Hannibal Page 0,68
linked since antiquity, the image appearing again and again in art."
Dr Lecter pressed the switch in his palm and the projector came to life, throwing an image on the drop cloth covering the wall. In quick succession further images followed as he spoke: "Here is the earliest known depiction of the Crucifixion, carved on an ivory box in Gaul about A.D. four hundred. It includes the death by hanging of Judas, his face upturned to the branch that suspends him. And here on a reliquary casket of Milan, fourth century, and an ivory diptych of the ninth century, Judas hanging. He's still looking up."
The little bat flickered across the screen, hunting bugs.
"In this plate from the doors of the Benevento Cathedral, we see Judas hanging with his bowels falling out as St Luke, the physician, described him in the Acts of the Apostles. Here he hangs beset by Harpies, above him in the sky is the face of Cain-in-the-Moon; and here he's depicted by your own Giotto, again with pendant viscera.
"And finally, here, from a fifteenth-century edition of the Inferno, is Pier delta Vigna's body hanging from a bleeding tree. I will not belabor the obvious parallel with Judas Iscariot.
"But Dante needed no drawn illustration: It is the genius of Dante Alighieri to make Pier delta Vigna, now in Hell, speak in strained hisses and coughing sibilants as though he is hanging still. Listen to him as he tells of dragging, with the other damned, his own dead body to hang upon a thorn tree:
"Surge in vermena a in pianta silvestra: VA rpie, pascendo poi de Ie sue foglie, fanno doloye, a al dolor fenestra."
Dr Lector's normally white face flushes as he creates for the Studiolo the gargling, choking words of the agonal Pier delta Vigna, and as he thumbs his remote control, the images of delta Vigna and Judas with his bowels out alternate on the large field of the hanging drop cloth.
"Come l'altre verrem per nostre spoglie, ma non pero ch'alcuna son rivesta, the non a giusto aver cio ch'om si toglie.
"Qui le strascineremo, a per la mesta selva saranno i nostri eorpi appesi, ciascuno al prun de l'ombra sua molests.
"So Dante recalls, in sound, the death of Judas in the death of Pier delta Vigna for the same crimes of avarice and treachery.
"Ahithophel, Judas, your own Pier delta Vigna. Avarice, hanging, self- destruction, with avarice counting as self-destruction as much as hanging. And what does the anonymous Florentine suicide say in his torment at the end of the canto?
"Io fez' gibetto a me de Ie mie case.
"And I - I made my own house be my gallows..."On the next occasion you might like to discuss Dame's son Pietro. Incredibly, he was the only one of the early writers on the thirteenth canto who links Pier dells Vigna and Judas. I think, too, it would be interesting to take up the matter of chewing in Dante. Count Ugolino chewing on the back of the archbishop's head, Satan with his three faces chewing Judas, Brutus and Cassius, all betrayers like Pier delta Vigna.
"Thank you for your kind attention."
The scholars applauded him enthusiastically, in their soft and dusty way, and Dr Lector left the lights down as he said good-bye to them, each by name, holding books in his arms so he would not have to shake their hands. Going out of the soft light of the Salon of Lilies, they seemed to carry the spell of the lecture with them.
Dr Lector and Rinaldo Pazzi, alone now in the great chamber, could hear wrangling over the lecture break out among the scholars as they descended the stairs.
"Would you say that I saved my job, Commendatore?"
"I'm not a scholar, Dr Fell, but anyone can see that you impressed them. Doctor, if it's convenient for you, I'll walk home with you and collect your predecessor's effects."
"They fill two suitcases, Commendatore, and you already have your briefcase. Do you want to carry them?"
"I'll have a patrol car come for me at the Palazzo Capponi."
Pazzi would insist if necessary.
"Fine," Dr Lecter said. "I'll be a minute, putting things away."
Pazzi nodded and went to the tall windows with his cell phone, never taking his eyes off Lecter.
Pazzi could see that the doctor was perfectly calm. From the floors below came the sounds of power tools.
Pazzi dialed a number and when Carlo Deogracias answered, Pazzi said, "Laura, amore, I'll be home very shortly."
Dr Lecter took his books off the podium and packed them in