The Secret Supper (28 page)

Suddenly Luini remembered.

“And Matthew, the disciple at Leonardo’s elbow, is none other than Marsilio Ficino. Of course!” Luini raised his voice. “Ficino entrusted John’s texts to Leonardo before we left Florence. That’s the key!”

Elena stared at him, uncomprehending.

“What key?”

“Now I understand. The Cathars initiated novices by placing a secret Gospel of John on their heads. They thought that by doing this, they would transmit by contact the spiritual essence of the work straight to the heart and mind of the candidate. That book of John’s contained great revelations about Christ’s mission on Earth and showed the path we should take to secure a place in Heaven. Leonardo…” Luini paused to take a deep breath. “For that text, Leonardo has substituted a painting that contains all the fundamental symbols. That is why he’s sent us here to initiate you, Elena! Because he believes that his painting will invest you with John’s mystical secret!”

“And can you initiate me without knowing exactly what the Master has inscribed here?”

Elena sounded incredulous.

“Since we have no more clues, we must. In the olden days, the novices never even opened the lost book of John. Many certainly didn’t even know how to read. Why then would this mural not perform the same service for us? Furthermore, look at Christ. He’s at a height that will allow you to stand beneath Him and receive the mystical imposition from His own hands, one palm protecting your head and the other invoking Heaven above.”

The little countess lifted her eyes toward the Alpha. Luini was right. The supper scene was set at a sufficient height to allow someone of normal proportions to stand beneath the tablecloth’s rim. It was a perfect place to position oneself to receive the spirit of the work, and yet Elena’s pragmatic mind sought a more rational explanation. Leonardo was a practical man, not much inclined to mystical lucubration.

“I think I know how we might read the message of the Cenacolo—”

Elena broke off. A sudden intuition had revealed itself to her, shortly after standing under the protection of the Alpha.

“Do you remember the attributes that the Master had you memorize for when the time came to portray one of the Twelve?”

Luini nodded without understanding. The memory of the day when the little countess had snatched the paper away from him was still vivid in his mind. He blushed.

“Can you then tell me what virtue was attributed to Judas Thaddeus?” she asked.

“Thaddeus?”

“Yes, Thaddeus,” insisted Elena, while Luini sought for the answer in his memory.

“Occultation. He who conceals.”

“Exactly.” She smiled. “An O, don’t you see? There we have our Omega again. And that certainly can’t be by chance.”

38

“By all that’s holy!”

Bernardino Luini’s joy resounded within the four walls of the refectory.

“It can’t be that easy!”

Delighted with Elena’s discovery, Luini began to analyze the arrangement of the Apostles. He stepped back to enjoy a full view and discovered that a few steps from the northern wall was the best place to see them all, from Bartholomew to John and from Thomas to Simon. They were grouped in threes, all with their faces turned toward their master, except the beloved disciples John, Matthew and Thaddeus, all of whom either had their eyes closed or were looking elsewhere.

Luini tore a piece off one of the cartoons that Leonardo had left scattered about the floor and, on the back, with a piece of charcoal, began sketching out the figures. Marco and Elena were following his every move while, up above, the Soothsayer was becoming uneasy at not hearing them make a sound.

“I know now how to read the message of the Cenacolo,” he finally announced. “All this time we’ve had in front of our eyes and we haven’t been capable of seeing it.”

Beginning with the left end of the mural, Luini reminded them that Bartholomew was Mirabilis, “He Who Is Miraculous.” Leonardo had portrayed him with curly red hair, according to what Jacobus de Voragine had written in The Golden Legend: that he was Syrian and of a fiery nature, as befits men with red hair. Luini wrote M on the piece of paper, beneath the outline. Then he did the same with James the Less, Venustus, or “Full of Grace,” the apostle often confused with Christ and who, because of his inspired deeds, received that particular epithet. A letter V was added to the list. Now came Andrew, Temperator, “He Who Prevents,” portrayed with his hands spread in front of him, as is called for by his attribute, who soon became reduced to a simple T.

“Do you follow?”

The three young people smiled. It all was beginning to make sense. “M-V-T” seemed like the beginning of a Latin word, since U was written V in Latin. But the enthusiasm faded upon discovering that the next group of apostles gave rise to an unpronounceable syllable. Judas Iscariot was Nefandus, “The Abominable One” who betrayed Christ. His position, however, was somewhat ambiguous. Even though Judas was the fourth head from the left, Saint Peter’s peculiar position, with his dagger held behind the traitor’s back, might lead to an error in the counting. In any case, Luini pointed out, the N might still be the correct letter, since Simon Peter was the only one among the Twelve who three times denied Christ, and therefore one could imagine an N for Negatio, even though it did not appear in Leonardo’s list.

Elena protested. The most logical procedure was to be guided by the order of the heads and by the attributes that Leonardo had taught them. And nothing else.

Following that order then, the apostle who came next was indeed Peter. Leaning toward the center of the scene, he had been given the epithet Exosus, “He Who Hates,” as reflected in the white-haired man with the threatening look, about to carry out his revenge with a fierce-looking dagger. Then John, asleep, his head inclined and his hands folded like the ladies in Leonardo’s portraits, did honor to his M for Mysticus, “He Who Knows the Mystery.” “N-E-M” was therefore the disconcerting result of those three.

“Jesus, as we know, is the A,” said Elena, as they reached the middle of the painting. “Let’s proceed.”

Thomas with his lifted finger, as if indicating who among those present would be the first to receive the privilege of eternal life, was inscribed on Luini’s paper as L for Litator, “He Who Placates the Gods.” His attribute led to a brief discussion. According to the Gospel of John, Thomas inserted a finger in Christ’s wound to see whether He had indeed risen from the dead. And he also fell on his knees crying, “My Lord and my God!” tempering Christ’s possible anger at not having been immediately acknowledged.

“Also,” Luini insisted for the sake of his theory, “this is the only portrait in which the corresponding letter is copied in the profile.”

“You forget Jesus’ Alpha,” pointed out the little countess.

“Except that here the letter is not in the body of Thomas but in that finger pointing toward Heaven. See? The finger, together with the thumb, clearly has the shape of a capital letter L.”

His two companions agreed. Next, they scrutinized the figure of James the Elder but were incapable of finding any feature that might reproduce the corresponding O of his attribute, Oboediens.

“And yet,” said Luini, “whoever has studied the apostle’s life will conclude that Oboediens, ‘He Who Obeys,’ fits him perfectly.”

Indeed. Jacobus de Voragine wrote that James the Elder was John’s blood brother and that “both wished to occupy in the Kingdom of Heaven the positions closest to the Lord, one seated to His right and the other to His left.” Leonardo, therefore, had recreated in his Cenacolo a heavenly table, set in the realm of perfection inhabited by pure souls. In that realm, John and James occupied the places Christ had promised them.

Finally came Philip, the Sapiens among the Twelve, or “He Who Loves High Matters,” the only one pointing at himself, to the only place where we must seek salvation. With Philip, Luini composed a third mysterious syllable: “L-O-S.”

The remaining group of apostles was disentangled with equal swiftness. Matthew, the disciple whose name, according to de Voragine, meant “He Who Is Diligent,” promised a speedy end. Luini smiled, remembering that Leonardo had nicknamed him Navus because of his promptitude. His secret letter plus the Omega of Thaddeus formed a legible syllable, “N-O,” to which Luini added the C of Simon’s Confector, “He Who Fulfills,” resulting in “N-O-C.” The ensemble consisted now of four groups of three letters each, with always a vowel in the middle and an enormous A presiding over the scene. It read like a strange and forgotten magical formula.

MUT NEM A LOS NOC Bartholomew Mirabilis He Who Is Miraculous James the Less Venustus He Who Is Full of Grace Andrew Temperator He Who Prevents Judas Iscariot Nefandus The Abominable One Peter Exosus He Who Hates John Mysticus He Who Knows the Mystery Thomas Litator He Who Placates the Gods James the Elder Oboediens He Who Obeys Philip Sapiens He Who Loves High Matters Matthew Navus He Who Is Diligent Judas Thaddeus Occultator He Who Conceals Simon Confector He Who Fulfills

“And now what?” asked Elena. “Does that mean anything to you?”

The two men read over the line once again without finding any meaning to it: just a series of monosyllables that resembled an ancient litany of some sort. But they were not surprised. It was typical of the Master to invent one riddle that led to another riddle. Leonardo amused himself making up this sort of entertainment.

“Mut, Nem, A, Los, Noc…”

Not far above their heads, the Soothsayer pronounced the formula out loud. He muttered the syllables a number of times and finally, euphoric, he left his hiding place. “What a clever little trick!” he said to himself.

And smiling with satisfaction, he began to think about how to deliver his discovery into the hands of Rome.

39

A few days later, in Rome, Annio de Viterbo was urging on his coachman.

“We must hurry. The clocks will soon strike twelve.”

Alexander VI’s foremost advisor never left his palazzo on the west bank of the Tiber without his coach and his faithful secretary, Fabio Ponte. It was one of the many privileges that the Weasel had been granted by His Holiness Alexander VI. So much pomp, however, clouded his judgment and made him incapable of remembering that young Fabio, besides being cultured and refined, was also the nephew of Father Torriani. Nor did he realize that it was through Fabio that Bethany would be informed about the activities of one of the most deceitful and treacherous characters in history.

“Twelve!” he repeated. “Are you listening? Twelve o’clock!”

“You have nothing to be concerned about,” Fabio answered politely. “We’ll be there on time. Your coachman is very fast.”

He had never seen the Weasel so nervous. Haste was uncommon in someone of his nature. Since he had settled in the vicinity of the Borgia dwellings by express command of His Holiness, Annio moved through Rome as if the city were his, not owing explanations to anybody. His hours of arrival and departure obeyed no protocol whatsoever; his every move was deemed appropriate. Rumor had it that he owed these advantages to the Pope’s desire to embellish his ancient, noble and divine family history with stories that would justify such grandeur. And it was true that Annio had known how to tell them like no other. He had managed to concoct fabulous tales about Alexander: that he was the descendant of the god Osiris who had visited Italy in the dawn of time to teach its inhabitants to plow the land, make beer and trim the trees. He always supported his fabulations with classical texts, and he often would quote long passages of Diodorus Siculus to justify his strange obsession with the mythology of the pharaohs.

Neither Bethany nor the Holy Office was able to stop such fantasies. The Pope adored the charlatan and shared with him a visceral hatred of the splendor of the cultured courts of Florence and Milan, in whose libraries the Weasel saw a serious threat to his fabrications. He knew that Marsilio Ficino’s translations of the texts attributed to the great Egyptian god Hermes Trismegistus, also known as Toth, God of Wisdom, undermined most of his stories. These texts made no mention of Osiris’s visit to Italy, nor did they link the Apennines to the Alps, nor did they mention the city of Osiricella, near Treviso, as the stopping place for the god.

Until now, Fabio had thought that Ficino’s memory was capable of upsetting Father Annio. But he had obviously been mistaken.

“Have you seen the decorations in the apartments of His Holiness?”

Fabio shook his head. He was concentrating on the tapping of the horses’ hoofs on the cobblestones, wondering what the reason was for the Weasel’s great hurry.

“I’ll show you,” he said with enthusiasm. “Today, Fabio, you’ll meet the Master responsible for them.”

“Indeed?”

“Have I ever lied to you? If you’d seen the paintings I’m talking about, you’d understand how important they are. They depict the god Apis, the sacred ox of the Egyptians, as the prophetic icon of the times we live in. Haven’t you noticed that on the papal coat of arms there’s also an ox?”

“You mean a bull.”

“What’s the difference? What matters is the symbol, my dear Fabio! Next to Apis you’ll see the goddess Isis. She’s as solemn as the Catholic Queen of Spain, and she appears seated on a celestial throne with an open book on her lap, teaching Hermes and Moses law and science. Can you imagine?”

Fabio closed his eyes, as if concentrating on his master’s words.

“What these frescoes are saying, dear Fabio, is that Moses received all his wisdom from Egypt, and through him, we Christians have inherited it all. Do you now understand the genius of this art? Do you grasp the sublime lesson that I’m telling you? Our faith, my dear Fabio, proceeds from there, from faraway Egypt. The same as our Holy Father’s family. Even the Gospels say that there is where Jesus fled to escape from Herod. Do you realize it? Everything has its source in the Nile!”

“Even the man you’re going to see, Master?”

“No, not him. But he knows much about that land. He’s obtained many things for me from that paradise of knowledge.”

Annio fell silent. To speak of the Egyptian roots of Christianity stirred in him contradictory feelings. On the one hand, it comforted him to know that day after day there were more wise men who, like Leonardo in Milan, knew the secret and imagined works such as the Maestà, depicting a plausible encounter between John and Jesus during their flight to the land of the pharaohs. On the other, an imprudent spreading of these truths might endanger the moral stability of the Church and condemn it to lose some of its precious privileges. How would the common folk react when they discovered that Christ was not the only man-god who returned from among the dead? Would they not ask uncomfortable questions when aware of the enormous parallels between His life and that of Osiris? Would they not question the Pope with uncomfortable accusations, branding the Church Fathers as mere copyists of a sacred story that did not belong to them in the first place?