“No previous Pope has done as much, my Pontiff,” said Filippo politely, “except Saint Peter, perhaps.”
“Has done as much on paper. Potentates sign agreements with me and go on doing as they please. Palaeologus signed because he needs me to organize a crusade to save Byzantium from the Muhammadans — they have cut his empire down to a circle of suburbs round Constantinople. But that damned remnant of the Council of Basel still supports Antipope Amadeus Duke of Savoy, who is not even a priest! Antipopes are always Antichrists! I cannot raise a crusading army from a schismatic Europe, so in a few years Constantinople will be conquered by pagans. The last of the ancient Roman Empire will be destroyed and Greek Christianity extirpated. O O O I detest the ambition that dragged me from my monastery. I weep tears of rage when recalling the profound peace I once enjoyed as a young monk.”
“Don’t return to your old monastery, my Pontifex Maximus,” said Filippo, chuckling. “A previous pope threw up the job because it was damning his soul so Dante describes him eternally racing round the outer walls of Hell, one in a crowd of souls hated equally by God and Satan. Continue being as good a pope as you can in these strange strange times and you need only suffer a few years in Purgatory.”
“More than you expect to suffer!” said Eugenius grimly.
Filippo stiffened the corners of his mouth to prevent a smile and with a modest shrug murmured, “Well, I am a Carmelite.”
A little later he wiped his brush clean, laid it down, stirred crimson powder into a pot of medium while saying, “Surely several Christian kings would join a crusade if your Holiness raised his own army to fight against Islam?”
“A papal army is a dissonant concept, both theologically and pastorally.”
“Yet Martin V, your great predecessor, defeated Braccio da Montone in the battle of L’Aquila and crushed Bologna by force of arms. He regained the lost papal treasury. The Papal States now dominate central Italy.”
“Pope Martin belonged to the Colonna family, chiefs of that gang of noble scoundrels who forced me to flee Rome twelve years ago. He enriched his relatives as much as he enriched the Vatican treasury, which is not inexhaustible. My only possible armies now would be lent me by French or Spanish kings whose troops would probably sack Rome while passing through.”
“Hire soldiers from outlandish nations who would only demand their soldiers’ wages — Switzerland, the Baltic countries, England and Scotland.”
“I say again, Pippo, our treasury is not inexhaustible.”
“Will your Holiness forgive the prattling tongue of a bird-brained monk who imagines a new way to make your treasury inexhaustible?”
“Speak, parrot.”
“In Mainz upon the Rhine there is a wonderful German engine with a lever which, pressed down once, stamps a sheet of paper with inked words more clear, regular and legible than the finest penman can write.”
“I know that very well,” said Eugenius gloomily. “Already German bishops are buying letters of indulgence in bulk from the engineers, each with a blank space for the name of the soon-to-be-forgiven, and room at the foot for the bishop’s signature and seal. Twenty good scribes working for a week in my chancellery could not write as many letters of indulgence as this engine stamps in an hour.”
“Then your Holiness should hire a German engineer to build this lettering machine in Rome, and announce ex cathedra that only indulgences signed by you and cardinals in the papal college are valid. The vastly enlarged revenue you received would never stop pouring in.”
“Do not tempt me, Filippo. I am a Venetian so no enemy of commerce, but I fear this clerical engine will effect the Church in unforeseen ways, just as gunfire (another German invention) is changing warfare. I will not use or ban or try to control these engines until I see clearly what their effect is liable to be.”
Filippo silently resumed painting. Eugenius said, “This picture has more domestic furniture than most Annunciations, also more browns. I suppose oil paint allows that. I am glad you have confined your usual wild forest to a narrow view through the arch.”
After more unhelpful remarks that Filippo ignored the Pope said, “God’s mother is not usually approached from the left.”
“Yes, entrance from the right is customary. My previous Annunciations have that.”
“You are trying something new.”
“Your Holiness perfectly understands me.”
Eugenius sighed and said, “Yes, Florentines must always be innovating. It produces brave new art but also heresy. Too many of your scholars learn Greek, study Plato, start doubting the theology of Aquinus and à Kempis. Nicolo Granchio is a splendid administrator.15 As my legate in Constantinople he persuaded Paleologus to meet me in Italy, which was not easy. Like several German priests he makes a surprisingly uncorrupt cardinal, neither simoniac nor nepotist, not an adulterer, sodomite or pederast, not even given to impatience or anger — my own worst sins. Yet he thinks Christendom and Islam could unite! How can a member of the Sacred College indulge such a cloud-cuckoo idea? Luckily he puts ideas into abstruse Latin jargon that hardly anybody understands. He tells me Muslims believe in the Jewish Old Testament as we do, that the Koran accepts the Virgin Mary as Christ’s Mother. It seems the Koran also says Jesus is a God-inspired prophet and forerunner of Muhammad! Blasphemy! Muhammadans who do not believe Jesus was God’s Only Begotten Son are as damnable as Jews who reject Him.”
“But not as damnable as atheists who call Moses, Jesus and Muhammad the three impostors,” said Filippo, adding with a long brushstroke a bright crimson plume to the archangel’s wing. Eugenius shuddered and said, “Your artistic confidence makes you dangerously jocose, my son.”
“You are right to reprove me, Papa, but Cardinal Nicolo is also right to think the Turks are not exactly barbarians. I was once the slave of a Turk.”
“How did that happen?”
“On a boating trip off Livorno I was captured by corsairs and sold with the rest of the crew in Morocco. My master, though pagan, was a man of humane and liberal views and my skill in portraiture entertained him. He certainly did not think all Christians would go to Hell. He quoted an Arabian poet who said that when our souls stand before the judgement seat of God we will find Him so infinitely merciful that we will gnaw our fingers in rage at the sins we might have committed on earth without offending Him.”16
“I see why that heresy delighted you,” said Eugenius, laughing. “But God’s mercy is only for the repentant.”
“I know that Your Holiness, of course I knew my master’s words were a blasphemy leading to the circle of Hell where schismatics are repeatedly hacked in two. But some Christians are over-obsessed with their sins and God’s judgement. When you consider the scope of His work — the great dome of the stars and clouds, the seas and snowy Alps, the brown and green and flowery lands surrounding our cities of splendid men and women, our glorious churches and palaces, rich markets of fruit, vegetables, meat, cloth, furniture and all other fine goods — why, it is perfectly obvious that God spends more time creating lovely things than he spends condemning bad ones.”
“You are making a God in your own image!”
“No father, I promise you, it is the other way round.”
Eugenius shook his head, rolling his eyes in an Italian way indicating despair and resignation.
And after more silence asked, “Are all your Virgins derived from the figure and face of the same woman?”
“I almost think so, Papa.” said Filippo, dreamily. “The Virgins I painted before I met Lucrezia must have been prophecies, because on seeing her in the parlour of that little convent I recognized her at once. Yes Father. Yes indeed, Holiness.”