stepped back, into the road, pleased with his rhetorical flight. “I see I have confused you entirely. Forgive me.”
The Bartons protested. Oh no. They found it all fascinating.
“And the only cure for such confusion—a confusion that is entirely of my own making, I assure you—is thankfully at hand. I am a fulsome tour guide, I’m afraid. It is a weakness of mine. But I hope you will do me the honour of joining me for lunch. My villa is not far—just beyond the next valley.”
He smiled, as if in apology for his effusion.
“The sky is clearing. We shall be able to eat by the pool.”
“Very kind,” said Argue Barton, “but …”
“We couldn’t possibly …” began Grace.
“Nonsense,” said Julian Morrow. “The cool mountain air falls from these hills and, in my experience, it inspires those of us lucky enough to breathe it with a healthy appetite. The noon-hour meal is one of the region’s greatest delights. My cook is much sought after. I’m sure you were planning to stop at some point for luncheon …”
He paused. They did not disagree. In fact, the mention of food reminded them both that the bread and apricot jam served with their coffee at breakfast were slipping into the distant past.
“Very good then,” said Julian Morrow. “I shall not hear otherwise.”
CHAPTER NINE
V IA M ADDALENA 19 is the address at which Oliver Hughson first arrived when he hitchhiked to Pietrabella early in May of 1968. His entire European trip had thus far consisted of less than forty-eight hours in Paris and the better part of three cold, wet days on the southbound shoulders of French highways. He’d been obliged to leave Paris much more abruptly than he’d expected—a change of itinerary that left him without money and uncertain where to go.
Returning to Cathcart had not been an option. His ticket required a stay of no less than three months, no more than twelve. And the only address he had in all of Europe was that of an American he had met during his one and only visit to the Musée du Louvre.
It was a brief conversation. The man’s name was Richard Christian. They met in the Italian Sculpture Gallery. They wereboth slowly circling Michelangelo’s unfinished marble
The Dying Captive
.
Richard Christian was an American sculptor living in Pietrabella for whom my mother occasionally modelled. He had a large moustache and a pronounced Texan drawl. He was working on an ambitious tableau of marble figures at the time, and he’d gone to Paris for the specific purpose of seeing
The Dying Captive
—one of the pieces Michelangelo had intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II.
Michelangelo wanted to quarry the stone for this enormous commission in the quarries closest to the town of Carrara—in part because the marble was of such excellent quality, in part because it was convenient, in part because he was on friendly terms with Marquis Alberigo, the lord of Carrara. But Vasari recounts that while Michelangelo was in Carrara word came to him that the pope “had heard that in the mountains … near Seravezza, in Florentine territory, at the top of the highest mountain, Monte Altissimo, there were marbles of the same beauty and quality as those of Carrara.”
This was exactly the kind of unhelpful change of plans that popes could be relied upon to make. Michelangelo suspected some other agenda was at play—some repayment of a province; some borrowing of an army.
“I’ve been traipsing around Italy,” he wrote in a letter to Florence, “borne all kinds of disgrace, suffered every calamity, lacerated my body with cruel toil, put my own life in danger a thousand times …”
As you see, he was an artist.
Still, Michelangelo had learned from bitter experience that when it came to disagreements with popes, there was only one rule: the popes always won. He left Carrara. He signed the contract for the stone at a meeting in a dim, airless, second-floorroom overlooking the main square of an unappealing
The Bartons protested. Oh no. They found it all fascinating.
“And the only cure for such confusion—a confusion that is entirely of my own making, I assure you—is thankfully at hand. I am a fulsome tour guide, I’m afraid. It is a weakness of mine. But I hope you will do me the honour of joining me for lunch. My villa is not far—just beyond the next valley.”
He smiled, as if in apology for his effusion.
“The sky is clearing. We shall be able to eat by the pool.”
“Very kind,” said Argue Barton, “but …”
“We couldn’t possibly …” began Grace.
“Nonsense,” said Julian Morrow. “The cool mountain air falls from these hills and, in my experience, it inspires those of us lucky enough to breathe it with a healthy appetite. The noon-hour meal is one of the region’s greatest delights. My cook is much sought after. I’m sure you were planning to stop at some point for luncheon …”
He paused. They did not disagree. In fact, the mention of food reminded them both that the bread and apricot jam served with their coffee at breakfast were slipping into the distant past.
“Very good then,” said Julian Morrow. “I shall not hear otherwise.”
CHAPTER NINE
V IA M ADDALENA 19 is the address at which Oliver Hughson first arrived when he hitchhiked to Pietrabella early in May of 1968. His entire European trip had thus far consisted of less than forty-eight hours in Paris and the better part of three cold, wet days on the southbound shoulders of French highways. He’d been obliged to leave Paris much more abruptly than he’d expected—a change of itinerary that left him without money and uncertain where to go.
Returning to Cathcart had not been an option. His ticket required a stay of no less than three months, no more than twelve. And the only address he had in all of Europe was that of an American he had met during his one and only visit to the Musée du Louvre.
It was a brief conversation. The man’s name was Richard Christian. They met in the Italian Sculpture Gallery. They wereboth slowly circling Michelangelo’s unfinished marble
The Dying Captive
.
Richard Christian was an American sculptor living in Pietrabella for whom my mother occasionally modelled. He had a large moustache and a pronounced Texan drawl. He was working on an ambitious tableau of marble figures at the time, and he’d gone to Paris for the specific purpose of seeing
The Dying Captive
—one of the pieces Michelangelo had intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II.
Michelangelo wanted to quarry the stone for this enormous commission in the quarries closest to the town of Carrara—in part because the marble was of such excellent quality, in part because it was convenient, in part because he was on friendly terms with Marquis Alberigo, the lord of Carrara. But Vasari recounts that while Michelangelo was in Carrara word came to him that the pope “had heard that in the mountains … near Seravezza, in Florentine territory, at the top of the highest mountain, Monte Altissimo, there were marbles of the same beauty and quality as those of Carrara.”
This was exactly the kind of unhelpful change of plans that popes could be relied upon to make. Michelangelo suspected some other agenda was at play—some repayment of a province; some borrowing of an army.
“I’ve been traipsing around Italy,” he wrote in a letter to Florence, “borne all kinds of disgrace, suffered every calamity, lacerated my body with cruel toil, put my own life in danger a thousand times …”
As you see, he was an artist.
Still, Michelangelo had learned from bitter experience that when it came to disagreements with popes, there was only one rule: the popes always won. He left Carrara. He signed the contract for the stone at a meeting in a dim, airless, second-floorroom overlooking the main square of an unappealing
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