The Secret Supper (24 page)

His revelation provided an answer to a question left unresolved since my meeting with Oliverio Jacaranda. Now, the presence of the philosopher made it clear why Leonardo had in his library the complete works of Plato, a volume that was now collecting dust in a corner of Jacaranda’s palazzo, without anyone paying it the attention it deserved.

The circle was closing in.

34

Three days later, in Rome, an officer of the Papal Guard firmly pointed the way for the Dominican Master General. Father Torriani, whom the guards knew full well, thought the security measures extreme. But their orders had been strict: three cardinals had died of a stomach ailment during the past six months, and the Holy Father, whom many held responsible for these sudden deaths, had ordered the pretense of an investigation which included the rigorous control of all entrances leading to the Papal Palace.

The atmosphere was vitiated. Rome had reason enough to tremble when Alexander VI named as cardinal one of the notables of the city. Everyone knew that if His Holiness coveted someone’s possessions, all he had to do was make him cardinal first and do away with him discreetly afterward. The law was on his side: the Pope was the sole legitimate heir of all property in his realm. And in the case of His Eminence Cardinal Michieli, the very rich patriarch of Venice whose body was now growing cold in the pontifical morgue, the law had been fulfilled with absolute precision.

Father Torriani submitted without protest to the new regulations granting access to the Borgia chambers. After a few minutes, leaving behind him the golden door of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, he saw them clearly: they were in the third room, eyes glued to the ceiling and a strange look of triumph on their faces. There, close to the windows of the eastern wing, protected from the rigors of the Roman winter, were Annio de Viterbo and His Holiness engaged in an animated discussion beneath freshly painted frescoes that still emanated the odor of resin and varnish.

Alexander VI, his round face shaven, his auburn hair turning white, tried to conceal his paunch under a wine-colored cassock that enveloped him from head to foot. In comparison, Annio—or Nanni, as he was known—looked like a slim weasel, his pointed nose spouting a brush of straight black hairs and his long, bony hands, like those of a scarecrow, making grand gestures toward the painted ceiling.

Nanni’s fiery words thundered through the room.

“Art is the most essential of your weapons, Holy Father! Have it always at your service and you’ll dominate all of Christendom! Lose it, and your entire pastoral mission will fall to pieces.”

Torriani, with rising bitterness in his throat, saw His Holiness assent without a word. He had heard this speech many times. This idea had traveled far and wide, invading Rome, and along with it, the flower of the Florentine arts. The Pope himself had snatched away from Lorenzo de’ Medici a whole army of artists, merely to satisfy the secret desires of Nanni. And, at the same time, Torriani had watched in agony the unstoppable rise of sculptors and painters, privileged always to the detriment of cardinals and priests. Upset, and jealous of the influence that this pernicious monk from Viterbo had on His Holiness, Father Torriani pretended not to notice them and addressed himself to the Head of the Guards, instructing him to announce his arrival. The Master General of the Dominican Order was here, obeying the summons of His Holiness.

The Pope smiled.

“We’re delighted to see you at last, dear Gioacchino!” he exclaimed, offering his ring to be kissed. “You arrive at an opportune time. Just a moment ago, Nanni and I were discussing the matter that weighs so heavily on your mind.”

The Dominican raised his eyes from the pontifical ring.

“What—what matter is that, Your Holiness?”

“Come, come, Father Torriani! No need to be discreet with us! We know practically everything, even that you’ve sent a spy to Milan in our name, to verify certain rumors concerning a heresy that is gathering strength in Ludovico’s court.”

“I—” The old man hesitated. “I’ve come to inform you of what our envoy has discovered.”

“We’re delighted!” His Holiness laughed. “We’re anxious to hear.”

Annio de Viterbo and the Holy Father abandoned the contemplation of the frescoes and sat down in a pair of leather armchairs that two servants set out for them. Torriani, too nervous to relax, preferred to remain standing. He carried a folder under his arm with the long letter that I myself had written concerning the discovery of a Cathar infestation in the heart of Milan.

“For the past several months,” Torriani began to explain, still under the shock of my revelations, “we have been receiving information suggesting that the Duke of Milan was employing the celebrated Florentine artist Leonardo da Vinci to divulge heretical ideas in a magnificent painting he’s completing on the subject of the Last Supper.”

“Leonardo, you say?”

The Pope looked toward Nanni, awaiting his learned comment.

“Leonardo, Your Holiness. Doesn’t Your Holiness remember him?”

“Vaguely.”

“Of course,” said the Weasel soothingly. “His name was not on the list of artists recommended to Your Holiness by the House of Medici, to work in Rome during the cardinalship of Your Holiness. He is known to be a proud, irascible man, not well disposed toward Our Holy Mother the Church. The Medici knew this and wisely avoided recommending him to Your Holiness.”

The Pope sighed.

“Another problematic soul.”

“No doubt, Your Holiness. Leonardo felt snubbed for not having been recommended, and so, in 1482, left Florence, turned his back on the Medici and settled in Milan to work there as inventor, cook and, if possible, not at all as an artist.”

“In Milan? And why in the world did they welcome a man like that?” The Pope’s tone turned cynical as he continued. “Aha! I understand. That is why you say that the duke is unfaithful to me, Nanni—”

“Your Holiness must ask that question to our Dominican Father,” Nanni answered dryly. “It seems that he’s brought proofs of what he says.”

Torriani protested.

“Not proofs, only suggestions for the time being, Holy Father. Leonardo, guided and protected by the duke, has been working on a painting of colossal proportions and a Christian theme, but full of irregularities that deeply worry the Father Prior of Santa Maria delle Grazie.”

“Irregularities?”

“Yes, Your Holiness. In The Last Supper.”

“And what might be irregular in a work like that?”

“I’ll explain, Your Holiness, if I may. We know that the Twelve Apostles represented in the mural are not what they seem, but portraits of pagan characters, or characters of questionable faith, whose disposition in the piece intends to transmit teachings that are not truly Christian.”

The Pope and Nanni exchanged glances. Then, when the latter demanded more details, Torriani opened his folder.

“We have just received the first report from our envoy in Milan,” he said, brandishing my letter. “He is a scholar from Bethany, an expert in ciphers and secret codes, who is now scrutinizing both the painting and Master Leonardo himself. He’s examined one by one the portraits in The Last Supper and has looked for relationships between them. Our expert has tried almost everything: from matching each apostle with a sign of the zodiac to looking for correspondences between the position of the hands and the notes on a musical scale. His conclusions will not be long in reaching us, and what today are mere indications, tomorrow may be proofs.”

Nanni became impatient.

“But has he discovered anything concrete or hasn’t he?”

“Of course, Father Annio. The true identity of three of the apostles has been uncovered beyond doubt. We know that the face of Judas Iscariot, for instance, corresponds to that of a certain Father Alessandro Trivulzio, a Dominican who died shortly after Twelfth Night, hanged in the center of Milan—”

“Like Judas himself—” whispered the Pope.

“That is so, Your Holiness. We have not yet established if he took his own life or if he was murdered, but our informant believes that he belonged to a Cathar community infiltrated into the monastery.”

“Cathars?”

The Holy Father looked astonished.

“Cathars, Your Holiness. They believe themselves to be the true Church. They employ only the Our Father in prayer and reject both the clergy and the authority of the vicar of Christ as God’s only representative on Earth—”

“We are well aware of the Cathars, Father Torriani!” the Pope interrupted angrily. “But we thought that the last ones were burnt at the stake in Carcassonne and Toulouse in 1325. Did not the Bishop of Pamiers put an end to the lot?”

Torriani knew the story well. Not all Cathars died then. After the victory of the crusade against the Cathars of southern France and the fall of Montségur in 1244, the heretic families fled to Aragon, Lombardy and the Germanic countries. Those who crossed the Alps settled in the neighborhood of Milan where the more temperate political forces, such as those of the Visconti, allowed them to live in peace. Their heterodox ideas, however, fell slowly into disuse and ended up disappearing along with their tenets and their rituals.

“This may be a serious situation, Your Holiness,” Torriani continued sternly. “Father Alessandro Trivulzio wasn’t the only one we suspected of practicing Cathar rites in our Milanese monastery. Three days ago, another friar declared himself openly a member of the heresy and then took his own life.”

“Endura?”

“Exactly.”

“In the name of all that’s holy!” cried Nanni. “Endura was one of the most extreme of all Cathar practices. It’s been two hundred years since someone has had recourse to it.”

Nanni cast a surreptitious glance at the Pope, who seemed not to have grasped the meaning of the term. Diplomatically, Nanni explained.

“In its ‘passive’ version,” he said, “endura consisted of the solemn oath of not ingesting anything, whether food or otherwise, that might contaminate the body of a Cathar aspiring to perfection. If he died in a state of purity, the deluded fool believed that his soul would be saved and would become one with God. But there was also an ‘active’ version—suicide by fire—which took place only during the siege of Montségur. The inhabitants of that last Cathar bastion preferred to throw themselves into a huge blazing pyre rather than fall into the hands of the papal troops.”

“The friar I mentioned died by setting fire to himself, Father.”

“I’m at pains to believe that someone would have resurrected the old formula, Father Torriani,” Nanni said dubiously. “I imagine you have other facts to justify your alarm.”

“Unfortunately, I do. We have reason to think that proofs of the existence of a full-fledged Cathar community in Milan is encrypted in The Last Supper, on which Leonardo is now still engaged. He has portrayed himself conversing with an apostle who is really the philosopher Plato who, as you know, was the ancient master of these damned heretics.”

The Weasel jumped from his chair.

“Plato? Are you sure of what you’re saying?”

“Entirely. The worst, Father Annio, is that the link is not exempt of a perverted logic. As you know, Leonardo studied in Florence under the guidance of Andrea del Verrocchio and in close contact with the Academy that Cosimo placed under the direction of a certain Marsilio Ficino. And, as you also know, that Academy was founded in imitation of that of Plato in Athens.”

“Well?” The Pope’s assistant made a gesture of disdain, as if wary of so much erudition.

“Our conclusion cannot be more obvious, Father. If the Cathars drew from Plato many of their more injurious doctrines, and if the Academy in Florence continues certain Cathar practices such as not eating meat, what then forbids us from concluding that Leonardo is using his work to transmit doctrines contrary to the faith of Rome?”

“What do you want from us then? That we excommunicate him?”

“Not yet. We need to prove beyond all doubt that Leonardo has introduced these ideas in his mural. Our envoy in Milan is working hard to gather this evidence. After that, we shall act.”

“But Father Torriani,” Nanni interrupted. “Many artists such as Botticelli and Pinturicchio were formed at the Academy and are nevertheless excellent Christians.”

“They only appear to be, Father Annio. You should be wary of them.”

“Dominicans are always too suspicious! Look around you. Pinturicchio has painted those marvelous frescoes for His Holiness,” he said, pointing to the ceiling. “Do you see in them even the inkling of a heresy? Come now. Do you see one?”

Father Torriani knew the frescoes well. Bethany had opened a secret file on them, a file that never grew as much as had been expected.

“Do not upset yourself, Father Annio. Above all because, in spite of yourself, you’re agreeing with me. Indeed, do look at that work by Pinturicchio. What do you see? Pagan gods, nymphs, exotic beasts, scenes you will never find in the Bible. Only a follower of Plato, imbued in the old pagan doctrines, would think of painting something like it.”

“It’s the story of Isis and Osiris!” the Weasel objected, on the verge of losing his temper. “Osiris, if you don’t know it, resurrected from among the dead just like Our Lord. And his memory, though in a pagan guise, renews our hope in the salvation of the flesh. Osiris appears here in the shape of an ox as our own Holy Father is represented by an ox. Have you never seen the Borgia coat of arms? Isn’t it obvious, the relationship between this mythological figure, a symbol of courage and strength, and the beast that appears on the shield of His Holiness? Symbols are not heresies, Father Torriani!”

As the Master General was about to answer, the smooth but tired voice of the Pope intervened.

“What we don’t understand,” he said, dragging the words as if intensely bored by the whole discussion, “is where you see the duke’s sinful conduct in all this business.”

“That’s only because you haven’t examined with close attention the work of Leonardo, Your Holiness!” Father Torriani answered excitedly. “The Duke of Milan is paying for it in its entirety, and he protects Leonardo from the criticism of our brethren. The Father Prior of Santa Maria has spent months attempting to divert the course of the painting toward a more pious aesthetic, but with no success. Ludovico il Moro has allowed Leonardo to portray himself with his back turned toward Christ and engaged in a conversation with Plato.”