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“Well, I didn’t fall asleep and crash your car in the mountains, so maybe it does have miraculous powers.”
“Caffeine,” she said. “Caffeine has these powers, too. Do you want a coffee?”
“No coffee, thanks. But I’d love a cup of tea, if you don’t mind.” She turned toward the kitchen. “Oh, Elisabeth, before I forget. You’re an artist. Did you study art history, too?”
“Only a little.”
“I have a friend — she’s an anthropologist and an artist — who thinks that the Shroud of Turin was made by Giotto.”
“A painting by Giotto?” She wrinkled her forehead and frowned. “No, I don’t think so. The picture, the image, is too maigre… what is the English word?…thin? Not the man, but the picture. It is like a ghost, almost not there. Paint would be more strong.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Not paint. Dust. Pigment. Red ochre. Like a cave painting.” I pretended to sprinkle powder into my palm, then puffed it onto an imaginary surface.
“Ah!” There it was again, the charming, breath-taking “ah.” Just hearing it made me smile. “Red ochre. I think it is possible.”
“Do you know if Giotto ever worked in Avignon?”
She shrugged. “Pfft. I don’t know. Peut-être—maybe. Artists came from all over Europe to paint at the palais. Also at the livrées of the cardinals. There were many walls to decorate, and much money to collect. Artists come to money like flies come to honey.”
I laughed. “I thought all artists were poor and starving.”
“Most artists are starving. But if the pope likes you, you will never go hungry.”
* * *
When Elisabeth returned with my tea, she was balancing the cup on a pair of books: a lavish coffee-table art book about Giotto, and a smaller book, which she opened once I lifted the cup from it. “Vies des Artists,” she said. “The Lives of the Artists. By Vasari. You know Vasari?” I shook my head. “Giorgio Vasari. Italian. Sixteenth century. He made architecture, but also biography and history.”
“A regular Renaissance man,” I punned, then worried that the joke wouldn’t translate.
She laughed. “Ah, bon.” She checked the smaller book’s contents, then flipped to a chapter. “So. Vasari writes this about Giotto. He says, ‘When Clement Five became pope and brought the papal court to Avignon, Giotto came with him. And while he was here, he made many beautiful pictures and frescoes, which pleased the pope and the entire court very much. And so, when the work was all finished, the pope sent him back to Florence with love, and with many gifts. Giotto was rich and honored and famous.’ You see,” she said with a smile, “I told you: If the pope likes you, you don’t starve.”
“Ah,” I said.
CHAPTER 16
I made it to the library an hour before closing time. Neither of Elisabeth’s books showed paintings from Giotto’s Avignon period, but I felt sure the library would have a more comprehensive book. And I was glad to have another occasion to visit the former cardinal’s palace, which was now a palace of books.
The building was fronted by a square courtyard, which was open to the street but was flanked on its other three sides by a magnificent stone building in the shape of a low, wide U. The two wings seemed like later additions to the building’s massive central core; that part was three stories high — three very tall stories of pale, putty-colored stone, topped by crenellations. Unlike the battlements atop the Palace of the Popes, the crenellations here appeared merely decorative; the building was large, but not fortified, and the immense leaded-glass windows in its façade would have posed no barrier to attack.
I entered through a large glass door at the center of the building. Directly inside was a foyer with a massive stone staircase leading upward. One floor up, I entered the main reading room — once a cardinal’s banquet hall, it now served up a feast of books — and made for the reference desk. There I found the helpful librarian Philippe on duty again. He smiled at me in recognition. “Bonjour, monsieur. Are you back for more research on Eckhart?”
“Not this time,” I answered. “Art history this time. Do you have any books on the artist Giotto? An Italian painter. Giotto di…” I floundered for the last name.
“Di Bondoni. But of course. Magnifique. Come.” He led me down the long wall of the great room, to a section where oversized art books were shelved. They were arranged alphabetically, and midway along the wall, we came to G. Philippe pulled out two books — a thin one and a fat one — then reshelved the thin one. “That one is no good,” he said dismissively. “Everything in that one is also in this one. And more.” He handed me the fat book; it was two inches thick, a foot high, eighteen inches wide, and ten pounds heavy. The text was in French, but I figured that didn’t matter much; I was interested in the pictures.
“Thank you,” I said to the young man. “This is such a beautiful library. Is it okay if I take this upstairs to the mezzanine?”
“Sure. I prefer the mezzanine also. Very tranquil, and the view is the best.”
I lugged the book up another flight of stone stairs, emerging onto the balcony that overlooked the grand hall. I could easily imagine five hundred guests — cardinals, bishops, wealthy merchants, dukes and duchesses, and other lords and ladies. Twenty feet below me, where the banquet tables would have been set with gilded china, sparkling crystal, and platters of food, row upon row of shelves now marched across the tiled floor. Twenty feet above me were the timbered squares of the coffered ceiling, whose main joists measured at least eighteen inches square.
I was headed for one of the balcony’s wooden study tables when I spotted a chair tucked into a deep recess beneath a leaded-glass window. I settled into the cozy niche, imagining myself living and working in such opulence: a visiting scholar, perhaps, or the personal physician to his eminence the Cardinal, stealing a few moments in this out-of-the-way nook to peruse an illuminated manuscript from his prized collection.
Soon I forgot sumptuous surroundings; all my attention was riveted on Giotto’s paintings, especially a series of frescoes in a jewel box of a chapel in Padua, Italy. The chapel, belonging to the wealthy Scrovegni family, couldn’t have held a hundred people, but every square inch of the walls was covered with frescoes — more than fifty of them — depicting themes and scenes from the Bible, including numerous episodes in the lives of Mary and Jesus. The images were overwhelming in their number and richness; the little church reminded me of the Sistine Chapel, except that the paintings were smaller and closer to eye level. What refined and devout people the Scrovegnis must have been to commission such glorious art.
Finally I looked up from the paintings, rubbed my eyes, and then flipped to the index. I ran my eyes down the A section, toward the bottom, to see which pages featured Giotto’s Avignon paintings. I found no entry for Avignon. Puzzled, I lugged the book downstairs to the reference desk and showed the index to Philippe. “There’s nothing in this book about Avignon. Do you have another book on Giotto? One that shows what he painted while he was here?”
“Here?” He looked puzzled.
“Yes, here. In Avignon. This city.” I smiled. He frowned. “Pope Clement the Fifth brought him here,” I explained, proud of my knowledge. “He painted beautiful pictures and frescoes here, then he went back to Florence, more famous and beloved than ever.”
His frown deepened. “Monsieur Giotto did not paint here. He never even visited here.”
“But he did. I read it in an art history book.”
“What book?”
“The Lives of the Artists. By…Vasari?”
“Ah, oui, Vasari.” He laughed. “He just made up that stuff about Avignon.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it’s pure fiction. Vasari does that all the time. He tells great stories about famous painters and poets, but half of them are made up. Invented.”
This was a twist I hadn’t expected — another wrinkle in the Shroud, or at least in my theory that the Avignon bones were intimately tied to the Turin
Shroud. I thanked him and began walking away, disappointed. Then a thought occurred to me, and I turned back toward Philippe. “Are there any famous fresco painters who did come to Avignon?”
“Ah, oui. The one who did the beautiful frescoes in the Palais des Papes. He is the neighbor of Giotto.”
“Excuse me?”
