"I know nothing of it," he replied evasively, "except that I believe it
once belonged to the Monastery of the Certosa. I heard of it only last
night, and thought perhaps it might interest you."
It certainly did. Any discovery of that kind always attracted me--ever
on the lookout as I was for a single folio of the original Dante.
With the object of inspecting the palaeographic treasure I next day took
train to Florence, and an hour after my arrival knocked in some
trepidation at the prior's green door.
The long grey church, one of the oldest in that ancient city, stood in
its little piazza off the via San Gallao, and adjoining it the prior's
house, a long, low, fourteenth-century building, with high, cross-barred
windows, and a wonderful old-world garden in the rear.
In answer to my summons there appeared a thin, yellow-faced,
sharp-tongued house-woman, and on inquiry for the father I was at once
invited into a big stone hall, cool and dim after the sun-glare outside.
"Body of a thousand anchovies! Teresa, who has come to worry me now?"
I heard a man demand angrily from a door at the end of a darkened
corridor. "Didn't I tell you that I was not at home until after mass
tomorrow? Plague you, Teresa?"
To the wizen-faced woman I stammered some apology, but at the same
moment I saw a huge, almost gigantic figure in a long black cassock and
biretta emerge from the room.
"Oh, signore?" he cried apologetically, the instant he caught sight of
me. "Do pray excuse me. I have so many of my poor people here begging
that I'm compelled to be out to them sometimes. Come in! Come in?"
Then he added reproachfully, turning to his housekeeper, "Teresa, what
manners you have to leave this gentleman standing in the hall like a
mendicant! I'm ashamed of you, Teresa! What must the signore think--
and a foreigner, too!"
In an instant the Very Reverand Bernardo Landini and I were friends. I
saw that he was thoroughly genuine, a strange admixture of
good-fellowship and piety. His proportions were Gargantuan. His
clean-shaven face was perfectly round, fresh, and almost boyish in
complexion, his dark eyes twinkled with merriment, his stomach was huge
and spoke mutely of a healthy appetite, his hand big and hearty in its
shake, and in his speech he aspirated his "e's," which showed him to be
a born Florentine.
After I had explained that my name was Allan Kennedy, and that I was
introduced by the _gobbo_ of Leghorn, he took out his great horn
snuff-box, rapped it loudly, and offered me a pinch.
"Ah!" he remarked. "The signore is English, yet how well he speaks our
Tuscan?"
I thanked him for his compliment, and went on to explain that I had
passed the years of my youth in Florence, and was at heart almost a
Florentino.
This pleased him mightily, and from the moment I hinted at my
antiquarian tastes he began to chatter as an enthusiast will.
The apartment wherein I sat, darkened by its closed sun-shutters, was
certainly a strange one, small, and so crammed with antiques of every
kind and description that one could scarcely move in it. Upon the old
Empire writing-table at which he had seated himself stood a small brass
crucifix of exquisite design, while all around hung ancient pictures of
a religious character--saints, pietas, pictures of the Redeemer, and
several great canvases reaching from floor to ceiling, evidently from
church-altars. The very chairs were of the fifteenth century, heavy,
massive, and covered with stamped leather; the tables were of the
Renaissance; and the perfect chaos of valuable objects of art stored
there was to me, a collector absolutely bewildering.
And amid it all, seated at his table, was the ponderous, beaming cleric,
mopping his brow with his big red handkerchief from time to time, and
leaning back in his chair to laugh and talk with me.
Yet when I mentioned that I had been sent by the mysterious old
hunchback of Leghorn his face instantly grew serious, and with a low
sigh he said: "Ah, poor Francesco! poor fellow?"
"You know him well, _signor priore_," I said. "Tell me about him. I'm
very anxious to know who and what he really is. To me he has always
been a mystery."
But the stout prior shook his head, replying in a rather hard voice:
"No, signore. I regret that my lips are closed."
His response was a strange one, and led me at once to suspect that my
new friend was a party to some grave secret. Therefore, seeing that his
manner was firm, I dropped the subject, although more than ever
interested in the queer, deformed old fellow who had so long mystified
me.
My friend the priest took me around his wonderful collection, and showed
me a veritable confusion of valuable antiques: a Madonna by Andrea del
Sarto, a Holy Family by Tintoretto, a tiny but exquisite specimen of
that lost art of della Robbia, and a quantity of old tapestries,
medieval ironwork, and old, carved furniture.
In a room beyond was stored a splendid collection of Florentine armour:
helmets, breastplates, gauntlets, and lances, with a heap of ancient
swords, rapiers, and poniards. I took up several to examine them, and
found that they were without exception splendid specimens of the Spanish
armourer's work, mostly bearing upon the finely tempered blades the
well-known marks of Blanco, Martinez, Ruiz, Tomas, and Pedro de Lezama.
Some of the work was wonderfully inlaid with brass and copper; and the
collection appeared to be a representative one, ranging from the rusty
crosshilts of the Etruscas down to the thin Spanish rapiers of the
seventeenth century.
A third room, still beyond, was the priest's bedchamber, and even this
was so packed with curios and bric-a-brac that there was scarcely room
to enter.
Above the narrow little bed was an antique bronze crucifix, mounted upon
a carved wooden background covered with old purple brocade, while the
whitewashed walls were almost hidden by the profusion of religious
pictures. The red-brick floor was carpetless, as were all the other
apartments; but the furniture was all old, and upon the chairs were
heaped quantities of silks and velvets from the Genoese looms of the
seventeenth century--truly an amazing profusion of relics of Italy's
past glory.
The prior smiled at my exclamations of surprise as I enthusiastically
examined object after object with keen and critical eye. Then, when I
remarked upon the value of the objects of art with which his
unpretentious house was filled, he answered:
"I am delighted that you, signore, should feel so much interest in my
few things. Like yourself, I am an enthusiast, and perhaps by my
calling I am afforded unusual facilities for collecting. Here, in my
poverty-stricken parish, are quantities of antiques stored in the
cottages as well as in the palaces, and the _contadini_ from all the
countryside, even beyond Pistoja, prefer to bring me their treasures in
secret rather than to offer them openly to the pawnbroker."
"But Graniani told me that you have discovered a manuscript of
remarkable character. I possess a small collection; therefore may I be
permitted to examine it?" I asked, carefully approaching the subject.
"Most certainly," he replied, after a moment's hesitation, it seemed.
"It is in the safe in my study. Let us return there." And I followed
his ponderous form back to the small apartment wherein stood his
writing-table with the crucifix and heavily bound Bible and missal upon
it.
But as I walked behind him, unable to see his face, I was surprised at
the tone of the remark he made as though speaking to himself:
"So Francesco told you of the book, did he? Ah!"
He spoke as though in suppressed anger that the queer old hunchback had
betrayed his confidence.