Imprimatur (19 page)

What point was there in investigating all this? That had already been done a century and more ago and, furthermore, a classification had even been made of all the categories:
meretrici, puttane, curtail
(those of the Curia), whores of the lamp, of the candle, of the Vene­tian blinds, of the silhouettes, and "women in trouble, or of lesser fortune", while some burlesque ballads sang, too, of the Sunday girls, the church mice, the Guelf girls, the Ghibellines and a thou­sand others. How many were they? Enough to give Pope Leo X the idea, when repairs had to be made to the road leading to the Piazza del Popolo, of levying a tax on the harlots, of whom many lived in that quarter. Under Pope Clement VII, some swore that every tenth Roman was engaged in prostitution (not even counting bawds and pimps), and perhaps Saint Augustine was right when he said that if prostitutes were to disappear, unbridled licence would flourish everywhere.

The courtesans, however, were of quite another kind. For, with them, mere amorous beguilements were transformed into a sublime exercise: one that gave the measure not of the appetites of merchants or the soldiery, but of the genius of ambassadors, princes and cardi­nals. Genius, because the courtesan jousted against men victoriously in verse, like Gaspara Stampa who dedicated an entire ardent
canzoniere
to Collatino di Collalto, or Veronica Franco who challenged the poten­tates of the Venier family both in bed and in poetry; or like Imperia, the queen of Roman courtesans, who would gracefully compose madri­gals and sonnets, and was loved by men of such illustrious and opulent talents as Tommaso Inghirami, Camillo Porzio, Bernardino Capella, Angelo Colocci and the unbelievably wealthy Agostino Chigi, and who posed for Raphael and may have rivalled the Fornarina herself. (Imperia died by her own hand, yet on her deathbed, Pope Julius II granted her full absolution for her sins, while Chigi had a monument erected to her). The celebrated Madremianonvuole,* thus nicknamed following some imprudent juvenile refusal, knew all of Petrarch and Boccaccio by heart, as well as Virgil and Horace, and a hundred other authors.

So the woman before me belonged, in Pietro Aretino's words, to that shameless race whose pomp leaves Rome drained, while through the streets the wives go veiled and muttering paternosters.

"Have you, too, come to ask what the future holds in store for you?" asked Cloridia. "Are you in search of good news? Take care, for fortune—and so I tell all those who come here—does not always ordain matters as one might desire."

Taken by surprise, I was rendered speechless.

"I know nothing of magic. And if you wish to know the arcana of the stars, you must go to someone else. But if no one has ever read your hand, then Cloridia's is indeed the door to come to. Or perhaps you have dreamed a dream and wish to know its hidden meaning.

*My-mother-doesn't-want-me-to

Do not tell me that you came here without any desire, for I will not believe you. No one ever comes to Cloridia without wanting some­thing."

I was at once curious and so excited that I found it hard to keep my composure. I remembered that I was supposed to administer Cristofano's remedies to her, too, but that I put off. Instead, I seized my opportunity and told her of the nightmare in which I had seen myself fall into the obscure cavity below the Donzello.

"No, no, it is not clear," commented Cloridia at the end, shaking her head. "Was the ring of gold or of base metal?"

"I could not say."

"Then the interpretation is unclear; because a ring signifies a re­ward or a punishment. A gold ring signifies great profit. I find the trumpet interesting, for it betokens secrets, hidden or revealed. Per­haps Devize is the holder of some secret, which he may or may not be aware of. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No, I really know only that he is the most splendid guitar player," said I, remembering the marvellous music which I had heard issuing from the strings of his instrument.

"Of course, you can know no more, otherwise Devize's secret would not be one!" laughed Cloridia. "But in your dream Pellegrino too is present. You saw him dead and then resuscitated, and the dead who rise again signify travail and damage. So, let us see: a ring, a secret, a dead man resuscitated. The meaning, I repeat, is not clear because of the ring. The only clear things are the secret and the dead man."

"Then the dream presages misadventures."

"Not necessarily: because in reality your master is only sick, and in a bad way, but not dead. And illness means simply idleness and little employment. Perhaps, since Pellegrino has not been well, you are afraid that you have been neglecting your duties. But do not be afraid of me," said Cloridia, lazily extracting another ring-cake from a basket. "I shall certainly be the last person to tell Pellegrino if you are a little disinclined to work. Tell me, rather, what are they say­ing downstairs? Apart from the unfortunate Bedfordi, it seems to me that the others are all still in good health, is that not so?" and, with a vague gesture, she added, "Pompeo Dulcibeni, for instance? I ask you, seeing that he is one of the oldest..."

Again Cloridia was asking me about Dulcibeni. I hung back, feel­ing dejected. She understood at once: "And don't be afraid of coming close to me," said she, drawing me to her and ruffling my hair. "I, for the time being, do not have the plague."

I then recalled my duties concerning health and mentioned that Cristofano had already delivered me the preventive remedies to be administered to all those in good health. Blushing, I added that I was to begin with the violet unguent of Master Giacomo Bortolotto from Parma, which I was supposed to spread on her back and her hips.

She fell silent. I smiled weakly: "If you prefer, I also have here the fumigants of Orsolin Pignuolo from Pontremoli. We could begin with those, seeing that you have a fireplace in your chamber."

"Very well," she answered. "So long as it does not take too much time."

She sat down at her dressing table. I saw her uncover her shoul­ders and gather her locks up into a white muslin bonnet tied with crossed ribbons. Meanwhile, I attended to making a fire and gather­ing the burning coals from the fireplace in a pot, trembling briefly when I thought of the nudity which those coals must have seen dur­ing those still warm mid-September nights.

I turned again towards her. On her head she had placed a piece of linen, folded double: she resembled a holy apparition.

"Carob, myrrh, incense, liquid amber, benzoin, gum ammoniac, antimony, made into a paste with the finest rose water," I recited, having studied Cristofano's notes well, while placing the bowl of coals lightly on the little table and breaking a bag into it. "I must insist, breathe in with wide open mouth."

And I pulled down the fine linen cloth until it covered her face. The room filled swiftly with a pungent odour.

"The Turks make far better health-bringing fumigants than these," she muttered after a while from under the cloth.

"But we are not Turks yet," I replied clumsily.

"And would you believe it if I told you that I am one?" I heard her ask.

"No, of course not, Donna Cloridia."

"And why ever not?

"Because you were bom in Holland, in..."

"In Amsterdam, correct. And how come that you knew?"

I was at a loss for a reply, since I had learned that detail only a few days earlier, when I stopped at Cloridia's door before knocking to deliver a basket of fruit and overheard a conversation between her and an unknown visitor.

One of my girls will have told you, I suppose. Yes, I was born in a land of heretics almost nineteen years ago, but Calvin and Luther have never counted me among their own. I never knew my mother, while my father was an Italian merchant, who travelled a great deal."

"Oh, how fortunate you are!" I sighed from the depths of my mere foundling's estate.

She said nothing, and from the movement of her bust I guessed that she was inhaling deeply. She coughed.

"If one day you should ever have to do with Italian merchants, just remember: they leave only debts to others and keep the profits for themselves."

Cloridia explained that in Amsterdam she herself had known intimately the fame of the Tensini, the Verrazzanos, the Balbi, the Quingetti, and then the Burlamacchi and the Calandrini, who were also present in Antwerp: Genoese, Tuscans, Venetians, all merchants, insurers, shipowners, bankers and bill brokers, a few agents of Ital­ian principalities and republics, and for freedom from scruples there were none who could outdo them.

"What does 'bill broker' mean?" I asked, leaning with my elbows on the little table, the better to hear and be heard.

"It is one who acts as go-between between a lender of money and someone who borrows it."

I brought my face close to hers: after all, she could not see me. And that made me feel very sure of myself.

"Is that a good profession?"

"If you wish to know whether those who exercise it are good peo­ple, well, that depends. If the question is whether this is work that makes one rich, why, that is for certain. Indeed, it makes those who practise it exceedingly wealthy. The Bartolotti, whose house on the Heerengracht is the finest in the whole city, started out as simple brewers and are now the most powerful people in Amsterdam, share­holders and financiers of the East India Company."

Then Cloridia gasped: "May I get up?"

"No, Monna Cloridia, not while there is still smoke!" I stopped her, although I myself felt the exhalations going to my head. I did not want to bring our conversation to so early a conclusion. Almost without realising it, I had begun to stroke a corner of the piece of linen which covered her head: she could not be aware of that.

"Are the shipowners and insurers as wealthy?" I asked.

She sighed. At this point, my ingenuous questions, together with my limited knowledge of the world (and of circumstances which I could not at present be blamed for not knowing) all had the effect of loosing Cloridia's tongue. Suddenly, she inveighed against merchants and their money, but above all against bankers, whose wealth was at the root of all manner of iniquity (only, here in truth, Cloridia used far harsher language and spoke with very different accents), especially when money was lent by usurers and brokers, and most of all, when those to whom it was destined were kings and popes.

Cloridia had risen from the hot coals and torn off the covering from her head, causing me to step sharply back, red with shame. She then cast off her bonnet and her long curly mane fanned out across her shoulders.

She appeared to me then for the first time in a new and indescrib­able light, capable of cancelling out all that I had hitherto seen of her—and above all, what I had not yet seen, but which seemed to me even more indelible—and I saw with my pupils and even more with my soul all that lovely lucent brown velvet complexion which contrasted with her luxuriant Venetian blond curls. Little did I then care that I knew them to be the creation of white wine lees and ol­ive oil, if they framed those long black eyes and the serrated pearls of her mouth, that rounded yet proud little nose, those lips smiling with a touch of rouge just sufficient to remove their vague pallor, and that small but fine and harmonious face and the fine snow of her bosom, intact and kissed by two suns, on shoulders worthy of a bust by Bernini or so at least it seemed to me
et satis erat,
and her voice which, although distorted and almost booming with rage, or perhaps precisely because of that, filled me with lascivious little desires and little languid sighs, with rustic frenzies, with flower-strewn dreams, with a lusciously odorous vegetable delirium, until it seemed that I could become almost invisible to others' eyes, through the mist of desire that enveloped me and made Cloridia appear to me more sublime than a Raphael Madonna, more inspired than a motto of Teresa of Avila, more marvellous than a verse of the
cavaliere
Ma­rino, more melodious than a madrigal of Monteverdi, more lascivious than a couplet by Ovid and more edifying than an entire tome of Fracastoro. And I said to myself that, no, the poetics of an Imperia, of a Veronica, of a Madremianonvuole would never have such power (although my soul was weighed down with knowing that a few paces from the locanda, in the Stufa delle Donne, there lay in wait low females, ready and willing for anything, even for me, so long as I had but two scudi) and while I listened to her, in a lightning flash as rapid as Cardinal Chigi's horses, I was transfixed by the mystery of how I, who time and time again had brought to her door the tub, with pails of boiling hot water, for her bath, could possibly have remained indifferent to her presence behind those few wooden planks, with her servant-girl gently rubbing the nape of her neck with talcum and lavender water, so much did she now fire my mind and my senses and my whole spirit.