All these reasons combined to make Ceccani one day summon Luca Pisano and commission him to decorate the chapel with as much speed and grandeur as he could manage. For his part, Pisano was overwhelmed with gratitude until he learned just how isolated it was; for he was only just beginning to be a master of works, and craved attention more than anything. He knew that Martini was unwell, and would either shortly die or return to Italy; the post of chief painter was there for the taking, and although history has largely forgotten him, at that time he was coming to be highly regarded.
But a commission was a commission, and one from a man like Ceccani was doubly valuable; everyone thought he could well be the next occupant of St. Peter’s chair, if the French could be persuaded not to meddle for once. And then, perhaps, the papacy might return to Rome after its long exile in Avignon. Pisano bowed deeply, expressed his profound thanks to His Eminence, and backed out of the chamber to go and organize some money with the cardinal’s pursekeeper. He came away from that encounter somewhat disappointed.
“I think I have you to thank for this, my friend,” he said to Olivier later that day. “It is your doing that I am now a fellow servant of the great cardinal, and must stand and fall with him.”
“I would like to take credit for your good fortune,” Olivier replied. “But I cannot see how I am responsible for anything.”
By this stage, the two men were old friends; both were alone and without any family, having to live off their wits in a town where there were many men and few places. They had gravitated into each other’s company mainly by virtue of sharing the same tastes and ambitions, but little opportunity as yet of realizing them. Each believed in the other, and each was convinced by the other that their abilities would surmount all obstacles.
“Nonetheless,” he continued, “I congratulate you, for it is good fortune indeed.”
“The higher they are, the further there is to fall,” Pisano said.
Olivier laughed. “I do believe you are the most miserable person I have ever met,” he replied. “You have gained work from one of the most powerful men in the world, and all you can think about is that he might not remain so. Even if he does fall, so what of it? A brief spell in his favor is better than never to have been favored by anyone. Besides, you might even do a good job of it, although considering your utter lack of ability, I doubt it very much. But should a miracle occur, then others will want you, too.”
“Why should they?” asked his friend. “No one except shepherds will ever see it. I will quite literally be casting my pearls before swine.”
“But there will be great things to come, no? Decorate the chapel well, then there will be a basilica in the nearest town.”
“Oh, yes. Thirty years’ work, no doubt. And meanwhile the pope will go back to Rome, and I will be stranded here.”
Olivier burst out laughing. Pisano was always superstitious; whenever anything good happened to him, he would spend at least the next day seeking out every possible misfortune that might result from it, on the reasonable grounds that a disaster imagined never occurs. As indeed was the case here; one thing the painter did not foresee was the plague, which ambushed him late one night as he was sleeping beside his donkey on the road back to Italy.
“You can be certain that this pope will never go back to Rome. He listens to Cardinal Ceccani on most things but on this he has cloth ears. My lord will have to chain him up and drag him there. He is a Frenchman, remember, and they do not like to go far from home. Even being in Avignon makes him feel homesick. You must pray for his health and longevity, I think.”
“But I am serious,” the painter protested. “I am to paint a series of pictures which no one will ever see, in a chapel hidden from everyone, about a saint I have never heard of.”
“In that case you can paint anything you want.”
Pisano frowned. “Just because I am frivolous sometimes does not mean you can take liberties, you know. To honor a saint is a great thing. A life of holiness is precious, and to retell it is a heavy duty.”
Olivier studied him, surprised by the somber voice. “I suppose so.”
“And you are my only source for the story.”
“I know very little.”
“That is more than anyone else.”
“I can barely tell you enough for a sketch.”
“That will be enough. Tell me what you know, and prayer will supply the rest.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“If you are sincere, yes. I will pray to the saint and, if my wish is granted, then all the details I need will come to me. If they don’t, then that will mean she does not want her life commemorated, and I will have to tell the cardinal so.”
And so Olivier settled down and retold the story that he had heard from the shepherds on the hill.
“A FEW YEARS after the crucifixion of Our Lord,” he began, “when men were beginning to embrace His teaching, the priests became angry and fearful, and started persecuting the faithful. Mary Magdalen, so privileged that she was the first to hear of Christ’s resurrection, was hounded and spat on, as were the group of women she had gathered around her. A plot was hatched to kill them all, but an angel came to her in her sleep and warned her. ‘Rise up, Mary,’ the angel said, ‘and leave quickly. Gather your friends and depart.’
“Mary did as she was told, gathering half a dozen companions, and went to the shore. Waiting for them was a miraculous boat, empty of sailors, its sails of silk and its hull of pearl. The moment they got in, the sails unfurled and the boat slipped into the water, just as their enemies ran up to stop them.
“The voyage lasted weeks, but no one was afraid. When it rained they did not get wet, when there was a storm the boat scarcely rocked. Angels brought them food and water every day, and kept them cool in the sun by carrying a great silken awning over them. When the time came, the boat turned inshore, even though the wind was blowing strongly in the opposite direction, and came to rest on the beach of a strange land. Again an angel spoke to Mary and said they were to travel throughout the land and tell everyone of Christ’s coming. But some were afraid, and refused to leave Mary’s side, knowing that she was beloved. Only Sophia obeyed, bidding farewell to Mary and converting town after town so that everywhere she went became Christian, tearing down temples and building churches in their place.
“Many miracles attended her; on one occasion a great nobleman called Manlius who had been blind for years came to her.
“ ‘You say God is love and cares for all His creation, yet I am blind,’ he said. ‘How can that be?’
“Sophia took him to one side and instructed him, then passed her hands over his eyes, and instantly his sight was restored. He fell at her feet in gratitude, and the crowd was so amazed that they all did the same. This man spent the rest of his life preaching, and established himself at Vaison, converting the whole area around. He, too, became a saint.
“One day, when Sophia was preaching in a town, the people, incited by the priests, began to shout and threaten her; they took her to jail and sentenced her to death. But her work was not yet done, and an angel appeared to the man she had cured and told him of her plight. Straightaway he was transported to the spot and held up his arms; the guards all fell asleep and the jail doors opened. He then escorted her away from the town, and they walked until they came to a hill. When she died she was buried there, and so many wonderful things happened at her grave that all realized she was a saint. So they built a chapel, and came on pilgrimage.”
JULIEN WAS NO HISTORIAN of the church and, indeed, was rather impatient with the manifest confusions and contradictions that were so much part of its identity. Nonetheless, he read this account of Olivier’s with fascination when he found it amongst Ceccani’s papers, in the same dusty bundle as the Dream, not least because of the correspondences with the other manuscripts he discovered at the same time. It would have taken someone very much slower than he not to have noticed that the philosophical discourse by Manlius Hippomanes used its Greek personification, Sophia, as a guide. Nor that Manlius was Bishop of Vaison while the shrine to Saint Sophia lay only two days’ walk to the southwest.