Lucifer's Shadow

2 Ascension Day

Mark this moment: Ascension Day, Thursday, May the fifth, in the Year of Our Lord Seventeen Hundred and Thirty-three. Lorenzo Scacchi, a tall and handsome lad of nineteen years and seven months, stands on the broad stone apron of San Giorgio Maggiore gazing across St. Mark’s Basin, watching the Doge renew his courtship with the ocean. The water is alive with humanity. Gondolas the colour of night scrap for places near the gold-and-scarlet Bucintoro as it makes its stately course past the Rio del Palazzo, on towards the twin columns of San Marco and San Teodoro and the towering pinnacle of the campanile.

There is a tremor in the air here. The Doge, they say, is sick, mulling over a successor to commend to the Grand Council. The Serene Republic stands balanced between splendour and decay. What man might save the day? What sublime genius might restore the city’s fortunes and send the greasy Turks packing back to the East?

No one knows. But wait! The Bucintoro turns, away from the filigreed façade of the palace, away from the seething waterfront. Slowly, propelled by the forest of glinting, golden oars that prickle from its sides like the legs of some fanciful, jewelled insect, it glides across the Basin, towards the young man standing by the lapping edge of the waves, hands on slim hips, legs apart, face to the water, golden hair ablaze in the sun. The oarsmen heave into it with their backs and race across the channel at full tilt. Then the gorgeous vessel slows respectfully to reach the flat grey island on which the young man waits, and comes to a graceful halt, a vast, majestic token of power above him. Not for an instant does he waver.

“Lorenzo!” cries the Doge in a voice broken with age but still possessed of the majestic authority of his position. “I ask you again, sir. For the love of the Serenissima! For everything our Republic holds dear! Reconsider, I beg you! Lead us out of this darkness and into the light!”

A single cloud crosses the perfect azure sky, and for a moment, none may see the turmoil in the young man’s face. Then it is gone, and his smile, kind yet firm, a wise and noble countenance in one so young, is revealed to all.

“Sure thing, boss,” he responds in a raw, country brogue, and humbly shrugs his shoulders. The joyous cries of thousands rise up from the lagoon like thunder reversing its customary journey, soaring upwards to the heavens in a raucous clamour. A new Doge is found and soon…

There, dear sister. Do I have your attention now? If I have to write these letters like some tuppenny tale hawked around the streets by mendicants and cripples just to keep you reading, then be assured, I’ll do it. It is now six weeks since we left Treviso, orphaned by a vicious fate. Do not make me feel alone in this world. You are my elder by two long, important years. I need your wisdom. I need your love. One letter, and that complaining largely of indigestion, does not provide the sustenance I crave.

Still, before I bore you, let me return to the narrative! Of the above, you may ignore everything save the beginning. It is indeed Ascension Day, and I did stand beneath the great stone monolith of San Giorgio; for how long I have no idea. It requires a better writer than this one to paint today’s picture for you in mere words, so I shan’t even try. Venice is a world of wonders, be assured. Even now I turn mundane corners and find myself in awe when confronted by everyday splendours that beggar the imagination. When the fathers have something to celebrate and decide to push out the boat — oops, sorry about that! — there’s nothing else to do but stand and stare. You came here once with Papa, I believe. I never ventured much further than our little town until after that sad day of the funeral. For a straw-chewing farm lad, this is quite some place.

There are men here I wish you could meet. Picture our Uncle Leo up by the water’s edge now, a skinny fellow, arms crossed, in plain dress, watching that big barge drift slowly in front of the palace. He looks as if he’s seen this spectacle a million times, and nothing might move him again in all creation. But he is a Venetian, a man of the world, who would never have followed our dear father into such a quiet life as farming. Spectacle runs through his blood like an everyday humour. One should expect nothing less. He will, I believe, be a good guardian, and teach me the intricacies of the publisher’s trade so that I may earn an honest living.

By his side is the English gentleman Oliver Delapole, a noble and aristocrat about our uncle’s age, perhaps thirty-five, but of an altogether different background and with a little paunch at his elegantly attired belly. Mr. Delapole is a moneyed fellow in fine, perhaps overly extravagant clothing. He has a rosy, kindly face marred only by what I take to be a duelling scar, which runs beneath his right eye like a scimitar on its side. Yet I see no sign of a bellicose nature. In truth he possesses an engaging grin and a genial manner that makes every man — and woman (come, we are country folk and should not shy from such matters) — retire from his company smiling.

Of all those comments, remember that one concerning money; it is the most important word you will hear anywhere in this lagoon. Mr. Delapole is Capital personified, and for that reason half the city sticks to his coattails whenever he happens to pass, though he takes the attention in his stride. He came to our house last week and left his hat in the parlour. I raced after, clutching it, out into the campo, hoping to catch him before he reached the Grand Canal and found one of those ruffian gondoliers to take him home. When, out of breath and unable to speak, I reached him, he smiled pleasantly and asked, almost beside himself with laughter, “Why are you chasing me, lad? Am I the only man left in Venice with a little cash?”

Ducats open doors — most any door in the city, to be frank — and Mr. Delapole is a generous bestower of them. Word is he distributes the cash so quickly the money-lenders must make up the gap between his benevolence and the arrival of yet more funds from London. This is no complaint, you understand. With luck, the House of Scacchi will bring to the public several works from new writers and composers, and all at Mr. Delapole’s expense. He has already shown some small kindness to Mr. Vivaldi, the famous musical priest at La Pietà, the ramshackle church a little along the waterfront from today’s proceedings. Nor has the local artist Canale (known to all as “Canaletto” to distinguish him from his father, who follows a similar trade) been left out of the party. This is a chap who can apparently sni f the scent of silver from several miles. As I compose this, he sits in front of us all, on a great platform of wood poised above the rest of the party, toiling away on a canvas destined for some rich man’s wall.

Canaletto is an odd fellow, most argumentative and, some wonder, perhaps a fraud too. He uses something called a camera ottica, a device he claims as his own invention. This is hidden from our eyes inside a black fabric tent in which the artist works, dashing outside from time to time to check that the real world is still there. Apparently the device throws an image of the scene through some kind of glass lens onto an interior screen, where it may be traced prior to painting. Out of curiosity I clambered up the sca folding and examined the exterior of the contrivance, getting a sour look and a mouthful of Venetian cussing when he stuck his head out to investigate my clatter.

“If one more smart-ass tells me I’m cheating, I shall, I swear, punch his miserable lights out,” Canaletto hissed at me by way of warning.

Undeterred, I peered at the mechanism through the gap in the fabric created by his hand. It seems most clever. “How can a little science in the aid of art be described as cheating, sir?” I asked honestly. “On that basis, you would surely be accused of trickery if you failed to use the selfsame paints the Romans favoured for their walls?”

That did the trick. At least I received what I took to be as close to a nod of approval as Mr. Canaletto might own.

“What you need next,” I added, “is simply some alchemical canvas which recognises the image itself and moulds its atoms to the relevant pigment. Then you’d have no need of the brush at all!”

I heard a snigger from Mr. Delapole’s manservant, Gobbo, and beat a sensible retreat back down the woodwork! I trust you have found a friend. I have, of sorts. Luigi Gobbo is an ugly chap with, believe it or not, the makings of the hump which his surname would suggest. He joined the Englishman in France some time back, I believe. In all this company, Gobbo is the most down-to-earth of fellows, always ready with a roguish joke and the occasional impious suggestion. The moment he discovered my fate, he took me under his wing, promising to let no Venetian rogue relieve me of my meagre purse. I like the chap, though we are not much similar. Our parents may have spoiled us with our homegrown education. Thinking that Gobbo might have read a little literature, too, I asked him if he was any relation of the famous Lancelot, and whether he had abandoned a notorious Jew for the service of Mr. Delapole, a man assuredly as amiable as Bassanio himself, if rather more wealthy. Gobbo looked at me as if I were witless or, worse, mocking him. English playwrights did not enter into his education. Still, he has my best interests at heart, and I his. There is amity in the city after all.

Now to more weighty matters (which are short, so do not yawn and put down the page, please). It is a week since Manzini last wrote about the estate (and yes, I agree with you, it is wrong that he must deal with me, not you, but that is the law). I hold out no great hopes. Our parents invested heavily in the farm and that precious library we both adored. Had they lived longer, we would all surely have benefited from their generosity. Since the cholera decided otherwise, we must make the best of what we have. So I shall strike a bargain with you, Lucia. Let us be honest with each other in reporting our failings. Let us write truly of those around us. And let us work diligently to make ourselves worthy of the name Scacchi — until some dashing Spanish blade steals yours away, of course!

I love you, Lucia, my darling sister, and I would trade an eternity of this magnificence for one moment together with our dear parents in that ragged little farmhouse back in the wild meadows of our home. That cannot be, so we must look to the future.

Wait! I see the famed Canaletto scowling down from his perch once more. A little line of fat Dutchmen waddling together like a flock of ducks are attempting to possess his eyrie and steal a peek at his precious painting. More fools them…

“Bloody tourists,” the artist barks, and emits a flurry of arcane curses which none beyond Cannaregio may understand. “Off with your ugly snouts and your herring-stink breath!”

“Be bold and wave a florin in his face, sirs,” shouts Mr. Delapole, egging them on. “Any man smells sweet to Canaletto who has coin in his pocket!”

Muttering darkly, our intruders shuffle o f. I suspect our painter friend is somewhat beyond their means.

While Canaletto was waving his fist at them, he left the door to his mysterious tented palace open. I leapt stealthily onto the woodwork myself and saw, with great amazement, how far this canvas had progressed in little more than an hour. This man is no fraud. It will, I think, be a fine painting. One day, when you have settled enough in Seville to earn the time and money to return to visit your native Veneto, I shall, I fancy, take you to see it. We shall measure the way our pains have diminished and our fortunes increased in the months that have passed since the Bucintoro found its way onto Canaletto’s piece of rough canvas. Here is a wondrous talent, to trap a piece of glorious time in amber, for all the ensuing centuries to witness. All I have to offer are these words, but they come freely given and from an adoring heart.