David Blixt - The Master of Verona

The elder clergyman was saying, "…Clement is dead. The Church should move to reclaim the papacy from Philip!"

"What does the nationality of your pope matter?" asked the garish midget in an innocuous tone.

Pietro's father and the bishop both responded with varying degrees of heat. Their sentiment was the same, but Dante expressed it better. "My dear misguided juggler — through converting the noble pagans of ancient Roma to Christianity, God chose Italy to be the seat right royal of his faith. Rome is the true home of the papacy, and the office belongs to an Italian! You are a Jew. Compare the exile of the papacy in France to the Babylonian Captivity, and you will perhaps grasp the significance."

"Or the captivity of the Jews in Rome after the destruction of the Temple?" asked the motley fool wryly. "Besides, Italy is a myth! An intellectual's conceit. A philospoher's fancy. Or a poet's."

"A dream of truth is no fancy, fool."

"Yet the last Italian pope was no friend to you, poet."

"True, fool, but a French pope is friend to no one."

Mariotto tugged Pietro's sleeve and together they drifted towards the raucous sounds of those nearer their own age. The bridegroom was at their center, answering war questions put to him by a large, well-muscled fellow with a thatch of unruly sand-coloured hair. Cecchino related the events of the fall campaign, and the failed attack on Padua. But the majority of the groom's friends were only interested in plying him with liquid courage and eliciting love poetry from him. "Ah, Constanza!" sighed Cecchino, earning a chorus of catcalls. Pietro and Mariotto joined in.

"I should be so lucky," groused a man in his twenties, muscular and broad-shouldered, handsomely bearded. Absentmindedly tricking with a scrap of rope, he smiled even as he complained, "I'll never get married!"

The groom cried, "Of course you won't, Bonaventura! You've managed to get on the wrong side of every father in Verona!"

"I know it!" growled the grouser, hunching forward, the rope suddenly lifeless.

Someone else joined in. "Ever since your father — God rest his blessed soul — kicked off, you've been on a rampage! Wine, women, and song!

"Not too many songs, I think," said Cecchino. "Mainly wine and women."

"Don't forget his hundred falcons!"

The fellow called Bonaventura groaned. "If I don't marry soon, I won't have any money left!"

Cecchino shrugged. "Well, you better start looking outside Verona's walls."

"There's a world outside Verona's walls?"

"You best hope so. If not, you'll die a bachelor." The groom's eyes were taking on the sly look drunks get. "Maybe we'll win this war with Padua soon. Then you can go there and steal a wealthy Paduan heiress."

The rope began to dance again as Bonaventura grew thoughtful. "A Paduan heiress…"

"Oh, yeah, the women there have the biggest…" Cecchino sighed. "But I'm married now! Ah, Costanza!" The jeers began anew.

A hand descended on Mariotto's shoulder. "Son. A moment." Pietro looked over to see a man with Mariotto's good looks, weathered and grown more patrician and grave. It was a proud face, and a handsome one, but sad.

Drawing his son aside, Lord Montecchio spoke softly to Mariotto in a manner that young Alaghieri knew all too well. Pietro decided perhaps he ought to join his father's conversation. Just to be safe.

As he shuffled back through the circle of adults he could hear the abbot speaking vehemently. They had evidently abandoned the topic of the papacy, for the object of the abbot's ire was now Dante himself.

"There cannot be more than one Heaven! Even the pagan heretic Aristotle affirms that this cannot be so. The very first lines of his ninth chapter on the heavens states it irrefutably."

"Thank you." The poet's lugubrious lips formed a sinister, lopsided smile that Pietro knew well. Dante Alaghieri did not suffer fools gladly. "You have just made my point. There cannot be more than one Heaven, you say. But you then refer to the plurality — the heavens. How are we to reconcile this?"

The abbot, who bore a vague resemblance to the Scaliger, sputtered. "A figure of speech — the heavens refer to the skies, not the greater Heaven above!"

The little man with the bells spoke. "I am surprised, lord Abbot, that you are so public with your confessions."

"What?"

The little man flipped over to stand on his head. "Reading the Greek is heresy, and punishable by death. You must have friends in high places." The abbot blushed. "But I will join you on the pyre, for I too have read his works — worse, I've read The Destruction. As I recall, dear Abbot, Aristotle had a numerical fixation not unlike our infernal friend's here. But whereas Monsignore ," he nodded to Dante, "obsesses in noveni , the Greek was more economical. Did he not say there were three 'heavens?'"

"Bait someone else, jester," replied the abbot. "He was acknowledging the common uses of the word. Aristotle then goes on to insist that there is only one Heaven, for nothing can exist outside of Heaven."

Cangrande sat eagerly forward, perfect teeth flashing. "Now I'm ashamed I haven't read Aristotle. Does that mean we are now in Heaven? Doesn't seem we have much to look forward to." The low ripple of amusement in the crowd was mostly genuine. The Scaliger ran a hand over the shoulders of a hound, his eyes narrowed. "I am interested, though, in the idea of three in one. Was it an early prophecy of the Trinity? Should we count Aristotle among the Prophets?"

The abbot snorted. "No doubt Maestro Alighieri would agree. He certainly made a saint of that pagan scribbler Virgil. So many pagan poets and philosophers got fine treatment, while good churchmen were lambasted. But you missed one, Alighieri! I didn't notice the Greek philosopher Zeno in your journey through Hell."

The aquiline lips curled beneath the black beard. "That doesn't mean he isn't there. There are so many souls, I did not have time to name them all. If there is anyone you are particularly curious about, I'll inquire on my next visit."

The crowd erupted. Only Pietro knew how hard Dante was working to maintain his composure. Embedded in his many fine qualities was a discomfort in crowds. Over the years he'd learned to mask it with an acerbic wit.

Above the noise the abbot leveled an accusing finger. "You, sir, are a pagan, posing as a Christian."

"Better than an ass posing as a lamb of God." Beneath a fresh spate of laughter Dante's head turned. Oh no , thought Pietro as his father crooked a beckoning finger. "My lords, this is my elder son, named Pietro for San Pietro himself. Son, remind our host, what were the three types of heaven Aristotle named?"

Pietro wanted to hide himself in the fluttering drapes. This is my punishment for being late. And for the hat. First the Abbot is put down for calling Virgil a scribbler. Now it's my turn . Not far off he spied his little brother's large grin. Shut up, twerp . Endeavoring to recall his lessons, Pietro took a breath. "The first he uses is closest to what we mean by Heaven. It is the seat of all that is divine."

"Correct. And the second?"

"Next, he uses heaven to encompass the stars, the moon, and the sun. The heavens of astrology."

Pietro hoped his father would expound and expand, but all he was rewarded with was a curt nod. "And the third?"

"The third… it's… well, ah — "

"Yes?"

Pietro took a chance. "It's — it's everything. The whole universe. It's the totality of the world, everything in and around us. Just as all the pagan gods were only aspects of Jupiter, or Zeus, so all living beings are — are aspects of heaven."

Dante gazed at his son. "Crudely put. But not inaccurate."

Relief. Thank God Antonia isn't here . Pietro's sister would have quoted it, exactly. In Greek.