Marvelous
Truly it was...
By no means he had ever been fond of the usage of grand terms, especially those uttered under the strains of emotional reaction, whether of joy or anger, or any of these thousands of passions that swarm the human soul.
Big words, born not from thought, but simple feelings, are unfit for any person that sought purity and virtue of control. Yet children... and, surprisingly more often, grown men among the common crowd... always seemed to delight in them.
He never did, always his speech was nuanced.
Nuanced, precise, devoted of any baseness of subjectivity. Clear. Controlled. Good.
But...
But, but, but, but, but...
But at this very moment, in face of such beauty, the intricate reveal itself as falsehood, nuance become the insult. And reservations nothing but lies.
Sure, he still feels the same eternal cold upon his skin... calm as ever... and stillness has, as forever, its place in his chest. He is still the same, no different from 1 second, hour, day, year or decade earlier. As he will be in a thousand of each to come.
Yet, for now, some incredible heat seems to have decided to run through his veins, to his great despair.
The veins warm, the heart racing, the stomach crisped and the mouth turned dry. It seems that the eternal power that art cast on the soul is crushing him... almost.
He is even nearly halfway to love... or whatever this feeling is, in this rare and fleeting moment.
The light that entered the chapel in this stupidly cold morning did not simply illuminate the room, it perfected it, being its final adornment, its cherry on top of the cake.
It fell from the high, unreachable windows in long strokes, echoes of something greater than anything.
Under its veil, paint become life, colours become chair and blood, and even the desperately naive attain reason.
He walked beneath it, his polished shoes resonating on the marble floor, echoing through the vast, empty room. Empty of the rabble and of the bleat. The one closeted place that only the privileged, the reasoned, and the lucid should be allowed to enter.
His head tilted upward. Above him unfolded the reason of life. The end and the beginning of everything, the only matter of this clueless, lost world.
An ocean of color and bodies, of suffering and ecstasy, of heaven and hell, where they both graced the creation by revealing themselves. Only for a short, timeless instant, for a single true picture, a single representation of them going on their long and eternal existences. Showing cruelty with the grace and the magnificence that only something holy and superior could achieve.
In this vault of paradise, boundless torments, and judgment resides the realest thing there is: in its full beauty.
For some, it is painting; but truly, it is vision.
Only genius, holiness, and fever could ever portray something such as this.
From where he stood, the figures did not seem, they were alive. Their bodies strained and twisted, in position that could only be fathomed, their exaggerated postures and their naked skin revealing to the world their numerous and imposing muscles, defined like only someone with deep knowledge in anatomy could do. Reaching across impossible distances.
Their faces bright with emotions that only a photographer, or a genius could hope to recreate. Numerous pictures of purity, hallowed, divine, joyfulness, hopelessness, terror and languish, far too exquisite to be even akin to human. Where even the terrified reek of beauty and grace.
The saints, the previous owners of the place and the old chaps of peter are serene here, as always, but this time, shine by a light that he could never find anywhere else, even after so much time on earth, making them as true and perfect as they could appear.
At the end of the great wall, lies the end of times, where the holy, the worthy and hope is tied with the sinful, the forgotten and desperate. Where even angel is weary and tired with its labor.
Ah, the anatomy of will, theology of flesh.
The Chapel colours and liveness was not standing only from the blaze of the warming sun, it also breathed in candlelight.
But he was not sure if it breathed with warm, maybe a more common man could think so, but not him, or maybe he just could not feel it, like a dog is stranger to red and green.
Yet, he could still feel the ancient shimmer — of a place where power and sacred is at its strongest. Where stone and paint serve their true purpose, and where the humbleness of a man is sacred in gold, marble and jewelry.
The air itself seemed to smell of wax and old frescoes mixing with something faintly mineral.
Maybe the holy is at its strongest here, for sure. But him, he is still far stronger, as he is the master now, whether here or on any other chapel that belong in his borders.
Still, beneath this vault, that remind of the previous mistakes, and warn of the future ones, if not prophesizing them, where the hubris is tamed, and where delusions are took by the throat, even the act of walking felt intrusive. Like if he was nothing but a trespasser, marching on centuries of reverence, and on something... greater.
My congratulations Michelangelo, you truly surpassed yourself.
Above him stretched the artist's sky. His masterpiece. His creation of Adam.
Oh humanity
A moment forever suspended in time, where the Garden Dweller is in harmony with his father. Surrounded by the painted cosmos, where the finger of the first man is reaching for the hand of the supreme being. And where, for the last time of his life, the old entity will answer the call, with love and care.
He stood motionless, not blinking an eye or moving for an inch, like if any movement might disturb the stillness of that moment. The calm and serenity of this harmonious spectacle
The two figures... one reclining, weary of its rotten humanity, stretching toward the brightness of purity, while the other, pushed by angels and fatherly love, is responding. The seemed forever stopped on the brink of contact. A gap, small but infinite, that will never be closed, and that the man, by his actions, will ensure that neither him, nor even one of the thousands of thousands of his children, could even dream of closing. For now, and forever.
The longer he looked, the more the figures appeared to move, like semi-living beings. Not sure to exist or not.
He wondered what the most refined artist of the Renaissance must have seen, lying on his scaffolding all those years, brush in hand, drawing the world from above, coloring it and enhancing it with everything that could sublimate it. Gaze fixed on the wet plaster, ready to complete his creation.
Did he imagine himself to be that Adam, that being perfect in body but eternally fallen in spirit, reaching out toward something he could never truly touch? Toward a father he could only fear from afar, never approach.
Or God, condemned to watch the endless creation, completion, and destruction of the cosmos ? Having to resign himself to being able to create only the imperfect, destined to see his children fail forever and sink to the lowest of the low. Losing themselves in everything that makes them filthy and repugnant in being and soul.
He breathed slowly. The heat lingered in the air. Behind him, footsteps whispered along the columns, echoing through the vast space—a priest, perhaps, or a Swiss guard, or one of the waiting diplomats—but he did not care enough to turn. His gaze remained fixed on the fallen being, or perhaps the future fallen being. Watching this moment, knowing that from here only the worst would come to this new, beautiful life—because of his choices, or so they say. Still focused on the narrow void between God and the imperfect.
It was not merely the beauty of it all that held him. But also, the precision of the moment before contact... this trembling, trembling instant when hope of collusion is hailed, when joy and awe can be felt, and yet, even as the tremendous end and all that preceded it remain inevitable and terrible, one can still only watch in a mixture of dread and pleasure. With this precious, subtle little ray of hope in its heart.
Oh, humanity...
You have not yet shown him how fallen you were.
But you will, soon. He will learn this hard truth... with hammer blows, if necessary.
...
"Signore..."
He turned his gaze behind, seeing a young, almost childlike in its demeanor, priest.
A man of faith half in the room and half out of it, as though blocked at the threshold, unwilling to enter — as if the sky itself might fall upon him if he did.
Funny.
Roughly so...
"Sorr-Sorry Signore... I mean... Vostra Eccellenza... but you are not supposed to be in this room."
The young priest, seemingly in his last twenties, spoke with a febrile voice, his hands shifting from behind his back to before him, and back again, as if they could not decide where to rest.
The guardian of the place making amends to the intruder for asking him not to go where he is not allowed to...
Now he is quite sure.
He is amused
At least these people are somewhat entertaining — certainly more so than the guards at Palazzo Venezia...
And that is unexpected.
Another reason to come here it seems, to the most powerful place on earth, where the greatest power resides... and where it is guarded by bunch of lambs.
Not that this, is unexpected of these people.
"Was I ?" He asked, with a little touch of sarcasm that everyone with a half brain should catch, pacing crass the well craft marble floor, dissecting this new thing with the eyes. "I though the closed door was an invitation to enter..."
"My apologies signore... but it wasn't..." The man said, once recovered from the little jab. Seemingly not acknowledging it, although a protuberance in his neck could reveal the tightening of his jaw, and how he tries to force unwanted words to stay in the back of the throat.
"This place is forbidden to casual visitors, except for open days, and it is not... plea-."
"Oh... a casual visitor?"
He said it slowly, tasting the words on his tongue, reeking of commonness. Then he continued, turning fully to the young man.
"But am I only to be put into this case? Am I only a visitor, and nothing else? Is that what you mean?"
"No, of course not, Your Eccellenza," the young man replied. "What I mean is—"
"Then what am I?" he cut in, tapping his boot on the marble floor. The little sound echoed through the vast chamber. "If not 'anybody,' as you seem to say?"
"An honorable guest, Sign… Eccellenza," the young man answered.
"Only a guest?" Eccellenza said, glancing around the room, as if seeking something, before returning his gaze to the priest. A stratagem of speech, or a genuine curiosity — who could tell?
"It is strange. I thought the territory of the country I am ruling comprised this very place, which would make me more than an 'honourable guest,' as you so well said. Or perhaps I missed the barrier and the douane while traveling the border ?"
He added sarcastically, although well attentive the one who could see any trace of the humour on his face. Though with such subtlety that only the blind could not see the sarcasm.
Sometimes you have to use such prosaic term, to be sure to be understood, sadly, it is mostly the sun who is bright in this country and very few of whatever else.
The young priest hesitated for a long instant, catching both the message and the subtle confrontation behind it. His lips parted slightly, then closed again, like a fish struggling for air, as if the words were trapped between his teeth. His fingers drummed nervously on the rosary at his belt.
"I did not mean... I only meant that entry here is restricted, Eccellenza," he murmured at last.
"Only the Holy Father and those appointed—"
He cut him off with a faint movement of his hand.
"Appointed," he repeated, savoring the word. "By whom?"
The priest blinked, startled by the simplicity of the question.
"By the Church, Eccellenza."
"The Church," he echoed. "An old and most convenient abstraction. But tell me… was I appointed?"
"Yes, Eccellenza," the priest answered, his voice trembling ever so slightly.
"Yes," he nodded, eyes now locked on the young man's when this one had finally dared to meet his gaze. "And by who?"
"By the ki—" the young priest began, then cut himself off the moment the word left his lips.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk..." He answered only with that tiny chiding, the sound stretched into the room like a reprimand. He wagged a single finger at the man of faith — or boy of faith, the thought amused him inwardly, or would if he was as pueril as Amedeo.
"Nonono. Yes, he appointed me — confirming who I am, officializing my position on this earth and in this country. BUT he is only the one who gave me the title, who gifted a name to my powers, not the one who gave me the power in itself. So... who did?"
The priest looked lost for a moment, the question settling on him like a riddle. He hesitated, then, as if fishing for the right sacramental syllable, answered slowly.
"The people?" he offered, voice thinning at the edges.
"Yes." The 'honourable' — what a pompous name — he said, tightening his grip as though to test its firmness. Approval in the smallest of gestures.
"The masses. And the masses alone. That is who... who and what appointed me..." He spoke with a calm yet authoritarian cadence, letting the silence take the room for a few long seconds before continuing.
"The man of Italy put me where I am now. It was he, wholeheartedly, who pushed, clamored, begged for me to be in the place I have occupied these many years. With all that comes with it — the better and the just less better. The man alone, and the contiguous masses he creates in his darkest hours."
He fell silent. Letting instal itself a short silence that only the wind, imagined or not, gently stopped for some times. Then he nodded toward the holy water font, asking without words.
"Father Nathaniel."
"Perfetto. So, Nathaniel..." He accepted the priest's name as if tasting it, then continued. "Do you believe your Church can remain superior? Can it resist something such as this? Can it bear the might of the Italian man, of the masses and their force?"
He extended his arm, encompassing the chapel, the frescoes, the light itself. "Can it survive them — in all their fury?"
...
Do you think so, Nathaniel ?
...
Do you givie yourself proudness by imagining so, Nathaniel ?
...
Do you hope so, Nathaniel ?
...
Do you pray for so, Nathaniel ?
...
A pause lingered between them. Only the faint hum of silence inhabited that perfect, terrible place.
"Eccellenza," Nathaniel breathed.
The young priest's eyes fell. His jaw twitched once, twice. "I am not the one to answer that," he whispered, before saying it again, this time out loud.
"I am not the one to answer that."
"No," he said while going close to him, like a whisper in its ear, saying quietly.... almost kindly, or at least he would think that if he was not reasonable. "You are not."
A pause lingered between them, filled only by the faint hum of silence, the perfect thing in a place such as this.
There are things and places on earth that whisper of sanctity so complete that to disturb them should be a crime worthy of death: for in disturbing them one disturbs their tranquil perfection.
He turned his gaze back to the fresco, as if to be pierced again by that beauty he could neither conquer nor possess. Behind him, the faint echo of the chapel's life resumed; the young priest, Nathaniel, remained half-bowed, face drained of color, the rosary dangling from his fingers like a pendulum marking the moment before a verdict.
"Then who will make me leave?" he might have asked — but the question needed no voice: it sat in his posture, in the quiet authority of his boots on the marble, in the simple, implacable fact of who he was. The answer, when it came to the priest's eyes, was not given in words but in a long, humble recognition from himself, as he bowed his head.
Bowed his head, of shame or of obedience ? Who knows and who cares ? The recognition remains the same.
"Do you think," he added, still calm, still almost gentle, "that walls of faith could keep out the one who built them stronger than your prayers ever could?"
The young priest said nothing. His lips moved, but no words formed. The breath that escaped was not one of defiance, but of submission.
He smiled again, the faint trace of amusement returning.
"Good," he said simply. "Then we understand each other."
Then, almost as if to himself, he added:
"And yet, you guard it. You, of all people. You guard it, to me..."
No threat in his voice — only the silent calm; a question not begging to be answered. The kind of tone used by those who already own the whole world they walk through, and even the ground under it.
The priest seemed to shrink before the words, a faint red blooming on his cheeks. His hands, uncertain, found each other at his waist.
"Please, Eccellenza," he said softly, "I must ask you to leave."
He smiled — not out of amusement this time, but something colder, distant, and perhaps even somewhat disappointed.
"I will," he said, turning back toward the fresco. "But tell me one thing first..."
He said while closing the gap with his interlocutor, landing a hand on his shoulder, seemingly like marking the black clothes, before he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes sharp in direction of Adam, and his holy father.
"When you are parading yourself in this very holy place, to you take time to admire the art of our ancestors, and the sacred inspiration that the skies landed to them ?"
- "I am." The young man nodded, for the first time choosing to lay his eyes upwards, sculpting the ceiling with his gaze.
It only made the man smile at the sight, a little bit, licking shortly his lips, before giving a last shoot at poor old Adam.
"What a pity, for those serving the heavens, praying and watching over them, yet ever aware of their eternal unworthiness of them."
The priest's eyes widened, and for the first time, his trembling ceased. Recognition spread across his face like a shadow sliding over stone.
"Eccellenza..." he breathed, barely above a whisper.
Father Nathaniel realized at that very moment that he could say nothing, only look at him — half begging to leave, half begging to stay.
But the man did not acknowledge this. Instead, he turned back toward the fresco, hands clasped behind his back, posture impeccable, gaze steady — as though God and he were, no, would be equals in conversation.
"Your Church and I," he said, almost to himself, "we sadly share the same sickness. We both wish to seek, to reach, and to save what is already damned. The wicked, the unworthy and the sick..."
The light caught his profile then — the smooth hair, the sharpness of the jaw, the polished shoes that had echoed through every marble hall of power.
The moment was then interrupted by the sound of numerous people walking, and coming in this direction, the echoes of their polished shoes resonating out of the room.
"Ah." The man said, before putting on his head a black fez that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, adjusting it for some seconds on his hairless head before walking out of the sacred room. His boots resonating aven louder than the ones afar.
"It seems the old man has finally decided to show himself. Great, I had grow almost weary and thought that he had nodded off."
"So" he said while clapping his hand. Like to wake himself up. "Let not make him wait."
And the priest, finally bowed his head in direction of the man walking out, and murmured as if in prayer,
"Il Duce..."