Books set in Italy, from a medieval abbey to the Amalfi Coast

In a state of intellectual excitement, I read with fascination the terrible story of Adso of Melk, and I allowed myself to be so absorbed by it that, almost in a single burst of energy, I completed a translation, using some of those large notebooks from the Papeterie Joseph Gibert in which it is so pleasant to write if you use a felt-tip pen. And as I was writing, we reached the vicinity of Melk, where, perched over a bend in the river, the handsome Stift stands to this day, after several restorations during the course of the centuries. As the reader must have guessed, in the monastery library I found no trace of Adso’s manuscript.

Before we reached Salzburg, one tragic night in a little hotel on the shores of the Mondsee, my traveling-companionship was abruptly interrupted, and the person with whom I was traveling disappeared—taking Abbé Vallet’s book, not out of spite, but because of the abrupt and untidy way in which our relationship ended. And so I was left with a number of manuscript notebooks in my hand, and a great emptiness in my heart.

A few months later, in Paris, I decided to get to the bottom of my research. Among the few pieces of information I had derived from the French book, I still had the reference to its source, exceptionally detailed and precise:

VETERA ANALECTA, Sive COLLECTIO VETERUM ALIQUOT OPERUM & Opusculorum omnis generis, Carminum, Epistolarum, Diplomatum, Epitaphiorum, & CUM ITINERE GERMANICO, Annotationibus & aliquot disquisitionibus R.P.D. Joannis Mabillon, Presbiteri ac Monachi Ord. Sancti Benedicti e Congregatione S. Mauri.—NOVA EDITIO, Cui accessere MABILLONII Vita & aliquot opuscula, scilicet Dissertatio de PANE EUCHARISTICO, AZYMO ET FERMENTATO, ad Eminentiss. Cardinalem BONA. Subjungitur opusculum ELDERONSI Hispaniensis Episcopi de eodem argumento ET EUSEBII Romani ad THEOPHILUM Gallum epistola, DE CULTU SANCTORUM IGNOTORUM. Parisiis, apud Levesque, ad Pontem S. Michaelis, MDCCXXI, cum privilegio Regis.

I quickly found the Vetera analecta at the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, but to my great surprise the edition I came upon differed from the description in two details: first, the publisher, who was given here as “Montalant, ad Ripam P.P. Augustinianorum (prope Pontem S. Michaelis),” and also the date, which was two years later. I needn’t add that these analecta did not comprehend any manuscript of Adso or Adson of Melk; on the contrary, as anyone interested can check, they are a collection of brief or medium-length texts, whereas the story transcribed by Vallet ran to several hundred pages.

But this is no hunting lodge, is what Lucrezia had wanted to say when they reached their destination: a high-walled edifice of dark stone, flanked on one side by dense forest and on the other by a twisting meander of the Po river. She would have liked to turn in her saddle and ask, why have you brought me here?

In 1560, fifteen-year-old Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici left Florence to begin her married life with Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.

Less than a year later, she would be dead.

The official cause of her death was given as “putrid fever,” but it was rumoured that she had been murdered by her husband.

She said nothing, however, allowing her mare to follow him along the path, through dripping trees, over the arch-backed bridge and into the courtyard of the strange, fortified, star-shaped building, which seemed, even then, to strike her as peculiarly empty of people.

The horses have been led away, she has removed her sodden cloak and hat, and he has watched her do this, standing with his back to the blaze in the grate, and now he is gesturing to the country servants in the hall’s outer shadows to step forward and place food on their plates, to slice the bread, to pour wine into their cups, and she is suddenly recalling the words of her sister-in-law, delivered in a hoarse whisper: You will be blamed.

Lucrezia’s fingers grip the rim of her plate. The certainty that he means her to die is like a presence beside her, as if a dark-feathered bird of prey has alighted on the arm of her chair.

This is the reason for their sudden journey to such a wild and lonely place. He has brought her here, to this stone fortress, to murder her.

Astonishment yanks her up out of her body and she almost laughs; she is hovering by the vaulted ceiling, looking down at herself and him, sitting at the table, putting broth and salted bread into their mouths. She sees the way he leans towards her, resting his fingers on the bare skin of her wrist as he says something; she watches herself nodding at him, swallowing the food, speaking some words about their journey here and the interesting scenery through which they passed, as if nothing at all is amiss between them, as if this is a normal dinner, after which they will retire to bed.

I could have run a wine shop. The sun was hot overhead, but Nessus felt chill sweat start to creep down his neck. I could have become a trader. But no, I had to become an astrologer. Reading stars, reading palms when business gets slow, oh, why didn’t I just open a wine shop? The only blood anybody saw in a wine shop came from drunks giving each other a swollen nose.

And the morning had started with such promise. Nessus had come early to the Forum Romanum, staking himself a place on the shady side where the afternoon sun wouldn’t beat down on his head like Vulcan’s hammer, and laid out his little display of star charts on threadbare silk. By noon he’d been commissioned for three horoscopes (payment on delivery), read the palm of a grain merchant and spoke mysteriously of fat profits coming on the next harvest; squinted at the hand of a giddy young woman and whispered of a rich husband.

Nessus had just been mopping his already balding forehead on his sleeve and contemplating a jug of wine at the nearest tavern when four little girls arrayed themselves expectantly before him.

“We want you to read our futures,” the tallest had announced, and the rest promptly collapsed into giggles.

“There’s no time,” their nursemaid scolded, but Nessus looked them over with a practiced eye. Patrician girls, or he’d eat his straw sun hat: silk dresses, tooled leather sandals, veils over their hair to shield their skin. And patrician girls, even little ones like these, had coins to spend.

“Such futures ahead of you!” he intoned mysteriously. “Your stars sing to me of fame and fortune, beauty and love . . . two sesterces apiece, and cheap at the price. Which of you first?”

“Me, me!” Four hands presented themselves, variously grubby.

“No, me first, I’m the oldest! I’m Cornelia Prima, and that’s my sister, she’s Cornelia Secunda, and that’s Cornelia Tertia and Cornelia Quarta, they’re our cousins—

Definitely patricians—only patricians had such a complete lack of imagination when it came to naming their daughters. Four girls born to one clan—undoubtedly the Cornelii!—and as was traditional, they’d all just been named Cornelia and then numbered in order.

“Give me an oar,” the shooter in the sixth boat said. He stood up and braced himself carefully. He could hear the ducks passing in the darkness, and feel the restless lurching of the dog. To the north he heard the sound of breaking ice from the other boats.

“Be careful,” the poler in the stern said. “Don’t tip the boat over.”

“I am a boatman, too,” the shooter said.

He took the long oar the boatman handed him and reversed it so he could hold it by the blade. Holding the blade he reached forward and punched the handle through the ice. He felt the firm bottom of the shallow lagoon, put his weight on the top of the wide oar-blade, and holding with both hands and, first pulling, then shoving, until the pole-hold was well to the stern, he drove the boat ahead to break the ice. The ice broke like sheets of plate glass as the boat drove into it, and onto it, and astern the boatman shoved them ahead into the broken passage.

After a while, the shooter, who was working hard and steadily and sweating in his heavy clothes, asked the boatman, “Where is the shooting barrel?”

“Off there to the left. In the middle of the next bay.”

“Should I turn for it now?”

“As you wish.”

“What do you mean, as I wish? You know the water. Is there water to carry us there?”

“The tide is low. Who knows?”

“It will be daylight before we get there if we don’t hurry.”

The boatman did not answer.

All right, you surly jerk, the shooter thought to himself. We are going to get there. We’ve made two-thirds of the way now and if you are worried about having to work to break ice to pick up birds, that is altogether too bad.

“Get your back in it, jerk,” he said in English.

“What?” the boatman asked in Italian.

“I said let’s go. It’s going to be light.”

It was daylight before they reached the oaken staved hogshead sunk in the bottom of the lagoon.

I open the sliding glass door and show them inside: the cozy living room with two comfortable sofas in front of the fireplace, the well-stocked kitchen, two bedrooms.

While the father unloads the car and the girls, who are probably around seven and nine, disappear into their room, shutting the door behind them, I tell the mother where to find extra towels, and woolen blankets, in case it gets cold at night.

I show her where the mouse poison is hidden. Kill the flies before going to bed, I suggest, otherwise they start buzzing at dawn and become a nuisance. I explain how to get to the supermarket, how to use the washing machine behind the house, and where to hang the laundry, just on the other side of my father’s garden.

Guests are free to pick lettuce and tomatoes, I add. There were lots of tomatoes this year, but most of them spoiled in the July rain.

I pretend not to watch them, to be discreet. I do the housework and water the garden, but I can’t help noticing how happy and excited they are. I hear the girls’ voices as they run across the lawn, I learn their names. Since the guests usually leave the sliding door open, I overhear what the parents say to each other as they settle into the house, as they unpack their suitcases and decide what to have for lunch.

The cottage where my family lives is a few yards away, behind a tall hedge that forms a kind of screen. For years, our house was just a room that served as both kitchen and bedroom for the three of us. Then, two years ago, when I turned thirteen, my mother started working for the elderly gentleman, and, after saving up enough money, my parents asked the man who owns the property if they could add a small room for me—where stubby lizards slip through cracks between the wall and ceiling.

My father is the caretaker. He looks after the big house, chops wood, works the fields and the vineyard. He looks after the horses, which the owner loves with a passion.

The owner lives abroad, but he’s not a foreigner like us. He comes every now and then, on his own. He doesn’t have a family. During the days he goes horseback riding; in the evenings he reads in front of the fireplace. Then he goes away again.

Not many people rent his house other than in summer. The winters here are biting, and in the spring there’s lots of rain. In the mornings, from September to June, my father drives me to school, where I feel out of place. I don’t mix easily with others; I don’t look like anyone else.

The girls in this family resemble each other. You can tell right away that they’re sisters. They’ve already put on matching bathing suits to go to the beach later on. The beach is about fifteen miles from here. The mother looks like a girl, too. She’s small and thin, she wears her long hair loose. Her shoulders are delicate. She walks barefoot on the grass even though the father tells her not to, saying (and he’s right) that there might be porcupines, hornets, snakes.

My mother was the first person you called for a recipe (a cup of onions, garlic, don't forget the pinch of sugar) and the last one you called at night when you just couldn't sleep (a cup of hot water with lemon, lavender oil, magnesium pills). She knew the exact ratio of olive oil to garlic in any recipe, and she could whip up dinner from three pantry items, easy. She had all the answers. I, on the other hand, have none of them, and now I no longer have her.

“Hi,” I hear Eric say from inside. “Where is everyone?”

Eric is my husband, and he is our last guest here today. He shouldn't be. He should have been with us the entire time, in the hard, low chairs, stuck between noodle casseroles and the ringing phone and the endless lipstick kisses of neighbors and women who call themselves aunties, but instead he is here in the entryway to what is now my father's house, waiting to be received.

I close my eyes. Maybe if I cannot see him, he will stop looking for me.