CHAPTER 46
La Soffitta, langdon thought. The most dramatic attic on earth.
The air inside the void smelled musty and ancient, as if centuries of plaster dust had now become so fine and light that it refused to settle and instead hung suspended in the atmosphere. The vast space creaked and groaned, giving Langdon the sense that he had just climbed into the belly of a living beast.
Once he had found solid footing on a broad horizontal truss chord, he raised his flashlight, letting the beam pierce the darkness.
Spreading out before him was a seemingly endless tunnel, crisscrossed by a wooden web of triangles and rectangles formed by the intersections of posts, beams, chords, and other structural elements that made up the invisible skeleton of the Hall of the Five Hundred.
This enormous attic space was one Langdon had viewed during his Nebbiolo-fogged secret passages tour a few years ago. The cupboardlike viewing window had been cut in the wall of the architectural-model room so visitors could inspect the models of the truss work and then peer through the opening with a flashlight and see the real thing.
Now that Langdon was actually inside the garret, he was surprised by how much the truss architecture resembled that of an old New England barn — traditional king post-and-strut assembly with “Jupiter’s arrow point” connections.
Sienna had also climbed through the opening and now steadied herself on the beam beside him, looking disoriented. Langdon swung the flashlight back and forth to show her the unusual landscape.
From this end, the view down the length of the garret was like peering through a long line of isosceles triangles that telescoped into the distance, extending out toward some distant vanishing point. Beneath their feet, the garret had no floorboards, and its horizontal supporting beams were entirely exposed, resembling a series of massive railroad ties.
Langdon pointed straight down the long shaft, speaking in hushed tones. “This space is directly overthe Hall of the Five Hundred. If we can get to the other end, I know how to reach the Duke of Athens Stairway.”
Sienna cast a skeptical eye into the labyrinth of beams and supports that stretched before them. The only apparent way to advance through the garret would be to jump between the struts like kids on a train track. The struts were large — each consisting of numerous beams strapped together with wide iron clasps into a single powerful sheaf — plenty large enough to balance on. The challenge, however, was that the separation between the struts was much too far to leap across safely.
“I can’t possibly jump between those beams,” Sienna whispered.
Langdon doubted he could either, and falling would be certain death. He aimed the flashlight down through the open space between the struts.
Eight feet below them, suspended by iron rods, hung a dusty horizontal expanse — a floor of sorts — which extended as far as they could see. Despite its appearance of solidity, Langdon knew the floor consisted primarily of stretched fabric covered in dust. This was the “back side” of the Hall of the Five Hundred’s suspended ceiling — a sprawling expanse of wooden lacunars that framed thirty-nine Vasari canvases, all mounted horizontally in a kind of patchwork-quilt configuration.
Sienna pointed down to the dusty expanse beneath them. “Can we climb down there and walk across?”
Not unless you want to fall through a Vasari canvas into the Hall of the Five Hundred.
“Actually, there’s a better way,” Langdon said calmly, not wanting to frighten her. He began moving down the strut toward the central backbone of the garret.
On his previous visit, in addition to peering through the viewing window in the room of architectural models, Langdon had explored the garret on foot, entering through a doorway at the otherend of the attic. If his wine-impaired memory served him, a sturdy boardwalk ran along the central spine of the garret, providing tourists access to a large viewing deck in the center of the space.
However, when Langdon arrived at the center of the strut, he found a boardwalk that in no way resembled the one he recalled from his tour.
How much Nebbiolo did I drink that day?
Rather than a sturdy, tourist-worthy structure, he was looking at a hodgepodge of loose planks that had been laid perpendicularly across the beams to create a rudimentary catwalk — more of a tightrope than a bridge.
Apparently, the sturdy tourist walkway that originated at the other end extended only as far as the central viewing platform. From there, the tourists evidently retraced their steps. This jerry-rigged balance beam that Langdon and Sienna now faced was most likely installed so engineers could service the remaining attic space at this end.
“Looks like we’re walking the plank,” Langdon said, eyeing the narrow boards with uncertainty.
Sienna shrugged, unfazed. “No worse than Venice in flood season.”
Langdon realized she had a point. On his most recent research trip to Venice, St. Mark’s Square had been under a foot of water, and he had walked from the Hotel Danieli to the basilica on wooden planks propped between cinder blocks and inverted buckets. Of course, the prospect of possibly getting one’s loafers wet was a far cry from that of plunging through a Renaissance masterpiece to one’s death.
Pushing the thought from his mind, Langdon stepped out onto the narrow board with a feigned self-assurance that he hoped would calm any worries Sienna might secretly be harboring. Nonetheless, despite his confident exterior, his heart was pounding as he moved across the first plank. As he neared the middle, the plank bowed beneath his weight, creaking ominously. He pressed on, faster now, finally reaching the other side and the relative safety of the second strut.
Exhaling, Langdon turned to shine the light for Sienna and also offer any coaxing words she might need. She apparently needed none. As soon as his beam illuminated the plank, she was skimming along its length with remarkable dexterity. The board barely bent beneath her slender body, and within seconds she had joined him on the other side.
Encouraged, Langdon turned back and headed out across the next plank. Sienna waited until he had crossed and could turn around and shine the light for her, and then she followed, staying right with him. Settling into a steady rhythm, they pressed on — two figures moving one after the other by the light of a single flashlight. From somewhere beneath them, the sound of police walkie-talkies crackled up through the thin ceiling. Langdon permitted himself a faint smile. We’re hovering above the Hall of the Five Hundred, weightless and invisible.
“So, Robert,” Sienna whispered. “You said Ignazio told you where to find the mask?”
“He did … but in a kind of code.” Langdon quickly explained that Ignazio had apparently not wanted to blurt out the mask’s location on the answering machine, and so he had shared the information in a more cryptic manner. “He referenced paradise, which I assume is an allusion to the final section of The Divine Comedy. His exact words were ‘Paradise Twenty-five.’ ”
Sienna glanced up. “He must mean CantoTwenty-five.”
“I agree,” Langdon said. A cantowas the rough equivalent of a chapter, the word harkening back to the oral tradition of “singing” epic poems. The Divine Comedycontained precisely one hundred cantos in all, divided into three sections.
Inferno1–34
Purgatorio1–33
Paradiso1–33
Paradise Twenty-five, Langdon thought, wishing his eidetic memory were strong enough to recall the entire text. Not even close — we need to find a copy of the text.
“There’s more,” Langdon continued. “The last thing Ignazio said to me was: ‘The gates are open to you, but you must hurry.’” He paused, glancing back at Sienna. “Canto Twenty-five probably makes reference to a specific location here in Florence. Apparently, someplace with gates.”