Rita Monaldi: Veritas

The theory that the Habsburgs might descend from the Roman Pierleoni family, as Atto declares to the chimney-sweep, corresponds precisely to the ancient heraldic treatises in vogue in Vienna in the eighteenth century, including the dishonourable deeds of the Roman family (cf., for example, Eucharius Gottlieb Rynck, Leopolds des grossen Römischen Kaysers wunderwürdiges Leben und Thaten aus geheimen Nachrichten eröffnet und in vier Theile getheilet , Leipzig 1709, I, 9 ff.)

The Turkish cannonballs stuck in the walls of Vienna, which Ugonio would have liked to steal and then sell, are still visible in the places in the city listed by the corpisantaro .

The Neuer Crackauer Schreib-Calender, durch Matthias Gentilli, Conte Rodari, von Trient , Krakow 1710, the almanac for 1711, in which the chimney-sweep reads the tally of the days since the birth of Jesus Christ, is kept in the City Library of Vienna (Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek).

The legend of the Tekuphah is authentic: to read it in its entirety see W. Hirsch, Entdeckung derer Tekuphot, oder Das schädliche Blut , Berlin 1717.

The system of quartering rights as described by Simonis is entirely accurate: see Joseph Kallbrunner (ed.), Wohnungssorgen im alten Wien. Dokumente zur Wiener Wohnungsfrage im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert , Vienna-Leipzig 1926.

The list of the dead that Atto reads in the Wiennerisches Diarium is taken directly from issue no. 803 of the newspaper, 11-14th April 1711. The statistics on the dead in 1710, reported by the chimney-sweep, are confirmed in a supplement of the Corriere Ordinario of Vienna, 7 January 1711. The same is true of the dead recorded in Rome the same year (see Francesco Valesio, Diario di Roma , t.IV, anno 1710, p. 368 ff.).

In Vienna news of the sickness of the Dauphin of France arrived on 14th April 1711, the same day on which Cloridia gives Atto and the chimney-sweep the gazette bearing the news.

There is no element of fantasy in Penicek’s description of Hungary: his account faithfully corresponds to the sources between the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Cf. Casimir Freschot, Idea generale del regno d’Ungheria, sua descrittione, costumi, regni, e guerra , Venice 1684.

The information on the widespread use of Italian in Vienna is confirmed by Stefano Barnabè’s manual ( Teutsche und Italianische Discurs , Vienna, 1660 and Unterweisung Der Italienischen Sprach , Vienna, 1675) and above all by Michael Ritter’s excellent text, Man sieht der Sternen König glantzen , Vienna 1999, p. 9. Ritter confirms that in Vienna Italian was not only the official court language, as the chimney-sweep tells us, but the dominant idiom tout court .

Cardinal Kollonitsch (“Collonitz” is the old spelling) really was one of the pillars of Viennese resistance against the Turks, as Gaetano Orsini recounts, and was indeed in close touch with the family of Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi, who financed the Christian armies that triumphed in the battle of 12th September 1683 (cf. the historical notes in the appendix to Monaldi amp; Sorti, Imprimatur , Edinburgh 2008).

The description of the tavern where Hristo Hadji-Tanjov played chess is confirmed in Michael Ehn and Ernst Strouhal, Luftmenschen. Die Schachspieler von Wien 1700–1938 , Vienna 1998.

The Wiennerisches Diarium was indeed sold, as the young chimney-sweep recounts, in the palace known as the Red Porcupine (Rothes Igel). According to the Historisches Lexikon Wien by Felix Czeike (Vienna 2004, III, 300) it was not until 1721 that Rothes Igel hosted the editorial office of the Wiennerisches Diarium . However, in the Wiennerisches Diarium of 1711 one already finds the words “Zu finden im Rothen Igel”, which is to say “it can be found at the Red Porcupine”.

The Viennese and Their History

The Viennese — historians, scholars, professors, but also the common people and those residing in the surrounding area — are all highly sensitive to anything concerning the Habsburgs: woe to anyone who casts the slightest doubt on the noble imperial lineage! Joseph and Charles were universally loved, Prince Eugene should have been canonised, and the resistance of the besieged citizens in 1683 was nothing but heroic. While Onno Klopp, as has been seen, takes a rather different approach and is a great historian, Arneth is often unreliable. For example, he takes his information on the death of Joseph I from the biography of Wagner (a Jesuit!), gets the date of the Agha’s departure from Vienna wrong (see above) and constantly tries to convince the reader that Joseph I was surrounded by nothing but harmony and love. Arneth then describes in impassioned language Charles’s presumed grief on hearing of his brother’s death, claims that Joseph bade farewell to his “beloved consort”, but says nothing about the cruel treatment meted out to his young lover, Countess Marianna Pálffy.

Even today, anyone who dares to contradict the rose-coloured vulgate version is brusquely silenced, almost as if one were dealing with current politics (in a non-democratic regime), and not with history from the remote past. This is a minor defect of the Viennese, but it is also their most valuable quality: in their country everything is always fine, and woe to anyone who makes so bold as to claim the contrary, especially if a foreigner. The good side of this — and by far the most important — is that by dint of believing in and propagating the notion that everything is fine, they have succeeded to some degree in defending their world from the destructive forces of our squalid age, so that in no other capital city in the world can one live so well as in Vienna. It is a factor that writers who criticise Austria harshly, like Elfriede Jelinek, should bear in mind. And these are the words of two authors who have been forced into exile from their beloved homeland, Italy. Thank you, citizens of Vienna.