Veritas (Atto Melani) (14 page)

The far ends of the building were closed by two semicircular keeps, which very closely resembled the apses of our churches – unexpected shapes in that generally Turkish context. It was
from the eastern keep, to my right, that we had ventured into the cellars the previous day, where I had quite literally bumped into the bleeding carcass of the ram.

At the centre of the castle was the entrance staircase, which crossed a little ditch and led into the main body of the building. This was overlooked by a stone balustrade, behind which I could
make out a long panoramic terrace. This main body was about a fifth of the length of the whole building; the way in was through a large doorway flanked by windows and ornamented on both sides by
two graceful pairs of columns with capitals.

The castle, with its classical forms and its Christian echoes, seemed to stand in deliberate opposition, like a magniloquent northern barrier, to the pointed minarets of the towers and the warm
southern air that rose from the gardens.

I looked around myself: how come no one had ever mentioned this grandiose complex to me? Was it not considered worthy to figure among the marvels of the Caesarean city?

Often, as I passed in front of the Hofburg, His Caesarean Majesty’s winter residence, I had been surprised by the extreme modesty and simplicity of the building. And the summer residences
were not much better: the Favorita, Laxenburg and Ebersdorf. Not to mention the extremely modest hunting pavilion at Belfonte – Schönbrunn as the Viennese call it, which had only been
given the appearance of a villa since its enlargement by beloved Joseph I.

And often, as I gazed at the small graceful
casini
in the Italian style that the nobility possessed in the Josephina – Casino Strozzi, Palazzo Schönborn or Villa Trautson
– I was puzzled by their architectural superiority with respect to the imperial residences! It was as if the Caesars had elected severity as the hallmark of their greatness, leaving pomp to
the nobility.

And yet there had once been a time when the Habsburgs had enjoyed the marvels of the Place with No Name, a time when one of the Caesars, Maximilian II, had cultivated this Levantine dream on
Teutonic land. A brief dream, so brief as not even to be honoured with a name – then nothing more. Who had left it to rot? And why?

I caught Simonis gazing absorbedly at me. Had the Greek guessed my cogitations? Did he, perhaps, have an answer to them?

“Signor Master, I have to piss and shit. Urgently. May I?”

“Yes, but not here in front of me,” I answered ruefully.

“Of course not, Signor Master.”

As Simonis walked away, wholly absorbed in his primordial needs, I heard the nearby church echo the Bell of the Turks in the Cathedral of St Stephen, inviting the distant
suburbs to prayer as well. I went into a corner with my little apprentice and we knelt down for our morning prayers.

Whatever the fate of the Place with No Name till now, I meditated as I made the sign of the cross, His Caesarean Majesty Joseph I was of a different opinion from his ancestors, and rightly
wanted to restore the place to its former splendour. A real stroke of luck, not only for Neugebäu, but also for me and my family, I said to myself with a satisfied smile, which I changed into
a prayer of fervent gratitude to the Most High.

When the Greek returned we were spotted by Frosch. The keeper greeted us with a grunt only a shade more cordial than his usual surly
facies.
We announced that our work was about to
begin and I expressed a wish to start from the service buildings; if the Emperor really wanted to make use of the place again, it was those buildings he would need even before the castle
itself.

Frosch invited us to follow him, bringing our barrow with all its tools of the trade, and Simonis immediately went off to get it.

As we followed Frosch, shading our eyes with our hands against the dazzling shafts from the copper on the roofs and slowing our pace as the spectacle both enchanted and blinded us, with the cart
full of tools creaking along behind us, we were greeted by a distant noise. It arose from behind the towers, behind the walls of the garden and behind the castle itself, almost as if it came from
an afterworld that belonged only to the Place with No Name: the stillness of the morning was broken by the cavernous roar of the lions.

We headed to the right and passed through the service building which, as was explained to us, had in the past been a
Meierei
, or what was known in Latin as a
maior domus
, the
house of the land-agent. This little building was also in a state of total neglect; through the windows, mostly shattered, we could see that weeds had invaded the interior and the roof had partly
collapsed.

Passing through the archway that led out of the
maior domus
we found ourselves in the courtyard by which we had entered the previous afternoon. To the left I saw the little door that
gave onto the spiral staircase. Behind it one could make out the roofs of other buildings, set lower down.

I marvelled again at the unusual nature of the place, almost like a little town with its outer walls, interior avenues, gardens and various buildings of the most singular and diverse kinds. Far
different from – and far more than – a villa with its park.

Frosch led us down the spiral staircase. I noticed for the first time that it had been placed between two other buildings, set against the little upland on which the castle rose, which enabled
it to dominate the surrounding grasslands. As we descended, I finally discovered, peering through the little windows that opened in the stairwell towards the exterior, the rear of the Place with No
Name, facing north: there was a graceful garden in the Italian style. A central avenue led towards a large fishpond, in which waterfowl and marsh birds floated peacefully. There was nothing
Levantine about those gardens; on the other side of the fishpond they opened out into Teutonic meadows, the kind loved by hunters, which stretched away in the distance towards Nordic woods, green
cathedrals whose silence was punctuated by occasional bird cries, dusky spaces teeming in game, in funghi, resins and scented mosses. Far off, powerful and motionless, we could make out Vienna with
its unbreached walls.

With a grunt of farewell, the keeper left us to get on with our work.

We started with a building that Frosch told us had once been the kitchen. Without too much difficulty we found the old fireplaces.

What contrasts the Place with No Name offered, hidden within its walls! So I reflected as, with my head wrapped in its canvas bag, I made my way up the first of the ducts. What mind had
conceived all of this? Had it been Emperor Maximilian II, about whom I knew nothing, or a brilliant architect of his? What did this crucible of contrasts mean, supposing it meant anything? Or was
it all just a mere caprice? And why, I asked myself yet again, had it been abandoned?

After carrying out a first perfunctory examination, I climbed back down to my two boys.

“There’s a good deal of work to be done; it’s all cracked up there,” I reported to Simonis and the little one. “If the whole place is in the same condition, we had
better make a map of the flues first and draw up a report on their condition. That way we’ll be able to work out how many reinforcements we’ll need for the job. Let’s have a bite
to eat now. And then we’ll go on with the survey.”

Having said this I sent my little boy to the cart to fetch the bag of provisions.

“Revenge.”

“Sorry, Simonis?”

“Revenge is the answer to your questions, Signor Master. The Place with No Name was built for revenge, and it was revenge that destroyed it. This place is steeped in inextinguishable
hatred, Signor Master.”

A shiver ran down my spine at these unexpected words, which answered my unspoken questions.

“He was a follower of Christ, quite simply. And
imitatio Christi
, the imitation of Christ, was the inspiring principle of his life. But it was his fate to be born and to reign in
an age when Luther’s false teachings had divided the Christians, their hearts, their minds and the nations themselves,” said Simonis.

“Who are you talking about?”

“Christian fought against Christian, both armed with the word of the Lord,” continued the Greek, paying no heed to me, “and the greed of both camps kindled the fire of war. To
the great joy of the Infidels, the Alemannic and Flemish lands were lacerated by the divisions between Catholics and Protestants, while His Sacred Caesarean Majesty – whose authority for
centuries had rested on the assembly of the princes of the Empire, but also on the investiture conferred by the Pope – struggled to defend the orthodox Christian Faith.”

While I opened the bag my boy had brought me and drew out our meal, I began to understand who Simonis was referring to.

“He should not even have ascended to the Caesarean throne. Emperor Charles V, brother of his father Ferdinand I, had divided his lands before retiring to a monastery: Ferdinand I was to
receive the Spanish territories, his son Philip II, Austria and the imperial crown. But the German prince-electors did not want an emperor who was so resolutely Catholic and they resoundingly
called for the young Maximilian to return from Spain and be crowned. They harboured ambitious plans and believed him to be the right man.”

Simonis had read on my face all the queries and cogitations that were gnawing at me; and now, while we consumed the small but restorative meal of rye, boiled eggs, sauerkraut and sausages, he
talked to me of Emperor Maximilian II, the man who, one and a half centuries earlier, had been behind the building of the Place with No Name, known as Neugebäu.

From early youth Maximilian, abhorring the corruption of the Church of Rome, had been well disposed to the arguments of the Protestants. He had summoned Lutheran preachers, counsellors, doctors
and men of science to the court, so that it was feared that sooner or later he himself would defect to them. His clashes with his father Ferdinand I, a fervent Catholic, had become so bitter that
his august parent had threatened to block his ascent to the throne. Pressure from Catholic Spain and from the Holy See grew so strong that Maximilian had to declare publicly that he would always
adhere to the official creed of Rome. But this did not prevent him from continuing to meet in private with the followers of Luther.

This aroused the hopes of the Protestant princes and of all those in the Empire who abominated the Church of Peter: would Maximilian fulfil their dream of having an Emperor no longer faithful to
the Pope?

“But more pernicious than heresy itself – so thought Maximilian, who loved peace – was the war that it had unleashed. More cruel than the betrayal of a religion is the betrayal
of one’s own kind; and far more scandalous than the sword is the wound that it has opened.”

And so, once he had ascended to the imperial throne, he chose a new path: instead of actively aligning himself with the Church of Rome, and taking part in the struggle against the heretics, he
decided to serve peace and tolerance. His predecessors had been Catholics, while most of the princes of the Empire were friends of the Protestants, was that not the case? He would align himself
with neither side, nor would he make any profession of faith; he would simply be Christian – of course – but neither Catholic nor Lutheran. Neither party would be able to say: “He
is one of us.” In the astute and ruthless century of Machiavelli, he chose to be cunning in his own way: instead of professing, he would remain silent; instead of acting, he would hold
still.

And so Maximilian the Just became Maximilian the Mysterious: nobody, in the two opposing camps, could read into his heart, nobody could count him among their friends. He already knew that the
Protestant princes would call him a traitor, an idler and a hypocrite. He had disappointed all those who had hoped he would inflict a hard blow against Catholicism. And yet he had not yielded, and
he had preferred to carry forward his own desire for peace.

“He left all his supporters confounded,” concluded Simonis.

I was confounded myself: my Greek assistant, who seemed a touch cracked, could be perfectly lucid when he chose. It was disconcerting to hear his vaguely foolish voice narrating events with such
acumen! As with the Emperor he was talking about, it was never clear to which party Simonis belonged: that of the sane or that of the retarded. And it was even less clear where his talk was
heading.

“Simonis, you talked of revenge earlier,” I reminded him.

“All in good time, Signor Master,” he answered without a trace of deference, biting into his loaf.

Maximilian’s ascent to the throne, continued the Greek, had aroused great expectations throughout Europe. The ambassadors from Venice, always the most reliable in their reports home, gave
assurances that he was of robust stature, well proportioned, and of good disposition. His appearance suggested a greatness and majesty that were truly regal and imperial, since his face was full of
gravitas, but tempered by such grace and amiability that those who saw him were filled with reverence but also with a sense of his inestimable inner gentleness.