Reformation (33 page)

At Valnor’s request
, Hastelloy once again found himself walking the city streets of Florence, Italy.  It had been over a hundred years since their last encounter when Valnor stormed out of the city intent on singlehandedly resolving the degeneration of society.  Judging by what Hastelloy saw of the city, Valnor was well on his way to accomplishing his goal.

The first hint of progress was felt under Hastelloy’s feet.  The streets were once again paved flat and level allowing easy passage.  Another sign was the level of cleanliness around the city. 

During his earlier visit to the city he witnessed filled bedpans being emptied in the middle of the street to sit alongside steaming piles of horse dung that sat ankle deep in some parts.  Today, he observed regular teams of men walking the streets; their only job was to pick up debris and sweep water and excrement into the central sewer system.  The result was a well-kept series of roadways throughout the city.

All these improvements paled in comparison to the city’s new skyline.    
Dwarfing everything else around by at least a hundred feet, stood the Basilica di Santa Maria.  A hundred years earlier the structure stood as a monument to failure.  Back then the half finished skeleton of the church threatened to never be finished as the ambitious designs called for capping the structure with a dome so large that the engineering knowhow to build it did not exist.

Today
, the magnificent church was more commonly known by its nickname – the Duomo.  The towering octagonal dome was made of bright orange bricks with contrasting white capped ridges along the eight corners.  The structure soared three hundred seventy-five feet into the sky and seemed to defy the pull of gravity by refusing to collapse in or push all the walls out under its own immense weight.  Instead it triumphantly stood tall, and was capped with a circular observation level crowned with a gigantic sphere of bronze with a tip directed toward the heavens.

It struck Hastelloy just how different this church was to other great cathedrals still under construction or completed in recent years throughout Europe.  All of them were towering structures that relied on flying buttresses to stand alongside the main walls to support the towering height against the
stresses of weight and wind.  These grand churches to the north also emphasized hundreds, or even thousands, of pointed spires in the Medieval Gothic style.  These were regarded as paying homage to the traditional enemies of Italy, so emulating their architecture would not do.

The architects of the
Duomo chose instead a style that marked a return to the classical beauty of a freestanding Mediterranean dome.  This massive dome measuring one hundred fifty feet across and two hundred feet tall resting atop a set of walls already standing one hundred seventy feet high was an engineering marvel that Hastelloy could not figure out just by examining the exterior.

Hastelloy approached the front doors of the magnificent cathedral and found yet another sight to marvel.  A set of tall doors displayed
twenty eight bright bronze relief panels depicting scenes from the virtues of hope, faith, charity, humility, fortitude, temperance, justice and prudence.  In striking contrast to the golden glow of the panels stood the pitch-black framing of the doors themselves.  The artistry on display was simply breathtaking.

He followed a set of devout monks through the doorway and into the church.  The floor was flawlessly paved with marble in large, circular patterns that radiated out from the center to the walls. Sunlight shone through the seemingly endless array of stained glass windows to bring the interior alive with color. 

Hastelloy continued following the monks down the main aisle until he stood directly beneath the soaring dome itself.  He looked up to see the interior of the dome was in the process of being painted with biblical scenes of the last judgment, all forty thousand square feet of the surface area.

A light tap on his shoulder interrupted Hastelloy’s marveling gaze.  He lowered his line of sight and looked toward the individual vying for his attention to find Valnor’s proud face smiling back at him.  “Can I offer you a tour?”

Hastelloy returned the smile and offered a stiff handshake.  “You may as long as it starts with an inspection of how this dome remains standing.”

“
Right this way,” Valnor instructed and headed toward the left wall supporting the dome.  There, nestled around a corner and obscured from view was a set of narrow steps.  Valnor looked back at Hastelloy’s advancing age of sixty and jokingly asked, “We are about to go up four hundred sixty-three steps; are you sure you are up for it?”

Hastelloy did not know what to expect from his encounter with Valnor.  Would he still be angry with
him?  Was he taking Hastelloy up to the top of the dome simply to push him off?  The joke about his age was a welcome sign that things were back to normal.  “I’ll manage.”

He did, but just barely.  The initial ascent was no joke and took the wind out of his aging lungs.  He envied Valnor for his youthful body that was still in its early thirties.  The path eventually flattened out and came to a walkway that hugged the inside of the dome.

“The ceiling is actually two separate domes which we are walking in between right now,” Valnor narrated.  “To counteract hoop stress forces pushing out, the outer dome relies entirely on its attachment to the inner dome at the base.”

“So what keeps the inner dome from collapsing?” Hastelloy asked between labored breaths as they progressed.  “I just assumed they followed the example in Rome of the dome over the Pantheon building.  There they built a wooden frame inside and poured concrete over the top of it.  Once the concrete harden
ed, they removed the frame to let the dome stand on its own.”

Valnor just laughed softly to himself.  “This dome presented far more challenges to the builders than that.  First off
, it is twice that size and stands much taller than the Pantheon.  There was not enough wood in the entire Tuscan region to build a frame big enough.”

“So how does it still stand
?” Hastelloy inquired as the two made their way between the dome trusses.

“The designer is
brilliant man named Brunelleschi, who I brought over when Constantinople fell.  He came up with an ingenious solution. The spreading problem was solved by a set of four internal horizontal stone and iron chains wrapping around the inner dome to serve as barrel hoops.”

Hastelloy gave a closer inspection of the inner dome wall to see that the stones were interlocking rather than mortared together
, lending incredible strength and stability to the structure.  “Remarkable.  Not only have the engineers in this city reached the levels of knowledge achieved a thousand years ago in Rome, they have surpassed it to marvelous effect.”

Valnor stopped and looked back at Hastelloy with wide eyes and a flat smile that said it all, but he verbalized the thought anyway.  “I know.  My plan worked.”

All Hastelloy could do was smile and nod; his subordinate was correct, or at least partially so.  He let Valnor’s arrogant declaration go unchallenged and simply motioned forward for them to proceed.

The four hundred
sixty-third step landed them on a circular open air observation deck at the very top of the three hundred seventy foot tall dome, yielding a panoramic view of Florence. 
It was a clear day, and everything could be seen from the Arno River to the surrounding foothills. 

Down below
, hundreds of artists lined the river shores working on their canvases.  All around the city construction scaffoldings encircled a dozen projects of varying scope and artistry.

“It’s a Renaissance,” Hastelloy conceded.
“A resurgence in the arts and pursuit of knowledge for these people.  It’s all happening because of you.  You were right.”

Valnor noticeably straightened his posture at the p
raise heaped upon him, but then he inclined his head toward Hastelloy.  “In Florence, yes, but the movement is radiating throughout Europe thanks to the wealth and unifying influence the church provides.  And let’s not forget that this all can progress now without Goron interfering since the last Alpha relic on this planet has been extinguished. 

Valnor offered a congratulatory handshake.  “It was a team effort, Sir.”

“Requiring great effort and sacrifice from all of us,” Hastelloy added with an introspective frown across his face as he took Valnor’s outstretched hand.

“All is well that ends well I suppose,” Dr. Holmes found himself saying at the conclusion of Hastelloy’s story.

“How so?” the patient ask
ed while looking rather confused.

Where to begin Jeffrey thought. 
“For starters, the Renaissance.  Valnor got the ball rolling in Florence and then the Catholic Church that you helped propel into prominence took over and turned it into a bona fide movement.”

“The question in my mind is how could one city have such an impact?”  Mark interrupted.  He was the man with the gun in the room
, so the conversation followed his lead.  “All those thinkers and artists were together in Constantinople.  Maybe the revival of mankind’s appetite to learn and explore would have happened anyway, with or without you and your crew’s meddling.”

Hastelloy greeted the loaded question with a
disarming grin.  “It was not one city.  It was one single family that brought about the Renaissance.  My cover at that time was as a member of the Medici family.  We were able to bring Florence under that family’s power, and unlike Constantinople, we opened the city gates to the world rather than locking them tight.”

“The biggest accomplishment of the Medici’s was the sponsorship of art and architecture
,” Hastelloy went on.  “Owing to the trade routes Gallono and I, along with Marco Polo, set up, the wealth of the Medici family was vast.  This was significant because, contrary to popular belief, those artists, teachers and philosophers did not do it out of some noble dedication to a cause.  They did it for money.” 

“During that time artists only made their great works once they received a commission in advance.  Name any of the great artisans of that era: Masaccio, Brunellesc
hi, Donatello, Fra Angelico, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Leonardo da Vinci.  All of the greats can be traced back to a member of the Medici family funding their early works.”

Hastelloy slid forward in his seat and looked straight at Mark to drive home his po
int.  “The Medici family’s notoriety grew beyond the city and into the Catholic Church; some even ascended the ranks to become Pope.  The Medici Popes continued the family tradition of patronizing artists in Rome.  Pope Leo X employed Raphael; Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint the altar walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

“Bravo then,” Mark blurted out and accompanied his outburst with a soft, patronizing applause.  “You encouraged the Medici family to pay the bills for a bunch of artists who made some silly swirls of paint across a canvas
or ceiling.  That certainly aided the advancement of science and technology.”

“Have you ever heard the term Renaissance Man,” Hastelloy countered
without pause.  “During that era, a man was not considered complete unless he was a master of many disciplines.  Those great men were not just painters or sculptors. They were inventors; they were physicians, and they were astronomers.”

“He’s correct,” Dr. Holmes jumped in, sensing the already tense situation growing even
more taut.  “Michelangelo was a brilliant sculptor and painter, but he also exhumed bodies and dissected them in order to learn how the human body worked.”

Mark threw his arms up into the air in resignation. 
“Fine.  You lit the pilot light of mankind’s return to learning.  Gallono wiped out the Alpha’s Mars colony.  You killed all of the Alpha/relic/stone reincarnations out in China, and to top it all off, Tomal managed to successfully end Goron’s existence.  It should be smooth sailing for you right up to this moment.”

“Yes, that is how things should have turned out,” Hastelloy confirmed.

“Should have,” Dr. Holmes repeated.  “Why didn’t they; what went wrong?”

“An unforeseen human weakness,” Hastelloy answered and looked truly pained with the utterance of each word.

“You mean Tomal’s arrogance and ambition,” Jeffrey suggested.

Hastelloy looked off to the side as he considered his next statement for several silent seconds.  Finally he nodded his head slightly.  “That was certainly part of the problem.  The fact that he delivered the death blow to Goron tore down any mental walls Tomal erected inside his mind to contain his more basic instincts.”

“Tell me, how familiar are you with the latter parts of Martin Luther’s life?” Hastelloy asked.

“Not at all,” Jeffrey answered, and a shake of the head from Mark conveyed his lack of familiarity as well.

Hastelloy drew a heavy breath and let it out slowly.  “Where to begin?  Martin Luther was the most widely read and published author of his or any generation up until just the last few decades.  His notoriety was so pronounced that he was revered as an actual prophet in Germany.  Even for the most humble among us, that sort of fame can change a person.  For Tomal, it’s not that hard to picture fame and fortune taking over his behavior now is it?”

“That was not all though.  A
nother, even more devastating, poison went to his head.  A mental sickness that comes with age sometimes,” Hastelloy regretfully uttered into his chest.

“Senility?
” Dr. Holmes offered.

“Alzheimer’s is the modern term for the mental disease that afflicted Tomal
, as Martin Luther, in his later years,” Hastelloy confirmed.  “In the last ten years of his life, Tomal turned decidedly anti-Semitic.  In his writings and sermons Martin Luther advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayer books, and
forbidding rabbis from preaching.”

A skeptical look from Jeffrey prompted Hastelloy to support his assertion further.  “
His final written work was titled
On the Jews and Their Lies
; you can look it up if you like.  It was filled with his most fiery and venomous ideas.  In it he insisted the Jews were the devil’s people.  He sponsored the
seizure of the Jewish property and money.  He encouraged people to smash their homes so that the ‘poisonous worms’ would be forced into labor or expelled for all time.”

“That
certainly is rancid rhetoric,” Jeffrey said.  “Why did he single out the Jewish people with his misguided hatred?”

“Because of me,” Hastelloy
emphatically answered.  “In his sick mind he thought they were my people.  He went after them to try and hurt me.”

“That makes some twisted sense I suppose,” Dr. Holmes pondered.  “You helped them escape the bondage of slavery
back in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land along with Mosa.

“
It was just the words of an ailing mind,” Mark interrupted.

“No,” Hastelloy bellowed in an uncharacteristic display of anger.  “
In the lead up to World War II, his writing served as the bedrock foundation of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.  Just about every anti-Jewish book printed in the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from the deranged writings of Luther in his waning years.”

“Alzheimer’s is an intolerably cruel disease.  I see it every day in dozens of my patients.  The mind just slowly disconnects
from reality and replaces it with anger, paranoia and confusion.  It’s just...sad.”

“Yes it is,” Hastelloy agreed.  “No such
disease affects Novi physiology; this was new ground for all of us.”

“The disease of the mind died with that body, right?” Dr. Holmes asked hopefully.

“It did,” Hastelloy confirmed, “but in many ways it did not.  Those angry, paranoid and confused feelings hung over his mind from that point on like a phantom haunting the place of its murder.  Those dark thoughts and impulses were always there, lying just beneath the surface harassing his thoughts and actions.  As you said, it is just a sad state of affairs.”