Timothy Ferguson's Blog, page 13

Mythic Venice February #Dungeon23 #City23

This year I’m taking part in #Dungeon23 which is a challenge where people write a small chunk of a dungeon each day. There is a variant, called #City23, which I’m using to collect ideas for a Mythic Venice supplement.

The January episode is already up and none of you told me to stop so this will be the
February episode.

The First of February: the inevitable gondola episode

Gondolas appear in the documentary record at the end of the 12th century according to Ackroyd which is earlier than some of my preliminary reading. Game period gondolas are shorter and wider than modern ones and they are symmetrical. Modern ones are slightly asymmetrical to improve manoeuvrability. They have cabins, some of which are removable. They have livery but I’m not sure that’s required. Noble houses have multiple but there are public ones for hire. All ornamentation is forbidden on gondolas in 1562 as part of the Venetian sanctuary lords.

During Elizabeth’s reign there are 10,000 gondolas in the city.

Gondoliers must be discreet. This is odd in a city of spies but if a gondolier denounces a lady to her husband the other gondoliers drown him. They are trusted with sensitive letters.

After 20 years of service, a gondola is too warped to use and is incinerated at Murano to heat the glassworks. This is a link for sympathetic magic.

February 2nd, sumptuary laws

The law is believed to be ancient and fair but changes weekly. [Adventure idea, the Traditionalist and Transitionalist Guernicii come to study this paradox and create a third faction.] Venetian law is codified at the end of the 12th century but custom may override written law. Venetian trials are pragmatic, swift and efficient. Lawyerly tricks are despised. Venetian legislation is a constant, basically futile process. Laws may not be enforced, traditions that are unsupported are retrospectively buttressed by law.

Ackroyd mentions sumptuary law and makes the novel point that its purpose is to stop the poor loathing the rich enough to rebel. Feasts were circumscribed because they brought together powerful people who might conspire against the state. Slaves and cooks were paid to inform on those who had feasts.

Sumptuary laws were often ignored but could annoy magi. The law is saying that you can’t wear more than two rings or you’re not allowed to wear anything “made of X” might prohibit the mundane shape of a magic item. As an adventure idea, the characters may want to change the law to allow them to carry openly a magic item imported from another state.

Sumptuary laws are fiercest when the state is in trouble. After losses against the League of Cambrai, the state cracks down very hard, no swanning about being rich and carefree when the midden is hitting the windmill.

February 3rd: The metaphorical personification of Venice as a body for Norea.

Norea, as mentioned in the January 18th episode, is the spirit from Deep Faerie that the Master
of Games is drawing forth. Venetian artists love to compare their city to a body. What bits
are which varies but they get really complicated about it, down to the circulatory system and
digestive tract. Venice has a desire to grow, express its quintessential self, reproduce,
as in Crete and Corfu, and it has a sort of nervous system and reflexive reactions. Henry
James says that Venice notices your affection. This is the opposite of what I expected, which
was more of a “New York as a woman” by Suzanne Vega thing. He thought Venice mild, interesting and sad.

This is the body of Norea, not the Queen In Glass. That might be important, maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s just an interface for dealing with humans. The civic plan of 1557 is the city’s final physical border. After that it concentrates on internal complexification. A covenant could be a parish about a campo, or all of them could be stuck in a single place, much as the German merchants have stuck in a single place. Does Norea have different moods in her different suburbs? Ackroyd says that the stones are the soul of Venice. Does that mean that Norea inhabits them as her anchor? He also notes that Venice has eclectic architecture, not solemn or menacing.

Venice’s basic social unit is the family. The family can be fined for transgressions of members. Businesses are run in families. The senate is a meeting of aristocratic families. It’s common for only one patrician male in each generation to marry, and for unmarried men to lead their estates to their nephews. There’s a bee metaphor here that Ackroyd runs with that I’ll skip.

Venice runs orphanages and public health care.

February 4th: education.

There is no university in Venice, although there is one in Padua, which is a possession so loyal that after the League of Cambrai take it, it rebels to restore Venetian rule. There are grammar schools in every its sestieri and there are academies, public and private tutors, and the most favoured subjects are very practical. Venetian clubs and societies specialise in all kinds of things, so formal training in obscure fields of learning is possible.

Ackroyd says that the Renaissance came late to Venice because it was so interested in practical things. He seems not in this to factor in technological progress or artistic progress. His story about Galileo is that he’s a lecturer in mass at Padua, in vents the telescope, and he pitches it as a device to detect enemy ships at a distance. For this he’s made professor of astronomy for life and paid an ungodly salary.

The epicentre of European printing is Venice. Paper comes from Venetian territory near Lake
Grado. Staley says that the dogaressa is the special patroness of printing. Around 1500,
there are around 200 print shops in Venice. Venice finds a way to commodify learning as
books. One of the early printers ran a sort of printer academy, his name was Aldous Manotitis.

Venetians may only study at Padua. None of this weird foreign learning for a Venetian.
Walsingham, our constant interest in Maginomia, and probably your character’s boss in some
versions of the game, studied at Padua. Padua has all kinds of cool stuff seriously. We should
do some sort of setting here. It was the secular centre of learning in Europe, according to
Ackroyd. This city does not support literature. Its best known writers do memoirs (Marco Polo, Cassanova). It is the home of “rags to riches” as a genre, with fairy tales like Puss in Boots.

Venetians use their own language when legislating in public speaking, but use Greek, then French, then Tuscan, as their language of learning. I’ll just note that Tuscan is the direct
ancestor of modern Italian. Venetian is intelligible, but has an accent. For example, they use
the letter Z far more often.

February 5th: Colours

Ackroyd goes into the dying trade a bit on pages 222 and 223. I can reuse some of that for the colourmen alchemy stuff I was working on for London. [See also Color by Findlay and Chromatopia by Coles.] Ackroyd mentions some familiar sources of colour: orpment, realgar, vermillion, lead-white, lapis lazuli. He mentions, but doesn’t name, ultramarine. He also mentions saffron from the east, but seems again to be coy about the slave plantations that the Venetians had there. Venetian red is a new one on me, Veneto is a mineral, and it’s used to colour the blood of Christ.

Colourmen, which I mentioned before, are people who make paint and dye. Before about 1500, artists used to make their own colours. Later the colourmen are linked to the apothecaries and cosmeticians, that is, they’re a branch of alchemy. Cleopatra wrote a treatise on cosmetic alchemy, but I’m not sure if it’s known in period, secret society stuff maybe.

[Added later, Venice is also a centre of marquetry, glass tesserae, which come from Murano, are
needed in the shape and material table.]

February 6th: Carnival

Ackroyd says that Carnival dates from the end of the 11th century. Carnival’s web page gives 1162. Originally it was 40 days long, eventually it became six months. It encouraged tourism, made the people less likely to rebel, and made Venice seem rich and powerful. It makes works for musicians, theatrical performance, and pyrotechnicians. Lots of sex work, theoretically, and gambling, certainly. There’s a group here called the tolomazi, who act as guides, translators, and money changers all in one. That could be a useful contact for the player characters, or a player character option.

Masks are first mentioned in 1268. Gambling while masked is forbidden. By the 18th century
everyone is masked during carnival, except money changers. Masked balls were open to
everyone with a mask. You were expected not to break character, a full description of
the main masks and characters will occur later in the sequence of episodes. The state doesn’t
own a casino, but it does license casinos. There is a city lottery however, the prize
for 1590 was 100 000 crowns.

February 7th: Sports

A popular sport in Venice is the Labour of Hercules, which is making him in pyramids. Racquets, fencing, horse and boat racing, and balloon (which is a sort of football) were popular. They were always competitive and they were always prizes.

One sport that’s of interest to us is the War of Fists, which is people fighting over bridges. There are two great tribes in this, the Castellani, who are from the Arsenal and the Nicolotti who are the fisherfolk. For the War of Fists, you can use helmets, shields and rattan clubs, and the idea is
to take and hold the bridge. The bridge is over a canal by the way, so if you get knocked
off you just land in the water to the amusement of everyone nearby. This seems to post-date
Ars Magica and predate Maginonia.

February 8th: Art

Art is produced in workshops using a sort of assembly line. There’s no suggestion that a single artist should do all of the work. Painters are a trade guild and there’s no real difference between portrait artists and commercial painters because famous artists are commercial painters. Many have side-lines doing set dressing for the theatre or for the state. There’s one painter, the state painter, in charge of professional banners, state processional properties, and maintaining official portraits.

Venetian artists are known for quick, improvised work. There are basically two schools of thought which Ackroyd calls the Opulent and Narrative. Two fires in the 1570s see a heap of public art in the Ducal Palace replaced. A fresh history is published to explain the new art. History is refurbished. Vasari, who’s turned up as a villain before in the podcast because he hated Cellini, was annoyed that Venetians don’t sketch out before they paint. Paintings are not meant to be accurate historically. They’re not very experimental. They are meant to look good to the purchases and their friends.

The Venetians were huge fans of cartography as decoration and arguably they were the most accurate cartographers in the world. There are some brilliant period maps which I should steal as decoration for the final project.

Music is very important in the state. All guilds have songs. Most popular songs already have dancers attached to them or will quickly develop them. All festivals have music. This is because music, the harmonious, choral activity is seen as a symbol of the harmony of the state. You aren’t allowed to applaud in church. Dancing is popular and schools exist.

Singers do have a guild. Female orphanages trained talented singing girls as choirs. Some are so good they could make listeners faint, weep, or propose marriage. This sounds like a hedge tradition.

Music is for sale as printed sheets and this is invented in Venice, centre of trade and
commodification of art. Instrument fabrication for export is also a specialty of Venice,
particularly and strangely church organs,

February the 9th: Sex work

Ackroyd’s numbers are weird. He says 10,000 out of a population of 100,000 were sex workers. Female sex workers. So that’s 20% of women and no men at all. So I must have misread what he was saying. He suggests that dowry inflation makes it so that only one child of each patrician family can be a bride, so lots of horny, single patrician men and lots of nuns are about.

In addition to basic sex work, there’s an upper-class, geisha sort of deal called the “honest courtesan”. Coryat suggests that you should carry moly, a herb, so that they can’t charm you. This is clever, witty, and political because moly is the herb that Hermes tells Odysseus to eat so that Circe cannot charm him. It is, I believe, poisonous, so that’s probably not a good idea. Sex work is a licensed profession. They have a guild.

In Venice, homosexuality is illegal and that doesn’t work at all. Ackroyd suggests that good cruising spots are certain churches, gyms, apothecaries and pastry makers. Honestly, Ackroyd would know: he did a lengthy discussion of gay culture in London from the Romans forward, which at some point we should mine for Magonomia, because it’s brilliant. I’m probably not the
author for that though.

He then discusses cicisbeo. These are male escorts, arguably not sex workers, that women are expected to have with them in the 16th century. Some cicisbei lived in the household and many were gay, according to Ackroyd. They were for public show and husbands were expected to insist on their presence. They acted as a sort of chaperone to maintain the honour of the wife.

Ackroyd notes that prostitutes and nuns tended to get on really well as women outside the civic structure. I’ve seen that noted in several places.

February 10th: places I need plans for
The Doge’s Palace
The Basilica
St Mark’s Square

the gibbet leaves the square in 1505 in the real world, in 1550, Jacopo San Savino remodels the square to be more classical and he builds the library and the mint.

I need to check Thomas Coryat’s book.
I need to make sure the Church of San Germanio is in the plans. It’s pulled down by Napoleon, which is why it’s not in the modern place.
I need plans for San Zacharia.
Ruskin has the Basilica of Torcello as the centre for the Infernal, which I am happy to steal. German merchant palace, that’s the Fondaco de Tadeshi. It could be used as a version of a Hermetic quarter. It’s a current day shopping centre, so there are maps online.
And then there’s also another note of Debarbari’s woodcut, A View of Venice, which I should use as art.

February 11: The Church.
Bishops are appointed by the Senate. Bishops who receive orders from the Pope cross check them with the Council of Ten.
St Mark, or possibly St Mary is the top saint.
Ackroyd draws the link to Orthodox caesaropapism n Constantinople.
Sermons were checked by bureaucrats.
Protestants are accepted by the government. Jews are accepted by the government.
Venice has more miracles per square mile than any comparable space. They see the city itself as an act of God, and so they don’t care about the popes. Venetian cardinals are expected to report back on the secret councils of the Vatican.
They are very attached to relics, and they import a heap of them, icons too.
Saints who were stolen for Venice wanted to be stolen, or they would have stopped it using miracles.
Many religious houses are named after Old Testament figures.
St Francis lobs in during the 1220s. He’s on his way to try and convert the Sultan. This is where the Franciscans have their church.
Children taunt Jesuits in the street.
The Inquisition arrives in 1571, and uniquely the Venetians force changes so that there are six judges, three ecclesiastic and three secular. Sentences are comparatively light the usual sentence for witchcraft was the pillory.
Property owners of a parish elect their priests. There are about 600, of whom 75% are not of the patrician class.
In the 17th century the Pope excommunicates Venice, and in response priests were forbidden to read the papal bull, and threatened with hanging if they closed their churches. Basically, the people didn’t care.

February 12: Ackroyd’s notes on Venetian witchcraft
Venetians are very superstitious. This is an extension of folk Catholicism. Their witchcraft is focused on wealth, good fortune, and healing.

The devil is big on contracts in Venice, and he often accepts coins or salt for minor things.

Gamblers use charms a lot.

Ackroyd mentions a love potion made of sage and a woman’s own menstrual blood and mixed with the food of the man who they wish to charm.

There are lots of ghosts. Second sight is only found in those not properly baptized. Unfinished business is usually a hidden treasure, and there are haunted canals and houses.

I’ve cross-referenced Marina’s Wail in Staley, which was a very early Venice episode, which is a banshee variant.

February 13: The Spanish plot

In the real world this happened in 1618, but for Magonomia you could put it earlier. On the 18th of May two anonymous bodies were found on the public gibbet. They are, by rumour, French. No official says anything, which of itself is unusual.

People notice 500 French merchants have gone missing. The rumour spreads that the Council of Ten drowned them all. The story circulates that the Spanish and French plus some mercenaries had formed a pact to set fires simultaneously at the arsenal, mint, and ducal palace. This may not have been true.

This might have been a crowd hysteria with the same sort of deadly effect.

This isn’t in my notes, but I’ll mention it now. There is a particular point in the canals outside of Giudecca where they drop dead people so that they wash out with the tide. Well,
executed, dead people.

February 14: Ackroyd’s notes on law

Ackroyd mentions a “Guild of death”.
Executions are solemn, and public. People are also strangled privately in the cells under the Ducal Palace and their bodies are dumped in the Canale Orfano.

Sample punishments:
Forging coins: Burned alive.
Senators singing blasphemy songs: Tongues ripped out and their hands cut off.
Friar who impregnated 15 nuns: Burned at stake.
Priest accused of treason: Burned alive upside down.

It’s not true in the real world that the Council of Ten had a band of assassins on retainer. But in the game world, it’s true, and it’s not just them.

Insulting Venice can get you killed or have your tongue ripped out.

Property crime is more important than violence to Venetians. For theft, you’re hanged, for rape, you get sent to prison for eight days, and then a fine equal to the dowry.

Patricians are the most violent class.
All men carry knives.

There is a special police force called the Lords of the Night who keep peace at night time. Even today Venice is quieter than other cities at night. There’s less traffic and fewer pedestrians.

I don’t have this mentioned here, but in another book, it was mentioned that the Lords of the Night were also responsible for gate-crashing gay clubs.

February 15: Caterina Sforza

Having broken down Venice: Pure City for RPG hooks, the next book is Daughters of Alchemy by Meredith K. Ray. I feel like I have made a mistake there. Yes, I have. During my notes, I keep
swapping between Kay and Ray, but yes, it’s Meredith K. Ray.

It leads out by talking about Caterina Sforza and her book Experimenti. Sforza is the maternal great-grandmother of Catherine de Medici, the sorceress and rival queen in the Magonomia setting. Experimenti, or Experiments in English, is a Book of Secrets. That is, it’s part of a genre of writing of the time.

Caterina swaps secrets with people. She’s part of a Republic of Letters. See the Catholic wizard in the Tower of London in the basic Maginomia rules or, for Ars Magica players, this is an epistle network.

Experimenti isn’t a philosophical book. There’s none of that mucking about trying to get to immortality that you get in other books. The recipes are intensely practical in effect, and about 30 are alchemical in the sense that they try and transform metal. A few are in Latin, rather than Italian, a few have their methods encoded using an included key.

Sforza uses colour as her marker for process completion. The style of alchemy, therefore, needs glass vessels. She includes medicines, antidotes, poisons, money-making things, cosmetics, and confectionery. She has an apothecary in the city of Forli. She also bought ingredients from nunneries, which sold pharmacological supplies. These were leftovers from their gardens. Caterina and all her kids have botanic gardens, for materials. She may have her own laboratory in that garden. Ray calls this her officina, so if you don’t want to call your laboratory a lab, Ars Magica or Magonomia, office seems a perfectly period-effective alternative.

The Florentine nunnery where she was educated had a retail pharmacy and it sent her fruit, flowers, and so on. It also has a famous scriptorium.

“Pills, ungents, liquors, elixirs, and possibly cosmetics.” – from Nuns as pharmacists by Sharon Stroschia

Cosmetics are part of alchemy from the very beginning. There’s a recipe for a triple distillation in Sforza. The first distillation removes freckles, the second distillation cures fistulas, and the third distillation cuts through iron.

Alchemical secrets are state secrets, because they destroy and disrupt economies.

The next chapter in Kay is about Isabella Cortese. I’ve not previously seen this work in English. Sforza dies in 1509.

February 16th: Venetian treacle

the earliest panacea, was made by Mithridates VI of POntus, who tested venoms and antidotes on his prisoners. A variant was used by the Romans. Galen had one, but it takes years to make. These curatives were called “theriacs”.

The main ingredient of theriac, in the Venetian version, is vipers caught in the hills around Padua, where the university is. In English, the word theriac becomes “treacle”, and the best comes from Venice. It’s also where the word “apothecary” comes from. The London Guild of Physicians inspected apothecary shops for cleanliness and medicinal purity.

There is a law about treacle quality, the Pharmacy Wares, Drugs, and Stuffs Act in 1540. Eventually, only one guy was licensed to make it, during Elizabeth’s reign, and that was a man called William Besse. Seems like a valuable monopoly. In 1669, Moyse Charas deliberately published the recipe he used, so that he could damage the Venetian monopoly on theriacs.

Theriac making includes fermenting herbs, so it takes months. It’s strongest after
being stored for six years, but it lasts for decades.

February 17th: Speziale

Speziale are apothecaries.. Socially below a physician. They stock “not just ingredients from medicinal prescriptions but also with foods, sugar, candy, oils, pigments, papers and ink” and that’s a quote from Meredith Kay. Howell says that in Venice physicians hang out in apothecary
shops, but put a copper plaque above the door. If you want a physician, you go to the apothecary. Jews are allowed to be doctors and bankers and not much else so there are a lot of Jews in medicine.

Venice is a centre for supplies much as it is a centre for spices. Courts have purchasing factors here. The name “speziale” literally means “spicers” but in the extended sense of pharmacist / compounding apothecary / cosmetician / ink and dye seller / stationer. Padua University has one on staff.

Camilla Erculiani was an apothecary in Padua, a writer and a salonniere. She thought that the deluge was caused by human extreme longevity because human earth was not returning. It allowed the waters to be comparatively strong to rise up.

Speziale were social spaces where news was exchanged so they were important for spying. They were also surveilled by the Inquisition, but recall that in Venice the Inquisition is cowed by the civil government. Camilla Erculiani also thought science was a way for women to prove their worth and to demand fairness.

February 18th: Epistolary Networks

Here’s a quote from Ray.
”Recipes performed different functions, depending on the circumstance. By supplying
a valuable secret to someone in a higher social position, one might earn status or financial
reward. Those already established among the highest levels of society circulated recipes
among themselves to reciprocate favours or gifts, establish goodwill and maintain networks
of communication, and cement their own position and reputation through access to valuable
and even clandestine knowledge.”

And another quote:
* ”Recipes were indeed a form of currency used to reciprocate important political, intelligence and counsel.”
* A few other quick notes from this section of Daughters of Alchemy, secrecy can’t be a solitary pursuit, it needs insiders and outsiders.
* Epistolatory novels are considered a feminine genre.
* A female participant is called a letterata and a male participant is called a letterato.

Sometimes the correspondent is fake. It lets the author talk in two viewpoints and shields them if the “other” says something heretical because reporting a conversation isn’t the same as holding heretical beliefs. It lets you head off objections by having the “other” voice them. Some collections are written for the receiver, others for an audience and when they are collected for publication, serious editing might occur. It gives your ideas reflected glory if the “other” you are writing to was famous and lets you show off your classical learning as the “other” and your experimental credentials as you. Then I make a note about Griffin and Sabine, which you should check out if you haven’t read, and it lets the “other” praise you so you get to big note yourself in front of the reader.

February 19: The fashion for secrets

A secret or experiment is valuable “not as something unknown but as something proven”. It is not the rarity or weirdness that gives it its value, it’s that it works and it has provenance (that is, it
comes from a celebrity noble or a doctor). Books of Secrets are popular amongst the money
class and are part of a movement towards vernacular Italian literature, the vulgari, and they are
targeted at women.

Books of Secrets demystify despite their name. Women are the target audience because they contain practical advice on their interests. These books are effective and entertaining but don’t teach underlying philosophical theory.

Collecting recipes is linked to the Venetian habit of collecting art, luxury items, and natural curiosities.

The occult/secret is integral to the marketing of the books. Books in Venetian and Tuscan are easier to sell to women because they are rarely taught Latin.

February 20th: Anatomy of a Secret
This is according to Cardano (1562).
A secret may be discovered in six ways. These are Ars Magica experience sources,
* learned insight
* comparison of similar things
* from teachers
* by travelling the world,
* by having enough money to do research at home
* through good fortune.

Secrets have three levels, great mediocre and trivial. The examples given are a cure for the plague, a cure for the fever, and a cure for rashes.

Secrets can be perfect, which means 100% effective or rare, not effective most of the time due to complexity.

They may vary in difficulty and cost.

Good secrets have seven attributes, they are authentic, useful, morally sound, have easily acquired ingredients, are relatively quick, are not labour-intensive, and have a noble goal.

Recipes and secrets are related. The format (ingredients > methods > tools) isn’t similar coincidentally. Most look like early cookbooks, because books of secrets assume that you know certain terms and techniques, much as cookbooks do.

So a good secret is
* easy to use
* fast
* cheap
* dependable
* profitablE
* moral.

It is not necessarily secret in the sense of being occluded.

February 21: Basics of practice from Isabella de Cortese

* Work is practice, do not waste time on the puzzles of philosophers.
* Use recipes which are direct, none of this medieval mystical rubbish.
* Work alone.
* Use strong glass or terracotta vessels.
* Become familiar with basic materials.
* Watch your file
* Keep tongs nearby.
* Do not discuss the Art.
* Keep people out of your lab.
* Acquire a faithful helper.
* If successful, give thanks to God and give to the poor.

A faithful helper is defined later as experienced, loyal, and discreet.

The arrangements of secrets in the four volumes shows that stuff we take for granted is miraculous in her time. For example soap balls, that removal stains are in with making gold and dyes, not over in the beauty waters and cosmetics. This is because they renew expensive fabric,

February 22: Moderata de Fonte (Modesta Pozzo)
Again, this is Ray. This section is about the Querelle des femmes”, which is a sort of rolling, many-sided debate about the role of women. It’s not a lot of use for this in the Mythic Venice setting, because women being equally capable is baked in. Enemies from the “women suck” or “cosmetics are cursed”. lines of argument are boring.

One take that I saw, which I thought was interesting and I hadn’t read before, is that cosmetics are longevity potions. By staving off death they stave off Salvation. It’s insane, but it’s new insane.

Fonte’s earliest work is an incomplete chason in the Orlando style called Floridoro. Its characters are
Risamante: who’s like Bradmentine except less interested in men
Circetta: a literal “Maga”. She’s not a witch, she’s a magus with the female form. This links into Ars Magica, where we’re used “maga” for magi who are female for real-world decades. It’s good to find it in the source documents.
Risamante’s impetus is getting back her inheritance from her sister, and in her happy ending she has a daughter, Salarisa, who is the progenatrix of the Medicis.
Circetta is an amalgam of Alcina, the princess of Cathay, who does illusions, Logistilla and Melissa (who is the daughter of Cersei and Ulysses). She is virginal and wise.

The book is dedicated to Bianca Cappello, and Francesco de Medici, who are alchemical practitioners. Then I notice that Circetta means “Little Cersei”. Then I debate whether Bianca Cappello needs an episode because she’s a Venetian practitioner of alchemy, who marries into the Medicis in 1579.

Circetta can turn men into trees. She’s kept eternally young in a regio by her mother’s “curse” that works suspiciously like a blessing, She can’t leave until a man as good as Ulysses comes to rescue her. She’s described as brave, severe, courteous, kind, honest, and marvellously wise. She commands the beasts of the forest, and she has three handmaidens, who appear to be alchemical assistants, among other things.

Circe’s lore is in the books of the island, and Circetta’s arts are the good parts. Circetta’s a powerful natural magician.

February 23rd.: Circetta continued
Check: Fonte’s “Worth of women”. This is only 16 cantos long.

Circetta can use her magic to
* cover every city in the world in fog
* raise mountains
* build a temple
* change men into swine, bulls and bears
She can only do this because it’s closer to the true nature of the victims, that is, she has a method to unlock heartbeasts.

Her palace has astrological statues. Astrology is blamed for women loving men despite their moral deficits. She puts true friendship above true love.

Ferrara was damaged by earthquakes in 1570 to 1574, causing a lot of learned speculation about the cause of earthquakes. This book makes really quite extreme claims to Ars Magica’s Law of Essential Nature, stating that magic cannot alter men’s morals or nature.

Similarly, women seem doomed to slavery by their love and compassion, which are not
alterable. Fonte gives seeking alchemical gold as a masculine practice, which would surprise many of the practitioners already named in these notes. She then cops out by saying that the
sweat of a man’s brow is transmuted to gold by his own work, and that is an alchemy that never
fails.

February the 24th: Happy Arcadia
Marinella, has a maga called Ernia in her book “Enrico.”

Has two magi and a maga in “Happy Arcadia”. Check also Ersilla in the same book.

Then there’s a family tree. There’s a magus called Ciberione. He can travel the world in a few hours via his chariot pulled by four black courses. He has an apprentice called Erimeno.

Erimeno
* can talk to all creatures
* has a garden of multigrafted trees via natural magic
* has a collection in a grotto, including gems, roots, sstones, herbs
* a camera obscura
* a hydraulic organ
* an automaton of a shepherd that puts real shepherds into the uncanny valley, so they think it’s * motivated by demons
* and a substance called Rabiano, which conveys the air of respectability to the wearer. There’s * a note here that that might be radium. Hmm, seems strange, I don’t think that was discovered
at the time.

It says he was trained on the highest mountains, which in Ars Magica probably means
in a big magical aura.

Ciberione has a daughter called Erato. She’s a natural magician, astronomer, and prophetess. She has a fiery visage, which I presume is Piercing Gaze virtue. She has a companion called Armilla. She is chaste, virginal, and Diana-like. She has an exceptional mind. Erato is called the “new Hypatia.”. She has a garden above the clouds, and thinks the Milky Way is made of stars, not the afflatus of the earth.

February 25th: Enrico

Enrico is a historical epic set around the Fourth Crusade. It contains a maga called Erina. She is wise, chased, rules an island of women (a hundred beautiful virgins). She greets a noble, male shipwreck victim. She has a study companion called Altea.

Erinaq’s teacher was her father, Fileno, who learned from his father, who learned from the Magus Armano. Her father was an astrologer, so his lab is up another mountain. He is very perceptive of first causes and only teaches good magic to his daughter. He counsels
his daughter in a dream, force ghost style, because he is dead, that the shipwrecked knight is related to her and was wrecked on the island via a divine providence. If he returns to the war, he will die. Still, he must be allowed free choice in the matter.

Erina takes a knight on a tour of the world, giving the reader a primer on Venetian ideas of geography. He leaves to join the Venetian assault on Constantinople and dies. They travel by a flying chariot, led by a winged lion. Note the winged lion is an important Venetian symbol.

February 26: Padua University

Good grief, this is short. This needs to be done far better. Founded by Venice in 1545. There are a mix of students and scholars from all across Europe. It has alumni all over the place,
Walsingham for example. It has the first botanical gardens, it says here, I doubt that’s true,
because I know that the French had them before. First in where I wonder? It’s a centre for study of medicine and anatomy, It exports alchemical practices via alumni to many courts. Padua has a humanist curriculum, focusing on classical languages, history, theology, astronomy and mathematics.

February 27: the predicted floods of 1524.

I’ve already used this in Magonomia, but in Venice the idea that a rare conjunction in Pisces means global deluge is a huge, huge deal. This is first published in 1522 and this leads to a flurry of what’s called Deluvian literature. Oddly the Church’s position that global flooding would require a miracle because Aristotle says that water doesn’t spontaneously flood the land is more reassuring than contemporary science, which is full of “Yeah, but maybe…” ideas. Italy does get floods in that decade, likely because of deforestation.

There’s a note there that we should do something for its 500th anniversary. And a note to myself that I have not worked on the Saeftinghe Flotilla idea. It’s not at all relevant to this but I’ll just quickly mention it. There’s a flood in Holland in 1570 that does enormous damage and the English send relief fleet. So that could be useful for a story idea.

February 28: Margherita Sarrrochi
Calidora is a maga in the poem Scanderbeide by Margherita Sarrrochi.

Sarrochi was a correspondent with Galileo and asked him for editing assistance and help to translating her writing into paid patronage. Her book was published in a second edition with the Calidora plotline removed, which is suspicious. In real life that was probably to make the war story the sharper focus. Calidora forms a link Circetta the earlier Erina, This could be actual in-game. The editions are in 1606 and 1623 so the acceleration that is caused by the Master of Games is needed.

Calidora wears a sun and moon diadem and is presented as an amalgam of male and female,
which are science and love as elements. She is slighted in love by her husband and heads out
to the forest to make a love potion. There’s some good flavour text here.

“At the appointed hour in a lonely spot she sprinkles amber, myrrh, and other choice scents
over a fire of ebony that burns with no smoke at all…She lets down her golden locks into
the wind and removing the hearts from three live doves with a single knife, she writes [his] name upon the page in her own blood.” She has a wax image in him as well. That quote is from Ray.

She could be a Tytalus because she is said to revel in public enmities by her
detractors.

That brings us to the end of February and to the end of my notes from “Daughters of
Alchemy”. Next month we start filling out what you would find in a spices shop by going through all of the colours and their sources and what mystical associations they had in local folklore.

The Vampyre by Vasile Alecsandri

This is your Monster of the Month, and this month I’m cheating.

The creature is a vampire and the reader is Newgate Novelist, who’s one of my favourites from LibriVox. I’m including it because this is one of the few English sources I can find for the work of Vasile Alecsandri, who was a Romanian folklorist in the 19th century. Think of the Grimm brothers, except instead of Germany, further east. He can give us a genuine feel of the vampires of the Transylvanian Tribunal.

The Vampire, Strigoi, from the Romanian of Vasili Aleksandri, translated by William B.
Kingston, from the English Illustrated magazine, December 1886, read for LibriVox.org by Newgatenovelist.

***

Near the cliff’s sharp edge, on high
Standing out against the sky,
Dost thou see a ruined cross
Weatherstained, o’ergrown by moss,
Gloomy, desolate, forsaken,
By unnumbered tempests shaken?

Not a blade of grass grows nigh it,
Not a peasant lingers by it.
E’en the sombre bird of night
Shuns it in her darksome flight,
Startled by the piteous groan
That arises from the stone.

All around, on starless nights,
Myriad hosts of livid lights
Flicker fretfully, revealing
At its foot a phantom, kneeling
Whilst it jabbers dismal plaints,
Cursing God and all the saints.

Tardy traveller, beware
Of that spectre gibbering there;
Close your eyes, and urge your steed
To the utmost of his speed;–
For beneath that cross, I ween,
Lies a Vampyre’s corpse obscene!

Though the night is black and cold
Love’s found story, often told,
Floats in whispers through the air,
Stalwart youth and maiden fair
Seal sweet vows of ardent passion
With their lips, in lovers’ fashion.

“Restless, pale, a shape I see
Hov’ring nigh; what may it be?
‘Tis a charger, white as snow,
Pacing slowly to and fro
Like a sentry. As he turns
Haughtily the sward he spurns.

“Leave me not, beloved, tonight!
Stay with me till morning’s light!’
Weeping, thus besought the maid;
‘Love, my soul is sore afraid!
Brave not the dread Vampyre’s power,
Mightiest at this mystic hour!’

Not a word he spake, but prest
The sobbing maiden to his breast;
Kissed her lips and cheeks and eyes
Heedless of her tears and sighs;
Waved his hand, with gesture gay,
Mounted–smiled–and rode away.

We rides across the dusky plain
Tearing along with might and main
Like some wild storm-fiend, in his flight
Nursed on the ebony breast of Night?
‘Tis he, who left her in her need–
Her lover, on his milk-white steed!

The blast in all its savage force
Strives to o’erthrow the gallant horse
That snorts defiance to his foe
And struggles onward. See! below
The causeway, ‘long the river-side
A thousand flutt’ring flamelets glide!

Now they approach, and now recede,
Still followed by the panting steed;
He nears the ruined cross! A crash,
A piteous cry, a heavy splash,
And in the rocky river-bed
Rider and horse lie crushed and dead.
Then from those dismal depths arise
Blaspheming yells and strident cries
Re-echoing through the murky air
And, like a serpent from its lair,
Brandishing high a blood-stained glaive
The Vampyre rises from his grave!

The blog resumes

I do apologise for the delay. I have been quite unwell. Missing transcripts will be added to the blog over the next week.

Who? by Maurice Level

When Maurice Lavelle is discussed people oversimplify by saying he’s France’s answer to Edgar Allan Poe. He’s similar to Poe in that he has atmospheric, spooky stories. In the same way that most of Poe’s stories aren’t suitable for Games From Folktales because they eventually come down to a rational explanation, similarly most of Level’s don’t quite work for us. Here’s one exception that was released into the public domain through LibriVox. Thanks to Ben Tucker, who was the reader, and the production team.

Who?
That day I had worked very late. So late that when it length I raised my eyes
from my desk, I found twilight had invaded my study. For some minutes I sat perfectly still, my brain in the dull condition that follows a big mental effort, and looked round mechanically. Everything was grey and formless in the half-light, except where reflections from the last rays of the setting sun made little patches of brightness on table or mirror or picture.

One must have fallen with particular strength on a skull placed on the top of a bookcase, for, looking up, I saw it clearly enough to distinguish every detail from the point of the cheek-bones to the brutal angle of the jaw. As everything else became swallowed up in the fast-deepening shadow, it seemed to me that slowly but surely this head quickened into life and became covered with flesh; lips came down over the teeth, eyes filled the orbits, and soon, by some strange illusion, I had before me, as if suspended in the darkness, a face that was looking at me.

It was watching me fixedly, the mouth set in a mocking smile. It was not one of those vague
floating images one sees in hallucinations : this face appeared so real that for a second I was
tempted to stretch out my hand to touch it. Immediately the cheeks dissolved, the orbits emptied, a slight mist enveloped it and I saw nothing but a skull like all other skulls. I lit my lamp and went on with my writing. Twice or thrice I raised my eyes to the place where I had seen the apparition; then the momentary excitement it had caused died away, and my head bent over my desk, I forgot all about it.

Now, a few days later, as I was going out of my house, near my door I passed a young man who drew aside to allow me to cross the road. I bowed. He did the same and went on. But the face was familiar, and believing it was someone I knew, I turned to look after him, imagining he might have stopped. He had not, but I stood watching him till he disappeared among the passers-by. “A mistake on my part,” I thought, but to my surprise, I kept on asking myself: “Where the devil have I seen him? .. In the drawing-room! . . . At the hospital? . . In my consulting-room?” . I concluded that he must resemble someone else and dismissed him from my thoughts. Or tried to — for in spite of myself I continued to endeavor to place him. I certainly knew the head well: its deeply-set eyes, hard, steady gaze, clean-shaven lip,
straight mouth and square jaw made it too characteristic to be either forgotten or mistaken for that of another person. Where on earth had I seen it?

During the whole evening it obsessed me, coming between me and what I looked at, giving me that feeling of irritation caused by not being able to remember a name or some melody that haunts you. And this persisted for a long time, for weeks. One day I saw my Unknown again in the street. As I approached I almost stared at him. On his part he looked at me with the same
frigid expression, with the cold look I knew so well; but he betrayed no sign of knowing me,
did not hesitate a second, and avoided me by turning sharply to the right. My conclusion
was the inevitable one. If I really knew him he must also know me, and meeting me face to
face for the second time, would have shown it by a glance or movement as if to stop: there
had been nothing of this: I was therefore the victim of an illusion. And I forgot all about him.

Some time after this, late one afternoon, a man was shown into my consulting room. He
was hardly over the threshold when, much surprised, I rose to greet him: it was my Un-
known. And once again the likeness that had so obsessed me was so striking that, mechanically, I walked towards him with outstretched hand as to an acquaintance. He showed surprise, and I almost stammered as I pointed to a chair, saying:
“Excuse me, but you are so extraordinarily like…”
Under his cold, intent gaze, I left my sentence unfinished, saying instead:
“What can I do for you!”
Sitting quietly with his two hands stretched on the arm of his chair, he did not reply immediately. I was beginning once more to cudgel my brains: “Where have I seen him?”
when suddenly a thought, or rather an extraordinary vision flashed into my mind, a vision
amazing enough almost to surprise me into crying aloud: “I know.”

At last I had succeeded in locating him – I had recognized on the shoulders of this living man the head that had appeared to me one evening in the darkness above my bookcase! It was not a resemblance: it was identically the same face. The coincidence was sufficiently curious to dis-
tract my attention from what he was saying, and he had been talking for some moments
before I began to follow his case:

“I don’t think I was ever normal. When I was quite young I began to feel different from
other boys, to have sudden desires to rush away, to hide myself, to be alone; while at other
times I longed passionately for society, for wild excitements that would make me forget myself. Sometimes, for little or no reason, I had sudden fits of temper that almost choked me . . . They sent me to the sea, to the mountains : nothing did me any good. At the present time I start at the slightest sound; a very bright light hurts me like a pain; and though all my organs are sound – I have been to several doctors – the whole of my body aches. Even if I sleep, I wake in the morning as tired as if I had been dissipating all night. Frequently a feeling of agony of mind for which there is no real cause makes my brain giddy; I can’t sleep, or if I do, I have horrible night-
mares “

“Do you drink?”

“I have a horror of wine, of every kind of alcohol; I drink nothing but water. But I haven’t yet told you the worst . ” (he hesitated) “what it is that is really grave in my condition If anyone contradicts me even about a trifle, for a look, a gesture, a nothing, a sort of fury takes possession of me. I am careful never to carry any weapon in case I might be unable to resist using it. It seems to me that at these times my own will leaves me, as if that of someone else takes its place; it drives me on, I cease to be my own master, and when I come back to myself I can’t remember anything – except that I wanted to murder someone! If one of these crises takes me when I am at home, I can shut myself up safely in my own room, but if, as sometimes
happens, I am out, I know nothing more till I find myself perhaps sitting on a bench alone
at night in some strange place. Then, remembering the fury I felt and coupling it with the
lassitude that has followed and the impossibility of recollecting what I have done, I begin
to wonder if I have committed some crime. I rush home and shut myself up, my heart beats
violently whenever the bell rings, and I have no peace of mind till some days have gone by and
I feel sure that once again I have been saved from myself. You will understand, Doctor,
that this state of things can’t go on. I shall lose not only my health, but my reason. What am I to do?”

“There’s nothing to be really alarmed about,” I replied. “These are only the symptoms of a nervous condition that will yield to treatment. Let us try to find its cause. Do you work very hard? — No – Is there anything in your life that is likely to cause great nerve-strain? – No — Any excesses ? – None – You can tell a doctor anything.”

His tone was convincing as he replied: “I have told you the truth.”

“Let us look for other reasons. Have you any brothers or sisters ? — No – Your mother
is alive? – Yes – She is probably very highly-strung? — Not at all — And your father? Is he strong, too?”

In a very low voice he replied: “My father is dead.”

“He died young?”

“Yes, I was just two years old.’

“Do you know what he died of?”

This question seemed to affect him deeply, for he grew very pale. At this moment more
than at any other I was struck by the extraordinary resemblance between him and the
apparition. After a pause, he replied: “Yes and that is why my condition terrifies me. I know what my father died of: my father was guillotined.”

Ah, how I regretted having pushed my investigations so far! I tried to glide off to some-
thing else; but we now understood each other. Endeavoring to speak naturally and hopefully,
I gave him some general advice and some kind of prescription; then I told him that he must
have confidence in himself, and be sure to come back to me soon. After I had gone to the door
with him I said to my servant: “I will not see any one else to-day.”

I was not in a state to listen to or examine a sick person. My mind was confused: the apparition. the resemblance . . . this confession .. I sat down and tried to collect my thoughts, but in spite of myself my eyes kept fixing themselves on the skull. I looked in vain for the strange resemblance that had for so long puzzled me I saw nothing but its mysterious mask. But I was unable to keep my gaze from it; the head drew me towards it . . I ended by leaving my chair and going to lift it
down.

Then it was that, raising it in my hands, I became aware of an extraordinary thing that had till now escaped my notice. The lower part of the back of the head was marked by a broad and sharp groove, an unmistakeable gash such as would be made by the violent stroke of an axe, such as is made on the necks of those who are executed by the instinctive retreat of the
body at the supreme moment from the knife of the guillotine.

It may have been nothing but coincidence.

Perhaps it could be explained by saying that I had already seen, without noticing, my consultant in the street, and that, unknowingly, the face thus subconsciously registered in my memory had come before me when I was looking at the skull the night of the apparition . .

Perhaps perhaps? . But there are mysteries, you know, that it is wiser not to try
to solve.

Mythic Venice January

This week an experiment I’ve been participating in #Dungeon23, or the #City23 variant, which is a challenge where people write a dungeon room (or in the city variant a chunk of a city) each day, at about a paragraph length for the entire of 2023. For the dungeon 23 people each month is a level in the dungeon, eventually creating 12 levels. #City23 is a little more nebulous. Some of the people who’ve been following #City23, through my tweets or insta posts, have asked that it be made accessible on the Arts Magica Forum and in the blog so, as an experiment, I’m going to read the first month’s worth of entries into this podcast episode. Feedback on this format is particularly welcome. If this seems valuable I’ll do it for every month for the rest of 2023. If you don’t want me doing it you’d .better tell me.

January 1: What we already know – faerie foundations

Mythic Venice is founded on a faerie forest. The wooden piles that hold up the artificial islands were sacred to a Diana cult. Even the first patron saint of Venice, the virgin of the grapevine, is faerie aligned. In 1004 this allows the strongest faerie in Europe to move his court to Venice, as per the blog entry about the Rotting Princess.

This faerie, The Master of Games, claims to have once been the Founder Tytalus. In the beginning people thought he was harvesting the emotional energy of the city to craft a body for one of the creatures of Deep Arcadia. This may even have been true, there is a glass statue of a dogaressa hidden somewhere. The thing is he’s changed a lot of unnecessary stuff. The new theory is that since faeries reflect human stories, he wants us to tell better ones. He’s basically starting the Renaissance early. If humans are more interesting they create more interesting Fae creating is a virtuous circle.

This means that anachronisms are found in Mythic Venice. Gondolas for example.

January 2: What we already know – The city of women

The mystical version of Venice is called “Serenissima”.

Cosmetics and domestic alchemy have been tied together since ancient times. The perfumes etc. of the Venetians are meant to have quasi-mystical results. Women trade alchemical recipes as a sign of favour. In the real world Elizabeth the First and Catherine de Medici did this. Catherine was the granddaughter of a famous alchemist, Caterina Sforza.

Women dye their hair with family recipes and this has strange effects. The oddest is that during the siege of Padua, when the ancestors of the Venetians were fending off the Huns, they replaced the cables in their siege engines with ropes made of human hair. This gives us magical strings for pocket crossbows. Women hunt with standard crossbows in real life. They take grebe heads as trophies. Their crossbows use clay pellets. Left over from that battle: Attila’s sword is in the church of Saint Michele. Also his throne is on Torcello, although that’s not in my notes.

Some Venetian women wear a cornu, which is a sort of horned hairstyle that we will tie to the Goddess Diana.

January 3: What we already know – gardens

All wealthy people had gardens and used them for luxuries like flowers, not practical food items. Many great festivals were in the public gardens – well, their afterparties were. Picnics were apparently a big deal. It extraordinary that gardens are so popular when space is at such a premium. There’s no space to bury people, for example, and yet they conspicuously waste space on greenery. This is for spell components obviously. These are used in bocchero (which are scented clay balls), cosmetics, home remedies, food, confections, decorating, and religious observances. Houses of the rich are three sides of a square, with a garden in the middle. The roof (or altane) is used by women as their space. It may have plant containers. In Venetian houses servants live on the lowest floors, master bedrooms are on the upper floors. The altane is also used to bleach linen in the sun and perform weaving magic

January 4: what we already know – St Mark

The Venetians steal the relics of Saint Mark from Egypt by smuggling them past customs inspectors under a load of pig carcasses. His relics are kept in a purpose-built chapel in the Piazza San Marco. The Doge specifically does not give his relics to the Church: they belong to the Doge. The Basilica of Saint Mark is legally the doge’s personal chapel. The church in Venice has little land or money and so they can’t fight this. There’s also the fact that Venice is theoretically a duchy of the Roman Empire in the East and could go Orthodox without very much bother. Saint Mark’s lion is the symbol of Venice. The statue of it in the Piazza is an Egyptian statue that’s been repurposed. His saints day, April the 25th, is the Bocolla, a sort of national courtship day. This is apparently coincidence but it still prevents the Dominion from increasing on that day: too many hopes, rosebuds, and broken hearts

January 5: what we already know – festivals

Previous podcast episodes have discussed:
* the Festa Del Marie which is the marriage of mannequins
* the Boccola which is the rosebud/lovers festival
* the Marriage to the Sea, which to summarize some new information was oddly commanded by Pope Alexander III in 1177. This adds to our evidence that Alexander III was a weird weird sort of dude.

There is an annual athletic festival (shooting, wrestling, boxing etc) on the beach. Jews are buried on the beaches [that’s an aside but it may prove use for later]. The annual athletic festival was training in archery and street fighting and revived after a lapse. It was originally started by a Teodora Selvo, the Rotting Princess. it causes factional rivalries between the eastern and western sides of the city. The two sides of the Castellani and Nicolotti. The Church of San Trovaso is their neutral territory for meetings.

Executions are always carried out between two pillars at the south end of the Piazza. This is to spite the architect that put them up. He was offered any reasonable fee, and he asked to put a gambling tent, the first gambling in Venice apparently, between them. The doge responded by hanging rotten corpses above his gambling den

January 6: what we already know – the Fragilii

A trade school is called a fragilia, which has something to do with the whip. The dogaressa is the particular patroness of tradespeople. Early trades include: clockmakers; silversmiths; ivory carvers; makers of dowry chests (which are called aricelle); blacksmiths; fishers; saddlers; carriers by water; shepherds; butchers; masons; carpenters; cabinet makers; shoemakers; furriers; mazeri (silk merchants). After the conquest of Constantinople the fine arts kick off historically speaking. It’s briefly debated if they should rule from Constantinople but the Doge decides not to.

In 1220 the dogaressa is Princess Costanza the first princess since Teodora Selvo. She’s the daughter of Tancred of Sicily. Her husband is Pietro Ziani. The Ziani fortune was founded on an ancestor finding a golden statue of a cow in a ruined Temple of Juno. The private contract they have with the state was designed to favour the civic treasury but fortunately for them “as rich as a Ziani” is an aphorism, so they don’t care.

There’s a note on the side of this entry saying “Time to cheat. I’ve had some good ideas so I’m going to get them down but keep to daily writing and posting.”

January 7: what we already know – geography

The islands have been extended artificially so maps of the coast are weirdly smooth. The largest island is divided into six administrative regions called sestieri. There are three on either side of the Grand Canal. In Ars Magica (1220) there is a single bridge over the canal called The Bridge by the Mint. By the time of Magonomia it’s been rebuilt in stone and is called the Rialto.

The districts are:
Castello which is the one around the Arsenale. It’s the seat of the Bishop of Olivio and this merges with the Patriarchate of Grado in the 15th Century to become the Patriarchate of Venice. This is based in the Basilica that the Doge owns.
Cannaregio is where people land when they’re coming from the mainland. It contains the Jewish ghetto, which we’ll come back to in another episode.
San Marco is the ceremonial centre of Venice.
and then across the canal are
Saint Polo which is where the city markets are. it’s the smallest but most densely populated of this sesitieri.
Dorsoduro has the highest land in Venice and includes (administratively) the island of Guidecca which isn’t, in some senses, part of Venice legally.
San Croce. My notes indicate that in the 13th century this belongs to a Hungarian nobleman. I need to check that one.

January 8: things we already know – the other Islands

The Venetian Lagoon is cut off from the sea by barrier islands. The two largest are the Lido and Palestrina. The towns of Malamocco and Palestrina are the largest on those two islands. Malamocco was probably the old capital, at least it was nearby. There is an island called Choggia which is far to the south. It’s the customs house for Venetian trade.

Murano is the third island. It’s really seven tied together by bridges. In 1291 all the glass makers are forced to move there. This makes an odd group of rich guys who make mirrors for a living. San Erasmo is mostly farmland and is governed from Murano.

The square, graveyard island is from the 19th century which is a pity. There was an earlier one, but that went missing. When an island goes missing I think it may be Shrouded Glen. The locals think it’s caused by flooding. The northern parts of the lagoon are less busy and are a good spot for chapter houses.

Torcello was the centre of the area before it fell into decay and was superseded by Venice. It’s a cathedral for the infernal. Howell says the angels look infernal or weird and I want to bring in the Walter De La Mare All Hallows idea here All Hallows is a short story where Satan is rebuilding a decrepit cathedral.

Burano is an island where lace is produced. The lace-making skills are based on the net-making skills of the fisher people. The design was first seen in a fragment of red coral. It’s a centre for weaver magic

January 9: The Infernal island of Torcello

Hell runs Torcello. It pays the Magister Ludi souls as rent. There are rules and there are agreements about what demons are allowed to do. Masks help them get away with more than they’re allowed to do.

Hell’s Ambassador to Venice is Dona Soranza Quirini. She was the daughter of a doge, imprisoned by her father because her husband had rebelled against the state. She escaped her convent with the aid of Hell and now she’s their grateful, loyal representative.

I need to write up a basic local demon.

People don’t know what the Magister Ludi is doing with the souls. These are deliberately not souls hell hates losing. They’re let out of Limbo (presumably) as his bondspeople. I need to write that up as a character design kit.

There is a small infernal regio on the Piazza between the two pillars because of the gambling and executions which, in this project were mentioned a week ago but you heard a couple of minutes ago. There’s got to be something about demons working with molten glass. The infernalists probably have a compagnia, a club for young noblemen. They need a uniform. I don’t know whether that should be crimson or black, both of which are pretty common colours in Venice but they need law

January 10: Compagnia

Staley says there were 40 compagnia but they may not have been simultaneous. The obvious one is the Compagnia de la Calza. This group arranged public spectacles for the Doge and Dogaressa. Calza are tights: they wear them. They’re run by a prior who has a costume made of cloth of gold. Its other offices are two councillors, a treasurer, a chaplain, a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a poet, an analyst and a notary. I’m doing this in such detail because a covenant could pretend to be a compagnia.

Each club has different stripes on its tights. They wear tight silk doublets. They have a badge for their club, slashed sleeves with puffy white shirt cloth coming through (that’s linen). They wear short cloaks (which is cloth of gold or damask and fur lined). They have a small hat with a heron’s feather and a jewel. They wear red, pointed shoes, a leather belt and pouches (which they call scarelle). Women were also members but they didn’t wear tights. Instead they had the word Calza printed in gold thread on a visible petticoat. They wore gold hairnets.

The compagnia ra the Caccio Del Tori which were public games on Maundy Thursday, the first Monday in September, Santa Marta’s Day, and the first Monday in October. They ran them at the Lido and The Piazza

January 11: The Bucintoro / The Bucentaurus / The Bucentaur

This is the state barge of the Doge. It’s used in the annual Marriage to the Sea. The earliest reference to it is in 1252. There were a series of them – at least four. The name bucintoro means “lagoon ship of gold” however medieval Latin people mis-etymologized it as” bucentaurus”. Supposedly there’s a man with the head of a bull on the prow as a figurehead. This is untrue: there are plenty of paintings of this ship, so we can be certain of that. I’m happy, however, to take an aquatic minotaur variant and use it in Mythic Venice.

I’m going to have the second-last bucintoro as the one being used, so that the player characters can be involved in the creation of the last version. It has two decks, 42 oars with four rowers per oar, and 40 sailors in addition to the rowers. There are removable canopies and a throne for the Doge at the back. The deck has sufficient seating for 80 passengers. It’s decorated with sculptures of lions and the figurehead, which is of Justice although we would probably swap in a Minotaur because it is cool. The final bucintoro has sirens and hydras instead. We must also assume there are musicians and catering.

Eventually I need to get a deck plan of this done because it’s too good as a setting for story events. Oil paintings exist for reference also there is a group trying to recreate the ship.

January 12 – Water

This is where I start going through Peter Ackroyd’s Venice: Pure City to remove useful ideas.

“When you look down upon the water Venice seems to have no foundation except Reflections. Only reflections are visible. Venice and Venice’s image are inseparable. In truth there are two cities which exist only in the act of being seen.”

I’d like to suggest that Reflections are ways into regio levels in Serenissima.

There is a season called the Acqua Alta – the flooding season – which can be used for the Cyclical Magic Virtue.

Water is collected from the roofs in campos into cistern wells. These use a sand filtration system. These areas used to be graveyards (gross and creepy). Anyway there are also two big public cisterns at the Ducal Palace and water carriers (who are women) roam the city from there.

Water works as a centre of public life and gossip. The wells are considered holy, particularly the carved wellheads that protect them. After floods cisterns may be contaminated with salt water and boats are dispatched to the Bottenigo and Brenta Rivers for supplies. If these are blocked, adventurers are needed. Floods are caused by demons and they are held at bay by prayer. In Venice floods come up from below. Water rises through the cobblestones. Canals turn green in warning of coming floods.

Glass is metaphoric water

January 13: The Bella Figura (the honour culture)

Venice is an honour culture, but your honour is based on how you appear to the public. This is the Bella Figura. Ackroyd notes that Venetian houses are decorated only on the canal side, and people entertained in public because they don’t want other people seeing the inside of their homes. You can be rich by being publicly profligate and miserly at home. You can be an upstanding citizen by maintaining public forms while being absolutely depraved at home. Gossip is currency in honour cultures.

I need to recheck “Why honor matters” by Tamler Sommers. The Ars Magica Reputation rules need additions for gossip attacks. In Magonomia there’s already a social combat rule system, but it needs examples. Ackroyd later mentions Istrian limestone being used as a marble replacement, as a sort of metaphor for how a veneer or façade suffices.

One commentator in Ackroyd says Venetians are easy to con because they are trained to not look past the superficial layer. It’s rude to look and it puts everyone else’s illusion in danger. A person pointing out the artifice is saying everyone should step down a social level. Even wealthy people don’t do this because their money lets them buy props to cut a finer figure.

You must be polite. Although there are social classes the patricians demand personal frugality (which they call mediocrity) in their number. It’s not like the British class system. It’s not like the American system of pretending everyone’s equal, but letting everyone work out who’s in charge using expensive status symbols. Masters must not be insolent to their servants. Masters must not strike their servants. There is freedom of belief by the Magonomia period, of a sort. You can’t speak against Venice, or its structure of government, but other than that you are free to be (for example) a Muslim, even during Wars with the Turks.

January 14: The City of Exiles

The Jewish Ghetto will need its own entry.

Venice welcomes immigrants from everywhere. They are used as cheap labour for industry and by the end of the Magonomia reign, Venice is the most densely populated city in Italy. Immigrants tend to live in streets by community and to be packed in. Sometimes ethnic groups dominate Industries. Marriage into mainstream society is common.

German merchants must live in a complex called the Fondaco Dei Tedeschi at the Rialto. It has two dining halls and 80 rooms. It may be a model for covenants.

The Flemish settled during Elizabeth’s reign.

The Greeks have their own quarter which enlarges after The Fourth Crusade.

The Armenians have a district and they have a school based at the monastery of San Lazzaro.

Albanians have a district.

Turkish merchants live at the Fondaco dei Turchi. It has an Arabic school.

Venice prides itself on being a refuge. Dispossessed nobles love to come to Venice. Religious outliers come to Venice (for example Anabaptists). Venice is theoretically Catholic but it resists Rome in ways which will follow in other episodes.

Ackroyd mentions there are about 6 000 beggars in Venice I’m not sure why I’ve recorded that separately on this page.

Interestingly Venice has socialized medicine in the 16th century possibly before.

January 15: The Ghetto

Jews were not allowed to live in Venice (the island) or work there. Note that Guidecca is outside this boundary. Early on it’s called Spinalunga). Their graveyard is at the Lido.

They forbidden all professions except medicine and all trades except money lending. Again enforcement outside of Venice’s main island is quite loose. The first ghetto opens on the 29th of March 1516 and it’s in the foundry area around Cannaregio. Two adjoining neighbourhoods are soon added. As precursors the Germans and Turks were similarly forced to live in gated communities. Venice also has other national quarters in colonies.

The Jews were forced to live on a single island with a wall and drawbridge. They were allowed out at dawn and locked down at sundown. All windows in the ghetto faced inwards. Guards and two patrolling boats (that worked for the city) were paid for by the Jews through a tax.

The area is quite poor and very overcrowded. Buildings reach eight stories in places. Jewish leaders run the place. It has non-Jewish inhabitants. It’s renowned for gambling dens (but then again so is most of Venice). It also has a Jewish carnival on Purim.

It’s a centre for rabbinical studies and Jewish publishing. Christians go there as tourists, particularly for the Purim plays, but also to attend synagogues. The state tried to ban this, but the reaction was so severe that they reversed the policy.

Basically the ghetto is a valuable internal colony. Jews in danger in other kingdoms send their capital to relatives in Venice. Ackroyd states there were no pogroms I believe he’s wrong: Staley states that the people tried to have one. The doge sent the military to protect the ghetto. Jews or not mobs of poor people aren’t allowed to steal stuff from rich people in Venice.

Ackroyd does have a paragraph about cultural similarities between Jews and Venetians, but it seems like he’s gilding the lily quite a bit. He mentions superstitions about statues coming to life on page 60 and I’m not sure why that note is on this page.

January 16: The Signoria (The State)

Venice loves a bureaucracy. They have a census. They develop some of the statistical sciences to a degree not seen elsewhere, which means they may have faeries based on mathematics. They have a huge bureaucracy for pageants, particularly popular processions.

It is illegal to speak ill of Venice. Locals who do it are sent to prison. Immigrants are deported and assassins are possible, indeed we have documentary records of payments being made to assassins to silence people who’ve criticized Venice. Social rituals govern the city and its office bearers. They give spaces meaning.

This deep story may be the mechanism building the Glass Dogaressa, which is rumored to be an avatar of a being from Deep Arcadia. Is she Justice? Liberty? Venus No she’s not. I shouldn’t do these sorts of things. I’ll get back to her on the 18th. All art is for presentation. Rhetoric is prized. Some of the most skilled diplomats in Europe come from Venice. Ambassadors are not just random nobles or royal favourites, the way they are in Elizabeth’s Court.

From the 16th Century, Venice is nominally neutral in all external affairs. Her ambassadors, however, are ruthless intriguers for the good of Venice, which is their moral cynosure. At the end of their terms ambassadors write detailed reports to the senate about every possibly-interesting feature of the state they are sent . These are called relazioni and if they go missing that’s an adventure hook. The nominal neutrality may tie into the loss to the League of Cambrai.

There’s a note here telling me to check for a period text called “A survey of the signor of Venice” by James Howell in 1561.

January 17: The Council of Ten and prisons

The Council of Ten started as a conspiracy, but became a government body. It meets daily and it’s served by a network of spies and assassins. Some of these are the Signori de Notte, the Lords of the Night. Members wore black mantles. They examined the accused in the dark. They meet above a prison and torture chamber. They are called the Small Council or Black Inquisitors. There are lion-mouthed sculptures around the city in which people may post anonymous attacks. No cross-examination of witnesses or defendants, or discovery process exist.

The most notorious prison in Venice is under the Doge’s Palace. Individual cells have names. The worst of these are the Wells, which flood occasionally. The stories about the prisons are exaggerated to a tremendous degree. I will mention particularly the artist Piranesi whose carceral etchings are entirely unreal, except perhaps in a regio. There’s a separate force called the shirri who kidnap criminals and take them to jail. There is about one policeman for every 250 inhabitants in Venice. By way of comparison in the current U.S it’s one policeman for 418 inhabitants. The oath of the Council of Ten is to “Swear, forswear and reveal not the secret.”

The city archives are maintained by a man who cannot read or write. The Doge must not visit the city archives unless accompanied. Where they are is none of your business.

There is a special inn called the Golden Ship which is for sharing rumours and intelligence. Venice is a centre for rumours, particularly merchant news.

Almanacs and fly sheets exist. The first newspaper in the world is created in Venice in the 17th century.

The Council of 10 have a code breaker as a secretary.

January 18th: Spies and informants

They are everywhere. If you are a Venetian overseas it is your patriotic duty to be a spy. People in Venice expect spies. Every foreign household has at least one. If you do not have one it means people don’t know that you are dangerous and interesting. You should have an adventure to get one.

Gondoliers and sex workers are notorious as spies. I will come back to this in the gondolas section. They are notorious spies except in matters of amour. If a gondolier mentions that a lady has been with a gentleman in his gondola, the other gondoliers will seize him and drown him as a matter of honour.

Even cardinals and bishops have a civic duty to act as spies in the private councils of the Vatican. The Vatican knows this. Merchants perform espionage as a matter of course. They are great story instigators: “I learned X, if we do Y, then Z.”

The patron saint of spies is Joshua. His feast day is the 1st of September. He was one of the 12 agents Moses and the land of Caanan. Venice has counter agents and also freelance information brokers. Foreign ambassadors get in on this too, apparently. Meetings at the theatre (or opera after the game period) are the stereotypical things – so much that there’s some sort of ban on foreigners renting theater boxes, to make it more challenging.

Accusations could be posted in the mouths of lion statues. Informers were paid if their accusations proved true. Accusers were never identified to their victims but denuncia had to be signed and there had to be two attestations of the informer’s good character on the denunciation. Certain lion mouths are for specific infractions.

January 19th: The Queen of Glass

When I started this I decided I wouldn’t do a twist ending, because it’s an RPG supplement not a fiction piece, but apparently I can’t help myself. On the first day I mentioned the plan to make a body for a creature from Deep Arcadia, and then I said “No! No! Look at my other hand!”

So no secrets…my idea and there will be other options for other campaigns…is that the Queen in Glass is Eve’s youngest daughter Naamara, which you’ll see I constantly mispronounce, or Norea in Greek, is an embodiment of wisdom that was tainted by the fall of humanity. She is sometimes called the Lesser Lilith. Noah wouldn’t let her on the Ark so she set it on fire a couple of times and then was saved by an Angel (or some sort of emanation from God).

She comes from before the Realms divided not just before Faerie and Magic fission, but from before the Divine and the infernal were distinct. She’s seen God, been a demon, embodies human wisdom, and is one of the deep Arcadian Powers.

Why the Master of Games want her is unclear. Maybe he wants to fuse things back together. Maybe he wants to create another realm. Maybe he wants to seriously muck around with how the Realms work.

For those confused, because they can’t remember this from Bible school, this is Scythian Gnosticism. It was an early heresy which, among other things, said that Jesus wasn’t actually fully human. Also in Sethian Gnosticism the snake’s a good guy: he gets us out of the dead end in which God has placed us

January 20th: Trade convoys

Venice’s first Monopoly was in salt. All Adriatic colonial salt is sold from Venice to ensure a monopoly on prices. There are seven annual trading expeditions. The city owns galleys and rents them out. In addition there are thousands of ships in private trade. These expeditions start in 1315 and end in 1533, so PCs could start or restore the idea.

Think of the trade routes as two distinct rings: an eastern ring and a western ring. In the eastern ring the things that go out are cloth, silver, timber, and weapons. The things that come in are spices, incense, perfume, silk, and cotton. In the western ring the things that go out are spices, cotton, and finished cloths. The things that come in are wool, Flemish cloth, and African gold. Silver comes by land: it trickles down from Germany through the Alps.

The muda or trading expeditions are as follows

Flanders which includes England, France and Aragon.
Barbary which is North Africa, Grenada and Aragon.
Trafego which is Tunis, Alexandria, Beirut and Modone.
Syria: Cyprus, Beirut and Laiazzo (for cotton mostly).
Egypt: which is Dalmatia, Modone, The Peloponnese, Crete, Cypress, Beirut, Tyre, Acre, Diametta, Alexandria (which is twice a year).
Romania: this splits off the Egyptian one at Modone and it goes to Athens, Calcis, Thessalonica, Abydos and Constantinople and after 1318 they added Tana and Trebizond.

January 21 is a reminder to myself to create a shape and material table for Venice, with things thrown into it and where they come from. The carpets from Alexandria and caviar from Caffa and so on. That’s not complete so I’ll just move on.

Venice has an annual luxury fair for 15 days each year, which attracts a heap of tourists. The finest goldsmiths in Europe are in Venice. New luxuries are vital to the national economy so technical advances occur. The Rialto needs an episode. So does the Merceria. The commercial zone is just one of hundreds of zones by trade. Every industry seems to have a physically-mappable spot. They have approved streets, approved quarters, and you can just make them up. You want some soap, go to the Street of the Soap Makers. Want a clock? Go to the Campo with the Clockmakers. Weird new trades emerge and these take over chunks of older areas. For example, net making arises from fishermen and lace arises from net-making. Factory line production of a sort happens in ship building glass making and in textiles

January 22: Markets

The Rialto is the Central Market of Venice. It continually gets bigger, in part by clearing property and in part by repurposing residential buildings at its fringes. Canals next to it have improved. Its streets are widened. The centre is a small church called San Giacomo Del Rialto and more valuable goods are sold closer to the centre. Sex workers, taverns and rag men are at the edge the Merceria and runs off the Rialto towards the Piazza where the bankers do business. Streets and the Rialto are named by craft. The names change when the crafts move about. I need to look at the slave trade and how the PCs break it up.

Art is a trade commodity. It’s easier in the sense that you can get the best pigments in the world here and you can learn powdered-gold painting techniques which aren’t found anywhere else. Well not these set of techniques. A lot is made of stock figures and sizes and a lot of art is exported there are art dealers by the 15th century

23rd of January: Collectors

Venetians, if rich, collect things as a form of display and conspicuous consumption. Initially they just grab interesting stuff. Collectors later specialize. This means treasures that PCs find are more valuable if they have the social contacts to know who collects the thing they’ve found. There’s money to be made in brokers and forgers. Magicians seeking a thing to enchant, like an antique ring, may need to source it from a collector by trade or theft.

After people die their collections are often sold and broken up. This means suddenly there’s a flood of [cool thing X] and this may cause a fashion. Collectors are rivals in honour cultures. You have to stick up for yourself. If some other person is causing you to lose face, even if it’s in the tiny circle of people who collect antique brass plates, you have to stickup for yourself. In Ars Magica collections can be a source of study XP. Collections aren’t necessarily static. They can be, but they can also be an investment or a source of gifts, kind of like fountain pen collectors. I’ve really got into fountain pens recently, part of the reason I’m doing this is an excuse to try out different inks and pens. They presumably have swap meets the same way pen dealers do. There are auctions there are trade shows. I think I should do the PG Woodhouse story with Bertie Wooster and the cow creamer and the trade for Anatole the peerless chef but in Venice

January 24: Nunneries

The number of dogaressas who retire to particular places can be treated as part of the Diana cult thing. Nuns were, in some contexts, freeish. They had servants, entertainers. wore what they liked , ignored dietary rules, some had lovers. The men in charge tried to tamp this all down, sometimes, but the hierarchy of the Church is weak in Venice and the abbesses are rich and very well connected.

San Zaccharia needs investigation and floor plans because too many dogaressas retire there. I need to get some general rules together here. In 1581 there are two and a half thousand nuns in Venice out of roughly 50 000 women. Over fifty percent of Patrician women become nuns. Ackroyd suggests this is because of dowry inflation. Abbesses in Venetian nunneries are unusual in that they are elected by the “mothers of advice”, a sort of ruling council. Someone tried to shut down San Zachariah in 1514 and the nuns stoned them from the walls. Papal dispensation gives nuns holidays. Ackroyd also notes fist fights and a knife duel. Some nuns dressed as men during Carnival so they they could attend.

January 25: Theatres and Theatricality

In Venice, imagine that in your public life, your PC is an improv actor surrounded by a giant LARP with the best sets ever. Everything is built for drama, Fate Aspect style. The Piazza is literally designed as a ceremonial stage. Jewish and Christian priests go to each other’s churches and synagogues to study oratory. Church verandas and outside balconies and gondolas are all designed to be seen. If you break character you are demeaning everyone else and they have to stand up to you. Court testimony isn’t “nothing but the facts”, it is advocates going full drama and witnesses going full scene-chewing. Costumes are deliberately ostentatious. Women will choose up to 18 inches high until the government banned them, particularly for pregnant women. Workers wear role-related uniforms so much that you can tell how you’re expected to treat people by how they dress. The most popular colour is turchino which is sky blue.

Rich people wear black as daily wear. Since black robes were the formal dress of many of the rich, many of the rich look intimidating. Ackroyd says that only the Doge wore gold, but he contradicts himself on the next page. He notes a sudden change in 1529. Before this men have long hair and only wear beards in mourning and after that they have short hair and they wear beards.

Opera is invented in Venice, but after the period. I may need to add it in. People who attend the Opera and the theatre are not silent. They are raucous, Shakespearean-style crowds. Venetians are great at stagecraft some of the big, painterly names you know from the Renaissance had a sideline in painting stage sets.

The idea I was working with on “The discovery of witches”, with people who use special effects rather than actual magic, suits Venice even better than it does London. Scenery pieces are called apparati and this links to the word apparatus but it also links to the word apparition. Gondoliers get into theatres for free. Vendors sell halftime snacks. Ccomedy is popular and tragedy is not. Goldoni who was Venice’s Shakespeare (actually he was more popular and prolific than Shakespeare) wrote city comedies and there is not much violence and there are no monologues

January 26: The slide out of democracy

At the foundation every island had an elected Tribune.

In 697 the first doge was elected by popular acclaim.

By the end of the 12th century the council of aristocrats chooses the doge and presents them to the people for acclimation.

By 1297 men may only sit in the Grand Council if their father or paternal grandfather sat in the council. It is therefore a hereditary aristocracy.

In 1423 Venice stops calling itself a commune and it’s informally a plutocracy. The government is like a complicated clock. The general assembly passes basic laws. The Great Council, which is about 800 paid officers, picks judges, members of smaller councils and they also pick the Doge. The 40 are the immediate councillors of the Doge. The doge is the leader but he is tightly bound by a legal obligation called a promissione, which is a contract. It changes between doges. The promisione is sacred and it’s between the state as represented by the Great Council and the doge. Dogadal promissiones become increasingly onerous. Most doges need permission to travel, read mail, meet foreigners, receive gifts, or discuss policy. No one bows to the doge. His title is Messier Doge and it is no higher. The Doge wields power obliquely through chairing the Ten, the Fortym the Council and through public audiences twice a week. The doge is not in charge except in a ceremonial sense.

Here’s how you get a new doge (brace yourself). The youngest member of the Signoria prays at St Marks and goes outside. There he grabs the first boy he finds. The boy draws nomination slips from an urn at the Ducal Palace. The Great Council elects 30 members. From that 30 they elect nine. That nine then pick 40, each of whom needs at least seven nominations. The 40 is reduced by ballot to 12. The 12 pick 20. The 20 elect 9. The 9 elect 45. The 45 elect 11. The 11 elect 41, and then the 41 elect the Doge. The average doge is aged 72 at the point he gets the job. The point of all of this is to make it very difficult to fix the election for your personal faction.

Social classes: the populari make up about 90 of the population. These are the guild laborers and the sub guild laborers. Six percent of the population are citidanni These are people whose fathers and grandfathers were born in Venice. Four percent of the aristocracy are called the patricians. To be a citizen your father and grandfather can not have been laborers: they have to have been bureaucrats. Patricians are trained in the bow, sword, and lance. They are also trained to be ship captains. There are jousts in the Palazzo from 1242.

January 27: The Islands of Sorrow

Some of the smaller islands are dedicated to civic purposes.

San Servolo is an asylum for men. San Clemente is an asylum for women. suckers and soloists of fever Hospital. Isola della Grazia is a fever hospital. Sacca Sensola is a consumption hospital. Poveglia is a leprosarium.

Constanziaca disappeared during the Ars Magica game period so that could be hidden by Shrouded Glen. It was originally a funeral Island.

Each island has a bell tower and some sort of square, except the leprosarium and the graveyard

January 28: Venetian Crete

Venetian Crete is designed as a clone of Venice. It has a Duke and they rename the public square as the Palazzo St Marco. Does this create a local Magister Ludi?

They invented plantation slavery. Venetian conquests are sent a governor for civil affairs and a captain for military affairs. Crete’s odd because it’s so far away that the Venetians give land for military service to create a garrison. These lands export all of their surplus to Venice. Other conquests keep their traditions.

In structure Venice reminds me of America in the Pacific. If they can’t get what they want they don’t invade, but every so often the cost and value calculation clicks over, then they do invade. When I say “America in the Pacific” I mean during the Admiral Perry “Let’s invade Japan for Commerce and Trade” era, and the invasion of Hawaii.

Once the Venetians have land they can’t be isolationists anymore, because they need alliances to stabilize their distant territories. Again they can use money (and they do). The next step is mercenaries. A fleet is only sent if trade is threatened and bribery is not enough.

The vassals of Venice call Venice “the illustrious mistress.”

June 29: Foreign enemies

The Genoese traders are rivals. Genoese diplomats and Venetians counter each other. The Siege of Chioggia is significant to Ars Magica players and historical for Magonomia players. There is presumably some sort of magical Divine or infernal counterbalance to the Magister Ludi. There are naval clashes between the two. They are rivals for external adventures. Genoa is called “La Superba” which means “the Proud”.

The Ottoman Empire takes over as the chief rival after 1452, when they take Constantinople. The Venetians try to trade but the Turks want to expand. The other Italians think that the Venetians will eventually win, so they sit out the Turco-Venetian War. Unexpectedly the Venetians lose. In the ensuring piece they lose the Black Sea and the Aegean Islands. The venetians keep Crete and Corfu, but lose some colonies that they’ve had for 250 years.

In 1509 Venice loses all of its Italian holdings in 15 days to the League of Cambrai. the Venetians fight back and by 1517 have pretty much all of that back (well all of the Italian mainland territory). In some cases the Italians preferred the rule of the Venetians to the rule of the French or Germans.

The territories at the start of the Magonomia period are Crete, Corfu, Cyprus, the Po River Valley, Ravenna, and Remini. There is no further expansion: Venetians now try to balance the French, Habsburgs and Turks as the point of their foreign affairs.

In 1527 unpaid mercenary troops sack Rome and the artists flee to Venice. The public areas of Venice are restored on the Roman model. There is much talk of Venice being the “New Rome” as the last free vestige of the Roman Empire. Things get really, really theatrical really fast.

In 1570 the Turks take Cyprus from the Venetians. The West gives no help. In 1571 the Holy League decides that enough is enough and they have the last galley-based naval battle. They defeat the Turks at Lepanto. From here on the Arsenale, which is still building galleys, is building anachronisms. They want to take back Cyprus but the Spanish and the Poope won’t go for it. They keep Crete for another hundred years but don’t get Cyprus back. Ackroyd says that at this point Venice’s Imperial power is replaced by “its power to dazzle” which is a faerie vitality engine in Ars Magica.

January 30: How big is the Venetian Navy?

In 1423 it has 35 galleys, 300 roundships, and 3 000 merchant ships. Venice could maintain 40 000 troops. The fleet above requires 36 000 sailors, which is about 25 percent of Venice’s population. Crews are professional in the Ars Magica period and conscripted in the Magonomia period. The social status of sailors dives by the end of the Elizabethan reign as crews are a form of carceral service. Their diet is deliberately designed to supplement the sanguinary humour. Transmissible illness is a common. Captains are appointed by the Senate from young men of the upper crust. Being a naval commander is necessary to, eventually, gaining other forms of higher office.

The flute is supported by the Arsenal. The Arsenal is eventually 60 Acres of workshops surrounded by walls and towers. It employs somewhere between six and sixteen thousand men. Local people are called Arsenalotti and they are the ceremonial bodyguards of the Doge. The Arsenal is an early assembly line. It is very quick in emergencies. It turns out 30 galleys in 10 days once. It once made a galley in two hours while the visiting king had lunch.

January 31: The army

In the middle of the 16th century the army raised is 20 000, plus militias, and at the end of the century it’s twice that. No Venetian may be a general. No Venetian may command more than 25 men. Covenants need to be careful. Generals are always foreigners so that no faction can take the city by force. Every general needs to pass his orders by two patrician supervisors who are appointed by the Senate. This is not a swift command structure. These people are called conditteri which means “contracted men”. Generous, prompt payment (including palaces and land in the Empire) is the policy. This is to lessen the possibility that the other side could bribe them into changing sides. I need to write basic soldier kit.

The Wolf of Ironwood by Eleanor Smith-Dampier

A quick Librivox recording to give us our monster of the month. We have a werewolf, a witch and a Faustian bargain. I wondered why I’d not seen this one before. Eleanor Smith-Dampier was a translator of Danish sagas, so I thought I’d missed it because it’s from the area to the north of the Ars Magica playspace in Mythic Europe. Turns out I was wrong. At the end of her series of translations published as “The Norse King’s Bridal” she added a chapter of her own work. This one’s original, and arguably set somewhere in Britain.

Thanks to Kerry Adams and her team for the for the recording.

***

Ho for the white of the withered bough
And the red of the wrinkled leaf!
Sir Arngrim sits in Ironwood,
And his heart is filled with grief.

The sun sinks down on Ironwood
Blood-red behind the trees;
Sir Arngrim stares upon the sword
That lies across his knees.

“Oh my father died a death of blood,
And my mother of wasting woe;
And their spirits dwell in the rocky fell
Where the trees of Ironwood grow.

“And still the guilt of the life-blood spilt
Doth unavenged remain;
And in the red of the wrinkled leaf
I read my father’s pain.

“Oh the kings were three, sailed o’er the sea
To work us havoc and harm;
And I see in the white of the wizened bough
My mother’s beckoning arm.”

Sir Arngrim stood with the sea beneath
And the rocky fell behind,
And there he saw three gallant ships
That sailed before the wind.

“Oh red of hand, they come to land
With a host and a mighty horde!
And how shall I wreak my father’s death
With the power of a single sword?”

When the writhen shadows in Ironwood
Grew long, and the fading rim
Of the sun sank low behind the fell,
The witch-wife came to him.

“Now hearken to me, thou goodly knight!
And, if thou grant me grace,
I’ll work a spell shall serve thee well
For love of thy fair young face.

“Oh a maid am I from dawn till dusk—
But by night of a magic rune,
And a weird of woe, a wolf I go
O’ nights beneath the moon.

“Thou shalt slay three hosts in Ironwood
That the wolf her fill may feed—
Then as lover true, when the fight is done,
Shalt pay the maiden’s meed.”

Sir Arngrim looked upon the witch,
And her face was fair to see.
He’s plighted her troth on his knightly oath
And sealed it with kisses three.

It was the first o’ the hosts came on
With the rush of a roaring gale—
But they might not stir the single sword
That bit through bone and mail.

Oh half o’ the host at eve were slain,
And half o’ the host were fled;
And all night long in Ironwood
The wolf howled o’er the dead.

It was the second host came on
As levin leaps from the sky;
But they might not quell the witch’s spell
And the sword of grammarye.

Oh half o’ the host at eve were fled,
And half in their blood lay still;
And all night long in Ironwood
The wolf did feed her fill.

It was the third o’ the hosts came on
Like the waves of a winter sea;
But they broke on the sword as billows break
Where the hidden skerries be.

Oh half o’ the host at eve were slain,
And half were fled away;
And like the dead, among the dead,
In a swoon Sir Arngrim lay.

The moon shone down on Ironwood
Above the trees so tall;
And lo! the red and wrinkled leaves
Upon his face did fall.

And lo! the shade of the withered bough
Across his face lay dim,
And the wolf she leapt, and seized, and tore
The warrior limb from limb.

Ho ho for the red of the wrinkled leaf!
His spirit has gone to dwell
With the grimly ghosts of the ancient hosts
That haunt the rocky fell!

Ho ho for the white of the withered bough!
The witch she wails full sore;
And Ironwood, for that deed of blood,
Is accursèd evermore!

Infernal Regiones from Regina Bloch

Regina Block was a London-based, Jewish, poetess who worked in the 1920s. Strangely, her work is filled with Christian allegory. She also wrote a biography of one of the first Sufi masters who became widely known in London. Her representations of what he believed are relatively accurate compared to some of the stuff that had been available before through the Golden Dawn and those sorts of people. As you know in Ars Magica, sins – particularly cardinal sins – performed by large groups of people simultaneously can rot a hole in the fabric of reality, such that those who are nearby are tempted to, and empowered to, sin themselves. These are called Infernal regiones.

We have a couple of huge operatic level ones in the Far Western Isles of Mythic Europe, where the forces of Hell have already lit their forges to create the weapons they will need for the battle of Armageddon. Generally however our infernal Regios are small and tend to have a single, big figure in them that the characters can confront. What follows is two high-fantasy, infernal regions from the works of Regina Bloch.

They’re useful to us because, with a small stretch, they can be tied to the corruption of House Tytalus.

I’d like to mention a plot hook. When I’ve been doing the Corruption of House Tytalus, I’ve used the Lady of Pain, who’s turned up in earlier episodes. As an alternative you’re about to be introduced to a swine god, and there are two versions given. Moloch and Mars. Moloch is a North African god originally. Mars is the Roman God that you’re imagining, except in Regina Bloch’s cosmology there’s no way that the God of War can be anything but a demon, and therefore he is.

I want to mention Moccus. Moccus is an alternative destroyer of House Tytalus. He was a Celtic, boar-headed god whose cult area was around the mouth of the Seine River in France. He was invoked for all of the sorts of things you associate with fertility gods. He was also considered to be a version of Mercury when the Romans entered the area, which is why he might be suitable as a false Mercury that leads House Tytalus into the Corruption.

Ben Tucker released this through LibriVox.

For the first time in six years I’ve made an error, so I can’t transcribe the material here. Regina Bloch died long enough ago that her writing is in the public domain, but the introduction to her book was written by a more long-lived scholar, so the book is copyright-clamped. Here’s a link for American friends: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102749433.

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes from “Stories of the Rhine” by Erckmann and Chatrian

Back in the satyr episode of the Magonomia Bestiary Kickstarter I mentioned Gabrinus as the creator of beer. In this story, a less powerful Gabrinus, with a touch of faerie, is playing the an ancient game against painters, to steal the fruits of their creativity.

Readers at the time would know that schiedam is a type of junever, which is the ancestor of English gin. Gin doesn’t become the tipple of the English until after Elizabeth’s reign. When William of Orange becomes co-monarch he bans French brandy. Oddly, he makes it stick: it’s a patriotic duty to drink Dutch gin rather than French brandy. The rich don’t just smuggle it in, as in previous wars. The translator calls gin “Geneva” at one point, which is a common shorthand. It’s not that the junever they are drinking comes from Geneva. They do make some there, but the drinker calls for Schiedam, which is the name of the town where a particularly old variant comes from. The similarity of names is claimed in some books to be because both Genenva and junever are named after the juniper, whose berries give gin its traditional flavour. So far as I can tell, this isn’t true at all – Geneva is named after a word meaning a bend in a river, as is Genoa in Italy – and this folk etymology just grew up because they sound similar.

The authors, or at least translators, also mention other drinks. Porter would be an anachronism in game, so far as I can tell. Porter doesn’t appear in written records before the 18th century. There’s a note of a strong beer being called “stout” as far back as 1677. He mentions “potato whisky” which I take to be something like poitín or vodka. Triple X ale is strong ale: the idea being that each x is used to mark a level of strength. This is also why, in my own state of Queensland, the local beer is called XXXX, pronounced “Fourex”. It was meant to mark the beer of as being of surpassing strength, purity and quality. Lambic is beer produced with wild yeast in a particular Belgian valley. Oddly, although alembics are used to make jenever in the area, they are not used to make lambic, because it is not distilled.

Pandemonium is the capital city of Hell. Circe turned the companions of Ulysees into pigs. This may not be literal. A magic lantern is a simple slide projector. A horn lantern is a standard lantern which uses the outer layer of cow horn instead of glass for its windows.

***

One morning, in the month of September, 1850, old Andreusse Cappelmans, the marine painter, my worthy master, and I were quietly smoking our pipes at the window of his studio, on the upper floor of the old house which forms the right-hand corner of the Rue des Bi-abancons, on the bridge at Leyden, while we emptied a pot of ale to our respective healths. I was then eighteen years of age, with a pink and white face and fair hair. Cappelmans was about fifty ; his
large nose was becoming rather blue, his hair was silvery at the temples, wrinkles were forming round his little grey eyes, and deeper ones traversed his brown cheeks. Instead of the cock’s plume which it was once his pride to wear, he now carried but a single feather from a raven’s wing in his hat.

The weather was very fine. Before us the old Rhine flowed along, a few white clouds were floating in the blue sky, the port and its great black barges, with their sails motionless, seemed asleep at our feet, the blue waves reflected the rays of the sun, and hundreds of swallows were cleaving the air in all directions. There we sat, musing, much disposed to sentimental reflections ; the large vine-leaves which grew round our window quivered at every breath of air, a butterfly fluttered by, and a dozen chirping sparrows immediately set off in pursuit ; down below, on the roof of a shed, a great tortoiseshell cat sat blinking in the sun, and waving gently its tail from side to side, in a mood as meditative as our own. It was the most tranquillising sight imaginable; nevertheless, Cappelmans seemed sad and anxious.

” Master Andreusse,” said I suddenly, “you seem verv much out of sorts.”
“You are right,” replied he. ” I am as melancholy as a cudgelled donkey.”
” Why ? We have plenty of work, you have more orders than you can execute, and we shall have the kermesse here in a fortnight.”
” I have had a bad dream.”
“Master Cappelmans, do you believe in dreams?”
” I am not sure, Christian, whether it was a dream or not, for I had my eyes wide open.” Then, knocking the ashes out of his pipe on the window-sill ” You must have heard,” said he, “of my old comrade Van Marius, the famous marine painter, who understood the sea as well as Euysdael did the land, Van Ostade a village, Rembrandt dark interior effects, and Rubens temples, palaces, and feasts. He was indeed a great painter. When one looked at his picture, one did not say ‘ How well painted !’ but ‘ How beautiful the sea looks !’ or ‘ How grand, how terrible it is. You could not see the brush of Van Marius at work ; it seemed like the shadow of God’s hand on the canvas. Oh, genius, genius, what a sublime gift that is, Christian !” Cappelmans was silent, his lips were closed, his brows contracted, and he had tears in his eyes. It was the first time I had ever seen him in this; mood, so I was quite astonished. In another moment he continued.

” Van Marius and I had studied together at Utrecht under old Byssen. We were in love with two sisters ; we used to pass our evenings together at the sign of the Frog, like two brothers. We afterwards came to Leyden arm-in-arm. Van Marius had but one fault. He liked Geneva and schiedam better than ale and porter. You must do me the justice to admit, Christian, that I never get intoxicated with anything but ale, and for that reason I am always in good health.

Unfortunately, Van Marius used to get drunk on geneva. Even then, if he had only drunk when he was at the tavern, but he used to have liquor sent to his studio ; he could only work with energy when he had a couple of pints of spirits under his belt, and his eyes were coming out of his head. Then you should see him, and hear him yell, and sing, and whistle ; he would roar like the sea as he worked, every touch of his brush raised a wave, at every whistle you could see the clouds getting larger, and heavier, and darker ; then he would snatch up a brush with red, and lo ! the lightning flowed from the sky down on the dark waves like a stream of melted lead, while in the distance was a vessel, a cutter maybe, a dismantled wreck, amidst the darkness and the white foam of the waves. It was frightful! When Van Marius painted a calm he made the old blind man, Coppelius, play the clarionet to him for two florins a day ; he mixed his geneva with ale and ate sausages to inspire his imagination with scenes of country life. You must see yourself, Christian, how destructive such a regime as that must have been to the talent of any man. How many times did I say to him, ‘ Take care, Jan, take care ! Geneva will be the death of you some day.’

“But instead of listening to me he would begin to thunder out some drinking song, and he always ended by crowing like a cock. This was his greatest pleasure. For instance, at the tavern when his glass was empty, instead of knocking the bottom against the table to call the waiter’s attention to him, he would shake his arms and begin crowing until his wants were attended to. For some time past Marius had often spoken to me about his chef-d’ceuvre, the ‘ Miraculous Draught of Fishes.’ He had shown me his first sketches for it, and I was delighted with them, when one morning he suddenly disappeared from Leyden, and since then no one
has heard anything of him.”

Here Cappelmans thoughtfully lighted his pipe again, and continued ” Last night I was at the Golden Jug with Doctor lLtuner, of Eisenlaffel, and five or six comrades. About ten, apropos to what I cannot say, Ecemer began declaiming against potatoes, declaring they were the scourge of the human race ; that since the discovery of potatoes the aborigines of America, the Irish, the
Swedes, the Dutch, and, generally speaking, all those nations which consume great quantities of spirituous liquors, instead of taking their former position in the world, were now reduced to nothing. He attributed this decay to potato brandy, and while I was listening to him—I cannot tell by what chain of reasoning it came into my head—the memory of Van Marius presented itself to me. ‘Poor old fellow,’ thought I, ‘ what is he doing now ? Has he finished his great picture ? Why have I never heard from him ?’ While thinking over these things, Zelig, the watchman, came into the tavern to tell us it was time to go—it was striking eleven. I went straight home, my head felt rather heavy, and I went to sleep. ”

About an hour afterwards, Brigitte, the stockingmender opposite, set fire to her curtains. She screamed out, ‘ Fire !’ I hear a noise of people running in the street, I open my eyes, and what do I see ? A great black cock perched on the easel in the middle of the room.

“In less than half a minute the old woman’s curtains had blazed away and burnt themselves out. Every one went home again laughing—but the black cock remained there on his perch, and as the moon shone brightly between the towers of the town hall, this singular animal was perfectly visible to me ; he had large yellow eyes, with a red circle round them, and scratched his comb with his claw.

” I had been watching him for at least ten minutes, trying to explain to myself how this strange creature could have found its way into my studio, when it left off scratching its comb, raised its head, and said ” ‘ What, Cappelmans ! you don’t recognise me ? I am, nevertheless, the soul of your old friend Van Marius !’

” ‘ The soul of Van Marius !’ cried I. ‘ Is Van Marius dead, then ?’

” ‘ Yes,’ replied the cock with a melancholy air, ‘ it is all over, my poor friend. I wanted to have a trial of strength with Herod van Gambrinus; we drank two days and two nights without stopping. The morning of the third day, as old Judith was extinguishing the candles, I rolled under the table ! My body now rests in Osterhaffen Cemetery, facing the sea, and I am
looking out for some new organism. But that is not the question now. I came to ask a service of you, Cappelnians.’

” ‘ A service ? Say, what is it ? All that man can do will I do for you.’

” ‘ Very good,’ replied the cock—’ very good. I was sure you would not refuse my request. Well, this is how the matter stands. You must know, Andreusse, that I had gone to the Herring Creek on purpose to finish the ‘ Miraculous Draught of Fishes.’ Unfortunately, death surprised me before I could put the last touches to this picture. Gambrinus has hung it up as a trophy in the great room of his tavern, and that fills my soul with bitterness. I shall only be at rest when it is finished, and I come now to pray you to finish it for me. You promise me you will ; is it not
so, Cappelnians?’

” Rest assured, Jan, it shall be done.’

” ‘ Then good night.’ Whereupon the cock flapped his wings and flew through one of the panes of glass without making the least noise.” Having concluded this extraordinary story, Cappelmans laid his pipe down in the window and finished his glass at a gulp. We sat for some time in silence, looking at one another.

” And do you believe that this black cock was the soul of Van Marius ?” said I at last to the good master.

” Do I believe it ? I feel sure it was.”

” Then what do you intend to do, Master Andreusse?”

“It is very clear what I have to do—I shall go to Osterhaffen. An honest man must keep his promise, and I have given mine to Van Marius to finish his picture for him, and I will finish it, cost what it may. In an hour Van Eyck, the one-eyed man, will be here with his cart for me.” Then he ceased speaking and looked earnestly at me. ” Now I think of it,” said he, ” you had better come
with me, Christian ; it is a good opportunity for you to see the Herring Creek. Besides, who knows what may happen ? I should be well satisfied to have you with me.”

” I should like to go very much, Master Andreusse,” said I, ” but you know what my aunt Catherine is as well as I can tell you ; she will never let me go.”

” Your aunt Catherine ! I shall tell her it is indispensable for your improvement that you should see the coast. How can a man become a painter of marine subjects who has never quitted the neighbourhood of Leyden, and all he knows of the sea is the insignificant port of Kalwyk ? That is all nonsense ! Tou must come with me, Christian—that is a settled thing.” While the good man was talking he put on his loose red jacket, and then taking me by the arm he gravely took me to my aunt. I need not repeat to you all that was said on both sides—my aunt’s objections, and how they were met by Master Cappelmans, in order to induce her to allow me to go with him.

The fact is, he ended by having his own way, and two hours after we were rolling along in the cart towards Osterhaffen, Our cart, drawn by a Zuyder-zee pony, with a big head, short and hairy legs, and his back covered with an old dogskin rug, had been rolling along for three
hours between Leyden and Herring Creek, without appearing to be any nearer the end of our journey. The setting sun shed its long purple rays across the marshy plain ; the ditches were flaming red, and all around the reeds, rushes, and shave-grass which grew on their banks threw their black shadows across the dyke.

It soon grew dark, and Cappelmans, rousing himself from his meditations, called out ” Wrap yourself up well in your cloak, Christian ; pull your fur cap over your ears, and keep your feet
well covered with straw. Hop, Barabas, hop ! we are crawling along like snails !” At the same time he had recourse to his stone bottle of schiedam, and then wiping his lips with the back of
his hand he offered it to me, with the remark ” Take a pull at it, Christian, to keep the fog out of
your stomach. It is a sea fog, the very worst of all fogs.” I thought it right to take Cappelraans’ advice, and the goodness of the liquor put rue in a good humour directly.

” My dear Christian,” said my old master after a few moments’ silence, ” as we shall have to pass five or six hours in this fog with nothing to help us to pass the time but smoking our pipes and listening to the creaking of the cart, let us talk about Osterhaffen.” Then the good man began to give me a description of the tavern called the Jar of Tobacco, the house the best supplied with beer and spirits of any in Holland. ” It is situated in the lane of the Trois- Sabots,” said he. ” It is easily recognised a long way off by its large flat roof and small square windows overlooking
the port. A great chestnut-tree stands opposite ; on the right there is a skittle-alley running along an old moss-covered wall, and behind is the poultry-yard with hundreds of ducks, geese, fowls, and turkeys, the screaming, cackling, and quacking of which only cease at night. ” There is nothing very extraordinary in the great room of the tavern ; but there, under the dark rafter.-; of the ceiling, in clouds of blue smoke, at a counter made in the shape of a cask, sits enthroned the dreaded Herod van Gambrinus, surnamed the Bacchus of the North.

“This man can drink at a sitting two gallons of porter ; treble X, ale, and Iambic go down his throat as easily as down a tin funnel ; it is only geneva which he acknowledges as a master.
” Woe be to the painter who sets foot in this pandemonium ! I tell you, Christian, tie had better never have been born. Good-looting young serving-girls, with long yellow curls, are forward in offering their services, and Gainbrinus holds out his large hairy hand, but it is but luring him to his soul’s destruction ; the victim leaves the tavern as the companions of Ulysses quitted the cavern of Circe.”

After talking very gravely in this strain for some time, Cappelmans lighted his pipe and began to smoke in silence. I had become very melancholy ; an overpowering feeling of sadness took possession of me. It seemed I was getting every instant nearer an impassable gulf, and had it been possible I would have jumped out of the cart ; and, God forgive me, I would have left my
old master to prosecute his enterprise of danger alone. The only thing, perhaps, which prevented my doing so was the impossibility of crossing those unknown marshes in the darkness of night. So I was obliged to follow the course of events, even if I suffered the fatal consequences which I anticipated.

About ten Master Andreusse fell asleep, his head dropped on my shoulder. I kept awake an hour longer, and then fatigue sent me, in my turn, to sleep. I know not how long this state of rest lasted, but the cart stopped with a jolt, and the driver called out ” Here we are ! Cappelmans uttered an exclamation of surprise, while a cold shiver ran all over me from my head to my feet.

If I lived a hundred years the Jar of Tobacco, such as I then saw it for the first time, with its little windows blazing with light, and its large roof reaching nearly to the ground, will always be present to my recol lection. It was a very dark night. The sea was roaring about a hundred yards behind us, and I could hear the droning of bagpipes above the clamour of the waves. In the darkness I could see the grotesque outlines of the dancers on the glass of the windows. It was quite the effect of a magic-lantern. The dirty lane, lighted up by a horn lantern, the strange faces appearing and disappearing again into the darkness like rats in a drain, the uninterrupted drone of the bagpipes, the pony belonging to Van Eyck standing with his feet in the mud, Cappehnans wrapping his cloak still closer round him, and the moon half obscured by clouds, all contributed to confirm my apprehensions, and made me feel sadder than ever.

We were about to leave the cart, when from out the darkness a tall man suddenly advanced ; he wore a large flapped hat, a pointed beard, turned-down collar on a velvet pourpoint, and a threefold gold chain round his neck, after the fashion of the ancient Flemish painters.
“Is it you, Cappelmans?” said this man, whose sharp profile was distinctly visible against the windows of the den before us.

” Yes, master,” replied Andreusse, quite stupefied.

” Take care,” said the unknown, raising his finger ; ” beware—the slayer of souls is waiting for you.”

“Rest assured Andreusse Cappelmans will do his duty.”

” That is well. You are a man of your word ; the spirit of the old masters is on your side.”

As he spoke the stranger disappeared in the darkriess, and Cappelmans, pale but resolute, got down from the cart. I followed him, but I cannot describe in what a state of mind I was after this short dialogue.

We went up the dark passage, and Master Andreusse, who was leading the way, soon turned round to me and said ” Pay attention, Christian !” He at the same time gave the door a push, and under hams, herrings, and strings of black puddings hanging from the black rafters of the ceiling I could see about a hundred men sitting in rows at long tables, some crouching like monkeys, with their shoulders up to their ears, others with their legs stretched out before them, their fur caps over their ears, and their backs against the wall, puffing forth volumes of smoke,
which eddied along the room. They all seemed to be laughing with their eyes half closed, their cheeks wrinkled to their ears, and appeared to be plunged in a state of drunken contentment.

On the right a blazing fire sent gleams of light from one end of the room to the other ; and here old Judith, who was as long and as thin as a broomstick, and her face purple with heat, was holding a frying-pan over the fire, in which she was preparing supper for some of the customers. But what astonished me most of all was Herod Gambrinus himself seated at his counter, a little to the left, just as Master Andreusse had described him ; his shirtsleeves tucked up on his hairy arms, his elbows leaning on the board surrounded by shining pots, and his cheeks resting on his enormous fists, liis thick red wig all in disorder, and his long yellow beard flowing over his chest ; he was looking earnestly at the picture of the ” Miraculous Draught,” which was hanging up at one end of the room, just above the little wooden clock.

I had been watching him for some seconds, when outside the watchman’s horn was audible close to the lane of the Trois-Sabots, and at the same moment old Judith, giving her frying-pan a toss, began to say with a sneer ” Midnight! the great painter Van Marius has been lying for twelve days in Osterhaffen Cemetery, and “the avenger comes not !”

“He is here!” said Cappelmans, stepping forward into the room.

All eyes were fixed upon him, and Gambrinus, turning his head towards him, smiled, and began caressing his beard. ” Is that you, Cappelmans ?” said he in a jeering tone. ” I have been expecting you ; so you have come to fetch away the ‘ Miraculous Draught of Fishes ?’ “

” Yes !” replied Master Andreusse ; ” I have promised Van Marius to finish his chef-d’oeuvre, and
finish it I will.”

” You will—you will have it ?” returned the other. ” Comrade, that is easier said than done ; do you know that I won it, tankard in hand?”

” I know it ; and I intend to win it back, tankard in hand, as you did.”

” Then you are determined to play the great game ?”

” Yes, determined ; may the God of justice be on my side ! I will keep my word, or I roll under the table a vanquished man.”

The eyes of Gambrinus glittered. ” You have heard him ?” cried he, addressing himself to the topers around him ; ” it is he who challenges me ; let it be as he desires,” Then turning to Master Andreusse ” Who is your umpire ?’*

” My umpire is Christian Eebstock,” said Cappelmans, motioning to me to come forward.
I was in a terrific fright. Then one of the spectators, Ignace van den Brock, Burgomaster of Osterhaffen, wearing a great flaxen wig, drew a paper from his pocket and read as follows like a schoolmaster :

” The drinker’s umpire has of right a white cloth, a clean glass, and a white candle ; let him be supplied !’* And a tall, red-haired girl put those articles by my side.

“”Who is your umpire?” asked Master Andreusse.

” Adam van Rasirnus.” This Adam van Easimus, with a pimpled nose, a villainous stoop, and a black eye, came and seated himself by me ; he was supplied with the same articles by the same handmaid.

Then Herod, holding out his great hand across tho
counter to his adversary, called out ” You have recourse neither to charms nor witchcraft !” “

Neither charms nor witchcraft,” replied Cappelmans.

” Are without hatred towards me ?”

” When I have avenged Fritz Coppelius, Tobias Vogel, the landscape-painter, Ecemer, Nickel Brauer, Diderich Vinkelman, Van Marius, all painters of reputation, and drowned by you in ale and porter, and then plundered of their labours by you, then I shall feel no hatred towards you.”

Herod burst into a loud laugh, and stretching out his arms till his powerful shoulders touched the wall behind him, he exclaimed ” I vanquished them, tankard in hand, honourably and loyally, as I am about to vanquish you. Their works have become my rightful property ; and as to your hatred, I laugh at it and despise it. Drink !” Then, my dear friends, began a struggle the like of
which has never been known in Holland within the memory of man, and which will be talked of for ages to come if it pleases God. Black and White had met in arms ; the destiny of one was about to be accomplished.

A cask of ale was placed on the table, and two pots containing a pint each were filled to the brim. Herod and Master Andreusse drank them off at once, and so on every half-hour with the regulaiity of a clock until the cask was empty. Then they passed on to porter, and after porter to Iambic. I could easily tell you how many barrels of strong beer were emptied in this memorable battle ; the burgomaster Van den Brock noted down the exact quantity in the parish register of Osterhaffen, for the information of future drinkers, but you would refuse to believe me, it would seem so incredible. Let it suffice to tell you that the struggle lasted three days and three nights. The like had never been seen.

It was the first time Herod had found himself in presence of an adversary capable of resisting him. The news, therefore, soon spread abroad ; all the world, on foot, on horseback, and in carts, hurried to the tavern ; it was quite a procession ; and as no one seemed inclined to leave before the termination of the struggle, it happened consequently that the second day the tavern was crammed with visitors ; one could hardly move about, and the burgomaster was obliged to tap the table with his cane and call out, ” Room! room !” to allow the cellarmen to carry the casks to the table on their shoulders. All this time Master Andreusse and Gambrinus con- tinued swallowing their pints with marvellous regularity. Sometimes, as I added up in my mind the number of quarts they had drunk, I thought I must be dreaming, and I would look uneasily at Cappelmans ; but he would wink his eye, and say with a smile ” Well, Christian, we are getting on ; have a glass ; it will do you good.” Then I was quite confounded.

” The soul of Van Marius possesses him, surely,” I thought ; ” it must be that which keeps him up.”
As for Gambrinus, with his little boxwood pipe between his lips, his elbow on the counter, and his cheek resting on his hand, he sat smoking his pipe like a respectable old shopkeeper taking his glass of beer while he thought over the affairs of the day. It was inconceivable. The oldest drinkers themselves had never seen anything like it.

The morning of the third day, before the lights were extinguished, seeing the struggle threatened to be prolonged indefinitely, the burgomaster told Judith to bring a needle and thread for the first test. Then there was great excitement, and every one came nearer to see how it would be. According to the rules of the great game, the combatant who comes victorious from this ordeal has a right to choose what liquor he prefers for the rest of the battle,
Herod had laid his pipe down on the counter; he took the needle and thread which Van den Brock offered him, and raising his huge body, with his eyes coming out of his head, he lifted his arm, and applied the thread to the eye of the needle, but whether his hand was too heavy or the light of the candles dazzled his sight, he was obliged to make two attempts, which had a great effect on all the spectators ; for they looked at one another quite bewildered.

” It is your turn, Cappelmans,” said the burgomaster. Then Master Andreusse rose, took the needle, and, at the first attempt, threaded it. Frantic applause shook the room. I expected to see the whole building come down about our ears. I looked at Gambrinus ; his great fleshy face was puffed up with blood ; his cheeks shook. At the expiration of one minute, after silence had
been obtained, Van den Brock struck three blows on the table, and then gravely asked ” Master Cappelmans, your glory in Bacchus is great ; what drink do you choose ?”

” Schiedam,” replied Master Andreusse—” old schiedam, the oldest and the strongest.”

These words produced a surprising effect on the tavern-keeper. ” No,” cried he—” no ; beer if you will—always beer —no schiedam.”

He got on his legs and looked frightfully pale. ” I regret,” said the burgomaster briefly, ” that the
regulations are formal. Let Cappelmans have what he chooses.”

Then Gambrinus reseated himself like a criminal who hears his sentence of death, and they brought us some schiedam of the year ’22, which Van Rasimus and I tasted to guard against any deception or adulteration. The glasses were rilled, and the struggle recommenced.

The whole population of Osterhaffen was thronging about the house and staring in at the windows. The lights had been extinguished and it was broad daylight. As the contest approached its denouement the bystanders became more and more silent. All the customers were standing on chairs, on tables, and on empty barrels, watching attentively. Cappelmans had called for a black-pudding, and was eating it with a good appetite, but Gambrinus was no
longer the same man ; the schiedam had stupefied him ! His great crimson face was covered with perspiration, his ears were violet, his eyelids dropped ; sometimes a nervous shudder made him raise his head, and then with staring eyes and dropping lip he gazed at the sea of silent faces crowded together before him, and then he took his glass in both hands and drank while his throat rattled. In all my life I never saw anything more horrible. Every one saw that the tavern-keeper’s defeat was certain. ” He is a lost man,” said they. ” He thought himself invincible, but he has met his master. Another glass or two and it is all over with him.”

But there were some who thought otherwise ; they declared that Herod might hold out three or four hours longer, and Van Rasimus offered to bet a cask of ale that he would not roll under the table before sundown ; but a circumstance, trifling in itself, occurred which hastened the catastrophe.

It was nearly midday. Nickel Spitz, the cellarman, had filled the jugs for the fourth time.
Old Judith, after having attempted in vain to put water to the schiedam, had just left the room drowned in tears, and we could hear her crying and lamenting in the next room. Herod was dozing. All at once the old clock began to grate and creak in a strange fashion ; it struck twelve amidst a general silence, and the little wooden cock perched above the dial flapped his wings and began to crow. Then, my dear friends, those who were in the room were spectators of a frightful scene.

When the cock began to crow the tavern-keeper raised himself to his full height, as if acted upon by an invisible spring. I shall never forget that half-open mouth, those haggard eyes, and that face livid with fright. I can see him now stretching out his hands to drive some horrid image away. I can hear him now screaming as if he was being strangled ” That cock ! O that cock !” He tried to move, but his logs bent under him, and the terrible Herod van Ganibrinus fell like an ox
struck down by the butcher at the feet of Master Andreusse Cappelmans.

The next day, about six in the morning, Cappelruans and I quitted Osterhaffen, carrying with us the picture of the ” Miraculous Draught of Fishes.” Our return to Leyden was quite a triumph. The
whole town, having heard of Master Andreusse’s victory, came out to meet us in the streets ; it was like a Sunday in fair time, but it seemed to have no effect on Cappelmans. He had not opened his mouth the whole journey home, and seemed very much preoccupied. As soon as he reached his house his first order was that he was at home to no one. ” Christian,” said the good man to me as he took off his great cloak, ” I want to be alone. Go home to your
aunt and try to work. When the picture is finished I will send Kobus to tell you.”
He embraced me, and pushed me gently into the street.

One very fine day, about six weeks later, Master Andreusse came to my aunt Catherine to fetch me to see the picture. The ” Miraculous Draught of Fishes” was hanging against the wall opposite two lofty windows. What a sublime work ! Is it possible it can be in the power of man to produce such things ? Cappelmans had thrown all his heart and all his genius into
the work. The soul of Van Marius ought to be satisfied. I could have remained there till night, mute with admiration, before this incomparable painting, if my old master, tapping me on the shoulder, had not said very solemnly “You find that very fine, do you not, Christian?
Well, Van Mark’s had a dozen of similar chefs-d’ceuvre in his head. Unfortunately, he was too fond of ale and schiedam ; his belly was his destruction. It is the fault of us Dutchmen. You are young ; let this serve you for a lesson—sensuality is the enemy of everything that is great.”

December 2022 transcript compilation available

Hi,

The transcripts for the end of 2022 are here.

Cellini and the oddities of medicine

This week we round out the year with our final episode from the life of Benvenuto Cellini. This one is terribly cut about from his entire biography so I can’t thank individual readers. Thank you to everyone who read anything in either of the two volumes and their production teams. It contains each time that alchemy is used to save Cellini’s life with a couple of exceptions. I haven’t included the poisoning he suffered in prison from being given, what he thought was, a ground diamond. That’s a separate episode called “Cellini was poisoned like a prince”. Similarly I haven’t gone through his entire treatment for one of the fevers he had, although this does contain the bit at the end where he throws up a venomous caterpillar.

Goodbye to Cellini, and I hope everyone else enjoyed this voyage, through the life of what was almost certainly a Verditius magus as much as I did.

I/XXXV

 The first which comes to hand is this: Messer Antonio Santacroce had made me come down from the Angel, in order to fire on some houses in the neighbourhood, where certain of our besiegers had been seen to enter. While I was firing, a cannon shot reached me, which hit the angle of a battlement, and carried off enough of it to be the cause why I sustained no injury. The whole mass struck me in the chest and took my breath away. I lay stretched upon the ground like a dead man, and could hear what the bystanders were saying. Among them all, Messer Antonio Santacroce lamented greatly, exclaiming: “Alas, alas! we have lost the best defender that we had.” Attracted by the uproar, one of my comrades ran up; he was called Gianfrancesco, and was a bandsman, but was far more naturally given to medicine than to music. On the spot he flew off, crying for a stoop of the very best Greek wine. Then he made a tile red-hot, and cast upon it a good handful of wormwood; after which he sprinkled the Greek wine; and when the wormwood was well soaked, he laid it on my breast, just where the bruise was visible to all. Such was the virtue of the wormwood that I immediately regained my scattered faculties. I wanted to begin to speak; but could not; for some stupid soldiers had filled my mouth with earth, imagining that by so doing they were giving me the sacrament; and indeed they were more like to have excommunicated me, since I could with difficulty come to myself again, the earth doing me more mischief than the blow. However, I escaped that danger, and returned to the rage and fury of the guns, pursuing my work there with all the ability and eagerness that I could summon.

I/LCCCV

Maestro Francesco then gave orders that I should be removed from my room and carried to one of the hills there are in Rome. Cardinal Cornaro, when he heard of my improvement, had me transported to a place of his on Monte Cavallo. The very evening I was taken with great precautions in a chair, well wrapped up and protected from the cold. No sooner had I reached the place than I began to vomit, during which there came from my stomach a hairy worm about a quarter of a cubit in length: the hairs were long, and the worm was very ugly, speckled of divers colours, green, black, and red. They kept and showed it to the doctor, who said he had never seen anything of the sort before, and afterwards remarked to Felice: “Now take care of your Benvenuto, for he is cured. Do not permit him any irregularities; for though he has escaped this time, another disorder now would be the death of him. You see his malady has been so grave, that if we had brought him the extreme unction, we might not have been in time. Now I know that with a little patience and time he will live to execute more of his fine works.” Then he turned to me and said: “My Benvenuto, be prudent, commit no excesses, and when you are quite recovered, I beg you to make me a Madonna with your own hand, and I will always pay my devotions to it for your sake.” This I promised to do, and then asked him whether it would be safe for me to travel so far as to Florence. He advised me to wait till I was stronger, and till we could observe how Nature worked in me.

***

II/LXXII

It so happened on one of those mornings, while I was getting some little chisels into trim to work on the Narcissus, that a very fine splinter of steel flew into my right eye, and embedded itself so deeply in the pupil that it could not be extracted. I thought for certain I must lose the sight of that eye. After some days I sent for Maestro Raffaello dé Pilli, the surgeon, who obtained a couple of live pigeons, and placing me upon my back across a table, took the birds and opened a large vein they have beneath the wing, so that the blood gushed out into my eye. I felt immediately relieved, and in the space of two days the splinter came away, and I remained with eyesight greatly improved. Against the feast of S. Lucia, [2] which came round in three days, I made a golden eye out of a French crown, and had it presented at her shrine by one of my six nieces, daughters of my sister Liperata; the girl was ten years of age, and in her company I returned thanks to God and S. Lucia. For some while afterwards I did not work at the Narcissus, but pushed my Perseus forward under all the difficulties I have described. It was my purpose to finish it, and then to bid farewell to Florence.

(St Lucia is the patron of eyesight and carries her eyes on a plate.]

CIV

DURING my promenade through the market, I met Giovan Battista Santini, and he and I were taken back to supper by the priest. As I have related above, we supped at the early hour of twenty, because I made it known that I meant to return to Trespiano. Accordingly they made all ready; the wife of Sbietta went bustling about in the company of one Cecchino Buti, their knave of all work. After the salads had been mixed and we were preparing to sit down to table, that evil priest, with a certain nasty sort of grin, exclaimed: “I must beg you to excuse me, for I cannot sup with you; the reason is that some business of importance has occurred which I must transact for my brother Sbietta. In his absence I am obliged to act for him.” We all begged him to stay, but could not alter his determination; so he departed and we began our supper. After we had eaten the salads on some common platters, and they were preparing to serve the boiled meat, each guest received a porringer for himself. Santini, who was seated opposite me at table exclaimed: “Do you notice that the crockery they give you is different from the rest? Did you ever see anything handsomer?” I answered that I had not noticed it. He also prayed me to invite Sbietta’s wife to sit down with us; for she and that Cecchino Buti kept running hither and thither in the most extraordinary fuss and hurry. At last I induced the woman to join us; when she began to remonstrate: “You do not like my victuals, since you eat so little.” I answered by praising the supper over and over again, and saying that I had never eaten better or with heartier appetite. Finally, I told her that I had eaten quite enough. I could not imagine why she urged me so persistently to eat. After supper was over, and it was past the hour of twenty-one, I became anxious to return to Trespiano, in order that I might recommence my work next morning in the Loggia. Accordingly I bade farewell to all the company, and having thanked our hostess, took my leave.

I had not gone three miles before I felt as though my stomach was on fire, and suffered such pain that it seemed a thousand years till I arrived at Trespiano. However, it pleased God that I reached it after nightfall with great toil, and immediately proceeded to my farm, where I went to bed. During the night I got no sleep, and was constantly disturbed by motions of my bowels. When day broke, feeling an intense heat in the rectum, I looked eagerly to see what this might mean, and found the cloth covered with blood. Then in a moment I conceived that I had eaten something poisonous, and racked my brains to think what it could possibly have been. It came back to my memory how Sbietta’s wife had set before me plates, and porringers, and saucers different from the others, and how that evil priest, Sbietta’s brother, after giving himself such pains to do me honour, had yet refused to sup with us. Furthermore, I remembered what the priest had said about Sbietta’s doing such a fine stroke of business by the sale of his farm to an old man for life, who could not be expected to survive a year. Giovanni Sardella had reported these words to me. All things considered, I made my mind up that they must have administered a dose of sublimate in the sauce, which was very well made and pleasant to the taste, inasmuch as sublimate produces all the symptoms. I was suffering from. Now it is my custom to take but little sauce or seasoning with my meat, excepting salt; and yet I had eaten two moderate mouthfuls of that sauce because it was so tasteful. On further thinking, I recollected how often that wife of Sbietta had teased me in a hundred ways to partake more freely of the sauce. On these accounts I felt absolutely certain that they had given me sublimate in that very dish.

CV

ALBEIT I was suffering so severely, I forced myself to work upon my Colossus in the Loggia; but after a few days I succumbed to the malady and took to my bed. No sooner did the Duchess hear that I was ill, than she caused the execution of that unlucky marble to be assigned to Bartolommeo Ammanato. [1] He sent word to me through Messer…. living…. Street, that I might now do what I liked with my model since he had won the marble. This Messer…. was one of the lovers of Bartolommeo Ammanato’s wife; and being the most favoured on account of his gentle manners and discretion, Ammanato made things easy for him. There would be much to say upon this topic; however, I do not care to imitate his master, Bandinello, who always wandered from the subject in his talk. Suffice it to say that I told Ammanato’s messenger I had always imagined it would turn out thus; let the man strain himself to the utmost in proof of gratitude to Fortune for so great a favour so undeservedly conferred on him by her.

All this while I stayed with sorry cheer in bed, and was attended by that most excellent man and physician, Maestro Francesco da Montevarchi. Together with him Maestro Raffaello de’ Pilli undertook the surgical part of my case, forasmuch as the sublimate had so corroded the intestines that I was unable to retain my motions. When Maestro Francesco saw that the poison had exerted all its strength, being indeed insufficient in quantity to overcome my vigorous constitutions, he said one day: “Benvenuto, return thanks to God, for you have won the battle. Have no anxiety, since I mean to cure you in spite of the rogues who sought to work your ruin.” Maestro Raffaello then put in: “This will be one of the finest and most difficult cures which was ever heard of; for I can tell you, Benvenuto, that you swallowed a good mouthful of sublimate.” Thereupon Maestro Francesco took him up and said: “It may possibly have been some venomous caterpillar.” I replied: “I know for certain what sort of poison it was, and who gave it to me;” upon which we all were silent. They attended me more than six full months, and I remained more than a whole year before I could enjoy my life and vigour.

CVIII

…THE DUKE was staying at Livorno, where I went to visit him in order merely to obtain release from his service. Now that I felt my vigour returning, and saw that I was used for nothing, it pained me to lose time which ought to have been spent upon my art. I made my mind up, therefore, went to Livorno, and found my prince, who received me with exceeding graciousness. Now I stayed there several days, and went out riding daily with his Excellency. Consequently I had excellent opportunities for saying all I wanted, since it was the Duke’s custom to ride four miles out of Livorno along the sea-coast to the point where he was erecting a little fort. Not caring to be troubled with a crowd of people, he liked me to converse with him. So then, on one of these occasions, having observed him pay me some remarkable attentions, I entered into the affair of Sbietta and spoke as follows: “My lord, I should like to narrate to your most illustrious Excellency a very singular incident, which will explain why I was prevented from finishing that clay model of Neptune on which I was working in the Loggia. Your Excellency must know that I bought a farm for my life from Sbietta—” To cut the matter short, I related the whole story in detail, without contaminating truth with falsehood. Now when I came to the poison, I remarked that if I had ever proved an acceptable servant in the sight of his most illustrious Excellency, he ought not to punish Sbietta or those who administered the poison, but rather to confer upon them some great benefit, inasmuch as the poison was not enough to kill me, but had exactly sufficed to cleanse me of a mortal viscosity from which I suffered in my stomach and intestines. “The poison,” quoth I, “worked so well, that whereas, before I took it, I had perhaps but three or four years to live, I verily believe now that it has helped me to more than twenty years by bettering my constitution. For this mercy I return thanks to God with greater heartiness than ever; and this proves that a proverb I have sometimes heard spoken is true, which runs as follows:—

‘God send us evil, that may work us good.’”

The Duke listened to my story through more than two miles of travel, keeping his attention fixed, and only uttering: “Oh, the villains!” I said, in conclusion, that I felt obliged to them, and opened other and more cheerful subjects of conversation.