e I LIBRI della TIPOGRAFIA ALDINA
"I'm sorry, Homer, but I've forgotten my Italian."
"Look on the back. It's all in English on the back."
Mary turned the pamphlet over. "Ah, yes, I see."
AN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION
THE AGE OF MANUSCRIPTS TO THE AGE OF PRINT:
THE MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY OF CARDINAL BESSARION
AND BOOKS FROM THE ALDINE PRESS
Mary looked up and shook her head. "Cardinal Bessarion? Who's Cardinal Bessarion? I never heard of him."
Homer groaned and lifted his eyes to heaven. "Oh, you poor uneducated farmer's daughter. My dear girl, babies in their bassinets lisp the name of Cardinal Bessarion."
"Oh, come on, Homer, tell me."
"Read what it says. No, I'll read it." Homer snatched the pamphlet and read aloud, "The name of Bessarion evokes for everyone the gift of his great manuscript library to the city of Venice, and his attempt to unite the Greek and Roman churches at the Council of Florence in 1439." He looked up in triumph. " There, you see? "
Mary was still bewildered. Homer looked at her doubtfully. "Well, surely you've heard of the Venetian press of Aldus Manutius?"
" I may have, I'm not sure. But, Homer, what do those people have to do with us? We're students of American literature, not Renaissance scholars."
Homer couldn't believe this display of bovine indifference. He clapped his hand to his forehead and cried, "How could anyone interested in the history of civilization not be moved? How could a woman who professes to tend the dim and flickering light of learning ignore a chance like this? Besides"Homer calmed down and showed her the letter"it's from Samuele Bell. He's in charge of the conference and the exhibition. He's the curator of rare books in the Library of Saint Mark in Venice. Cardinal Bessarion's own books were what it began with, way back in the sixteenth century. He's invited us to stay."
"Who, Cardinal Bessarion?"
"No, no, my darling! Samuele Bell! You remember Sam Bell?"
"Oh, yes, of course. He came to Harvard to give the Norton lectures. He speaks English with a delightful accent. Why does he have an English last name?"
"His father was an American but his mother was Italian, so Sam was brought up in Venice. He married a girl from Connecticut, one of those junior-year-abroad kids, but she died a long time ago. He's got a daughter."
"Yes, I remember him now. I liked his jokes." Mary's voice turned dreamy. "He was very attractive."
"Attractive!"
Mary ran into the kitchen, threw open the refrigerator door, and spoke to a bottle of milk, "And of course his lecture was excellent, Homer. I mean, the one I heard. Truly excellent."
"I'll write to say we're coming," said Homer, feverish with anticipation. "We'll have to start organizing. Sam says to bring boots because they sometimes have high water in the fall."
"High water! You mean the city has sunk that far? The Adriatic is beginning to take over?"
"No, no, nothing like that." Homer didn't know what he was talking about, but he flapped his hands carelessly, dismissing the Venetian phenomenon of acqua alta. "It's just a few puddles here and there."
"But, Homer, we can't bring our boots, they're so heavy. Are you sure about the puddles?"
Homer was off on another track. "I'll write to Sam at once. And that woman who's just become an important person in the Procuratie Something-or-other. It was in the New York Times, big news, I guess, because she's a woman. Lucia somebody. I'll write to her too. I mean, it's a good idea to haveah"
"Contacts, Homer?" suggested Mary dryly. "You're making contacts?"
"No, no," said Homer primly, "not contacts. Nothing like that at all."
"Oh, well," said Mary resignedly, "we can visit our friends in Florence. And let's hope it's a real sabbatical this time, I mean a real vacation. Let's just pray that for once we don't stumble over any dead bodies. Let's pray you don't have to spend all your time on some idiotic criminal case."
But as it turned out there would be dead bodies aplenty. And yet it was strangeHomer would hardly notice them at all. Tripping over another set of mortal remains he would simply say, "Excuse me," and go blithely on, rejoicing in the study of ancient manuscripts and the blissful deciphering of medieval Latin and Greek.
It was his wife, Mary, who would be left to handle the affair of the dead bodies, who would find herself looking for a collection of missing relics and a lost woman, who would uncover a tragedy half a century old, and bring to light a supremely important vanished work of art.
Homer would be having a lovely, lovely rest.