The Shadow Of The Bell Tower

Chapter 1-3

How strange humanity! Lucia said to herself. The same treatment that the Romans gave to the first Christians, who were persecuted, now the Catholic Church seems to give it to those people who do not think like her: who deviate from the official doctrine are accused of heresy and may end up killed in the public square. Witches, heretics, Jews... are tried and burned at the stake, just because they have the courage to express their ideas and knowledge. Well, now the Church takes it out on heretics, tomorrow, in the future, some other faction will take over and perhaps Christians will be persecuted again. Why should there not be justice in this world? What is this God who allows so much evil to exist in the world, but especially in the heart of man?

As she followed the course of her thoughts, a blade of light generated by a setting sun managed to filter through a small mullioned window at the top, at the apse of the cathedral above, illuminating the area where the heads of the Roman statues were piled up. Lucia’s attention was focused on some details that she had not been able to notice before, there near those heads carved in stone so many centuries earlier. A kind of pentacle had been drawn on the beaten earth floor, different from the one she used to see drawn on the cover of the family diary given to her by her grandmother some time before. The design seemed asymmetrical, representing a seven-pointed star carved out by drawing a continuous line within a circle. Each point of the star intersected a point on the circumference, at each of which there were Hebrew inscriptions, whose meaning Lucia did not know. At each of the seven points, the trace of wax cast, left by a candle that had been lit there, was visible. In the centre of the figure were two rag dolls, made of straw around which miniature clothes had been wrapped. They represented an old woman and a girl: the old woman’s clothes were burnt, while the young woman had a brooch fixed to her chest. Lucia gasped, her heart started beating wildly, and in a flash she understood everything. Some black magic rituals had been performed there, and the dolls represented her and her grandmother. It was clear that someone wanted to see them suffer, if not even die. Who? Who could it have been? Only one person could have gone down there. The church above was now closed, forbidden to the faithful for more than a year, so the crypt could not be reached from the cathedral. The passage you had walked through was closed by a constantly barred door, and only her uncle, the Cardinal, the Chief Inquisitor Artemio Baldeschi, had the key. Certainly, it had been too long since there had been no executions in Jesi, the last fire had been lit six years earlier, the one in which Lodomilla had lost her life. Now the Cardinal had to quench his thirst, his desire for victims, his desire to witness suffering and death directly before his eyes, under his gaze. Yes, because unlike the majority of the inquisitors who, once the sentence had been pronounced, handed the victim over to the secular arm of the Law, avoiding witnessing the torment of those they had condemned, Artemio used to attend the execution, in the front row, sometimes holding the torch and setting fire to the stack. He seemed to have a sadistic taste in seeing his victim writhing in the flames, he kept staring at her with his eyes until the end, and for a precise reason: to capture the soul of the condemned man the very moment he left his mortal body.

Emaciated by these reflections, frightened by what she had seen, Lucia grabbed the lantern and rushed up the stairs, her mind occupied by a single fear. Would she find the door open again? What if Uncle had remembered not to lock it and returned to close it? Or what if he did it on purpose, to induce her to go down there and bury her alive? No, it wouldn’t have been enough for Artemio, he had to see his victim’s suffering in the face, it wouldn’t have been like him to let her die there. He just wanted to scare her, and he succeeded. The little wooden door was open, Lucia went out into the hall, rested the lantern where he had taken it, she didn’t even look at Morocco and rushed into the open air, into the Square, still with the heart in her throat.

It was almost the sunset of a warm day at the end of May and the reddish light of the sun gave spectacular colours to the beautiful square where, more than three centuries earlier, Emperor Frederick II of Swabia was born. She said to herself that she should research the meaning of the symbols found in the crypt in the family diary, in the precious manuscript that her grandmother had given her. But now she had to calm down, and decided to take a walk around the city. She crossed the square, reaching the opposite side, turned left and went down to the Longobards’ Coast, to reach the lower part of the town, where merchants and craftsmen lived. The palaces were less sumptuous than those in the upper part of the city, but they were nevertheless enriched with decorative elements, with finished portals and frames around the windows. The facades were almost all embellished with plaster, painted in pastel colours, such as light blue, yellow, ochre, soft orange; it was difficult to leave bricks face to face, as it was for the stately palaces up in the centre. As a reminder that those residences had been built thanks to the money earned by those who lived there, often on the lintels of the portals or windows of the first floor there were inscriptions such as “De sua pecunia” or “Suum lucro condita - Ingenio non sorte”. At the end of the Longobards’ Coast, turning right, you could quickly reach the church dedicated to the apostle Peter, built by the Longobard community living in Jesi in the second half of the tenth third century. “Principles Apostolorum – MCCLXXXXIIII”, could be read above the portal; those who had engraved the date no longer had much memory of how the numbers were written in Latin, or perhaps they had never known it being an architect of Byzantine origin, already used to dealing with Arabic numerals, much easier to memorize. Opposite the church, the Franciolini’s Palace, just completed, was the residence of the People’s Capitan, Guglielmo dei Franciolini. He too had made his fortune as a merchant since, after the discovery of the New World, new commercial channels were opened and many new merchandise had also arrived in Jesi. Those who had been able to take advantage, had succeeded in a short time to accumulate considerable wealth. Lucia dwelt on the rich portal of the palace, limited by two columns and some square sandstone tiles, decorated with depictions of gods and symbols of Roman times. In all probability, while excavating the foundations of the house, decorative elements of a house of some Roman patrician had been found, and these had been reused to embellish the portal. Lucia recognized the God Pan, Bacchus, the Goddess Diana, and then some three-pointed lilies, and... a six-pointed star formed by two crossed triangles - strange, wasn’t it the symbol of the Jews? - and again a five-pointed star, a pentacle, and... a seven-pointed design inscribed in a circle, similar in every way to what he had seen just before in the crypt. These last drawings could not date back to Roman times, and in fact, looking carefully at the tiles on which they were made, one could see that these were of different features, more recent than the others, perhaps made for the purpose of decorating the portal. But what was the meaning of all this? In that little square the sacred coexisted with the profane: on the one hand the church dedicated to the principal of the apostles, to Peter, the first Pope in the history of Christianity, on the other hand pagan figures and symbols that could accuse the landlord of being a heretic. And yet the uncle Cardinal was on good terms with Franciolini, he had even proposed his son to her as her future husband! The more she looked at those symbols, the more Lucia thought that the place had something magical. Perhaps that palace had been built over the ruins of a pagan temple, and had kept its peculiarities. She tried to focus, to open her third eye to the vision, she invoked her spirit, to make it hover high and peer at elements that she would not otherwise have seen. Already in his cup-shaped hands, the semi-fluid ball of colours was materializing, when the door of the palace suddenly opened wide, showing in the half-light a young man wearing light battle armour, riding a powerful steed in turn harnessed on his head to protect him from any blows that might be inflicted by swords and spears.

The knight held with his right hand the banner of the Republic of Jesi, representing the rampant lion adorned with the royal crown. As soon as the door was completely open, he spurred the horse outside, almost overwhelming Lucia who was there in front. The girl, frightened, became distracted, and the sphere immediately disappeared. The horse, in front of the unexpected obstacle, soaring, kicking in the air with its front paws. Lucia felt a hoof at a very short distance from her face, but she did not panic and stuck her gaze into the sea-blue eyes of the rider, whose helmet visor was raised. For a moment he lost herself in those eyes, the horse calmed down and the knight looked back at the damsel, staring in turn at the girl’s hazel eyes. There was a moment of calm, of total silence, the crossing of the two glances seemed to have stopped time.

Who was that handsome knight, ready for a hypothetical battle to defend his city? Was it Andrea? If it had been, she should have been grateful to her evil uncle! But maybe Franciolini had other children. She didn’t have time to open her mouth, because after a few moments, the bells of St. Peter’s church began to ring, and gradually they were joined by those of St. Bernard’s church, then those of St. Benedict, and finally those of St. Florian. Throwing a last glance at Lucia, the knight spurred the horse again, reaching the nearby Piazza del Palio4 , the huge open space inside the walls, dominated by the Torre di Mezzogiorno5 . In short, other knights in arms squeezed around the one holding the banner, then came people on foot, armed with crossbows, daggers and any other weapon that could be used against the enemy.

«The Anconetans are attacking us!» cried the noble Franciolini. «Our lookouts sighted them from the Torrione del Montirozzo6 . Today, May 30, 1517, we prepare to defend the walls of our city.»

All the city gates were closed, the majority of the men on foot set out on the guard’s walkways, while the knights gathered in the square inside Porta Valle7 , ready to sortie against the enemy. But for that night, the Ancona army, led by Duke Berengario di Montacuto, did not approach to Jesi, but remained camped further downstream, a few leagues from the town of Monsano, half-hidden in the riparian bush near the Esino River.

For a few days the alert remained. At dusk, the Scolte8 reached the terraces, to strengthen the guard usually given to some lookouts, and from the walls resounded the call of a song that the population had not heard for several years:

«The trumpet sounded, and the day was over,

already by curfew the song went up!

Up, up, to the armed guard towers, there,

Be careful, quietly watch out!»

The People’s Captain had imposed a curfew on the citizens. At 9:00 p.m., those who did not go up to the stands of the walls had to strictly retire into their homes. But the guard was bound to drop early. For the evening of June 3, a party was planned at Palazzo Baldeschi, where the engagement of the Cardinal’s niece, Lucia, with the cadet of the Franciolini’s house would be announced. In those days, every time Lucia crossed her uncle’s eyes, even if she was unable to read his thoughts, she saw only one word drawn on her face: “betrayal”. But she could not understand what interpretation to give to that word, at the same time so simple and so complex.