Chapter 22
The Pantheon Provides a Place to Prove Oneself
Meanwhile, in the Piazza della Rotunda
“Oh, how I wish I had brought my sketchbook,” Diana lamented, her gloved hands gripping the edge of the dark marble fountain in front of the Pantheon.
In the middle was a carved marble base upon which the granite tower was mounted.
She leaned forward in an effort to make out the hieroglyphs that decorated the Obelisco Macuteo.
“Careful, my sweet, or you’re going to find yourself soaking wet,” Randy said from where he stood next to her, sure she was about to fall into the basin of water.
She glanced up at him, her eyes suddenly darkening. “What do you have in mind?” she asked, arching a teasing brow.
Randy inhaled slowly, realizing how his words had been interpreted. “Oh.” He glanced around. “Well, if there was a niche... or a reasonably private place, I would gladly see to your immediate pleasure,” he whispered.
Tittering, Diana reddened at hearing his claim. “Later. When we’re in that wonderful bed,” she whispered in reply.
“I’ll be ready,” he promised. His gaze went up the obelisk. “Is this one from Egypt?” he asked.
“Indeed. This once stood in the temple of Amun-Re in Heliopolis,” she replied.
“And there are two cartouches up there,” she added, pointing with excitement to the very top.
“It’s probably Rameses the Second.” She allowed a huff.
“There is just so much to see here, and,” she waved to the others who wandered about the piazza.
“They have no idea of the history through which they walk.”
“We’ll come back, of course,” he assured her. “We have at least a month,” he reminded her.
“Can we go inside?” Barbara asked, pausing in front of the fountain to enjoy the cooler air.
“We should be able to, even if it is a Catholic church now,” Will commented. “The artist Raphael is buried here. Wait until you see the oculus in the ceiling.”
Barbara inhaled softly. “You’ve already been here, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “HMS Greenwich put into port near here on more than one occasion,” he replied. “Never for very long, though, so I appreciate we now have the time to see it all at leisure.” He offered his arm and the two made their way past the columns of the portico and to the entry.
Despite their size and weight, the twenty-five-foot high bronze doors opened easily, and the group filed into the cella and through to the rotunda.
Almost immediately, everyone craned their necks in an effort to study the dome above them.
“How high is it up to that hole in the ceiling?” Randy asked.
“One-hundred-and-forty-two feet,” Donald replied. “The same distance as this room’s diameter.”
“What happens when it rains?” Barbara asked.
“There are drains in the floor to capture the water,” Nicoletta replied, using a gloved hand to point out one of them.
“It feels so much larger inside than it looked from the outside,” Helen remarked.
“Indeed,” Tom agreed. He pointed to the niches located around the perimeter. “I take it those didn’t always hold Christian statues.”
“Those used to display statues of the Roman deities,” Donald confirmed. “Including an ivory statue of Minerva sculpted by the Greek artist Phidias, and we know there were statues of Venus, Jupiter, and Mars.”
“Pliny the Elder wrote about the decorations in his Natural History,” David remarked, his gaze darting about the interior of the rotunda. “The original capitals of these columns were made of Syracusan bronze, but they were obviously looted,” he added sadly.
“Two of the original marble capitals are in the British Museum,” Will commented. “As for the rest—”
“‘Decorated by Diogenes of Athens, and the caryatides, by him, which form the columns of that temple, are looked upon as masterpieces of excellence’,” Diana quoted from The Natural History.
Donald glanced over at Randy, who merely shrugged. “She remembers everything she reads,” he whispered.
“Diogenes also did the statues up on the roof,” Vittoria stated. “And one of Cleopatra’s pearls was cut in half so that each half—”
“‘Might serve as pendants for the ears of Venus, in the Pantheon at Rome’,” Diana finished for her, her delight evident in finding someone who was familiar with the passage.
“Pearls?” Barbara repeated. “What’s this about?” she asked, joining them to learn more.
Vittoria looked to Diana, but the young matron made a motion that she should answer.
Obviously uncomfortable at being the center of attention, Vittoria dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Well, it all started when Cleopatra inherited a pair of enormous pearls from the Kings of the East,” she began.
“She was hosting Marcus Antonius at her palazzo in Alexandria and was quite put off by how he was indulged with all the lavish arrangements. When he asked what could possibly be better, she, well, she made a wager.” Here Vittoria stopped and directed a pleading glance in Diana’s direction.
Diana took up the story, quoting from Pliny the Elder’s account in volume two of The Natural History.
“‘To this she made answer, that on a single entertainment she would expend ten millions of sesterces’—a Roman coin,” she interjected.
“‘Antony looked upon it as a thing quite impossible; and a wager was the result. On the following day, she had an entertainment set before Antony. Upon this, Antony joked her, and enquired what was the amount expended upon it; to which she made answer that the banquet was only a trifling appendage and that she alone would consume at the meal to the value of that amount. The servants placed before her a single vessel, which was filled with vinegar, the sharpness of which is able to dissolve pearls’.”
“Oh, dear,” Barbara breathed, already concluding what had happened to one of the large pearls.
“‘Antony was waiting to see what she was going to do’,” Diana went on.
“‘Taking one of them from out of her ear, she threw it into the vinegar, and directly it was melted, swallowed it. Lucius Plancus, who had been named umpire in the wager, placed his hand upon the other at the very instant that she was making preparations to dissolve it and declared that Antony had lost—an omen which was fully confirmed’.” Diana allowed a long sigh.
“Such an important historical loss merely to prove a point,” she lamented.
Randy offered his arm, and she joined him to take a turn about the round room, following Barbara and Will as they did the same.
“But that was just one of the pearls,” Vittoria said, her words directed to David, Helen, and Tom. “After Cleopatra’s suicide, Octavian brought the other pearl to Rome, where it was divided and reshaped for the statue of Venus made for this very temple.”
“Oh, where might she be?” Helen asked with excitement, her gaze darting about in search of a statue of Venus. The few steps she took landed her nearly in the middle of the room, the light from the oculus bathing her in the midday sun.
“Gone,” Vittoria replied sadly. “All the Roman statues were removed when it was made into a church, and although some might have ended up in other temples, the fate of Venus and her pearl earrings is unknown.”
Visibly bothered, Helen sighed as Tom wrapped his arm behind her waist and pulled her to his side. “Another lost treasure,” she murmured sadly.
“We may not know what happened to Venus,” he agreed, “but I do have an idea of what to buy for you when we are next at a jewelry shop.”
Helen gave him a watery grin. “Pearls?”
“Pearls for my pearl,” he whispered. “Which is exactly what you look like standing here in this gorgeous light.”
“Oh, thank you, darling,” she whispered. She lifted herself onto her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
Although she thought to turn away before she could pay witness to Helen’s kiss, Vittoria found she could not. She watched the couple’s intimate exchange, unaware she made a faint whimpering sound at seeing the chaste kiss.
From where he stood next to her, David was watching with curiosity. Suppressing a grin, he leaned closer to Vittoria. “Was it the promise of pearls or Helen’s reaction to his words that has you staring so?” he whispered.
Inhaling sharply, she turned and regarded him with a look of shock. “Neither,” she finally said, giving her head a quick shake.
David furrowed his brows. “Then what, pray tell, has you vexed?”
Vittoria looked as if she might cry. “After what Donna Forster has told me, I fear my expectations are too high,” she whispered.
Glancing around to discover the others were well away from where they stood, David ushered her to the edge of the room near the entrance and faced her. “What expectations?” he asked gently. For once, she wasn’t displaying her usual sneer in his company.
“To have a husband who would regard me as Signore Forster does Donna Helen,” she replied. “He loves her,” she added, almost in disbelief.
David allowed a slight chuckle. “He does indeed. He has for a couple of years. Even so, it still took him some time to realize they were perfect for one another.”
When Vittoria didn’t appear convinced, he added, “Now Randy—Don Forster—claims he didn’t fall in love with Diana at first sight, but I think he did.”
“Why?” Vittoria asked, her curiosity evident.
“Because Diana didn’t want to have anything to do with him. She would have been happy spending her life as a spinster,” he explained.
Scoffing, Vittoria shook her head. “But she... she obviously adores him,” she argued, her gaze darting to where the couple in question was studying one of the statues in a niche. Even as she watched, Randy lifted a hand to place it at the back of his wife’s waist.
“Oh, she does now,” David agreed. “Because Randy proved himself able to accept a woman who is far more clever than he is.”
Furrowing a dark brow, Vittoria appeared as if she didn’t believe him. “Would you, mio don?” she asked. “Accept a woman who is more clever than you?”
David blinked. “I... I suppose it depends,” he stammered.
Vittoria angled her head, lifting her chin as if she was daring him to continue.
Swallowing, he made an odd sound in his throat. “You know you really shouldn’t do that,” he murmured.
It was her turn to blink. “Do what?”
“Act like you want me to... to kiss you,” he whispered.
Her eyes widening with shock, Vittoria was about to put voice to a protest but was saved from doing so when a man’s voice sounded from behind David.
“Ho già interrotto un bacio qui oggi, e non vorrei farlo di nuovo.” I’ve already interrupted one kiss in here today, and I shouldn’t wish to do it again.
David jerked sideways at the same moment Vittoria took a step back, her skirts flattening against the wall. She was quick to recover, though, dipping a deep curtsy at the same moment David determined their interloper was a priest. He bowed.
“Non l'avrei permesso, padre,” she said. I would not have allowed it, Father.
The priest glanced between David and Vittoria. “Desideri confessare i tuoi peccati?” Do you wish to confess your sins?
“No, Padre. Grazie,” David replied. He offered his arm to Vittoria. “Stavamo semplicemente ammirando la vostra chiesa.” We were merely admiring your church.
Nodding, the priest stepped away and made his way further into the rotunda.
David leaned closer to Vittoria, his lips entirely too close to her ear. “I wonder who he caught kissing in here earlier,” he murmured. “Terribly cheeky of whomever it was,” he added with an arched brow.
Vittoria shivered when his breath washed over her cheek. She gave him a quelling glance, though. “No one we know, I am quite certain,” she replied, although her attention was on her mind’s eye.
She was fairly sure it was Zia Armenia she had seen on the arm of a man she recognized from her come-out ball the night before.
The two had departed the Pantheon whilst their party was still in the piazza, their attentions on the obelisk, the fountain, and the temple’s facade.
Would they have kissed inside the Pantheon, though?
Perhaps she would have to ask during that night’s dinner.