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

So why did they wind up hidden again?

The police agreed to let us take what we’d found back to the palazzo for further examination. We would, of course, return it all to the authorities. The book and the inventory would go to the Laurentian Library, the sketches to the Uffizi.

I didn’t read Latin well enough to understand Lucretius, but when we got home, I paged through the book, wondering about the life of the man who had copied it. Was he a scribe? A book hunter? A scholar?

I turned another page and saw that someone had covered every inch of the margins with writing, in pencil, not ink. Then, I recognized one of the passages on the page:

quod nequeunt oculis rerum primordia cerni

The first beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.

It was the first Latin graffito I had found in the house. I called Signore Tazzera over, so that he could translate the marginalia, which was written in the dialetto toscano.

“This is remarkable,” he said. “It tells the story of Teo Portinari, a book hunter and a close friend of Lorenzo de’ Medici. His granddaughter, Mina—”

“She owned this book,” I said.

“Sì. She wrote the words in the margin. Remind me, what are the other quotes in your graffiti?”

I brought him my notebook. Over the course of the next several hours, he located each of them in the volume of Lucretius and translated the marginalia on the corresponding pages. When he was done, we had a complete account of the group—led by a friar called Baldo, assisted by Mina and others—that had stolen objects in order to save them from Savonarola.

“He must be the man who received the letter that talks about the passage being ready. I don’t suppose we have any way to find out where that passage was.”

“Even if we did, it would be empty now,” Colin said. “They returned everything to the rightful owners.”

“We think they did, but still, I’d like to see it,” I said. I looked down at the book on the table, gently touching Mina’s penciled words. Her handwriting was very like her grandfather’s. What a life she must have led! Did she socialize with the Medici? Was she, too, friends with the great Lorenzo? No doubt she’d had courage and power, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what she did. I imagined she was much lauded after it all came out, when the Florentines no longer lived in fear of Savonarola. “Did she live in this house, do you think?”

“I should be able to find that out easily enough,” Signore Tazzera said. “My guess is that she was the wife of whichever member of the Vieri family owned the house at the time.”

“She might be wholly unrelated to this house,” Colin said.

“The story of the treasure was always connected to this house,” I said. “That must stem from her involvement. It was she, after all, who recorded what happened.”

He had the answer for us the next morning. Mina Portinari had married Agnolo di Vieri in 1481.

“I remember reading about him,” I said, “that first day we met you, when Cécile and I came to the library. He was a silk merchant, spectacularly rich, but stayed in his medieval family home instead of building something more fashionable. Just the sort of man you’d expect to support his wife’s quest to save art and books.”

“It’s a nice thought, Emily,” Colin said. “It is, however, based entirely—”

“On speculation and intuition,” I said. “Quite. Still, I’d like to think it’s the truth.”

“It’s entirely possible Signore di Vieri had nothing to do with his wife’s interests. Or that he would have stopped her if he’d known what she was doing,” Colin said. “You’re giving in to your love of the romantic, my dear. The past is rarely what we want it to be.”

“True words, Monsieur Hargreaves,” Cécile said. “Delighted though I am by the Botticelli sketches, I would have liked there to be some jewelry, too. I will learn to live with the disappointment.”

Colin and I set off for London a week later. Cécile stayed behind with Signore Tazzera, but I knew she would not keep away from Paris for long. When we arrived in Park Lane, the boys were there, waiting for us. For once, it was Richard, not Henry, who greeted us in an outlandish costume.

“What’s this, old chap?” Colin asked, crouching next to him in the entry hall and tugging at the velvet cap on his head.

“We’re playing Renaissance,” he said, his voice solemn. “My role is that of a gentleman of Florence. I haven’t settled on my name just yet, but I’m a confidant of Lorenzo de’ Medici.”

“It’s very boring, Papa,” Henry said. “I refuse to take part.”

“I’m meant to be an artist,” Tom said. That explained the paint smudges on his face and hands.

“That was the only fun bit,” Henry said. “Painting Tom.”

Nanny rounded up the boys, telling them it was time for their tea. Colin retreated upstairs to change out of his traveling clothes, and I retired to the library, wondering if I should give the work of Mr. Le Queux another chance. I’d left my copy of his short stories with Cécile, but pulled from the shelf one of his novels, The Great War in England in 1897, a riveting account of a fictional invasion of Britain by the French and Russians. Well, not quite riveting. Once again, Mr. Le Queux put me to sleep, and once again I awoke to familiar voices.

“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Sir John Burman was saying. “I would never have thought Benton-Smith capable of betraying his country. He was one of us.”

“He was an ideologue,” Colin said. “He truly believed that what he was doing was best for the British people. I can’t condone his actions, but neither can I condemn his motives.”

“You’re more principled than most, Hargreaves. I admire that. It was good work you did.”

“I just hope it’s all settled