Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

prologue, chapter 1

On the evening of January 12, 1698, two hours before the Avemaria, the piazza of the Palazzo Reale in Palermo filled itself with an immense crowd, swaying, varied, which crowded behind the rows of the Spanish infantry, deployed between the two bastions built by Cardinal Trivulzio and the monument of King Philip V. Perpendently to the line of the soldiers, and with their backs to the military district of the Spaniards, were ordered three squadrons of cavalry, foreign people gathered, which, by tradition, was called the Burgundians.

In a sufficient space left clear in front of the monument, stood a wooden stage richly covered with crimson and green velvet, and closed on top by a fake balustrade of silver wood, with chiaroscuro.

The long loggia from the iron railing, current, as an external hanging corridor, in front of the large windows of the Royal Palace, was covered with tapestries; and tapestries hung on the wall, between one opening and the other, with beautiful effect. All the windows were open although the rigid season did not involve it and in the vanity of each of them spotted a tall lampstand, with its torches, set for the luminary; but the one in the middle, over the great marble eagle stretching its wings over the arch of the great gate, was covered with a large purple velvet canopy, adorned with long golden fringes and in the field the weapons of the king of Spain and, underneath, those of his Excellence Don Pedro Colon de Portugal de le Cueva Enriquez, great Almirante and Adelantado major of the Indies, by inheritance right, as descendant of Christopher Columbus, Duke of Veraguas and de la Vega, Marquis of Xamaica, Count of Gelves and Villamico, Marquis of Villanova of Ariscal, lord of Torrequemada, Alamedano, and Alamedilla, and, finally, Vicerè and general of the kingdom of Sicily for his maes. Under the canopy had been placed two high high chairs, thrones, and other chairs and stools were lined up along the loggia, which, of course, were waiting to be occupied.

Of boxes, like the one raised in front of the monument of Philip IV, two more were built in the city; one in front of the palace of the Praetor, leaning on the magnificent fountain; the other in the piazza della Marina, in front of the ancient Steri dei nobili e magnifici Chiaramonte, in which the Sant'Offizio had nested; but around these other stages there was almost no one, at least for now, because all Palermo was curious and festive had poured into the piazza of the Royal Palace, where the show was more solemn, because it attended the Viceroy with the Viceroy and the nobility.

Actually, it wasn't a show, it was an official ceremony.

On 20 September of the year before, when the dispute between France and Spain was settled, peace was formally and lastingly closed in the castle of Rijsvijk in the Netherlands. The publication of that peace, communicated by the Madrid Court, took place precisely on the evening of January, certainly not with great esteem. And it was with the forms desired by the ceremonial, that is, by the ministry of the noble Mr. Vincenzo Perino, banditor of the illustrious Palermo Senate, of the court of the Royal Heritage and of the Holy Office, in the usual places, regis personantibus tubis i.e. to the sound of the royal trumpets. And about the twenty-two and a half hours of Italy, it was understood in fact a sound of trumpets, pipes and timbals, down from the Càssaro, which turned the heads and tidald the multitude. And then the loggia of the Royal Palace was filled with lords, and his Excellency and the Viceroy, with the majesty of the rank, took place under the canopy. As the sound approached, the crowd that crowded the square opened to let free the step on the bandit's ride, because in that fall of the Spanish monarchy, the famous pumps and prerogatives had multiplied, and the auctioneer, not content with the simple don, pressed himself, before his name in the "certifice" of the executed ban, the epithet of "noble."

Perhaps he was right; if the idea of nobility in the social sense is associated with a legacy from father to son, the Perinos were noble. The city's auctioneer's office was a privilege of their family since the 15th century, and it remained constant and hereditary for about four centuries. So the pump with which they practiced their office had gone away increasing.

The noble Mr. Vincenzo Perino was preceded by the musicians of the city, on horseback; the pipers first, then the timbals and drums, at the last trumpets. The timbals were a kind of Moorish drums; each player carried two, one for part of the archion, and played them alternately or in unison. After the trumpets came the connestabili of the city with a stick in his hand, the dealer with the red survivor and the palermitan eagle on his chest and back, then the bishop with the banner of the city, half crimson, with gold tassels and the crowned golden eagle; finally he rode with a ban rolled in his hand, grave and solemn.

The ride crossed the floor of the Palace and reached the stage; Mr. Vincenzo Perino disassembled, climbed on the stage, took off his hat, made the three reverences of use to the Viceroy, and, covered his head, carried out the paper on which the ban was printed. Then the trumpets rang; all the eyes turned, and the silence shut all the mouths, and the words ran upon the multitude, marked emphatically, proclaiming peace and calling for the blessing of Heaven.

Truly, only the nearest could hear those words; up to the Viceroy to the nobility did not come but a buzz, and to the distant ones did not even reach that; they saw only the gesture by which the auctioneer accompanied the reading, but did not matter; the crowd had gathered to see the apparatus, the soldiers, the nobility; as for peace they did not care. Those wars had taken place so far! And that peace diminished its leaps, increasing the quantity of wheat needed to have bread of good weight and at little price.

Meanwhile, the trumpets rang three times, the soldiers shot blanks, the Burgundians lifted up the swords; then Don Vincenzo Perino, descended from the stage, came back on horseback and with his procession crossed again the floor of the Palace, to go and repeat the reading from the other two stages. The crowd kept behind him. The Viceroy and the Viceroy returned; most of the lords also returned, someone lingered on the loggia to see the square; the footmen returned to the neighborhood, the Burgundians came out of the New Gate and for the suburban road they went to their barracks, at the Norman castle of Cuba; in the square there were groups scattered here and there, waiting for the passage of the magnificent golden choirs of the nobility that came back from the ceremony.

It was sunset.

It was one of those sunsets in a clear and bright sky, as can be seen only in Palermo. Behind Mount Cuccio sharp and arid, the sky seemed golden, but on top it became pink and on the opposite side the roseo died in a sweet purple tint. The pyramidal tip of Porta Nuova seemed of gold, of gold the four towers of the Cathedral and the bell towers; in the air and light there was as a faint reflection of that gold. Some ladies came out of the Royal Palace on horseback and had the beautiful beast galloped oddly; others less lovers of chivalrous exercises, preferred to be carried in a porterina, with a cocoon of servants and slaves, but the ladies preferred the carriage to the porterina. Bodies as large as one room, painted with flowers, rabes, putti, emblems, with rich gilded, closed by curtains of fine silk, surmounted by five plumes similar to five biocolors of clouds torn in the sky, pulled by four or six horses of one colour, by long tails, curled manes and decorated with ribbons; with finishes of leather and silver and rich plumes of fine feathers. On the serpent, covered by a kind of velvet ravine with the shield of the family of gold or silver glazed, towered the coachman in a livery that would make blush with shame the very rich uniforms of the Napoleonic generals; and at the doors and behind the carriage a mat of lacchè, of staffieri, of flyers.

The parade of such carriages was for himself a show of luxury and magnificence that enticed and attracted the crowd of curious who, unable to possess them, consoled to see those of others, with a certain feeling of pride in the city.

Among the last to return to the grand hall of the palace, where his Excellency served refreshments, he was a young knight of fine and delicate appearance, but, perhaps, too serious. His name was Don Raimondo Albamonte. He was not yet thirty years old; he was tall, slender, nervous; his face pale, but as invaded by a dark cloud, which could have felt sadness, if a certain sudden flashing of the eyes had not led to think of the corruption of distant lightnings in a cloudy sky. The thin lips were drawn just and the mouth seemed rather a long wound not yet healed: two light and brown mustaches stretched out a small shadow, but the hands and feet seemed to be those of a girl: her hands white, small, thin, sharp, with pink nails, elissoid, confused and almost disappeared between the fine laces of the two hose. He seemed to hold us; in fact he had a soft and graceful gesture to put his hand on display, raising it to deviate from the forehead the curls of the wig, which French fashion was spreading.

With all this he had nothing feminine. Perhaps, by examining the angle of the jaw and the curve of the mouth, a soul - searching eye could have surprised you with a certain cold and selfish hardness; perhaps even something feline, that is, patience and ferocity: but for most people he was a pretty young man who was a little disliked.

He was the cadet brother of the Duke of Motta and boasted among his majors that William Albamonte, who had been among the thirteen Italian champions of Barletta, and that together with Francesco Salomone had been among those who had assured the Italian victory but the pride could boast more the duke his brother than he, Don Raimondo. In fact, the Duke, colonel of a regiment, after a short residence in Palermo, was divided for about eight months for the war, while Don Raimondo, who could well have bought at least one company and formed a state, had preferred his studies and had obtained a doctoral degree in Catania, the only university in Sicily, then, awarded his degree in law.

Did he have any ambition? He was so closed, so impenetrable that no one had ever been able to surprise in him any aspiration, but certainly he had in his ways and in his word something imperious, a kind of dominating gesture, greater than his condition of cadet. But he didn't seem to want to go into the judiciary.

Nobile, brother of an officer of his Majesty who had fought in those wars of which the end was celebrated that day, had been invited by his Excellency the Viceroy, to enjoy the spectacle of the ceremony from the Royal Palace and had remained in a song of the long loggia with the elbow leaning on the railing and the wandering eyes on that sea of heads, waving in the vast square, perhaps without perceiving anything.

In the morning, a friend from Naples with a tartan had brought him a news that had stirred him like a rock that, suddenly falling into the limpid bottom of a well, disturbs the clarity of the water causing the bell to assimilate. Perhaps there, in front of the vast square, at the sight of those soldiers, the news had again troubled him; therefore he had remained in his place, silent, when all had returned, nor had he realized that he was only if a valet approached him with a tray to offer him jams.

He returned and approached the Duke of Veraguas, keeping his cold and serious attitude, and mixed himself with the group of lords who at that time spoke with his Excellency of the effects of that peace, in which some politicians already saw the future succession prepared for the kingdom of Spain. The Viceroy noticed the knight Albamonte and nodded him of benevolence and as Fr. Raimondo was before him, he addressed the word.

"What about Mrs. Duchess?"

"Your Excellency knows it's already near."

"I know, and the Viceroy was eager to send for news this morning."

"My sister-in-law is very grateful for the honor her Excellency has given her... I let her It seemed to be arranged, so it seemed prudent to warn Mrs. Anna, the mom."

"The Duke must be pleased to have entrusted the Duchess to your care."

"Do you believe your Excellency?"

"Sure!..."

"It is to him, Your Excellency, that this morning I received very bad news and I was almost asking for the grace to tell me if your Excellency has received letters in this regard..."

"What purpose?"

"On behalf of my brother, the Duke of Motta."

"Nobody. The last courier did not make any word of your brother; what news have you received, and from whom?"

"Da! cavaliere fra Marcello de Oxorio, who came from Naples this morning with a tartan, who had known in Rome, as a person of the embassy of his majesty Charles II, God look, that the duke my brother may have died."

"Oh, that's not possible!"

"Believe, Your Excellency, that I have been all day in a deep agitation..."

"I don't blame you, but I don't believe the news. That must be a mistake. Do you think that being a quality character, like the Duke of Motta, they wouldn't have told me such misfortune if it really had happened?"

"That's true, but..."

"Eh, no, before anyone else, I should know."

Don Raimondo seemed to be reassured: in fact those reasons were quite convincing and the news, as it had been given, without any particular, could be, indeed it had all the air of an invention. However, something, like a doubt, remained at the bottom of his brain.

"What if it's true? If the ambassador of Spain waits for the departure of the courier of Rome to send the official news?".

It was evident that Brother Marcello de Oxorio, a knight of Malta, and in connection with Spanish society and the high clergy of Rome, had drawn the news, however imperfect, to a sure source: and of Dukes of Motta, colonels of his Catholic Majesty, there was certainly not a dozen. He had not received news of his brother for about three months, long enough, that he had held and held in distress the Duchess woman Aloisia and since the actions of war had already ended for more than four months, one could not understand why the duke had not sent his news and had not notified his next return.

"What if my brother was really dead?"

Truly, doubt, no matter how tormenting, did not seem to touch in him the cords of fraternal tenderness. A slight eyebrow corrugare revealed hardly a persistent thought, but in the remnant his face was impenetrable.

After a moment Don Raimondo took leave and left.

In the anteroom he found one of the valets of the house Albamonte, who had come then in search of him.

"Well?" I strongly ask him as soon as he saw it.

"Excellency, he's in pain, and I ran..."

"He's fine. Go down and call my chair."

While Don Raimondo had a heavy cloak on his shoulders, the valet quickly descended the stairs, so that when the knight arrived at the foot of the stairs, he found the carrier ready with the door open, he would stab him with the torches on, the carriers with the straps around his neck.

"Soon home!" he ordered.

The Duchess therefore had the pains of childbirth; a creature was about to come to light, perhaps a male, an heir. If his brother was really dead, that's who would've kept it going. The Duke is dead, the Duke is alive! - as is the Court of France! That pregnancy had proceeded in solitude and silence. Duke Don Emanuele had come the year before in March, to spend a few months with his wife who had to leave after two months of marriage to go to war, and had not seen her for over six months. He had stopped in Palermo until the month of May; in early June it was divided, but Aloisia woman carried the fruit of that fleeting honeymoon into the fertile breast.

In that open parenthesis, like a rosy sweet oasis, among the roughnesses of the life of the field, he had thrown the gem of the new branch into the Albamonte family tree. And behold, the branch was now cramped and opened in a new leaf to the sun. "Would it have been a girl?" This idea made Don Raimondo's eyes shine suddenly.

The palace of the Duke of Motta was located in the street of S. Agostino, near the square of the convent of Mercedes; it was an ancient building surmounted by a tower, then known as "torre di Montalbano," which was perhaps one of the ancient western towers of the city, incorporated with the extension of the walls in a noble house. Of the palace and the tower, remembered in the old topography, there is no vestige left, but in 1698, although the heavy balconies with wrought iron railings and massive shelves, and the large door overloaded with stucco plasters had defaced its character, kept its imposing mass and ruled among the other houses of the district.

The journey from the Royal Palace to the "tower of Montalbano" was therefore not long; it was enough to cross the floor of the Cathedral, go down the road of S. Agata alla Guilla and pull straight beyond the church of S. Cosmo, along the road of Porta Carini, up to the corner of the road of S. Agostino. Two strong porters, such as the knight Albamonte, could travel it in twelve or fifteen minutes.

Don Raimondo found the palace in that sort of hasty mess that the birth of a new creature throws into everyone's soul. There was in the going and coming of servants, in the silence, in the whispering, in the gestures, that expectation of an event that seems to absorb in itself every energy of the spirit, so much this fact, so common and so wonderful, impious of itself the human soul and that perpetual renewal of forms surprises with the deep mystery of the infinite. Don Raimondo crossed the anteroom and some rooms with a suspended soul, daring not to question anyone, hoping to pick up some word or a revealing sign. He stopped in a room and couldn't go any further, because the door he was supposed to go through was locked. Two candles were burning above a double bed and spreading a mild light that died in the corners and in the high ceiling, where a few gildings shone, like a star. It was a kind of study, or at least it could appear for such, in the grace of a large desk and a large shelf full of books; since truly Don Emanuele Albamonte was not a man of studies, and literary works, among those books tied in leather or parchment he had only two poems, the most common and most read in those times: Jerusalem and Adonis but there was the treatise of the Joust of Don Vincenzo Auria, as more suited to the inclinations of Don Emanuele.

A cry, damped by closed doors, collected Don Raimondo; a strange sensation crossed his hair and felt a damper on his forehead. He heard shortly after a door opened and a step crossed the closed room; then he saw the door opened before which he had stopped, and a waitress came out, and when a man saw them, he did not recognize him immediately, he threw a little cry of fear.

"Well?" I ask Don Raimondo.

"Ah! is it your Excellency? It scared me..."

"What are we?" said Knight Albamonte impatiently.

"Not yet," answered the waitress, and crossed the hall and fled hasty.

The voices and noises passed through the doorway: between the room and the studio there was a room, nevertheless the silence of the night seemed to abolish that distance. Don Raimondo heard another cry more distressing, longer, almost strangled; then the voice of woman Aloisia moaning desperately:

"Grieving Virgin!... Help me, you."

And immediately the voice of the mother (shepherd) reciting with monotonous cadence the prayer, with which the midwives at that time helped with faith the birth:

"Holy Free creature in the bed.

Holy Nicola creature out.

Santa Leonarda a slow and galliant pain.

Mother Sant'Anna a good pain and a good child."

And then an exhortation: "Strength and courage, Your Excellency."

A moment of silence happened, which seemed to Don Raimondo for a century. The waitress's back.

"Where are you going?"

"To play the Hail Mary of Grace."

"So it is difficult to give birth?"

"I don't know..."

The waitress returned to the room of the pregnant woman and again the serious silence full of expectation enveloped the palace. Shortly after the big bell of the nearby convent of Mercedes sounded nine faint touches: it was the Hail Mary of grace, that is, an invitation to all the faithful to pray fervently to the Virgin to facilitate a delivery judged difficult and dangerous; pious custom, in which the superstition was clothed with a sweet poem of fraternal charity in sorrows, and on the unborn accumulating at the same moment the prayer and the wish of a hundred unknown and lost hearts in the breadth of the city.

Don Raimondo shuddered. Who could predict what would happen? Here's another moan to suddenly rip the silence.

"Strength and courage, Excellency: Mother Saint Anne, help her!... San Francesco di Paola..."

Two, three screams between angry and distressing, who had nothing human anymore, followed each other in a short interval; then nothing more. Don Raimondo was sweating, with his hands resting on his desk, his ear stretched out, his whole soul lifted up and gathered in his ear. The doors were opened again: the waitress went out with a tearful face: Don Raimondo asked her with a feverish anxiety:

"Well?"

"A boy, Excellency, as beautiful as the sun!"

And he went away: and almost at the same time, from the ajar exits came to the ear of the knight Albamonte a little wandering, greeting to life, entering into the world of the newcomer, the revealing cry with which that small envelope of flesh without conscience, said: Another man was born! Don Raimondo did not answer, he did not congratulate; only one thought crossed his mind: the new duke of Motta was born; although the news gave him from Fr. Marcello de Oxorio was true, Don Emanuele continued in that heir. Don Raimondo still remained, and always, a simple cadet without luck, a number, a subject, before that small being, whose cradle was surmounted by the ducal crown.

Always?

Maybe.

Did not the ancients say that the future was on Jupiter's knees?