Q by Luther Blissett (poetry books to read txt) 📕
The final blow: 'Omnia sunt communia, sons of whores!'
His head flies into the dust.
* * *
The houses are being ransacked. Doors smashed in with kicks and axe-blows. We'll be next. No time to lose. I lean over him.
'Magister, listen to me, we've got to go, they're coming... For the love of God, Magister...' I grasp his shoulders. He whispers a reply. He can't move. Trapped, we're trapped.
Like Elias.
My hand clutches my sword. Like Elias. I wish I had his courage.
'What do you think you're doing? We've had enough of martyrdom. Go on, get out while you can!'
The voice. As though from the bowels of the earth. I can't believe he's spoken. He's moving even less than be
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I sit down opposite him and ask one of the girls to bring us something to drink.
A cough: ‘Listen, Pietro, a few things have happened. And they’re not all terribly serious.’
He raises his eyes to the ceiling: ‘I knew it, I knew I shouldn’t have left…’
‘Let me finish. Did you know about the Council’s excommunication?’
He nods: ‘Of course I did, we’re going to have to be more careful, but it was always on the cards, wasn’t it? What’s the problem? We’ll sell it at twice the current price and we’ll shift more copies…’
‘Would you shut up for a minute?’
He folds his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes.
‘Promise you’re not going to interrupt me.’
‘Fine, but go on.’
‘Bindoni has said he’s pulling out.’
No immediate reaction apart from the almost imperceptible twitch of an eyebrow. He doesn’t move and I go on: ‘He says that if the book faces an excommunication he’s worried he might get into trouble and have his press shut down.’ I raise a hand, anticipating his reaction. ‘Just a minute! I think he’s actually been waiting for an excuse to get out, because of our… new associate.’
The other eyebrow rises as well, and Pietro’s face turns beetroot-coloured. He isn’t going to restrain himself for long.
‘I know. The agreement was that I would go to Padua to distribute the book to the friends of Donzellini and Strozzi. And I did. But I did a lot else besides.’
The red complexion fades, the light in his eyes goes out. Pietro’s round head hangs over the table, anger making way for depression.
With defeat in his voice he says, ‘Tell me everything from the start, and don’t leave anything out.’
We pour ourselves some grappa. Perna drains the first glass and fills it again.
‘There’s a big banker, a very big one, who’s interested in getting involved in the Benefit deal. He’s offering us his commercial network to distribute the book.’ Perna’s expression brightens again. ‘He could have it translated into Croatian and French,’� — his ears seem to prick up — ‘he has contacts with big publishers and with clandestine presses inside and outside Venice,’ — his eyes gleam, ‘and he’d be willing to increase the run by at least ten thousand copies.’ Perna jumps on to his chair.
‘So what are you waiting for? I want to meet this man!’
‘Calm down, now. Bindoni won’t have anything to do with him, he says he’s too big a fish, that we’ll be crushed.’
‘He’s the one who’s going to be crushed! By his own hopelessness! Who is this banker, what’s his name?’
‘He’s a Marrano, a Sephardi, Portuguese by origin, Jo�o Miquez: he’s done deals with the Emperor… He lives in a palazzo on the Giudecca.’
Perna gets to his feet: ‘Bindoni can fuck right off. I told you the Benefit was a major deal, and if a crappy little typesetter can’t understand that, it’s up to him.’ He mutters to himself for a moment or two. ‘In business with the Jews… in business with the greatest businessmen in the world…’
*
Francesco Strozzi. Roman. Man of letters, highly cultivated, has read Luther.
Girolamo Donzellini. Roman. Crypto-Lutheran man of letters. Knows ancient Greek. Student of the new science. Has been in the service of Cardinal Durante de’ Duranti. Fled Rome because a Spanish monk working as a copyist denounced him to the Inquisition.
Pietro Cocco. Paduan man of letters. Owner of one of the most extensive libraries in the whole of La Serenissima. Enthusiastically acquired The Benefit of Christ Crucified.
Edmund Harvel. English ambassador to the Venetian Republic. Turned the volume around in his hands, puzzled and enthusiastic at the same time. He studied me with greater attention than the others did, trying to work out who I was.
Benedetto del Borgo, lawyer, Marcantonio del Bon, Giuseppe Sartori, Nicola d’Alessandria.
Affluent men of letters, in love with Calvin and with themselves.
Idiots.
Useful idiots.
They haven’t a clue what’s at stake, they just like the sound of their own voices, coming out with these fine ideas. They’ll be the first victims of this spiritual war.
We want their breath to fog up the minds of respectable people, the literary salons. It doesn’t matter a damn that they don’t know what they’re talking about, what’s important is that they go on talking about it.
In the fog of diffuse dissent you can really cover some ground.�
New vistas are opening up, broader ones. The information coming in from the Council of Trent confirms the feeble constitution of those good old Spirituali. They’re not warriors, even if that’s the way the way Venetian men of letters describe them. We’ll have to shake them up: but how? I never expected to find myself playing such a grand game, but neither did I expect to have such a powerful ally as the Jew Miquez, no less interested than myself in containing the advance of the Inquisition.
And what’s my role in all this? To dissemble, so that others can go into battle? Encourage the Spirituali without their knowledge?
Meanwhile keeping a closer eye on the enemy camp: splitting its forces, identifying its leaders, understanding its strategy.
Venice, 1st August 1546
In this land that isn’t land colours are forever assaulting the eye, and the bizarre apparel that the people wear seems to have been designed precisely to disorient the passer-by, with bizarre geometrical shapes, extravagant make-up and uncovered breasts, oblong head-dresses, fantastical coiffures and incredible footwear. It prompts weird feelings, nerves on edge, startling encounters in every calle, and the sudden outbreaks of rage to which the inhabitants of this other-worldly city seem so curiously prone.
In this land that isn’t land, the power of women changes the course of events, it suddenly puts a twist on poor tired old masculine reason, confirming a profound sense in my mind — and not for the first time — of the superior virtues of the fair sex , the fruit of resources inaccessible to the rest of us.
In this land that isn’t land, laden with curiosity and a tension that keeps the senses alert, I am about to be welcomed by the woman whose fame, more than that of any other, seems to confirm how right my reflections are; donna Beatrice Mendez de Luna.
She is waiting for me in one of the sumptuous salons of the Miquez house: precious silks draped over delicately upholstered couches, arabesqued tapestries on the walls, along with scenes of Flemish life by Brueghel the Elder, a woodcut by master D�rer, a very lovely portrait by Titian, the great local celebrity, and inlaid boxes by the tireless Venetian master carpenters, the first to rise and the last to go to bed, to the chimes of the Marangona, the great bell of St Mark’s.
Bright black eyes study me. The explosive maturity of a Hispanic woman, face� framed by raven hair lightly streaked with grey, a refined manner that reveals no fear. Brilliant white teeth forming the silent and ambiguous smile that welcomes me. With studied movements she rises from her sofa to come towards me, feline, stretching a neck sculpted with pearls from the east.
I take a bow.
‘Lodewijck de Schaliedeker, the German, who has made such an impression upon Jo�o, my favourite nephew. Finally! German, but with a Flemish name, and what a name! Enemy number one of the civil and religious authority of Antwerp, I remember from those final anxious days before I left that hard-working, greedy land. What bizarre conjectures names provoke, don’t you think? Men seem so fiercely attached to them, but you need only undergo an extra baptism, and pass through another country, to discover how useful, even pleasurable it can be to have several. Do you agree?’
I brush her bejewelled hand with my lips. I am sweating.
‘Without a doubt, donna Beatrice. I have learned to recognise men by the courage they can show, and not by the names they bear. It is a very great pleasure to meet you.’
‘Courage. Well said, messer Ludovico. The name suits you, doesn’t it? Well said. Please sit here next to me. I too have been anxious to meet you, and here we are at last.’
In front of us, on a low little decorated table, a silver tray with wide handles in the shape of interlacing serpents. On it a steaming pot containing an infusion of aromatic herbs.
‘The fame that precedes you is enigmatic at the very least, did you know that?’ She pours the infusion into large porcelain cups. ‘I don’t want to dwell on it, but what my nephew has told me about you has certainly surprised me. Your contacts, past and present, your aura of mystery, and the roads you have travelled, they all go to make an impossibly fascinating mixture. Believe me, I have insisted upon this meeting for many different reasons, first among them — please don’t take offence — being to recommend that you take the greatest possible care about your every movement, your every word, even your every allusion. Please do not think my caution excessive.’
I watch her shifting position on the soft upholstery of the sofa we are both sitting on, bringing the cup to her mouth with both hands, sipping the hot, scented liquid. I hold my breath.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be as careful as I can. But forgive me for asking: to what do I owe such explicit instructions? Instructions that sound so pressing that they make me think of impending hidden dangers?’
She puts the cup back down on the tray. ‘It’s like this. Let me give you some information about the way things work. The immense power of Venice, a bridge between east and west, is not based on the water upon which mad and brilliant fugitives designed it, any more than it emerges from the crucible of the artists and men of letters that throng the city. For centuries now the rulers of this lagoon have been weaving an intricate web of power and spies, guards and magistrates that no one can escape. There is an extremely delicate balance to the relations that these people enjoy with kings and diplomats in all countries, with theologians, clerics and the highest authorities of every faith, and with wealthy people, crop-growers and manufacturers in all parts of the world. Within the city an intricate network of control affects anyone who passes through it or who lives in it for any length of time. There is a police force for blasphemy, and another one for prostitutes, one for panders and another for brawlers, there are police who control the ferrymen and others who keep the arms-dealers under surveillance. No one can say who is in command here, but everyone fears the thousands of eyes that are always kept fixed on these streets suspended above the water. The strength of La Serenissima is guaranteed by a series of weights and counter-weights. That is all that really counts, in a play of mirrors reflecting misleading images, where appearances deceive, where the real is often concealed behind heavy curtains. Take the Doge, for example, celebrated with those huge regattas, venerated by the people and appointed for life. Yet he himself counts for nothing, he can’t even open the letters that are sent to him, without the prior agreement of the advisers appointed to that specific function. Not to mention those sophisticated thinkers who channel the hatred of the lower classes by dividing them into factions and creating a thousand pretexts, a thousand games, for them to fight among themselves, with violence as bloody as it is
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