Despite the fact that Giulietta was already secretly betrothed to another, and that the Virgin Mary was believed to have blessed the young couple, Salimbeni forced his own marriage with the girl, and by doing so provoked the most formidable enemy a man could have. For everyone knew that the Virgin Mary did not like human interference in her plans, and, indeed, the whole thing ended in death and misery. Not only did the young lovers kill themselves, but Salimbeni’s oldest son perished, too, in a desperate struggle to defend his father’s honor.
For all these insults and griefs, Salimbeni arrested and tortured Friar Lorenzo, holding him responsible for secretly helping the young lovers in their disastrous affair. And he invited Giulietta’s uncle, Messer Tolomei, to witness the punishment of the insolent monk who had destroyed their plans of uniting the two feuding families through marriage. These were the men Friar Lorenzo cursed with his writing on the walclass="underline" Messer Salimbeni and Messer Tolomei.
After the monk had died, Salimbeni buried the body under the floor of the torture chamber as was his custom. And he had his servants wash off the curse and put new chalk on the wall. But he soon discovered that these measures were not sufficient to undo what had happened.
When Friar Lorenzo appeared to him in a dream a few nights later, warning him that no soap and no chalk could ever erase the curse, Salimbeni became filled with fear and closed off the old torture chamber to contain the evil powers of the wall. And now, suddenly, he began to listen to the voices of people saying he was cursed, and that the Virgin Mary was looking for a way to punish him. The voices were everywhere; in the street, in the market, in church-even when he was all alone he heard them. And when, one night, a great fire broke out in Palazzo Salimbeni, he was sure it was all part of Friar Lorenzo’s curse, which called for his family to “perish in fire and gore.”
It was about this time that the first rumors of the Black Death came to Siena. Pilgrims came back from the Orient with stories of a terrible plague that had destroyed more villages and towns than a mighty army, but most people thought it was only something that would strike the heathens. They were sure that the Virgin Mary would-as she had done many times before-spread her protective cape over Siena, and that prayers and candles could keep the evil at bay, should it ever cross the ocean.
But Salimbeni had long lived with the illusion that everything good that happened around him was an effect of his brilliance. Now that something bad was coming, it was only natural for him to think that this, too, was his doing. And so he became obsessed with the idea that he and he alone was the cause of every disaster that happened around him, and that it was his fault the Plague was threatening to come to Siena. In his madness he dug up the bodies of Giulietta and Romeo from their unholy ground, and made for them a most holy grave in order to silence the voices of the people or, maybe more accurately, the voices in his own head blaming him for the deaths of a young couple whose love had been blessed by Heaven.
He was so eager to make peace with the ghost of Friar Lorenzo that he spent many nights looking at the curse written out on a piece of parchment, trying to find a way of meeting the demand to “undo your sins and kneel before the Virgin.” He even had clever professors from the university come to his house and speculate on how to make Giulietta “wake to behold her Romeo,” and they were the ones who finally came up with a plan.
In order to do away with the curse, they said, Salimbeni must begin by understanding that riches are evil, and that a man who possesses gold is no happy man. Once he has admitted that much, he will not be sorry to pay large sums of his fortune to people devoted to ridding him of his guilt, such as clever professors from the university. Also, such a man will be happy to commission an expensive sculpture that will, most certainly, do away with the curse and help its owner at last sleep soundly at night, knowing that he alone, by sacrificing his wicked money, has bought forgiveness for his entire city, and credits against the rumored plague.
The statue, they told him, must be placed on Giulietta and Romeo’s grave, and it must be covered in the purest gold. It must depict the young couple and do it in such a way that it would become an antidote to Friar Lorenzo’s curse. Salimbeni must take the precious gems from Giulietta’s bridal crown and use them as eyes in the sculpture: two green emeralds in the head of Romeo, and two blue sapphires in the head of Giulietta. And underneath the statue, an inscription must read:
Here sleeps true and faithful Giulietta
By the love and mercy of God
To be woken by Romeo, her rightful spouse
In an hour of perfect grace
In that way, Salimbeni could artificially re-create their moment of resurrection, allowing the two young lovers to behold each other again and forever, and allowing every citizen of Siena to see the sculpture and call Salimbeni a generous and religious man.
To aid this impression, however, Salimbeni must make sure to cultivate a story of his own benevolence, and to commission a tale that freed him from guilt altogether. The tale must be of Romeo and Giulietta, and it must contain much poetry and much confusion, as good art does, for an accomplished storyteller brimming with dazzling falsehoods commands far more attention than an honest bore.
As for those people who would still not be silent on the issue of Salimbeni’s guilt, they must be silenced, either by gold in their hands or iron in their backs. For only by getting rid of such malicious tongues could Salimbeni ever hope to be purified in the eyes of the people and find his way back into their prayers and thus into the holy ears of Heaven.
Those were the recommendations from the university professors, and Salimbeni set about meeting their demands with much vigor. Firstly-following their own advice-he made sure to silence the professors before they could slander him. Secondly, he employed a local poet to fabricate a tale about two star-crossed lovers whose tragic deaths were no one’s fault but their own, and to circulate it among the reading classes, not as fiction, but as a truth shamefully ignored. Finally, Salimbeni employed the great artist, Maestro Ambrogio, to oversee the work with the golden statue. And once it was ready-with the precious eyes in place-he posted four armed guards in the chapel at all times, to protect the immortal couple.
But even the statue and the guards could not hold the Plague at bay. For over a year the horrible disease ravaged Siena, covering healthy bodies in black boils and killing almost everyone it touched. Half the entire population perished-for every person that lived, another died. In the end, there were not enough survivors to bury the dead; the streets ran with rot and gore, and those who could still eat were starving for lack of food.
Once it was over, the world had changed. The slate of men’s memory had been wiped clean, for better and for worse. Those who had survived were too busy with their needs to care much for art and old gossip, and so the story of Romeo and Giulietta became little more than a faint echo from another world, occasionally remembered, but only in fragments. As for the grave, it was gone forever, buried under a mountain of death, and few people were left who knew the value of the statue. Maestro Ambrogio, who had personally affixed the gemstones and knew what they were, was one of the many thousand Sienese who had died during the Plague.
WHEN MONNA MINA had heard everything Monna Cecilia knew about Friar Lorenzo, she decided that there was still something that could be done to appease his ghost. And so on a day when her husband had seemed particularly enamored with her before riding off on business, she ordered six capable servants to follow her into the basement and break up the floor of the old torture chamber.