123 CHAPTER 6: the WIDENING CIRCLE INTERROGATOR: Do
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123 CHAPTER 6: THE WIDENING CIRCLE INTERROGATOR: Do you know whether there was anything else in the said armoir? THEODORE AMEYDEN: Inside the said bookcase, besides the writings, were also kept the prohibited books; and especially I saw a Machiavelli in octavo, as wide as it was tall, which was a very beautiful book; I do not know what other prohibited books were inside, because the Father Abbot kept the said bookcase locked. (Morandi Trial, fol. 261, August 18, 1630). One thing should by now be clear: the library of Santa Prassede was no ordinary library. Here works of general culture and religion shared space with notorious prohibited classics. And here readers of all sorts rubbed shoulders in a common pursuit of knowledge——even of the most secret type. Among the most assiduous borrowers was Theodore Ameyden, a prominent Flemish-born lawyer with ties to the Spanish crown. In a given month of the year 1627, he came no less than five times, so the library log attests——faithfully returning the borrowed volume later in almost every case (indicated by "x"). He was also among the more adventurous readers at the monastery. Besides a book of decorative and instructive emblems illustrating the papacy of Gregory XIII, he borrowed the licentious "Drama of Hysmine and Hysminias" by the Byzantine novelist Eustathius Macrembolites, supposed to have lived in the twelfth century. We can only guess what sorts of recent Roman experiences such reading might 124 have gone to inspire or embellish. Certainly, as a secular person, Ameyden's freedom to indulge whatever appetites the brilliant aristocratic culture of the city might offer was limited only by his own imagination and good taste. And in the "Drama" he would have enjoyed the story of how Hysminias, the minion of Eros, daily stoked the passion of Hysmine, the herald of Zeus, by flirtatious blandishments and walks through a garden of delights decorated with suggestive paintings. And Hysmine, his attentions ever frustrated at the brink of consummation, dreamed at night, in delicious detail, of committing acts with her that he would not dare to suggest by day. In a more serious mood, perhaps, Ameyden borrowed a copy of the works of Nicolò Machiavelli (prudently noted in our document as "N.M."), maybe in the Giunti edition of Florence, 1532, or even that of Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1540. 1 After all, politics was his game, and he may well have thought the game had not changed too much in a hundred years, except for the actors playing the parts. Nor was Rome exempt from it. True, Machiavelli happened to be one of the few authors whose entire production was banned in Catholic countries since the 1564 Index of Forbidden Books. But ecclesiastical prohibitions had little effect at Santa Prassede. And Ameyden was able to savor not only the irreverent lessons in pragmatic statecraft propounded in the Prince, but also the clear-headed historical interpretations 125 in the Florentine Histories and the libertine novel, Belfagor, about how the devil takes a wife. Thanks to the diligence of the Governor's court in preserving the library lending list at Santa Prassede, we know far more about the reading habits of visitors than we do about those of the monks themselves. But every reading experience we have so far recounted, and that we are about to recount below, no doubt occurred a dozen times again within the monastery walls. Inside, as among the monastery's outsidey associates, interest in books extended well beyond the limits prescribed by official sanctions. And there, as outside, interest in knowledge ran the gamut from the officially tolerated to the absolutely proscribed. How was Morandi to protect this unique culture from official interference? How was he to ensure that the library might survive? By a unique stratagem based on the same policy of book lending we have been examining thus far. A few case studies will show how Morandi bound readers to him not only with ties of common interests but of co-conspiracy, of mutual involvement in one of the most extraordinarily illegal enterprises in Rome. We may then discover why the Roman authorities waited so long before closing it down. While Ameyden was enjoying his Machiavelli, Padre Alessandro Gennaro, rector at the church of San Salvatore, took away with him the Giolito, 1546, edition, so our library list specifies, of Boccaccio's Decameron, banned at 126 the same time as Machiavelli. Indeed, Padre Gennaro's borrowing may tell a bit more about him than he might have wished to be widely known. Can we not imagine his delight upon discovering, without the mutilations introduced in the "expurgated" edition of 1573, the novel about Friar Alberto, who persuades his lady friend that the Archangel Gabriel is interested in her and later disguises himself as the Archangel for an evening tryst? 2 And if so, what is there to stop us from supposing a certain satisfaction when he came upon the scandalous novel ridiculing the Grand Inquisitor of Florence for living in luxury, later removed? With the same satisfaction, he may have considered the diatribe, in the story of Tedaldo degli Elisei, against judges who convict the innocent on the basis of confessions extracted under torture, if not the other barbs against monks who did not live by the austere rules of their founders. And so much did he and the rest of the community at San Salvatore enjoy the book, indeed, that he kept it for at least two more years, since it was still reported as "not returned" when Morandi went to trial in June, 1630. To sum up: Teod. Ameyden 1627 x Eustazio greco latino Teod. Ameyden "" x Emblemi Franzoni in rame Teod. Ameyden "" x I romiti in rame Teod. Ameyden "" x N.M. Teod. Ameyden "" Apocalissi d'Olanda, m.s. il P. Gennaro 1627 Boccaccio del Giolito Several months later Giambattista Castellani, a Neapolitan nobleman, borrowed the late fifteenth-century 127 Benedictine author Johannes Trithemius' Steganography,3 an elaborate philosophical spoof claiming to show how to communicate across long distances by invoking the spirits through the aid of a certain Oriphel, supposedly the genius of Saturn. It contained, said Andrea Possevino, advising the Congregation of the Index in 1609, not a tolerable sort of natural magic like that of Marc Antoine del Rio or Giambattista Della Porta, but the most abominable sort of ceremonial magic. 4 And as such it ought to be classed with such anathematized classics as the infamous Picatrix, an Arabic handbook on Hellenistic magic supposedly written in the tenth century by al-Majriti, or the Key that circulated under the name of King Solomon, condemned already in the thirteenth century by William of Auvergne as "a cursed and execrable book." 5 And Trithemius' credit was by no means enhanced in the eyes of Possevino and fellow-members of the Congregation by his reputation as the most famous alchemist of his time and possibly the teacher of the alchemical physician Paracelsus, whose works were also condemned. Much might be learned from such readings, Castellani no doubt concluded; to what purpose, only he knew. But the library log does not yield up its secrets easily. The modern reader interested in tracing the lending history of Santa Prassede books finds a number of perplexing puzzles. Morandi's handwriting in the slender 100-page ledger is a beautiful combination of Latin secretarial script and Italian vernacular. His abbreviations are 128 clearly meant for himself alone and represent his own personal mental shorthand for remembering books. Thus, titles often appear without authors, as "De miraculis virorum"——referring, in turns out, to the opening treatise of Heinrich Kornmann's vastly underappreciated Opera curiosa. Authors are just as frequently represented without titles——as in, "Rogeri Baconis," leaving in question exactly what work of Roger Bacon was being borrowed (the Opus majus? the Opus minus? the Opus tertium?). Perhaps the library possessed only one. Sometimes the riddles can be solved by referring to the list of library books in Morandi's death inventory. Other times the references are simply cryptic, as for instance, "Isaco Holanda." What could that be? Cryptic in its allusions to books, the library log seems remarkably eloquent in identifying persons After all, in Morandi's mind, the library was as much a lure for influential patrons as a tool of learning, and the collection of notable names was as important for him as the collection of notable books. Whatever Pietro Accolti might borrow on a particular day was infinitely less interesting than the fact that Accolti had borrowed it. And the fact that Accolti had authored a treatise on painting was infinitely less significant than the fact that he had been secretary to Giovanni de' Medici and later joined the retinue of Cardinal Carlo de' Medici. 6 Might not the borrower contribute something in the way of favorable reports to the Grand Duke concerning the useful services the 129 monks could provide for Medici interests on some future occasion? That Antonio Ricciullo, bishop of Belcastro and vice-governor of Rome, borrowed a "manuscript of diverse instructions" was far less important than the protection he might extend to the monks as the second in command to the highest criminal prosecutor in the city. From our standpoint, as no doubt from Morandi's, the influential personages so prominently noted in the log for easy reference furnished a precise and eloquent record of one man's——one monastery's——struggle for significance. No wonder court officials stitched the log into the binding of the final version of the trial record, so that it is the first document we see on opening the outsize volume.