The Dante Conspiracy (14 page)
Perini nodded.
‘I believe I do,’ he said. ‘I think it’s where the
Medicis
used to live. I believe we’ll find it somewhere in the
Palazzo
Pitti
.’
The metal detector screamed as Perini and Lombardi walked into
the palace, their pistols triggering the system quite unambiguously, but their identification
documents smoothed the way. That, and the director of the establishment, Rudolf
Massimo, who was waiting for them just inside the building, alerted by a telephone
call Perini had made to him a few minutes before they set out.
Massimo led the way to his office on one of the upper floors
of the building, asked the young girl who was presumably his secretary to bring
coffee for the three of them, and then sat down behind his desk, the two detectives
taking seats opposite him. He was about sixty, rake-thin, taller than both the detectives,
virtually bald and clean-shaven. But it was his expression that struck Perini most
forcefully. He looked worried, really worried.
So worried that
if the detective had been questioning him about some criminal act, his expression
alone would be enough to propel him to the very top of the list of suspects.
‘So, Inspector,
er
, Perini,’ Massimo
said when the coffee had arrived, clearing his throat. ‘We’ll be closing shortly
for the day, so I hope this won’t take too long. I understand you want to take a
look at our records. May I ask why?’
The way he asked the question
gave Perini an inkling of what might be bothering the director. Maybe there was
some irregularity in the finance or acquisition records of the Palazzo
Pitti
or something of that sort, and he was terrified that it
had been discovered somehow. But if that was the case, Perini frankly wasn’t bothered.
He had two linked murder cases to solve, and any possible irregularities in the
operation or administration of a museum was of no consequence to him whatsoever.
And he had another, personal, motive as well for what he was doing.
He repressed a smile and shook his head.
‘Not exactly, Signor
Massimo,
and certainly
not your current or recent records. Our interest lies in very much older documentation.
In fact, we want to look at anything you’ve got, any information at all, that dates
from the fifteenth century.’
Almost immediately, Massimo’s face cleared, the worried frown
disappearing as if it had never been there, to be replaced by a smile of relief.
‘Of course, inspector, of course.
Most
of our older records have already been scanned and loaded into our database, just
because handling those ancient documents is not a good idea, and we prefer to keep
them locked away in a climate-controlled storage area to preserve them. Though of
course I can have any of them taken out should you need to see them,’ he added,
somewhat hurriedly.
‘I’m quite sure that won’t be necessary,’ Perini replied. ‘It’s
not the physical records we’re interested in, but only the information they contain.
We need to see the message, not the medium, if you see what I mean.’
‘In that case, we probably don’t even need to leave this office,
because I can access the entire database from here. Which part of the fifteenth
century records do you want to look at? First half, second half?’
‘First half and, if my deduction is correct, the year 1421, though
we’d better look five years or so either side of that date, just in case.’
‘So towards the end of the life of Giovanni
di
Bicci
de’ Medici.
You do know, I suppose, that
at that time this building didn’t even exist?’
‘I certainly didn’t,’ Lombardi said. ‘I thought this was the
home of the Medici family.’
‘It was, but it wasn’t quite that simple. The building of this
structure was started in 1458 by a local banker named Arrigo
Pitti
, who of course gave his name to the palace, but he ran
into financial problems in 1464 and work stopped. It was still unfinished when
Pitti
died in 1472. Around three quarters of a century later,
in 1549, the building was purchased by
Eleonora
di Toledo,
the wife of
Cosimo
de’ Medici. He had it more than doubled
in size by the architect Vasari, who also constructed the Vasari Corridor, the elevated
walkway that runs over the top of the Ponte
Vecchio
and
links this building with the old seat of government and the
Medicis
’
original palace, the Palazzo
Vecchio
. That enabled members
of the Medici family to move easily and quickly, and in perfect safety, from their
home to the new palace, which they first used just as
a lodging
for their guests and for occasional official functions. It wasn’t until
some time
later that the family actually moved in, and later
still before it became the permanent home for the extensive art collection owned
by the
Medicis
.’
‘But presumably the family collection started with Giovanni?’
Perini asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Massimo replied. ‘So are you interested in some object
he purchased?’
‘Probably not.
It was more likely something
he was given.’
‘That’s a little more unusual, though certainly not unknown.
Giovanni was a very important man in Florence even before he started his bank, and
no doubt people who wished to curry favour with him plied him with gifts. What object
have you in mind?’
‘That’s the trouble. We have no idea, but we believe it would
have been given to Giovanni – or at least sent to him – in 1421, and whatever it
was had most probably been created by Giotto, so it could possibly have been a painting.’
Massimo shook his head discouragingly.
‘We have a number of works by Giotto, but I don’t recall any
paintings being purchased that year, and certainly none being donated. Let me just
see what’s in the database.’
A few moments later he shook his head again.
‘No, there’s nothing like that for 1421, almost no records at
all, in fact. Let me just look at the following year. No, only one painting recorded,
and not by Giotto, and a wooden chest. That was a gift, in fact, but the identity
of the benefactor wasn’t known. Or at least if it was known it wasn’t recorded.’
‘Tell me about that chest,’ Perini instructed, feeling a sudden
quickening of his pulse.
‘There’s not a lot to say, really. It’s listed as a wooden chest
with a plain exterior and a small painting on the inside of the lid. Oh, I hadn’t
really noticed that before.’
‘What?’
‘The painting
was
signed
“Giotto”, and that was accepted as being correct at the time, but there was some
doubt later as to whether that was the right attribution. Just because the signature
reads ‘Giotto’, that doesn’t mean he was the artist, obviously. Give me a moment
while I look at this section which explains the various arguments.’
Masssimo
was silent, reading the information
displayed on the screen of his desktop computer.
‘Right,’ he said at last. ‘That seems clear enough. The consensus
seems to be that the painting looks like the work of Giotto, in terms of style,
the colours used, brush-strokes and so on: the fingerprints of the artist, if you
like. But some doubts have crept in just because of the subject matter. The Pope
for much of the time that Giotto was working was Boniface VIII, and he was a patron
of Giotto, so you’d obviously expect Giotto to respect the views of the Vatican
and paint mainly religious subjects, which he did in almost all of his other works.
But apparently the painting on the inside of the lid of the chest shows the Pope
in a less than favourable light, and that was enough to raise some questions.’
Massimo glanced across the desk at Perini.
‘I’m afraid the database entry doesn’t give any more information,
so I can’t tell you exactly what is meant by that statement. So the obvious thing
to do is to go and see the chest, I think.’
‘We’re right behind you,’ Lombardi said, putting down his coffee
cup. ‘Lead the way.’
‘Not so fast, Cesare.
There’s something
else we need to sort out first.’ Perini looked back at Massimo. ‘Forget for the
moment that we’re police officers, because as far as we’re concerned we went off
duty the moment we walked in here. Now, we believe we might have discovered the
location of a very valuable ancient relic, and that a further clue to its location
is in or on that chest. I want you to write and sign a short statement saying that
if our search does result in the discovery of this relic, we agree to hand it over
to the Palazzo
Pitti
in return for a finder’s fee based
on either the independently assessed value of the relic or the figure it achieves
if it’s sold, whichever is the greater. We’re not greedy, and the fee we want is
ten per cent, that’s all, just five per cent for each of us.’
‘That’s very irregular, inspector. I’m not sure that I can …’
‘Actually, I think you can, Rudolf,’ Lombardi interjected, ‘otherwise
we might decide that it would be a good idea for us to take a look at all the records
of recent transactions here, and maybe suggest that the Guardia di
Finanza
takes a look as well. I’m quite sure you wouldn’t want
the Grey Ghosts prowling around this place, would you?’
Massimo’s face fell, the worried looking making an immediate
comeback.
‘You’re in a win-win situation here,’ Perini said softly. ‘If
we find nothing, we’ll tear up the agreement. If we find something, the Palazzo
Pitti
will get international publicity and have a magnificent
exhibit you can either display or sell. And, as Cesare said, we’d hate to cause
any problems here, but it does seem to us that something’s not quite right in this
building, and we would be failing in our duty as police officers if we didn’t investigate
it. A finder’s fee would give us just the right amount of joint amnesia.’
Massimo stared down at his desk for a moment. Then he looked
up.
‘Ten per cent?’ he asked.
Perini nodded, and the director turned to his computer keyboard
and typed something rapidly. Then he printed it and passed the sheet across the
desk.
‘Is that satisfactory?’
Perini looked at the typed words carefully and nodded.
‘That’s just what we wanted,’ he said. ‘Two copies please, and
sign them both. Then we can go and see if we’re right.’
The chest was on display, kind of, tucked into a corner of one
of the galleries, with the lid closed. Beside it was a full-colour picture of the
painting, together with a statement by some unidentified art expert that reiterated
and expanded on the doubts Massimo had already explained to them.
In the foreground of the painting was an unmistakable Christ
figure, looking out of the picture, right hand raised in
benediction,
and below it an inscription in Latin that was helpfully translated on the accompanying
description. The Latin read ‘Forgiveness of all sins transports the spirit from
Hell to Paradise’.
‘Now that could almost have been lifted straight out of
The Divine Comedy
,’ Perini said.
‘Dante,’ Massimo supplied automatically. ‘Yes, I suppose it could.
Certainly very much the same sentiment.
And that, obviously,
is the image that’s troubled art critics over the centuries. I must confess I’d
never thought about Dante in connection with this object, but of course he and Giotto
were contemporaries, so perhaps this picture is an indication that the two men knew
each other, and that Giotto painted this picture to please Dante, or perhaps to
make the point that he was perhaps beginning to doubt his faith.
Because that part of the picture is quite unambiguous.’
He pointed at the background of the picture, where a figure wearing
the ecclesiastical robes of a Pope was being led away by two demons. They were dragging
him towards a yawning opening that was presumably intended to represent the gates
of Hell, where a figure that was unmistakably the devil was waiting for him,
an
expression of eager anticipation on his face.
‘I see what you mean,’ Lombardi said. ‘Not exactly a Vatican-friendly
theme, is it? Is that Pope recognizable as Boniface VIII, or is it just a generic
image?’
‘According to this, the surviving images of Boniface suggest
that it could be him,’ Perini said, reading the last section of the accompanying
description. ‘But it also points out that the whole picture is quite small, and
the background image is obviously smaller still, so it’s by no means certain.’
‘There’s a statue of
Gaetani
in the
Museo
dell’ Opera del
Duomo
here in Florence,’ Massimo pointed out.
‘Who?’
‘Boniface VIII. His name before he became Pope was Benedetto
Gaetani
,’
Perini reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the paper
on which he’d written the verses he’d been trying to interpret.
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘There’s a reference here to “
Gaetani’s
bane”, but I had no idea that could have meant the
Pope.’
‘What is that, inspector?’ Massimo asked, pointing at the paper.
‘It’s some verses we’ve been trying to understand, which
are clearly something to do with Dante
.’
Briefly, Perini outlined what had happened in and around Florence
over the previous few days.
‘Interesting,’ Massimo
said,
when Perini
finally paused for breath. ‘Dante certainly had no love for the Pope. In his poem
he consigns Boniface to Hell for
simony,
and that particular
Pope was certainly one of the most un-Christian the Church has yet produced. He
had a long-running feud with the Colonna family that ended when he demolished their
home city of Palestrina, after it had surrendered to him, and killed over six thousand
civilians in the process. He also imprisoned and quite probably killed his predecessor
on the Throne of St Peter, and of course he orchestrated the victory of the Black
Guelphs in Florence, which was the source of Dante’s personal argument with him.’
