Naples, the last days of spring, 15:35
I returned to the old town and headed towards Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, passing by the Baroque spire and along the San Domenico Maggiore alley, past the Palazzo Sansevero and the chapel of the same name. It was about four in the afternoon, the heat was intense and there were few tourists around, so Michele de Sangro stood out in the middle of the deserted street.
“Do you want to go inside the chapel?” he asked me.
“No thanks. I might pass out in front of the Veiled Christ.”
“Why? You’ve seen it thousands of times – are you still suffering from Stendhal’s Syndrome?”
“No – it’s my father in law’s fault.”
“Why, what did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything, but the amount of food that he made me eat would have floored a horse.”
Michele laughed and we set off towards his house. He lived in the building next door to the family chapel, which housed the Real Monte Manso di Scala, a college for the education of young noblemen founded in the seventeenth century by Giovan Battista Manso, Marquis of Villa, a nobleman from Amalfi. Michele had explained that according to his research, before the Manso family began renting the building in the mid seventeenth century to house the College of Nobles, one of the wings of the palace belonged to the de Sangro family. Moreover, the chapel of the College is located right above the Sansevero Chapel, according to Michele – right in the wing that belonged to de Sangro, where the famous and brutal murder of the lovers Fabrizio Carafa and Maria d’Avalos – killed by la d’Avalos’s husband, the madrigal composer Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa – took place.
“I don’t understand why you insist on staying here among all these ghosts when you have an apartment in Palazzo Sansevero,” I said, as we went through the door together.
“There are ghosts there too, but above all there are too many masons,” he replied with a wink.
I smiled and shook my head.
We entered his luxurious apartment and immediately received a warm welcome from little Raimondo, his son. He ran to his father and threw his arms round his neck.
“Here’s my little heir!” exclaimed Michele, embracing him affectionately. “Five years old and he already speaks two languages perfectly – this little boy is a phenomenon. Where’s mummy, Ray?”
The boy dashed towards the interior of the house dragging his father by the hand. “Come on, daddy, come on! She’s getting ready for a walk!”
“No, wait, Ray! I’ve got things to do with my friend. Tell mummy I’ll be in my private library, ok?”
“Ok! Hello, daddy’s friend,” said Raimondo, dashing away.
“He speaks very good English – it’s handy having an English wife,” I said, following Michele through rooms and rooms full of antique furniture – some even bought at the Églantine – and priceless objets d’art.
“Especially when travelling,” said Michele, “With her around, I can go more or less anywhere without making too much of an effort. But you can only go to Greece.”
“Very funny. I’ll have you know that I speak English.”
“Come on, are you really going to compare your English to that of a native speaker?”
We entered the library I had seen so many times before and I gave vent to my curiosity with a question that had been buzzing in my head for a few hours. “How come you never told me that you have the Prince of Sansevero’s books, even those from the Apartment of the Phoenix?”
“You never asked,” was his ironic answer, to which, at the sight of my unamused expression, he added, “and also because they came to me… secretly.”
“Secretly?”
Michele didn’t answer but walked over to one of his huge bookcases.
“Come here, you’re going to like this.”
His fingers ran over some of the volumes lined up on one of the shelves and stopped when he reached a small, yellow tome. Then he looked back at me and smiled. “I’ve never really liked Kremmerz, but I like the title of this book written by one of his disciples, and that’s why I decided to use it as a key.”
I read the title – The Mystery of the Arcana Arcanorum – but didn’t understand.
Michele shook his head. “You’re losing your edge, Lorenzo Aragona.” He pulled the top part of the book towards him and a portion of the bookcase spun round, like a door. Michele smiled in amusement at the surprise on my face, and went inside. When we were both in the secret passage, he re-positioned the bookcase and turned on the light.
Before my eyes, something absolutely extraordinary appeared. The rectangular room in which I found myself was like a Wunderkammer, one of those places that sixteenth and seventeenth century collectors and intellectuals loved to create in their rich residences to gather together all sorts of bizarre objects. The first museums. Michele led the way through his personal ‘museum of curios’, and we passed anatomical machines similar to those found in the Sansevero Chapel, exotic stuffed animals, statuettes of pagan gods with monstrous features, ancient manuscripts, alchemical instruments and other artefacts worthy of a wizard. I paused in particular to examine a creepy, crowned skull, adorned with real wings complete with feathers, resting on a velvet cushion.
Michele joined me. “Remind you of anything?”
“Of course – the two skulls at the side entrance of the Sansevero Chapel.”
“He did that.”
“The Prince?”
“In person. For fun, I guess.” Michele gestured with his arm as though presenting his collection and added, “Welcome to the Apartment of the Phoenix.”
My gaze went from one object to another, and it seemed that the curious artefacts multiplied endlessly in front of my eyes until finally I spotted the most interesting part of the hall. The library.
“When Don Raimondo died in 1771, his parents had already planned to dispose of his scandalous collection,” said Michele, as we headed towards it. “Fortunately, the prince had been foresightful. According to his biographer Origlia, in a letter which is in my possession, for several nights before Raimondo died there was a coming and going of people carrying boxes from Palazzo Sansevero to an unknown destination. It was Raimondo’s friends and brethren, whom he had asked to empty the Apartment of the Phoenix to temporarily secure the precious books and artefacts it contained.”
I smiled. “See? Freemasons can be helpful. You shouldn’t be so hard on them.”
Michele raised an eyebrow. “Unfortunately modern masons are but a shadow of those.”
“You’re right, I'm afraid,” I sighed, “but there is still the odd good one around.”
“That’s why you’re here. Very few people know about this place, but what you have shown me deserves attention and it seems fair to allow you to enter. Also because I know that you are serious.”
“I’m honoured. I promise you that if I were able to regain possession of the correspondence between de Sangro and Saint-Germain, I would hand it over to you. The Apartment of the Phoenix would be a marvellous place to keep it.”
“That would be an incredible gift for me, and I thank you for the thought. But let’s get to work.”
We had reached the great library that occupied the entire back wall of the Apartment, opposite the secret door through which we had entered.
“Everything that was removed from the Apartment of the Phoenix was hidden in a walled in Greek cistern between the Sansevero Chapel and the bell tower of Pietrasanta, which was artfully concealed.”
“And how did you find it?”
“I didn’t, it was a member of my family. In 1943, he was looking for an underground shelter for the people of the neighbourhood to take cover in from the shelling and he happened upon the cistern. He didn’t tell a soul about it and at the end of the war he recovered everything. But the organisation of the books is my doing. Don Raimondo gave a copy of the register of the library to the secretary of his Masonic lodge, the De Sangro, which made it easy to trace the location of the volumes. The man had foresight and made two copies, one was kept in the State Archives and the other was kept for more than two hundred years in the Bank of Naples. I came into possession of the register and identified the books contained in the Apartment, all marked with the initials PH, identical to the one you found. That way I was able to recreate the position of the volumes exactly as the prince had planned.”
I approached the texts with almost sacred respect. There were books of biblical exegesis, of Kabbalah and of alchemy, writings considered dangerous or inconvenient at the time in which the prince lived. There were authors such as Pierre Bayle, Anthony Collins, John Toland. There was even a version of the Telliamed by Benoit de Maillet, purged of the additions that the abbot Jean Baptiste de Mascrier had added to reconcile the ‘blasphemous’ scientific book with Christian dogma. All the texts dating back to the mid-eighteenth century were original editions and had belonged to Raimondo de Sangro.
Priceless.
“Unbelievable,” I commented, completely absorbed.
“Yeah,” said Michele, “but let’s get down to business. According to the location you found on that chart, the book indicated by III, II, 3 is… this one!”
Michele pulled out the third book from the left on the second shelf of the third bookcase. A volume entitled Peregrino Neapolitano.
“Never heard of it,” I said, shaking my head.
Michele smiled. “Of course not – it was never published. Look who wrote it.”
I read the author’s name. “Esercitato… the name that Raimondo de Sangro gave himself when he was admitted to the Accademia della Crusca.”
“There are many texts in this library that have never been disclosed. Raimondo printed them in his own printing shops for himself or for a few close friends. There is more than one book in here that would have made any inquisitor extremely happy.”
The book resembled a tour guide of Naples for the use of intellectuals visiting our city. It also quoted Carlo Celano’s famous Notizie del Bello dell’Antico e del Curioso della Città di Napoli, a seventeenth century work describing the sights and monuments of Naples.
“I imagine that de Sangro must have loaned the same volume to Saint-Germain if it is mentioned in their correspondence,” replied Michele.
“The book isn’t explicitly mentioned and its location wasn’t obvious on the chart, but was hidden in the way I showed you,” I pointed out. “I agree with you, though. Saint-Germain must have known what the prince was referring to. If I managed to discover the trick of how to read the position, it must have been a breeze for him. Assuming that the message was for him and not for some hypothetical future scholar.”
Michele thought for a moment. “So the prince refers to this book in the correspondence, but without being able to consult it we are fumbling about in the dark. You have a lock, but you don’t have a key.”
“Then in that case, I need a lock pick.”