Love in a Bottle (20 page)

In his aforementioned work Konrad Schneyssen offers a rather different account of this episode, but we should bear in mind that, as a Protestant, his purpose is to use every weapon at his disposal to place the Church in a bad light. More recent historians have cast considerable doubt on his conclusions. For example, Aldo Lampruzzi, that outstanding representative of the sceptical spirit prevailing at the end of the last century, questions whether Sant’Agnese was
implicated
in the murder at all. He considers it simply a matter of contemporary gossip, unsupported by any documentary evidence or demonstrable fact. In more recent years, that elegant Neo-Catholic and Royalist French historian François de Kermaniac, in his celebrated
Les Taureaux et les aveugles (The Bulls and the Blind
), puts an entirely new complexion on the whole affair.

He begins by endorsing Lampruzzi’s argument that Sant’Agnese could not have known that the hired
assassins
intended to kill Ottomini. Next, the witty Frenchman
continues, even if he had, he had no means of stopping them, since it is common knowledge that these brigands cared not a fig for those set in authority over them. But—and this is his most interesting contribution—even if we do think the worst and conclude that Sant’Agnese did have him murdered, we still have no right to affect moral outrage and judge his action in terms of our own altruistic, post-humanist, neo-puritanical, hypocritical and effeminate standards. The age in which Sant’Agnese—the blessed, divinely chosen Sant’Agnese—lived was the great heroic age of Europe, that is to say of the Latin part thereof, when great passions brought about equally great works and deeds, faith threw up cathedrals, Catholic solidarity raised armies against heathen and heretic alike, and love, that finest flower of the heroic spirit, swept aside all pettifogging, petty-bourgeois inhibitions (then unknown) and every other obstacle in the way, like a cleansing storm washing away so many squalid little hovels—or in this case, the smarmy little Ottomini, this “purblind, jumped-up buffoon”.

While we would not wish to endorse de Kermaniac’s somewhat one-sided enthusiasm, we too think it beyond doubt that there was a certain heroism, or at least an element of yearning after it, in Sant’Agnese, and that in the insatiable and sometimes almost grotesque forms this yearning took he was a true child of the age. Through the good offices of the Academy of Rome his surviving poems and letters have recently appeared in print. Among them we find plans for an epic poem the intention of which, judging from the tiny fragment in our possession, was to
immortalise the military achievements of his Sant’Agnese forebears, though only a short mythological section was ever completed. In it, his ancestor Bradmart pays a visit to Venus on an Atlantic island. To commemorate the splendid night they have together she presents him with a magic root with the power to dispel even the most painful toothache within minutes.

Among the letters we find one addressed to Zsigmond Báthory, the Prince of Transylvania. In it he writes, among other things: “because you should know, my most illustrious cousin, that since our youth we have nursed no more ardent desire—in these days when Christianity itself is in such danger on its far-eastern boundaries—than to embark on a journey through the Great Wood [he means Transylvania] to wage war on the evil forces of the heathen Crescent, and so seek both atonement for our sins and the reward of the Life Eternal. How happy are you, the people of Transylvania, living so close to that famous theatre of noble warfare, in which you can take part as if on an almost everyday excursion, while we lie separated by so many thousands of miles from that longed-for arena, and our own daily excursions lead us only deeper into that labyrinth, the despised and empty life of the court, where there is nothing but misery and heartache.”

In the same letter he vows that, come the spring, he too, a latter-day Dux Mercurius, will raise an army and dash to the aid of the man who has for so long inspired him to resoluteness of purpose. However, from letters written some time later it appears that previously unforeseen obstacles
have arisen—first the death of a “child very dear to him” (one of Imperia’s), then bouts of almost chronic toothache (it seems the legacy of the magic root of Venus had not survived for later generations) and, above all, the ongoing conflict with his neighbour—all combining to spare him that journey of “many thousands of miles” in quest of military glory.

A long-standing source of annoyance to the Duke was the little fortress of San Felice. Located just a mile or two from Cortemiglia, it represented the domain of his old adversaries, the Dukes of Porta. For years he had tried everything in his power, by purchase or litigation, to acquire it. But the Porta family clung stubbornly to what was theirs, refusing to give way even to papal intervention. Having persuaded himself that by opposing the Holy Father’s will they had fallen into the sin of heresy, Marcantonio decided to destroy them by force of arms. For this purpose he bought three new cannon—so-called ‘battle serpents’—and, to supplement the force already at his command, hired the notorious Mascolo band, who had plagued the borders of the Papal state for years. The bandits, who must have numbered around one hundred and fifty, arrived with a mass of weaponry, sporting huge caps, with their extraordinarily long hair tucked into hairnets. Marcantonio had them all fitted out in olive-green uniforms, and gave Mascolo the title of Commissioner-in-Chief for Cortemiglia. Preparations for the expedition proceeded at an extremely gentle pace. Before turning his mind to this hazardous undertaking, the far-sighted Mascolo saw to the needs of his own family. He
packed his wife and younger children off to Naples, sent his eldest son to university in Bologna, and married off his daughter to one of the Duke’s secretaries—all, naturally, at Marcantonio’s expense. The bandits spent the entire winter in Cortemiglia, and the spirited independence of their behaviour caused much concern to the Duke and the townspeople alike.

Finally spring arrived, and Commissioner-in-Chief Mascolo set off with his army. He succeeded in crossing the river Nurio without hindrance, and his advance party reported back gleefully that they had penetrated into Porta territory and met with no opposition. A few days later, Mascolo’s second-in-command appeared in Cortemiglia, with his regular escort of ten men, to announce the first victory in person. The troops had come across four bandits in enemy pay helping themselves to some poultry in a village. With great skill Mascolo managed to encircle all four and compel them to surrender. His men took over the village and thoroughly looted it. During the course of the night hostile forces, in an attempt to free the
captives
, approached with nearly thirty men to a position near Mascolo’s camp. But the ever-vigilant Mascolo was on his guard, and furthermore his troops had not gone to bed that night as they were celebrating their annexation of the village. Observing this, the enemy took to their heels without so much as drawing their swords.

On receiving news of this success Marcantonio hurried off to Rome to order the suit of ceremonial armour and cloak in which he would soon be triumphantly processing
into the fortress of San Felice; nor did he lose any time in securing the services of his uncle the bishop to celebrate the Te Deum in honour of his victory over the heretics. But when he arrived back in Cortemiglia there was gloomy news. It appeared that on the following day Mascolo’s troops, confident of success, had advanced onto the plain that lay in front of the fortress. But there a surprise awaited them. The main gates immediately swung open and the opposing army appeared, almost two hundred men, in full armour, with trumpets blaring and extremely war-like demeanour. At this point a detachment of Sant’Agnese’s force, disaffected with Mascolo on account of his allegedly unfair distribution of the first day’s booty, immediately crossed over to the other side, while the rest took to their heels, not stopping until they reached their usual bolt holes up in the hills. Mascolo himself—the only casualty of the battle—was run through from behind.

However we consider this episode, it does little to suggest that Marcantonio’s passionate thirst for glory had continued to grow, which in turn serves only to make him a somewhat more sympathetic figure in the eyes of posterity. We must of course bear in mind that, in the final analysis, and in terms of the great intellectual and religious achievements of the age, of its heroism and extreme fervour, Marcantonio’s
contribution
is limited to the level of mere aspiration—rather like his little army at the fortress of San Felice. As far as posterity is concerned, the only thing of importance in the whole of this man’s career may well be the one that to him would have been of the very least consequence: that in the
last years of his life he formed a connection with Galileo, assisted him financially, and at the height of his persecution remained one of his genuinely loyal supporters.

As is apparent from his correspondence, Marcantonio had read Galileo’s
Dialogue Concerning the Two Principal World
Systems
as an early manuscript. In this work the great scientist, following the practice of the time, sets out his defence of the Copernican scheme against the
prevailing
doctrine of Aristotle in literary form. Sant’Agnese would surely have enjoyed the absurdities put in the mouth of one of the speakers in this dialogue, a man called Simplicius—a device that was used by Galileo’s enemies to persuade the Pope that he was the intended target of the mockery. Urban VIII turned his implacable rage on Galileo, despite efforts by his supporters, among them Sant’Agnese and his uncle the bishop, to mediate between them. Galileo’s now well-known fate was not to be averted, and he was forced to recant his teachings in the cell of the Holy Inquisition.

At about this time Sant’Agnese’s mind was much
exercised
by the fundamentally new world order that Copernicus and Giordano Bruno had proposed in opposition to the system sanctified by tradition. Although not especially intelligent, through having the time and the right sort of independent mind he was able to foresee the vast possibilities that lay in their discoveries. His initial response to the new vistas opening up to a person of reason and understanding was one of naïve and almost triumphant glee, and it was only later, after he had become a convert to the new way
of thinking and it was too late to shed his convictions, that he fully understood the danger.

Marcantonio’s letters written in his final period give us a partial glimpse into the spiritual crisis precipitated, almost certainly, as a result of these experiences. On several
occasions
he grieves for the lost happiness of his youth, when he still believed that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the sun went round it, along with the moon and the eternal stars. But now he knew that our world was just one among the countless millions, and indeed, seen in that perspective, by no means the largest or the most important, and might even turn out to be an utterly tenth-rate little star, an anonymous and quite insignificant nonentity in the mind-numbing hierarchy of heavenly bodies. And if that were indeed the case, he asks in one of his letters, with a mixture of awe and alarm, then how could it possibly be that God should have sacrificed his Only Begotten Son to redeem the same little tenth-rate star? But then, as if recoiling from the very thought, he immediately begins writing about some marvellous sauce that his new chef has discovered in the French ambassador’s kitchen.

By this stage in his life Marcantonio was hardly an old man, but his tone in the letters becomes increasingly sombre. You feel there is something constantly preying on his mind. If one had to hazard a guess as to what that might have been, perhaps it would be this troubling thought—that if the Earth does not command pride of place among the stars, then what do our worldly hierarchies amount to? Once you realise that the Earth is not an aristocrat
among celestial bodies, does that not imply that we can no longer truly believe in our own aristocracy? In the age of Bragmart and his illustrious Sant’Agnese forebears it would never have occurred to anyone to doubt the sovereignty of the Earth…

Marcantonio was also plagued by material concerns. He was reduced to pawning some of the family emeralds. His health was not good, and he was tortured by stomach pains. He complained that his heart was sometimes so heavy he felt he was “piling Pelion upon Ossa”. His obesity at this time reached gargantuan proportions. Eating had
increasingly
become his sole source of consolation, and it proved responsible for his death. On 8th September 1622, against the express instructions of his doctor, he finished off a meal consisting of thirty courses, and died the following evening.

Taking all in all, it would be going too far to assert that Marcantonio played a significant role in the history of his time and country. When you consider the powerful resources at his command, it points rather to the painful ineffectiveness evident in his having lived such a profoundly unproductive life, always falling so short of his great ideals. And when we consider the truly wicked things he did—those we know of—and reflect that he probably committed many others of which we know nothing, we may well feel inclined to condemn not only the man but also the age, and the social order, that could place every opportunity for greatness in the hands of such a mediocrity.

And yet we should not rush to condemn him. Let us not forget the palazzo at Cortemiglia, with its noble elegance
and aristocratic melancholy. If Marcantonio Sant’Agnese had accomplished great and famous deeds they would have vanished without trace in the passage of time, just as his moments of wickedness have passed into oblivion or uncertainty. But the palazzo remains, that exquisite object on whose windows a fine-souled Englishman has scored his sense of eternal beauty. And, taking this idea further, we may well have to conclude that it was the man’s very love of pomp, his insatiable thirst for glory, his passion for that woman, and possibly even his wrongdoings and his physical grossness—and a thousand other deeply repulsive attributes that belong not so much to him as to the age he lived in—the nepotism, the anarchy, the hundred different kinds of decadence that was Italy—that made it possible for him to construct such a building. The golden iridescence of beauty is often distilled from the slime on murky water, and that is why we love the great and troubled river that is history.