Veritas (Atto Melani) by Rita Monaldi, Francesco Sorti Read Free Book Online Page A

the local language, since I myself would undertake to instruct my son
in his native language, as I had already done, quite successfully, with his two sisters. And so every second evening, Cloridia, my son and I received a visit from this teacher, who would endeavour
for a couple of hours to illuminate our poor minds on the intricate and impenetrable universe of the Teutonic language. Cardinal Piccolomini had already complained of its immeasurable difficulties
and its almost total incompatibility with other idioms, and this had been proved since the days of Giovanni da Capistrano; during his visit to Vienna, he had delivered his sermons against the Turks
from the pulpit in the Carmelite Square in Latin; he had then been followed by an interpreter, who took three hours to repeat everything in German.
    While our little infant made great strides, my wife and I were left floundering. We made greater progress, fortunately, in reading, and that was why, as I said earlier, that in the late morning
of 9th April of the year 1711, in the brief post-prandial pause, I was able to flick casually (almost) through the
New Calendar-Agenda
of Krakow, written by Matthias Gentille, Count Rodari
of Trent, while my little boy doodled at my feet until it should be time to go back to work with me.
    Like every master chimney-sweep of Vienna, I too had my
Lehrjunge
, or apprentice, and he was, of course, my son, who at the age of eight had already endured – but also learned
– more than a boy twice his age.
    A little while later Cloridia joined us.
    “Come quickly, they’re about to turn into the street. And then I have to get back to the palace.”
    Thanks to the good offices of the Chormaisterin of the convent, my wife had found a highly respectable job at just a short distance from the religious house. In Porta Coeli Street, or
Himmelpfortgasse as the Viennese say, there was a building of great importance: the winter palace of the Most Serene Prince Eugene of Savoy, President of the Imperial Council of War, great
condottiero
in the service of the Empire in the war against France, as well as victor over the Turks. And now, on that very day, there was to be an extremely important event at the palace:
at midday an Ottoman embassy was expected to arrive from Constantinople. A great opportunity for my wife, born in Rome, but from the womb of a Turkish mother, a poor slave who had ended up in enemy
hands.
    Two days earlier, on Tuesday, five boats had arrived at the Leopoldine Island in Vienna, on the branch of the Danube nearest the ramparts, and the Turkish Agha, Cefulah Capichi Pasha, had
disembarked with a retinue of about twenty people. Suitable lodgings had been provided for them on the island. To tell the truth, it was not entirely clear just what the Ambassador of the Sublime
Porte had come to do in Vienna.
    There had been peace with the Ottomans for several years now, since 11th September 1697, when Prince Eugene had thoroughly defeated them at the Battle of Zenta and forced them to accept the
subsequent Peace of Karlowitz. War was now raging, not with the Infidel but with Catholic France over the question of the Spanish throne; relations with the Porte, usually so troubled, seemed to be
tranquil. Even in restless Hungary, where the imperial armies had fought for centuries against the armies of Mahomet, the princes who had rebelled against the Emperor, usually chafing and
combative, seemed to have been finally tamed by our beloved Joseph I, who was not known as “the Victorious” for nothing.
    Despite this, in the second half of March an urgent courier had come from Constantinople bearing an announcement for the Most Serene Prince Eugene of an extraordinary embassy of the Turkish
Agha, which was to arrive before the end of the same month. The Grand Vizir, Mehmet Pasha, must have taken the decision at the very last moment, as he had been unable to send a courier providing
suitable advance warning. This had seriously upset