After Hannibal by Barry Unsworth Read Free Book Online Page B

house. I’ll get Esposito for the building. We understand each other—we have worked together before. If all goes well, we’ll be able to have the brickwork vaulting in the dining room restored.”
    “That would be marvelous.” Mildred raised a thick-wristed reddish hand to her hair, dampened by steam from the pottage, which she was trying to bring to the right consistency. “You are so clever, Stan,” she said. “I know you will do it. That dining room will be the nucleus of our medieval restaurant.”
    Blemish regarded her for some moments. He was touched, as always, by her loyalty, her unswerving confidence in his abilities. “We will have a fine house someday,” he said. “I promise you that, Milly.We will have our medieval restaurant. It will be famous throughout Umbria. What am I saying? It will be famous throughout Italy. People will flock to come here, it will be
the
place. They will sit under our magnificent brickwork vaulting, at oaken tables, waited on by jolly serving men in doublet and hose, eating cabbage chowder and fried fig pastries, and quaffing ale. The floors will be covered with handmade
cotto
. The whole thing will be a vision of the High Middle Ages. We will make a fortune.”

    In the afternoon the Chapmans drove into Perugia. Harold had made an appointment to see their lawyer, Dottor Mancini, who had been recommended to them through the foreign department of Harold’s bank and had helped them through the various hazards of buying their house. Dottor Mancini spoke English and was visibly prosperous and had shown himself to be wily and wise in the business of the house, and for these reasons Harold had confidence in him.
    They were early and so took the opportunity of visiting the Church of San Severo, or rather the fifteenth-century chapel adjoining the church, which they were both keen to see as it contained the only certain work by Raphael to remain in the city. It was still early in the year, there were not many visitors yet, and Harold and Cecilia were alone there. They stood together in the chilly little place and gazed up at the fresco.
    “Interesting,” Cecilia said, “the way it is divided horizontally like that into two sections. It is the upper one that is by Raffaello ofcourse and the lower by Perugino.” She always adopted the same tone when talking to Harold about anything to do with art, not lecturing exactly—her nature was too mild and diffident for that—but gently pedagogic. “You can see the influences at work though, can’t you, when you look at them both together? Perugino was Raffaello’s teacher at one stage, you know.”
    Harold nodded. He had read this in his book about the masterpieces of Italian art. “Pietro Vannucci,” he said, “known as il Perugino. His date of birth is disputed.”
    “It must be quite unique,” Cecilia said with a little rush of enthusiasm, “to see the work of these two masters side by side.”
    “One above the other, to be exact.” Harold narrowed his eyes at the fresco. He could not see much similarity between the two, try as he might. “The colors are similar, aren’t they?” he said. “He was either seventy-three when he died or seventy-eight—Perugino, I mean. Depending on which authority you follow. A good innings either way, considering the times.”
    “It is there in the treatment of the draperies,” Cecilia said. “It is there in the idealizing tendency, which you will see if you look at the faces and the postures. Compare the expression of St. Placido in the upper part with that of St. Gregory Magno in the lower. Perugino’s precise age when he died is really neither here nor there, Harold.”
    Harold scanned the paintings anew, the seated figure of Christ in the upper one, hand raised in blessing, white dove with outstretched wings above his head, flanking angels, seated saints on either side. There was nothing much going on in the lower painting, just a row of standing saints, large-eyed and