The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

of entry for whoever had flung the corpse into the courtyard. The eaves hung too far over the railing. On the opposite side of the landing from the terrace was Fredo’s room.

The three floors below all shared the same basic layout: one large hall that ran the width of the front of the house, one good-sized rectangular room perpendicular to the hall, with a studiolo coming off the opposite end, and one trapezoidal bedroom jutting from the back corner. Each of the halls had at least one attached annex. On the ground floor, the storerooms—two of them—and the loggia could be accessed from the courtyard.

Cécile and I methodically made our way through each of the spaces in the palazzo. The house was a glorious example of medieval architecture, and I’d half hoped for a secret compartment in the walls or a hidden door leading into an unknown chamber, but we found no such things. Nor did any of the objects in the rooms, furniture or otherwise, prove revealing. Finished, we trudged back up the stairs to the first floor. There, I slumped against the half wall of the gallery landing and sighed.

“I ought not feel this frustrated,” I said. “It’s absurd to believe a house holds secrets. I let Tessa’s ideas influence me too much.”

“Don’t your investigations generally include early failure? If not, they would end almost the moment they started,” Cécile said. “One must begin somewhere, and at this moment, we have very little to go on.”

She kept talking, but I was no longer listening. I had not noticed it before, but graffiti was scrawled on the wall across from me. There was something that looked like a date, 8 di zuge 1509—I did not recognize zuge as an Italian word, but perhaps it was old dialect—then vene le nuove di Pisa a ore 18½. Something about the city of Pisa, presumably. Below that, the name Tomaso Pasera, under which 1509 was repeated. Scrawled at the bottom was Non de ponte.

“Not the bridge…” I spoke the words as I contemplated what they might mean.

“Bridge?” Cécile asked. I pointed her to the graffiti. She stepped close to read. “Mais oui, eighth of June 1509, during the Italian Wars, when Pisa surrendered to Florence to avoid continued starvation after a long siege.”

I looked at her with amazement. “How do you know that?”

“I was briefly entangled with a gentleman called Riccardo who was a scholar of Renaissance history. We spent a fortnight in Pisa. The city’s tower may lean, but nothing of Riccardo’s ever did.”

“Cécile!” I could feel my cheeks color.

“Don’t pretend to be shocked, Kallista. It demeans you.” She brushed the graffiti lightly with her fingers. “I cannot understand why anyone would allow writing on the wall of his house.”

“The Romans did. This could be the natural extension of that.” The letters had faded over the centuries, but it was not too difficult to make out. Closer examination revealed much more of it along the length of the wall: dates, names, and the occasional phrase. Some had been rubbed almost clean, others were easier to read. One stood out, partly because the handwriting was neat and elegant, reminiscent of the fonts developed by the humanists of the fifteenth century. More striking was that the language was Latin, not Italian—or, rather, dialetto toscano—like the rest.

“‘Quod nequeunt oculis rerum primordia cerni.’” While I had a decent mastery of ancient Greek, my knowledge of Latin was limited. Or, as Margaret insisted, an absolute disgrace. Fortunately, I knew at least enough to translate this sentence. “The first beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.”

“Prescient?” Cécile asked.

“Let’s hope so.”

 Florence,

14806

What felt like an eternity passed from the time Father Cambio told me to read Augustine before, at last, he gave into my pleas for poetry. He rejected both Petrarch and Boccaccio but agreed to Dante.

“Only Paradiso,” he said. “I fear you will find hell too appealing. Better that you learn to admire Beatrice, a model of feminine purity and goodness.”

I laughed. “If, upon finishing Paradiso, I emulate her for two weeks together, can we then read Inferno?”

“Hell, Mina, is never a reward.”

“We should read the Commedia in the order the poet intended so the progression leads us to heaven, not hell. Is that not where the faithful ought to end? Unless you think me so corrupt that I’d prefer the devil to Our Lord.”

“You should not speak like that, even in jest. I notice you make no mention of Purgatorio.”

“I shall spend enough time there myself,” I said. “Or so I assume, given your judgment of me.”

“I do not judge you, Mina. That is God’s task alone.” He stood close to me and stared into my eyes. I could not decide if it was exciting or unnerving. “It is critical to remember that. You and I, we are not divine, only flawed humans.”

“I’m more flawed than you.”

“I cannot agree.”

I looked down, uncomfortable—pleasantly so, if such a thing is possible—at the intensity I saw in him. “I ought not have asked to read Inferno.”

“I ought not have had the audacity to suggest you are too weak to read all of the Commedia. The poem does not romanticize damnation but leads the reader to long for Paradise. We will start at the beginning. I apologize for having so insulted you.”

“I feel no insult. You have always cared more about the fate of my soul than I have myself. I should be ashamed, but to claim I am would be a lie. A sin.”

“You are young, Mina, and youth, by nature, compels us to feel in possession of a sort of immortality, even though we know this to be impossible. Death resides far away, far enough that it does not trouble us. But it will come, and when it does, it will be too late to change course. Even the Holy Father will be held accountable for his sins.”

“I’m certain my own life has proved far less interesting than that of many popes.”

Father Cambio frowned and shook