The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [81]
Jacques had thought the mirror could not be any brighter, but now the glass seemed to sing. His wonder and admiration showed in his face, and Corradino could see that his apprentice was full of questions. `Maitre, how are mirrors made by others?'
`There have always been mirrors. The Arab infidels used to polish their shields in order to see their images. But in other nations they attempt to roll out the glass thinly from one piece, as if making a pie. The results are passable but it is impossible to make a very large pane this way - the glass cools and hardens, and is lumpy and uneven. But with breath you can make a parison as large as your winds will allow, and when you treat the glass as a cylinder its dimensions open out to more than double the shape you have made. 'Tis simple mathematicks.' He shrugged to deflect the admiration he saw in Jacques' eyes. But he saw something else too - he saw the boy's hands twitch towards the fire just as his own had done.
I know I have babbled aplenty - that I speak more words when talking of my work than at any other time. Those that know me may think me as dumb as an oyster. Let them but speak to me of the glass, they will hear what a prattling parrot I am become. Enough.
He uttered the words he thought he would never say. `Now you try.'
CHAPTER 27
A Champion
Signor Aldo Savini, curator of rare books at the Libreria Sansoviniana in San Marco, was slightly surprised when asked by a blonde beauty to help her lift down the guild records of the glass and mirror makers of the seventeenth century. But she must be a registered reader. He checked her newly laminated card - she was clearly a Venetian from her name. He shrugged, and handed her a pair of thin cotton gloves from a dispenser. `You must wear these, Signorina. These volumes are very old and fragile. Also you must use the bookstand provided, to minimize damage to the spine, and only turn the pages by the laminated marker. Don't touch the paper itself.'
La Signorina nodded seriously throughout his instruction. Her eyes were green but had silver shards in the centre, the colour of the olive leaves on the farm where Aldo Savini grew up.The librarian suddenly felt his heart quicken and pushed his glasses up his nose, as he always did when flustered. Aldo Savini was not yet forty, and beneath his sweater-vest and tie beat a romantic heart. As he helped the Signorina lift down the ancient volumes for the relevant date, her gold hair brushed his arm and he could smell her coconut shampoo mingled with the old leather and vellum of the books. As she smiled and thanked him, Aldo Savini thought he would kill dragons for Signorina Manin.
Aldo Savini saw `la Principessa' as he had secretly dubbed her, many times over the next few months. Always she had some peculiar request, which stimulated him as a librarian almost as much as her appearance stimulated him as a man. Guild records, inventories, wills, records of birth and death, letters, bills of works, he had found all these for her. Her questions, posed in perfect Veneziano, intrigued him too. They always revolved around the same man, Corrado Manin. Even Aldo Savini, in his cloistered life, had heard of the man. La Principessa hounded him with questions as she had soon found out that Aldo had trained in Paleography at the University of Bologna, and could read the cramped ancient writing where her reading failed her. Do these documents mention Corrado Manin? This mirror that the Contessa Dandolo left to the Frari church, was it a Manin? This bill of works for the Palazzo Bruni, does it mention the Manin candlebra? What year was the palazzo built? This ship's register, does the entry say Manin, or Marin? These records of death that cite poisoning, does this symbol mean mercury, or some other compound? Aldo Savini became fascinated by the quest, as he was fascinated by her. Apparently she