The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,172

afire once more.

“Come on.”

We approached the old fellow and beckoned him over. “The dogaressa has prayed to the Blessed Saint and admired your church. She wishes you to commend her to the abbot and mention that she enjoyed all of the basilica’s wondrous features.”

The old fellow beamed. I waited for Brother Guido to mention the second relic, but he did not.

“We will take our leave of you now. Please accept this for the poor.”

He held out a Milanese soldo, one of his pay coins as a paghe vive soldier no doubt. I was briefly touched, but as the monk took the coin, I trod heavily on my friend’s foot. I couldn’t believe he was going to have us leave without asking the crucial question. But I need not have worried.

“The dogaressa very much enjoyed seeing all of your church’s beauties.”

“Oh, but soldato,” broke in the sacristan, “she has not seen all of them. I cannot permit the dogaressa to leave without—that is, I must insist, suggest, beg, that she look upon Nehushtan.”

There it was. That word again. I took my foot off Brother Guido’s and we followed the sacristan to a remote corner of the church at the left of the nave, to an ornamental pillar standing alone, as if it belonged to another time and place.

“A Byzantine pillar, very fine,” said the sacristan with pride.

Brother Guido voiced my disappointment. “And this is it? Ni-hus—”

“Nehushtan?” The sacristan smiled again. “Bless you, no. You must look up.”

When he said that, I knew we were in the right place before I even saw what he was pointing at.

At the top of the pillar, flicked into a loop and ready to strike like the Sforza serpent, was a bronze snake. In the remaining candles it gleamed softly; exactly the copper hue of Mercury’s wand in the Primavera.

I was dying to ask what it was but knew from many months with my mother that an exalted lady would never address a lowly monk directly. I knew, though, that I could leave the questions to Brother Guido, and so it proved.

“ ‘Tis wondrous strange. Pray, what is the significance of this serpent? I am sure the dogaressa would like to know.”

“We are privileged indeed,” replied the old man, “for this artifact came to us across many lands and seas, all the way from the Holy Lands of the Bible, and across time from those days too.”

“Ah, then it is perhaps connected to Aaron’s rod, which turned to a serpent?” Brother Guido gently nudged the wordy fellow to spill the story. “I thought that Aaron’s serpent was to return to the valley of Josaphat at the Day of Judgment, not to rest in a church in Milan, even one as fine as this.”

The monk looked at him sharply, and I gave him a small vicious kick to the shin. For certainly he knew too much Scripture for a private in Ludovico’s army, be he ever so devout.

“You know your Scriptures,” said the sacristan guardedly, but with approval. “I am glad il Moro keeps you devout. But for this serpent’s story we must look to another chapter and verse of the Book of Books. For Nehushtan has to do with the other brother of that blessed family—Moses, not Aaron. The Israelites were complaining about their problems in the desert somewhere near Punon. God, angered at their lack of faith and ungratefulness, sent poisonous snakes among them as punishment. Then Moses, who had prayed in order to inter-cede on their behalf, was told by God to make a brass snake so that the Israelites merely had to look upon it to be cured from the snake bites. Allow me to find you the passage.”

He trotted up the nave to an eagle lectern with spread wings and heaved the good book off the top. We exchanged a look as he brought it back to us and began to leaf through the yellow pages. I saw Brother Guido’s hands itch to take it from him, but the sacristan found his place at last.

“Here, as I thought, ‘tis the Book of Numbers which provides an origin for an archaic bronze serpent associated with Moses, with the following account.”

And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses