“Roma, Roma, Roma,
Non é piú com’ era prima.”
POPE PIUS, second of the name, slept with his predecessors―a motley crowd, whose shadowy forms haunt the imagination, some of them hideous as nightmares, like his whose horrible wickedness has doomed him, says the legend, to haunt the subterranean passages of the Eternal City restless until the day of judgment, “with the head of an ass and the feet of a bear;” others, less loathsome but more terrific, like Gregory VII., like Innocent III., who “caused their terror in the land of the living,” and whose specter hands still seem to grasp the keys with a regía air, as though vindicating their right to “lie in glory” amongst the kings and rulers of the earth.
Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini was neither a Sixtus IV. nor a Julius II., yet he stands out in somewhat interesting individuality from the long and wearisome line of tiaraed shadows. We can afford to remember that he was a scholar and a gentleman; and, still higher praise, that he laid aside, in his old age, every meaner ambition in the endeavor to unite all Christendom against the common foe of all, the conquering Turk. Better far Pius II. than Alexander VI.; but better far than Pius II. any faithful servant, however humble and obscure, of that Divine Master whose earthly vicegerents wretches that would have disgraced the throne of the vilest Eastern despot blasphemously dared to call themselves.
No doubt Pius II. was sincerely mourned in Rome, and by few more sincerely than by the Humanists of the Academy. Nor was it likely that the memory of his good deeds towards them would be “interred with his bones,” when a successor of the type and temper of Paul II. had to be contrasted with him.
A selfish, narrow-minded bigot was now to occupy the Papal throne. It may seem incongruous to us moderns, who usually picture to ourselves the Ecclesiastical tyrants of the Middle Ages as lean, cadaverous monks, worn with fasting and self-torture, that one of Paul’s first acts was to increase the splendors and gaieties of the Roman Carnival. But there was really no incongruity. The language of the bigot to the populace has often closely resembled that of the Epicurean to himself― “Eat and drink, for tomorrow you die―only be sure you leave me to take care of what happens to you afterward.” One stern prohibition always looms in the background of song and jest and festival, “Whatever you do, be sure you do not dare to think. That is the crime for which there is no pardon.”
Rome has always been wise enough in her generation to recognize the danger of an open volume of Paul’s Epistles; but not always have her pontiffs been sufficiently astute to discern the same peril lurking between the leaves of Homer, Virgil, and Plato. But if Paul II. really did so, he proved his penetration; for it was quite true that the fructifying germs of independent thought―so fatal to his system―were being wafted silently and secretly from soul to soul, from old dead, Greeks and Romans to young, living, passionate Italians, in whom the modern world was finding its beginning.
It was now the season of the Carnival. “The Master” had been absent for a considerable time in Venice, but his return was now shortly expected, and Raymond hoped that his mother might be induced to come to Rome under his escort, and that of the friends sure to accompany him from the City of the Sea. Perhaps, however, the young Academicians enjoyed the festival all the more freely without him, since he would have insisted upon their taking their pleasure precisely as did the old Romans, or not at all. After a forenoon of fun and frolic, Raymond and some of his chosen intimates visited a cook shop on the Corso. Divesting themselves for the time of masks and dominoes, they chatted gaily over their plates of brown and golden fritters, and their cups of red wine. It was soon decided that they should stay where they were and see the races; and Raymond and his chief friend, a young nobleman named Campano, discovered that both were to spend the evening at a banquet given by Cardinal Bessarion. The tolerant Greek had long ago forgiven Raymond’s boyish petulance, and regarded him with kindly interest as a fellow-countryman and a promising scholar.
“Call for me, my dearest Glaucus,” said Campano, “and we will go gaily together.”
Nearly all these young dreamers discarded their baptismal names, and called each other by fanciful classical appellations. Campano’s was Callimachus Experian’s, Raymond’s was Glaucus.
“Gladly, my Callimachus. But, I pray you, let your servant attend us; for Manuel, though the best fellow in the world, is no philosopher, and when his blood is warmed with the Cardinal’s good wine, he is sure to favor the scullions and serving-men with some of his schismatical nonsense.”
“I hear the incomparable Platina is not to be of our party.”
“Has another engagement. Hark―listen to that fool of a friar”
The young men paused in their talk, and listened to what was going on at another table.
A sturdy, barefooted friar, robed in dirty gray, was leaning forward on his elbow in the eagerness of his conversation with a companion similarly clad. A dish heaped with savory venison steaks was before them, and stronger wine than the temperate Academicians cared to drink sparkled in their cups.
“So I took the bones, having paid down the price,” the friar was saying. “My heart misgave me as I counted out the good broad scudi; but I have turned the money over more than once since then―all for the good of our honorable house, of course. Thanks to all the holy saints, and especially to St. Cosmo, the second joint of whose little finger―Ché, ché, my brother, what would you have? The good saint is popular. Everyone does not go to sea, make journeys, gaze at the stars, but everyone gets sick sometimes, or thinks he does. St. Cosmo sends in no doctor’s bills to poor men, heavy as St. Christopher’s burden, and long as―”
“Long as a fool’s tongue. Hush!” said the other friar, with a warning glance directed towards a very different pair, who were seated at a third table, farther off from the Academicians. A gold-headed cane, and an ample and handsome robe, trimmed with costly fur, proclaimed one of these a physician, and a prosperous one. After the habit of physicians, he sat with head bent down “smelling his cane,” its golden head being in fact a box filled with costly spices, reputed preventives against infection. Opposite to him, and full in view both of friars and scholars, sat a tall, grave-looking man, with gray hair, ample forehead, and eyes whose far-away expression contrasted strangely with the hard, firm lines of a well-cut mouth and chin. His garb, though decent, was that of the lower class; and Raymond looked at him with interest “A poor scholar, doubtless,” he thought. But while he looked the face changed suddenly; the calm brow contracted, the pale cheek glowed, the lips unclosed and curled, and the dreamy expression passed from the eyes as they turned upon the friar a look of infinite scorn and indignation. Some caprice of memory recalled to Raymond the amazement he felt one day at seeing Giacomo, the meekest of men, blaze out into sudden passion with a boy who was tormenting a dog. And thus he lost a good part of the friar’s story, to which his companions were listening with ill-suppressed merriment.
“What are you all laughing at, miocaro?” he asked his friend Campano.
“How they took him in at a rival house, drugged his wine well for him, and sent him off in the morning with a relic box filled with stones and rubbish, and no blessed bone of St. Cosmo to conjure with anymore. Per Bacco! diamond cut diamond then, and no mistake. Just listen.”
“Worst of all,” the friar was saying, “at my next station, away there in the marches beyond Velletri, there comes to me a grand lady, a marchesa, from the castle hard by. She leaves her page and serving-woman without, and asks to speak with me alone. Then she begins to weep―and never in my life could I bear a woman’s tears, were she but a contadina―not to speak of fair ladies here. Her only son lies shivering with the marsh fever, one touch of the blessed St. Cosmo’s finger would heal him, she was convinced of it, for she had had a dream about it; and she would give the Saint a double handful of gold pieces—her diamond ring—anything I chose to ask. Here was a strait for an unworthy son of St. Francis! Only to think of losing all that for our honorable house! Surely the blessed Saint himself inspired me. Signora,’ said I, after only so long a pause as you might say an Ave Maria in― ‘signora, this matter is important; I too have had a dream about it. It is revealed to me that no good can be done until the Saint, whom your noble son hath hitherto neglected to honor, is propitiated by a night of fasting and prayer. Therefore go, my daughter, watch and pray; I too will do the same, and ere the sun has risen tomorrow I will stand at the bedside of the young man with the blessed Bone in my hand!’ She departed, content and hopeful. My brother,” continued the friar impressively― “my brother, that night the Saint wrought a miracle. At daybreak, when I opened my reliquary, the bone was there. Behold it now!”
“Glory be to all the holy Saints!” the other friar ejaculated, while the Academicians stifled their laughter. One of them, whom his companions called Agathocles, whispered, pulling out a piece of gold, “offer him this to tell me privately how he did it; whether he robbed the churchyard, or bribed some ass of a contadino to let him take up his patron’s trade for once, and perform a surgical operation upon him.”
Calm and clear above all rose the quiet voice of the gray-haired stranger. “He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, ‘Is there not a lie in my right hand?’”
Everyone turned to him at once with looks of amazement, but no one spoke. Indeed there was scarcely time. Half a minute afterward the landlord ran in excitedly, “Signori, signori, you are losing the sport; the races are beginning.”
The friars ran to the street, the knight of St. Cosmo hastily putting up his relics; but the physician and his companion kept their seats, apparently unmoved. Meanwhile the landlord beckoned the Academicians apart; they were excellent customers, worthy of especial favor. “Come to the balcony, signorini,” he said.
They did so, and saw a gleam of gold, a blaze of scarlet, and a glitter of flashing weapons, as the Pontifical horsemen, splendidly equipped, galloped down the crowded Corso, clearing, a way for the runners.
The runners—who were they? Of old the youth of Rome, fleet of foot and strong of sinew, would have held it fair sport to measure their prowess and activity; while from window and balcony the bright eyes of mothers, sisters, lovers, would have watched them and cheered them on. But oh, degenerate days degenerate sons of sires who ruled the world! Now Roman men and women, Roman boys and maidens, thronged the Corso, shouting, yelling, laughing, jeering, every face alight with the fiendish joy of witnessing or inflicting agony. Yet, after all, were they so degenerate? With such eyes had their fathers gazed on the arena while gladiator stabbed gladiator to the heart, or lion from the Lybian desert tore unresisting Christians limb from limb.
Along the narrow path, kept clear with difficulty, shambled and staggered a file of weary old men, whose gray hairs should have won them reverence, or at least compassion. Half clad, with ropes round their necks, a mark for the taunts and insults of the populace, who pelted them with mud and even with stones, they struggled on. No thought of a prize to be won animated their flagging powers; if any gleam of hope kindled those frightened, despairing faces, it was only the hope of reaching, somehow, the Church of San Marco, the goal of their race of agony; ―and then being done with it all, and lying down to die. “‘Tis a shame!” said Agostino Campano, averting his handsome boyish face.
“The Holy Father does not think so; he thoroughly enjoys the sport,” said someone else, pointing to a balcony almost opposite, decorated with costly tapestry upon which were wrought the arms of the Holy See. “I can see him laughing heartily.”
“Ecco, what would you have?” asked the landlord. “They are Jews. It was his Holiness himself who thought of forcing them to run these races, along with the buffaloes and the asses, for the amusement of the Roman people.”
While they spoke one of the runners stumbled, fell, and lay on the Corso apparently dead. Perhaps it was the effect of the afternoon sun, or of the rich food and strong vine with which, in cruel kindness, these unfortunates were always plied; more probably it was the shame and ignominy that broke the old man’s heart. There was a confusion of voices. “Let him alone” cried some of the crowd. “Drag him away!” cried others, “he stops the path.”
Then those in the balcony saw the crowd divide, making swift way for one who passed through with an air of authority. It was the physician they had noticed below. Under the eyes of all Rome―Pope, cardinals, princes, ladies in the windows and balconies, people thronging the Corso―he advanced with rapid stride, and tenderly raising the poor old Jew, took him in his arms, covering him with his costly cloak.
There were cries and murmurs, which he did not seem to hear until one voice arose above the rest, “Let him be, Signor Doctor, he is only a Jew.”
Then the physician raised a calla, pale face, and with a glance around him half contemptuous, hall defiant, said distinctly, “He is my brother.”
Raymond smothered an exclamation of surprise, and turned quickly into the house.
“Are you going to help him?” asked Campano, stopping him. “If so, I am with you. There may be bloodshed. The ‘Plebs’ is a surly beast, and likes to worry the Jewish dogs.”
“That Jewish physician is my oldest friend,” said Raymond.
“Corpo di Bacco! this grows exciting. Come, all of you―old Romana, Humanists, friends of liberty. Come and help our Glaucus!”
That however was not necessary. The populace only scoffed and growled a little, then all eyes were turned to the other runners, and the incident seemed forgotten.
In the meantime the scholar-like stranger had contrived to procure a litter, upon which the still insensible form of the poor Jew was laid, and the ragged bearers were induced by the promise of a large bribe to bring him to the Via Fiumara, in the quarter now called the Ghetto. The Jews were not yet confined by the law, within the narrow precincts of that miserable suburb, but it had been from time immemorial a dwelling of their race, though some Christians lived there, and many Jews inhabited the Trastevere, a district on the other bank of the Tiber.
“Whither away, Glaucus?” cried his friends, who during this interval had descended to the shop, as Raymond, coming in from the street, slipped on his domino.
“I see my friend the doctor is going with his patient; so I must go too, if only to find out where he lodges.”
“Wait a moment. We are making up a purse for your friend’s poor relation. Here, my Agathocles!”
The lads were freehanded; and Callimachus, or Campano, who had set the collection on foot, soon gave Raymond his own purse, heavy enough to place the poor old Jew above want for the rest of his life.
Little thought Raymond, as he took the purse gaily, laughing his thanks, how that frank pleasant face would haunt his memory, that joyous voice ring in his ears his whole life long. He made his way alter the litter down the crowded Corso, giving and taking many a good-humored jest as he went, for it was the mad and merry time of the Carnival, and no man cared what he did in the streets of Rome.
“Theodore! Theodore!― Dr. Theodore Benedetto!” he cried breathless, placing his hand at last upon his friend’s shoulder.
The greetings that followed were all that could be expected between such friends after such a separation. Theodore had no difficulty in recognizing Raymond, with whom the change from boy to man had been only a harmonious development. The Grecian palm had but grown after its kind from a graceful sapling into a stately tree. With Theodore the change was far greater; scarcely a trace of youth remained in the grave, melancholy face, the face of a man who had struggled and Buffered, and perhaps despaired. After greetings came questions and answers, brokers, disjointed, fragmentary, as such are wont to be when, friends meet suddenly after a long absence.
Theodore had taken out his degree some years ago; that indeed Raymond knew already, as a few letters, though very rare and occasional, had passed between them; but he was prospering so well at Montpellier as a teacher of medicine and philosophy that his friends dissuaded him from returning to Venice. He had come to Rome upon this occasion solely “to visit his brethren.”
“And who is” Raymond pointed, with a familiar Italian gesture, to Theodore’s companion, walking in front of the litter with a Jewish boy, a grandson of the sick man, who had appeared upon the scene mysteriously, and was now showing them the way to his house.
“My servant.”
Raymond looked surprised. “He has the air of a scholar,” he said.
“He is a scholar, and a good one. But he is poor, and he wished to come to Rome; so I offered to take him with me.”
“A Jew?”
“A Christian―the best I have ever seen. Where do you live, Count Raymond?”
“Say ‘thou,’ my Theodore, I pray thee.” And thenceforth, as of old, the personal pronoun that marks intimacy was always used in their musical Italian.
Raymond gave the address of the Master’s house on the Esquiline, which he still occupied, though the Master had long been absent, as his adopted son and the guardian of his books and MSS. He mentioned with regret his engagement that evening at the Cardinal’s banquet. “It would be disrespectful to absent myself,” he said.
“True,” returned Theodore, “scholars should not do these things.”
Raymond laughed. “Not little scholars,” he said; “great scholars like the Master may be as unmannerly as they Alease, and it makes them greater. But I need only show myself, and make my bow to his Eminence. I shall then slip away, and thou and I will have a royal night together. Come to me. I am now in sole charge of the Master’s house, with Manuel, and a servant whom he left me, a stupid contadino. Bring your man; Manuel shall take good care of him.”
They had now passed by the stately ruins of the theater of Marcellus, and entered the Piazza del Pianto―the “place of weeping,” most appropriately so called. The little cortége was about to turn into a narrow filthy street, crowded to suffocation, and reeking with all sorts of offensive odors.
“Do not come farther,” said Theodore sadly, for he was ashamed of the dwelling places of his brethren, “I must now attend to my patient.”
“As you will,” Raymond answered. “Here is some medicine as likely to promote his cure as any you can prescribe,” and he put the purse, with a brief explanation, into Theodore’s hand.
The shadow deepened on his face as he took it. “I have no doubt of my patient’s gratitude,” he said. “At least here the Jew is learning well his lesson―to take the Christian’s insults with meekness, his favors with humble gratitude. Now farewell. We meet, tonight.”