`So ...' breathed Jacques into a reverent silence,'. . . that
is how it is done.'

Corradino squatted and squinted with a practised eye
down the surface of the tank. He nodded. `Yes. That is
how. 'Twas but an accident when I discovered it, but it is
the only way to make a pane of such a size, with the same
thickness throughout.!

'And the water?'

`Water, when stilled, is completely flat, wherever it lies
on the earth. It is the original mirror - nature's mirror.
Even if its tank or vessel is tilted, it will always find its
true level. I just hope that the French waters of your pestilent river will make as fine a glass as the sweet acqua of
Venice's lagoon. Now, we must dress the new-born.' He
lifted the cooled pane tenderly and laid it on the surface
of the neighbouring vat, which housed a molten silver
compound so bright it resembled a mirror itself. `This is
mercury and silver sulfate,' said Corradino, `but only on
the surface. Here too there is water underneath.!

'Why, Maitre?'

`Because these silvering compounds are very costly. Even
for your King it would be too lavish to fill a whole tank
with them. But there is sufficient on the surface to cover the glass with the correct thin skin to produce a reflection.
You must always take care that you cover the entire surface
of the tank, lest there are empty patches which will leave
the glass clear. And take care of the mercury - it is an evil
compound, and one that enters the skin of a man with
ease. Many of our trade have died from its arts - I know
of one such very close to me.' He smiled at his black jest
as he recalled how he had imitated a mercury poisoning
- blackening his own tongue with charcoal and letting the
spittle run from his mouth on his `deathbed'. But when
he recalled how the sight of him must have greeted Giacomo
he ceased to smile.

He turned back to Jacques. `Just take care to let as little
of the mixture touch you as you can. Here;' he demonstrated, using two small wads of leather to lift out the huge
silvered pane. `The silvering dries very quickly - see? It
has almost parched in the heat of the furnace:

Jacques looked on in awe as the compounds dried, and
as they did, his blurred image resolved into a pin-sharp,
bright perfection.

`Now, you see that the edges are rough, where I cut the
parison? We score down the edges using the same knife
and a metal rule,' Corradino suited the action to the words.
`It's only necessary to break the very surface of the silvering,
because, as you see, the glass will snap off cleanly along
the line you have made. Here there are many metal rules
provided for us, for as you know, the crowning panes of
our mirrors in the palazzo are to be curved, and for those you will need one of these: Corradino held up a flexible
length of metal, which he curved into shape. As Jacques
nodded he turned back to the mirrored pane where it lay
on the cutting saddle. `At the last, we take a chamois leather,'
he did so, `dip it in alum, and polish the surface to both
protect and brighten the pane. See?'

Jacques had thought the mirror could not be any brighter,
but now the glass seemed to sing. His wonder and admiration showed in his face, and Corradino could see that
his apprentice was full of questions. `Maitre, how are mirrors
made by others?'

`There have always been mirrors. The Arab infidels used
to polish their shields in order to see their images. But in
other nations they attempt to roll out the glass thinly from
one piece, as if making a pie. The results are passable but
it is impossible to make a very large pane this way - the
glass cools and hardens, and is lumpy and uneven. But with
breath you can make a parison as large as your winds will
allow, and when you treat the glass as a cylinder its dimensions open out to more than double the shape you have
made. 'Tis simple mathematicks.' He shrugged to deflect
the admiration he saw in Jacques' eyes. But he saw something else too - he saw the boy's hands twitch towards the
fire just as his own had done.

I know I have babbled aplenty - that I speak more words when
talking of my work than at any other time. Those that know me
may think me as dumb as an oyster. Let them but speak to me of the glass, they will hear what a prattling parrot I am become.
Enough.

He uttered the words he thought he would never say. `Now
you try.'

Signor Aldo Savini, curator of rare books at the Libreria
Sansoviniana in San Marco, was slightly surprised when
asked by a blonde beauty to help her lift down the guild
records of the glass and mirror makers of the seventeenth
century. But she must be a registered reader. He checked
her newly laminated card - she was clearly a Venetian from
her name. He shrugged, and handed her a pair of thin
cotton gloves from a dispenser. `You must wear these,
Signorina. These volumes are very old and fragile. Also you
must use the bookstand provided, to minimize damage to
the spine, and only turn the pages by the laminated marker.
Don't touch the paper itself.'

La Signorina nodded seriously throughout his instruction.
Her eyes were green but had silver shards in the centre,
the colour of the olive leaves on the farm where Aldo
Savini grew up.The librarian suddenly felt his heart quicken
and pushed his glasses up his nose, as he always did when flustered. Aldo Savini was not yet forty, and beneath his
sweater-vest and tie beat a romantic heart. As he helped
the Signorina lift down the ancient volumes for the relevant
date, her gold hair brushed his arm and he could smell
her coconut shampoo mingled with the old leather and
vellum of the books. As she smiled and thanked him, Aldo
Savini thought he would kill dragons for Signorina
Manin.

Aldo Savini saw `la Principessa' as he had secretly dubbed
her, many times over the next few months. Always she had
some peculiar request, which stimulated him as a librarian
almost as much as her appearance stimulated him as a man.
Guild records, inventories, wills, records of birth and death,
letters, bills of works, he had found all these for her. Her
questions, posed in perfect Veneziano, intrigued him too.
They always revolved around the same man, Corrado
Manin. Even Aldo Savini, in his cloistered life, had heard
of the man. La Principessa hounded him with questions as
she had soon found out that Aldo had trained in Paleography
at the University of Bologna, and could read the cramped
ancient writing where her reading failed her. Do these
documents mention Corrado Manin? This mirror that the
Contessa Dandolo left to the Frari church, was it a Manin?
This bill of works for the Palazzo Bruni, does it mention
the Manin candlebra? What year was the palazzo built?
This ship's register, does the entry say Manin, or Marin?
These records of death that cite poisoning, does this symbol
mean mercury, or some other compound? Aldo Savini became fascinated by the quest, as he was fascinated by
her. Apparently she had some help from Ca' Foscari, as she
used to shuttle back and forth from the library to the
university for advice, and arrive back with a crop of new
leads. He divined soon that her helper was Ermanno
Padovani, an eminent scholar who had many volumes in
this very library. Some Sundays the Principessa did not come
at all, and Aldo knew that she continued her search elsewhere, the Professore having given her, it seemed, fairly
comprehensive access to the deepest and most precious
sequestered archives of the city.

In his romantic mind,Aldo Savini became a knight championing the cause of the blonde Principessa. He saw himself
facing the black knight, Ermanno Padovani, in the lists of
bibliographical knowledge. He was determined to provide
her with some sort of breakthrough, before the Professore,
so he would be her hero.

Over the coming months of deepest winter, Aldo Savini's
chivalric fantasy took a fresh turn. Because it soon became
clear that the Principessa was pregnant. He saw her belly
swell, her angel face take on a rounded, cherubic aspect.
Once he saw her, lost in a ship's register, with her hair
swept to one side of her swan's neck, writing in a notebook
that was balanced on her belly. His heart nearly failed. He,
Aldo Savini, would protect her from her foul seducer,
whomever he might be. He would help her finish her
quest. He must think hard for that breakthrough. And then
one day, the breakthrough came.

For many weeks now, Aldo had realized that certain
French elements were creeping into the search. Questions
about shipping, about the Palace of Versailles, about glass
trade to Paris, about the court of Louis XIV the Sun King.
Then it struck him - if the Principessa was interested in
any of the courts of Europe in the seventeenth century,
there was one ubiquitous character who would always be
able to help her, a personage who hailed from this very
city.