Veritas (Atto Melani) (19 page)

“But hurry up now,” she exhorted me, “Camilla is waiting for us.”

“Before I got married, there was nothing interesting about my life,” began the Chormaisterin.

We were in the august imperial chapel, at the rehearsal of
Sant’ Alessio
, during a break. Since only our little boy and I belonged to the troupe of extras, Cloridia did not need
to be there, but Camilla de’ Rossi had been so skilful in overcoming my wife’s initial diffidence that she now happily accompanied us to our evening engagements, and during the break it
was not rare for her to pass the time conversing with the Chormaisterin.

The breaks during the oratorio rehearsals were, for the moment, the only chances that the two women had for such chats, and the Chormaisterin seemed to value them greatly. Cloridia and I were
always busy with our daily work, and for this reason could not make use of the convent’s kitchen, unless we were ill. Furthermore, by the rules of Porta Coeli the nuns were not allowed to sit
at table with strangers. Camilla, who was only a lay sister, was not subject to this prohibition, and was very disappointed that we did not share her meals, all based on spelt; and so she consoled
herself by preparing delicious dainties of spelt for our son, which had also had the beneficial effect of restoring him to full health. This had greatly endeared our gentle hostess to my wife.

In every conversation Camilla had the amiable gift of delicately introducing the subjects Cloridia most enjoyed,
in primis
that of assisting pregnant women and looking after new mothers
and babies, obviously, but also occult teachings like the interpretation of dreams and of numbers, or the art of the ardent rod or diviner’s wand or whatever it is called: disciplines that
Cloridia was highly skilled at, and which she had practised in her youth. Gifted with almost prophetic intuition, the Chormaisterin almost seemed to know from the outset Cloridia’s tastes and
inclinations, and with discreet but unfailing adroitness led the talk towards those themes.

These amiable attentions succeeded in loosening my sweet consort’s tongue, so that when Camilla went on to ask her about her past, Cloridia did not bridle as she usually did but willingly
proceeded to satisfy her curiosity.

That evening the conversation between the two women was in full flow when Cloridia for the first time put a few questions to the Chormaisterin: what had driven a young Roman woman, from
Trastevere no less, all the way to Vienna? Did she not miss Trastevere, her
rione
? Where exactly was the house she had been born in and had grown up in? Cloridia, who knew most of Rome
from her days as a midwife, had suddenly remembered a certain Camilla de’ Rossi, a well-to-do shopkeeper in Trastevere, daughter of a certain Domenico da Pesaro and mother of a Lucretia
Elisabetta, whom she had assisted in giving birth to her son Cintio. Cloridia would have been happy to discover that she already knew some of Camilla’s relatives: you know how it is,
it’s such a small world . . .

“Before I got married, there was nothing interesting about my life,” Camilla cut her short, showing little desire to delve into her origins, too obscure perhaps for one who now
enjoyed the confidence of His Caesarean Majesty.

“Married?” asked Cloridia in wonder.

“Yes, before entering Porta Coeli I was married. But excuse me, the rehearsal has to start,” she said, moving towards the orchestra players.

And thus it was we learned that Camilla, although only twenty-nine years old, was a widow.

The music began. Sweet violin strokes softly filled the vault of the Caesarean chapel, supported by the warm breath of the organ, the silvery tinkling of the lute, and the tawny tints of the
violone. The soprano, in the role of the betrothed bride just abandoned by Alessio, gave voice to a mournful lament:

But immediately an angry burst of chords broke from the orchestra. The bride inveighed against her old love, and asked heaven for a weapon to punish him:

Since the extras were not required during that passage, I had sat down to listen with Cloridia and our son on the chapel pews. Swept away by the energy of the music, I suddenly
realised that with one hand I was clutching my consort’s arm, and with the other the back of the bench in front of us. While Camilla’s notes and the soprano’s silvery voice
swelled in the volutes of the chapel, I thought back to the strange coincidence that had struck me the evening before: music and singing had come back into my life, and once again were associated
with the name Rossi. In Rome I had come to know the arias of Atto’s master, Luigi Rossi; here, the Chormaisterin Camilla de’ Rossi. Could it just be pure chance? Perhaps names bring
events and experiences along with them? And if so, can words therefore govern things?

While I brooded over these fleeting questions, the piece came to an end. Camilla began to instruct the singer and the players on how best to perform the passage, and to go over individual parts
again; as always, the Chormaisterin was extremely eloquent and thorough in explaining just what tones she expected from the singing, what sighs from the sweet flutes, what grumblings from the gruff
bassoons.

During the next pause, Camilla rejoined us. I at once urged her to continue her story. She carried on, explaining that when still very young she had married a royal court composer, a musician in
the service of the Emperor’s eldest son, who was the then young Joseph I.

The court composer was Camilla’s music teacher, as she was already in Vienna at that time with her mother. He was Italian, and was called Francesco.

“But here in the Empire,” Camilla explained, “where all names are Germanised, they called him Franz. Franz Rossi.”

“Rossi? So your surname is Rossi, and not
de’
Rossi?” I asked.

“Actually it was. The noble patronymic
de’
was a generous concession of His Majesty Joseph I, just before Franz died.”

Her husband, Camilla went on, had trained her in the art of singing, and more particularly in that of composition, and taken her around the various courts of Europe, where they learned the most
recent musical fashions, which they would introduce into the Caesarean court on their return. In Italy they went more or less everywhere: Florence and Rome, Bologna and Venice. During the day they
visited the workshops of master-lutists, explored theatres to test their acoustics, approached virtuoso singers or harpsichord players to learn their secrets, and paid homage to princes, cardinals
and persons of note in return for their benevolence. At night, by candlelight, they fought against sleep, copying music to take back to Vienna for the delectation of His Caesarean Majesty’s
highly refined ears. Then she left us again, to go on rehearsing the orchestra.

While the Chormaisterin made the musicians try the passage over and over again, and the music swirled around the chapel, I was carried away on a sweet silent surge of memories.

Rossi! So that was the original surname of Camilla’s deceased husband. Not just similar, as I had first thought, but identical to the surname of Seigneur Luigi, Atto’s beloved master
in Rome, the mentor of his youthful years. Luigi Rossi: the man who had taken the young castrato Atto Melani with him to Paris, conferring glory on him as the protagonist of
Orfeo
, the
great melodrama requested by Cardinal Mazarin to celebrate his own greatness, second only to the supreme powers of heaven.

Almost as if in mockery of me, the soprano recited:

And once again my mind went back to those events of twenty-eight years earlier, to the Inn of the Donzello, in Rome. Not a day had gone by in Abbot Melani’s company,
between the four walls of the inn where I had first met him, without my hearing at least a line of Seigneur Luigi Rossi, modulated by Atto’s etiolated but still passionate voice.

Meanwhile the voice of the abandoned bride trembled with anger:

In the parallel world of my memories, marvellous notes quivered in Abbot Melani’s throat, as he sang to the poignant memory of his master (and of other things that I could
not even imagine), and I, an ignorant servant boy, wondered at the sound of those ineffable melodies, never heard before or since.

“Finally we went to France, to Paris,” Camilla began again at the end of the rehearsal, as we all walked back to the convent of Porta Coeli.

Since it was such a short journey to Carinthia Street from the Caesarean chapel and from there to the convent, we walked slowly to give her time to tell her story.

“But the court of France is in Versailles,” objected Cloridia.

Here Camilla smiled with a touch of embarrassment.

“We didn’t go to court. More than anything else Franz wanted to visit someone, the only person still alive who could tell him about a relative of his, a great-uncle, also a composer.
He was very famous in his day, but he died prematurely. And times have changed so quickly that he’s now forgotten. In Rome Franz couldn’t find anyone who remembered him. It was only in
Paris that he finally –”

“You mean Maestro Luigi Rossi, don’t you? He’s your relative? And it was Atto Melani that you visited in Paris, wasn’t it? And that’s how you met the Abbot?”
I asked in an excited series of questions that already had their answer.

Just at that moment we were interrupted as we encountered a great flock of people, mostly very young.

I should have guessed it from the beginning, I reflected as I stepped around the crowd: Camilla had known Atto. It could not have been otherwise. That was why the Abbot had sent us to stay at
Porta Coeli: in Paris he had met Camilla, and then they had remained in touch. Thanks to this acquaintance, despite the war between France and the Empire, he had succeeded in finding a trusted
person in Vienna, the enemy capital. Had not Atto also written a letter to the Chormaisterin, expressly commending us to her care, as she herself had mentioned when we arrived? And furthermore:
Franz, Camilla’s deceased husband, was Luigi Rossi’s nephew.

Meanwhile the group of young people were swarming into the courtyard of a house: it was an
Andacht
, one of those pious prayer meetings in front of the statues of saints and patrons,
which took place everywhere in Vienna after sunset. They would sing, recite the rosary and litanies, listen to sermons and then round things off by gorging on cold meat and bread, washed down with
wine; after which the couples would go off to engage in encounters of a less spiritual nature.

“When did you see Melani?” Cloridia and I asked in unison, anxious to hear about our benefactor.

“It was eleven years ago, in August 1700. The excellent Abbot welcomed us like a father, showing us incomparable benevolence and magnanimity during our whole stay in Paris. When we told
him our story, he displayed a touching and delicate sensibility that won me over. I have never known anyone who can equal Abbot Melani in nobility of spirit!”

Camilla lavished praise on Atto. Well, she had been lucky, I told myself, to have seen only the Abbot’s nobler sides.

“Melani told us that he had just returned from Rome, where he had attended the marriage of the nephew of the Cardinal Secretary of State. He was supposed to stay until the conclave, but a
bad injury to his arm forced him to return to Paris.”

As we walked on, Cloridia and I looked at each other without a word. We knew that story all too well, having lived through it with Atto – or rather, having endured it as a result of his
shady intrigues. He had been stabbed in the arm, it was true, but that was certainly not why he had fled from Rome! But we let the matter drop. We certainly had no wish to fill Camilla in on the
less honourable aspects of the man who, after deceiving and exploiting us for his own ends, had now become our benefactor.

“The Abbot talked to us of his master Luigi Rossi, Franz’s relative.”

Melani, plucking sprigs of memory from the vast wildernesses of his remembrance, with touching diligence had almost brought back to real life the figure of Seigneur Luigi for Camilla and Franz.
At several points Atto had been on the verge of tears, and only the respect he bore her, a sweet fresh young lady, had restrained him. He had recounted the glory that Luigi Rossi had achieved many
years ago in Rome in the service of the Barberini, and then his success at the court of the King of France; he had told them how his famous cantata for the death of King Gustave of Sweden had won
him the admiration of all Europe, and how his
Orfeo
, in which for the first time the arias lasted longer than the recitatives, had renewed and transformed opera. Luigi Rossi had been a
gentle spirit of fine intellect, an inexhaustible source of fresh poetry and inspired music; he had received more applause in both Rome and Paris than any Italian musician before him.