table, the Marchesa looked up sharply. “What is going on?” she demanded. “What have you found?”
Francesca felt compelled, for some reason she herself could not explain, to diminish the importance of their discovery. “Oh,” she replied to the Marchesa, “it is just a word in the inventory that we didn’t understand.”
“Ah,” said the Marchesa, nodding her head. She puffed on a cigarette and went back to her work. She had three files opened in front of her and shifted papers with her white-gloved hands from one file into another. Occasionally she made a comment. “I found something concerning the building of the palazzo,” she said. “Is that something you are looking for?”
“No, it isn’t,” Francesca replied.
And the Marchesa said, in consternation, “I really don’t understand what it is you are looking for. What is the subject?” Every half hour, it seemed, the Marchesa asked them the same question, and they gave the same answer.
Francesca watched the Marchesa out of the corner of her eye. The old lady picked up a yellowed card, an index of the documents contained in one file, studied it for a moment, and then ripped it in half.
“Interesting, this work of yours,” Francesca said. “May I ask what is it you are doing exactly?”
The Marchesa explained that she was changing the archive from its old chronological system. She was more interested in the people in her family than in a simple chronology. Consequently, she was organizing the documents so that those pertaining to a particular person—Ciriaco, for example—would all be gathered in one place. “After this, it will be much easier to find everything,” she said.
“Ah, I see,” said Francesca.
Francesca and Laura talked in low voices between themselves. Watching the Marchesa at work, Laura whispered, was like watching someone clean house by throwing things out the window—plates and silverware, pots and pans—as if that were completely normal.
They went back to the inventory. Ciriaco Mattei had owned, according to the earliest sources, at least three paintings by Caravaggio, and perhaps more. On the next page, midway down, they saw Caravaggio’s name again, this time for the painting called
La Presa di Giesu Cristo
—
The Taking of Christ
—the painting that had been missing for hundreds of years. Francesca and Laura had both seen photographs of the many copies of the painting, and they’d read articles by Roberto Longhi, who had been obsessed with finding it. The inventory described the picture as having a black frame decorated with gold, and a red drapery with silk cords that had been used to cover it.
They had been in the archive only two hours and they had already found two important entries concerning Caravaggio. They had conclusive proof now that Ciriaco had owned both the
St. John
and
The Taking of Christ.
If they achieved nothing else, they could consider their trip a success. But they hoped to trace both paintings back even further. The Mattei brothers had kept careful account of their expenditures. The German scholar Gerda Panofsky-Soergel had found Asdrubale’s libri dei conti, account books, and had published hundreds of items dealing with the cost of constructing his new palazzo. And yet no one, it seemed, had ever looked through Ciriaco’s account books.
They found three of Ciriaco’s leather-bound account books, each about two hundred pages long, on the same shelf as the inventories. Written on the cover of the first book were the words “Rincontro di Cevole dal 1594 al 1604”—“Account of Expenses from 1594 to 1604.” The second one, similarly labeled, covered the next seven years, up to 1612. The last one contained only two years of expenditures, the last two years of Ciriaco’s life.
They opened the first account book. Every page, front and back, was densely covered with entries in black ink. The writing was small, but the hand was neat and orderly, and it was consistently the same hand
Francesca felt compelled, for some reason she herself could not explain, to diminish the importance of their discovery. “Oh,” she replied to the Marchesa, “it is just a word in the inventory that we didn’t understand.”
“Ah,” said the Marchesa, nodding her head. She puffed on a cigarette and went back to her work. She had three files opened in front of her and shifted papers with her white-gloved hands from one file into another. Occasionally she made a comment. “I found something concerning the building of the palazzo,” she said. “Is that something you are looking for?”
“No, it isn’t,” Francesca replied.
And the Marchesa said, in consternation, “I really don’t understand what it is you are looking for. What is the subject?” Every half hour, it seemed, the Marchesa asked them the same question, and they gave the same answer.
Francesca watched the Marchesa out of the corner of her eye. The old lady picked up a yellowed card, an index of the documents contained in one file, studied it for a moment, and then ripped it in half.
“Interesting, this work of yours,” Francesca said. “May I ask what is it you are doing exactly?”
The Marchesa explained that she was changing the archive from its old chronological system. She was more interested in the people in her family than in a simple chronology. Consequently, she was organizing the documents so that those pertaining to a particular person—Ciriaco, for example—would all be gathered in one place. “After this, it will be much easier to find everything,” she said.
“Ah, I see,” said Francesca.
Francesca and Laura talked in low voices between themselves. Watching the Marchesa at work, Laura whispered, was like watching someone clean house by throwing things out the window—plates and silverware, pots and pans—as if that were completely normal.
They went back to the inventory. Ciriaco Mattei had owned, according to the earliest sources, at least three paintings by Caravaggio, and perhaps more. On the next page, midway down, they saw Caravaggio’s name again, this time for the painting called
La Presa di Giesu Cristo
—
The Taking of Christ
—the painting that had been missing for hundreds of years. Francesca and Laura had both seen photographs of the many copies of the painting, and they’d read articles by Roberto Longhi, who had been obsessed with finding it. The inventory described the picture as having a black frame decorated with gold, and a red drapery with silk cords that had been used to cover it.
They had been in the archive only two hours and they had already found two important entries concerning Caravaggio. They had conclusive proof now that Ciriaco had owned both the
St. John
and
The Taking of Christ.
If they achieved nothing else, they could consider their trip a success. But they hoped to trace both paintings back even further. The Mattei brothers had kept careful account of their expenditures. The German scholar Gerda Panofsky-Soergel had found Asdrubale’s libri dei conti, account books, and had published hundreds of items dealing with the cost of constructing his new palazzo. And yet no one, it seemed, had ever looked through Ciriaco’s account books.
They found three of Ciriaco’s leather-bound account books, each about two hundred pages long, on the same shelf as the inventories. Written on the cover of the first book were the words “Rincontro di Cevole dal 1594 al 1604”—“Account of Expenses from 1594 to 1604.” The second one, similarly labeled, covered the next seven years, up to 1612. The last one contained only two years of expenditures, the last two years of Ciriaco’s life.
They opened the first account book. Every page, front and back, was densely covered with entries in black ink. The writing was small, but the hand was neat and orderly, and it was consistently the same hand
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