The murder is never solved and the painting is never found. Now, thirty-five years later, we fast-forward to the present day. His son, a successful artist in New York, hits a midlife crisis. He realizes there is something he must do: solve the murder of his father. The way to do it is to find the lost painting. So he flies to Florence and begins his search-a journey that will take him from crumbling archives to Etruscan tombs and finally to a ruined village high into the Pratomagno Mountains, where a horrifying secret lies buried, and where an even more terrifying destiny awaits him...

This was the novel I came to Italy to write. I never did. Instead, I got sidetracked by the Monster of Florence.

Living in Italy was going to be the adventure of a lifetime, for which we were singularly unprepared. None of us spoke Italian. I had spent a few days in Florence the previous year, but my wife, Christine, had never been to Italy in her life. Our children, on the other hand, were at that age of delightful flexibility in which they seemed to meet even the most extraordinary life challenges with a cheerful nonchalance. Nothing in life was out of the ordinary to them, since they hadn't learned what was ordinary to begin with. When the time came, they boarded the plane with complete insouciance. We were a nervous wreck.

We arrived in Florence in August 2000: myself, Christine, and our two children, Aletheia and Isaac, who were six and five. We enrolled our children in local Italian schools, Aletheia in first grade and Isaac in kindergarten, and we ourselves began taking language cla.s.ses.

Our transition to Italy was not without its challenges. Aletheia's teacher reported that it was a joy to have such a happy child in cla.s.s who sang all day long, and she wondered just what it was she was singing. We soon learned: I don't understand anything she's saying, I don't understand anything she's saying,She talks and talks all day long,But I can't understand a word...

Cultural differences quickly reared up. A few days after Isaac went off to kindergarten, he came back, wide-eyed, and told how the teacher smoked cigarettes during recess and tossed the b.u.t.ts on the playground- and then she spanked (spanked!) a four-year-old who tried to smoke one of them. Isaac called her "the Yelling Lizard." We quickly transferred him and his sister to a private school run by nuns on the other side of town. Nuns, we hoped, wouldn't smoke or spank. We were correct, at least on the former a.s.sumption, and came to accept the occasional spanking as a cultural difference we had to live with, along with smokers in restaurants, death-defying drivers, and waiting in line at the post office to pay bills. The school was located in a magnificent eighteenth-century villa hidden behind ma.s.sive stone walls, which the sisters of the order of San Giovanni Battista had turned into a convent. The schoolchildren took recess in a two-acre formal Italian garden, with cypress trees, clipped hedges, flowerbeds, fountains, and marble statues of naked women. The gardener and the children were constantly at war. n.o.body at the school, not even the English teacher, spoke English.

The direttrice direttrice of the school was a stern, beady-eyed nun who needed only to fix her withering glare on someone, student or parent, to reduce the person to abject terror. She took us aside one day to advise us that our son was of the school was a stern, beady-eyed nun who needed only to fix her withering glare on someone, student or parent, to reduce the person to abject terror. She took us aside one day to advise us that our son was un monello un monello. We thanked her for the compliment and rushed home to look up the word. It meant "rascal." After that we brought a pocket dictionary to parent-teacher meetings.

As we hoped, our kids began to learn Italian. One day Isaac sat down to dinner, looked at the plate of pasta we'd prepared, made a face, and said, "Che schifo!" a vulgar expression meaning "Gross!" We were so proud. By Christmas they were speaking in full sentences, and by the end of the school year their Italian was so good they began making fun of our own. When we had Italian guests for dinner, Aletheia would sometimes march around the room, swinging her arms and bawling an imitation of our atrocious American accent, "How do you do, Mr. and Mrs. Coccolini! What a pleasure it is to meet you! Won't you please come in, accommodate yourselves, and enjoy a gla.s.s of wine with us!" Our Italian guests would be helpless with laughter.

And so we adjusted to our new life in Italy. Florence and its surrounding villages turned out to be a delightfully small place, where everyone seemed to know everyone else. Life was more about the process of living than reaching some end result. Instead of a once-a-week, efficient trip to the supermarket, shopping became a shockingly inefficient but charming routine of visiting a dozen or more shops and vendors, each of which sold a single product. This meant exchanging news, discussing the quality of the various choices, and listening to how the shopkeeper's grandmother prepared and served the item under discussion, which was the only way to do it despite what anyone might say to the contrary. Never were you allowed to touch the food being purchased; it was a breach of etiquette to test the ripeness of a plum or place an onion yourself in your shopping bag. For us, shopping was an excellent Italian lesson, but one fraught with danger. Christine made an indelible impression on the handsome fruttivendolo fruttivendolo (fruit seller) when she asked for ripe (fruit seller) when she asked for ripe pesce pesce and and fighe fighe instead of instead of pesche pesche and and fichi fichi (fish and p.u.s.s.y instead of peaches and figs). It took many months before we felt even a little bit Florentine, although we quickly learned, like all good Florentines, to look with scorn on the tourists who wandered about the city, gaping and slack-jawed, in floppy hats, khaki shorts, and marshmallow athletic shoes, with giant water bottles strapped around their waists as if they were crossing the Sahara Desert. (fish and p.u.s.s.y instead of peaches and figs). It took many months before we felt even a little bit Florentine, although we quickly learned, like all good Florentines, to look with scorn on the tourists who wandered about the city, gaping and slack-jawed, in floppy hats, khaki shorts, and marshmallow athletic shoes, with giant water bottles strapped around their waists as if they were crossing the Sahara Desert.

Life in Italy was a strange mixture of the quotidian and the sublime. Driving the children to school in the morning in the dead of winter, bleary-eyed, I would come over the hill of Giogoli-and there, rising magically from the dawn mists, would be the cloisters and towers of the great medieval monastery of La Certosa. Sometimes, wandering about the cobbled streets of Florence, on a whim I would duck into the Brancacci Chapel and spend five minutes looking at the frescoes that launched the Renaissance, or I would take a turn through the Badia Fiorentina at Vespers to listen to Gregorian chants in the same church where young Dante gazed on his love, Beatrice.

We soon learned about the Italian concept of the fregatura fregatura, indispensable for anyone living in Italy. A fregatura is doing something in a way that is not exactly legal, not exactly honest, but just this side of egregious. It is a way of life in Italy. We had our first lesson in the fine art of the fregatura when we reserved tickets to see Verdi's Il Trovatore Il Trovatore at the local opera house. When we got there, the box office informed us they could find no record of our tickets, despite our presentation of the reservation number. There was nothing they could do-the opera was completely and totally sold out. The large crowd seething in front of the box office attested to the truth of that. at the local opera house. When we got there, the box office informed us they could find no record of our tickets, despite our presentation of the reservation number. There was nothing they could do-the opera was completely and totally sold out. The large crowd seething in front of the box office attested to the truth of that.

As we were leaving, we ran into a shopkeeper from our neighborhood decked out in a mink coat and diamonds, looking more like a countess than the owner of Il Cantuccio, the tiny shop where we bought biscotti.

"What? Sold out?" she cried.

We told her what had happened.

"Bah," she said, "they gave your tickets to someone else, someone important. We'll fix them."

"Do you know somebody?"

"I know n.o.body. But I do do know how things work in this town. Wait here, I'll be back in a moment." She marched off while we waited. Five minutes later, she reappeared with a fl.u.s.tered man in tow, the manager of the opera house himself. He rushed over and took my hand. "I am so, know how things work in this town. Wait here, I'll be back in a moment." She marched off while we waited. Five minutes later, she reappeared with a fl.u.s.tered man in tow, the manager of the opera house himself. He rushed over and took my hand. "I am so, so so sorry, Mr. Harris!" he cried out. "We didn't know you were in the house! No one told us! Please accept my apologies for the mix-up with the tickets!" sorry, Mr. Harris!" he cried out. "We didn't know you were in the house! No one told us! Please accept my apologies for the mix-up with the tickets!"

Mr. Harris?

"Mr. Harris," said the shopkeeper grandly, "prefers to travel quietly, without a large entourage."

"Naturally!" the manager cried. "Of course!"

I stared dumbfounded. The shopkeeper shot me a warning glance that said, I got you this far, don't blow it. I got you this far, don't blow it.

"We had a few tickets in reserve," the manager went on, "and I do hope that you will accept them as compensation, compliments of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino!" He produced a pair of tickets.

Christine recovered her presence of mind before I did. "How very kind of you." She swiped the tickets from the man's hand, hooked her arm firmly into mine, and said, "Come on, Tom Tom."

"Yes, of course," I mumbled, mortified at the deception. "Most kind. And the cost...?"

"Niente, niente! The pleasure is ours, Mr. Harris! And may I just say that The Silence of the Lambs The Silence of the Lambs was one of the finest-one of was one of the finest-one of the finest the finest-movies I have ever seen. All of Florence is awaiting the release of Hannibal Hannibal."

Front-center box seats, the finest in the house.

It was a short trip by bicycle or car from our Giogoli farmhouse into Florence through the Porta Romana, the southern entrance to the old city. The Porta Romana opened into a warren of crooked streets and medieval houses that make up the Oltrarno, the most unspoiled part of the old city. As I explored, I often saw a curious figure taking her afternoon pa.s.seggiata pa.s.seggiata through the narrow medieval streets. She was a tiny ancient woman, sticklike, dressed to the hilt in furs and diamonds, her face rouged, lips coral red, an old-fas.h.i.+oned little hat with netted pearls perched on her diminutive head, walking with a.s.surance in high-heeled shoes over the treacherous cobblestones, looking neither to the right nor left, and acknowledging acquaintances with an almost imperceptible movement of her eyes. I learned she was the Marchesa Frescobaldi, from an ancient Florentine family that owned half the Oltrarno and much of Tuscany besides, a family that had financed the Crusades and given the world a great composer. through the narrow medieval streets. She was a tiny ancient woman, sticklike, dressed to the hilt in furs and diamonds, her face rouged, lips coral red, an old-fas.h.i.+oned little hat with netted pearls perched on her diminutive head, walking with a.s.surance in high-heeled shoes over the treacherous cobblestones, looking neither to the right nor left, and acknowledging acquaintances with an almost imperceptible movement of her eyes. I learned she was the Marchesa Frescobaldi, from an ancient Florentine family that owned half the Oltrarno and much of Tuscany besides, a family that had financed the Crusades and given the world a great composer.

Christine often jogged though the city's crooked medieval streets, and one day she stopped to admire one of the grandest palaces in Florence, the Palazzo Capponi, owned by the other great family of the Oltrarno district-and indeed one of the leading n.o.ble families of Italy. The palace's rust-red neocla.s.sical facade stretches for hundreds of feet along the banks of the Arno, while its grim, stone-faced, medieval backside runs along the sunken Via de' Bardi, the Street of the Poets. As she was gawking at the grand portone portone of the palazzo, a British woman came out and struck up a conversation with her. The woman worked for the Capponi family, she said, and after hearing about the book I was trying to write about Masaccio, she gave Christine her card and said we should call upon Count Niccol Capponi, who was an expert in Florentine history. "He's quite approachable, you know," she said. of the palazzo, a British woman came out and struck up a conversation with her. The woman worked for the Capponi family, she said, and after hearing about the book I was trying to write about Masaccio, she gave Christine her card and said we should call upon Count Niccol Capponi, who was an expert in Florentine history. "He's quite approachable, you know," she said.

Christine brought back the card and gave it to me. I put it away, thinking there was no chance I would make a cold call on Florence's most famous and intimidating n.o.ble family, no matter how approachable.

The rambling farmhouse we occupied in Giogoli stood high on the side of a hill, shaded by cypresses and umbrella pines. I turned a back bedroom into a writing studio, where I intended to write my novel. A single window looked past three cypress trees and over the red-tiled roofs of a neighbor's house to the green hills of Tuscany beyond.

The heart of Monster country.

For weeks after hearing the story of the Monster of Florence from Spezi, I found myself wondering about the murder scene so close to our house. One fall day, after a frustrating struggle with the Masaccio novel, I left the house and climbed up through the grove to the gra.s.sy meadow to see the spot for myself. It was a lovely little meadow with a sweeping view of the Florentine hills running southward toward some low mountains. The crisp fall air smelled of crushed mint and burning gra.s.s. Some claim that evil lingers in such places as a kind of malevolent infection, but I could feel nothing. It was a place outside good and evil. I loitered about, hoping in vain to extract some glimmer of understanding, and almost against my will I found myself reconstructing the crime scene, positioning the VW bus, imagining the tinny sound of the Blade Runner Blade Runner score playing endlessly over the scene of horror. score playing endlessly over the scene of horror.

I took a deep breath. Below, in our neighbor's vineyard, the vendemmia vendemmia was in progress, and I could see people moving up and down the rows of vines, heaping cl.u.s.ters of grapes into the back of a three-wheeled motorized cart. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the place-a c.o.c.k crowing, distant church bells, a barking dog, an unseen woman's voice calling out for her children. was in progress, and I could see people moving up and down the rows of vines, heaping cl.u.s.ters of grapes into the back of a three-wheeled motorized cart. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the place-a c.o.c.k crowing, distant church bells, a barking dog, an unseen woman's voice calling out for her children.

The story of the Monster of Florence was taking hold.

CHAPTER 31.

Spezi and I became friends. About three months after we met, unable to shake myself loose from the Monster story, I suggested to him that we collaborate on an article about the Monster of Florence for an American magazine. As a sometime contributor to The New Yorker The New Yorker, I called up my editor there and pitched the idea. We got the a.s.signment.

But before putting pen to paper, I needed a crash course from the "Monstrologer." A couple of days a week I shoved my laptop into a backpack, hauled my bike out, and pedaled the ten kilometers to Spezi's apartment. The last kilometer was a murderous ride uphill through groves of knotted olive trees. The apartment he shared with his Belgian wife, Myriam, and their daughter occupied the top floor of the old villa, with a living room, dining room, and a terrace overlooking Florence. Spezi worked in an upstairs garret, crammed with books, papers, drawings, and photographs.

When I arrived, I would find Spezi in the dining room, a Gauloise invariably hanging from his lip, layers of smoke drifting in the air, papers and photographs spread out on the table. While we worked, Myriam would bring us a steady stream of espresso in tiny cups. Spezi would always put away the crime scene photographs before she came in.

Mario Spezi's first job was to educate me about the case. He went through the history chronologically, in minute detail, from time to time plucking a doc.u.ment or a photograph from the heap by way of ill.u.s.tration. All our work was conducted in Italian, as Spezi's English was rudimentary and I was determined to use the opportunity to learn the language better. I took notes furiously on my laptop while he spoke.

"Nice, eh?" he often said when he had finished recounting some particularly egregious example of investigative incompetence.

"Si, professore," I would answer.

His view of the case was not complicated. He had nothing but contempt for the conspiracy theories, alleged satanic rituals, hidden masterminds, and medieval cults. The simplest and most obvious explanation, he felt, was the correct one: that the Monster of Florence was a lone psychopath who murdered couples for his own sick, libidinous reasons.

"The key to identifying him," Spezi said repeatedly, "is the gun used in the 1968 clan killing. Trace the gun and you find the Monster."

In April, when the vineyards were beginning to stripe the hills in fresh green, Spezi took me to see the scene of the 1984 killing of Pia Rontini and Claudio Stefanacci, outside Vicchio. Vicchio lies north of Florence in a region known as the Mugello, where the hills grow steep and wild as they pile up toward the great chain of the Apennines. Sardinian shepherds settled in this area in the early sixties, after the migration to Tuscany, to raise sheep in the mountain meadows. Their pecorino cheese was highly prized, so much so that it became a signature cheese of Tuscany.

We drove along a country road, following a rus.h.i.+ng stream. It had been years since Spezi had last been there, and we had to stop several times before we found the place. A turnoff from the road led to a gra.s.sy track at a place known locally as La Boschetta, the Little Wood. We parked and walked in. The track dead-ended at the base of a hill covered with oak trees, opening on one side to a field of medicinal herbs. An ancient stone farmhouse with terra-cotta roofs stood a few hundred yards off. A rus.h.i.+ng stream, hidden by poplars, ran through the valley below. Beyond the farmhouse the land mounted up, hills upon hills, receding into blue mountains. Emerald-green pastures had been cut into the shoulders and lower slopes of the hills, pastures that the artist Giotto had wandered through as a boy in the late 1200s, tending sheep, daydreaming, and drawing pictures in the dirt.

The track ended at a shrine to the victims. Two white crosses stood in a gra.s.sy plot. Plastic flowers, faded by the sun, had been arranged in two gla.s.s jars. Coins had been placed on the arms of the crosses; the site had become a place of pilgrimage for young couples from the area, who left the coins as a way to pledge their love for each other. The sun poured in across the valley, bringing with it the scent of flowers and freshly mown fields. b.u.t.terflies fumbled about, birds twittered in the woods, and puffy white clouds scudded across a sky of blue.

Gauloise in his hand, Mario sketched out the scene of the crime for me while I took notes. He showed me where the light blue Panda of the two lovers had been parked and where the killer must have been hiding in the dense vegetation. He pointed out where the sh.e.l.ls had lain, ejected after each shot, which told the pattern and order of shooting. The boy's body had been found trapped in the rear seat, almost in a fetal position, curled up as if to defend himself. The killer had shot him dead and then, later, stabbed the body several times in the ribs, either to make sure he was dead or as a sign of contempt.

"It happened at about nine-forty," Spezi said. He pointed to a field across the river. "We know that because a farmer, plowing that field at night to escape the heat, heard the shots. He thought it was the backfiring of a motorino motorino."

I followed Mario into the open field. "He dragged the body and laid it down here-within full view of the house. An absurdly exposed place." He gestured toward the farmhouse with his cigarette hand, tufts of smoke drifting off. "It was a terrible scene. I'll never forget it. Pia lay on her back, arms thrown wide as if crucified. Her bright blue eyes were open and staring into sky. It's awful to say this, but I couldn't help noticing how beautiful she was."

We stood in the field, drowsy bees visiting the flowers around us. I had finished taking notes. The whisper of the river came up through the trees. Again, no evil lingered. On the contrary, the place felt peaceful, even holy.

Afterwards we drove into Vicchio. It was a small town set amid lush fields alongside the river Sieve. A ten-foot-tall bronze statue of Giotto, holding his palette and brushes, stood in the center of the cobbled piazza. The shops nearby included a small household appliance store still owned by the Stefanacci family, where Claudio Stefanacci had worked.

We ate lunch in a modest trattoria off the piazza and then walked down a side street to pay a visit to Winnie Rontini, the mother of the murdered girl. We came to a high stone wall with iron gates surrounding a grand in-town villa, one of the most imposing in Vicchio. Through the gates I could see a formal Italian garden gone to seed. Beyond rose the three-story facade of the house, badly run-down, the pale yellow stucco cracked and peeling off. The villa's windows were shuttered. It looked abandoned.

We pressed the buzzer on the iron gate, and a voice quavered out of the tinny speaker. Mario gave his name and the gate clicked open. Winnie Rontini met us at the door and invited us into the darkened house. She moved slowly and heavily, as if under water.

We followed her into a dark sitting room, almost devoid of furniture. One window shutter was partway open, admitting a bar of light like a white wall dividing the darkness, through which drifted dust motes that blazed for a moment and vanished. The air smelled of old fabric and wax polish. The house was almost empty, only a few shabby pieces of furniture left, as all the antiques and silver had been sold long ago to finance the search for her daughter's killer. Signora Rontini was so impoverished she could no longer afford a telephone.

We seated ourselves on the faded furniture, raising a storm of motes, and Signora Rontini seated herself opposite us, settling into a lumpy chair with slow dignity. Her fair skin, fine hair, and sky blue eyes revealed her Danish heritage. Around her neck she wore a gold necklace with the initials of P and C on it, for Pia and Claudio.

She talked slowly, the words spoken as if weights were attached to them. Mario told her about our writing project and our continuing search for the truth. She stated her opinion, almost as if she no longer cared, that it was Pacciani. She told us that her husband, Renzo, a highly paid marine engineer who traveled all over the world, had quit his job to pursue justice for his daughter full-time. Every week he visited police headquarters in Florence, asking for fresh news and consulting with investigators, and on his own he had offered large monetary rewards for information. He had frequently appeared on television or radio, appealing for help. He had been scammed more than once. The effort eventually ruined his health and drained their finances. Renzo died of a heart attack on the street outside the police station after a visit. Signora Rontini remained in the big villa all alone, selling off the furniture piece by piece, and sinking ever deeper into debt.

Mario asked about the necklace.

"For me," she said, touching the necklace, "life ended on that day."

CHAPTER 32.

If you believe you are beyond harm, will you go inside? Will you enter this palace so prominent in blood and glory, follow your face through the web-spanned dark...? Inside the foyer the darkness is almost absolute. A long stone staircase, the stair rail cold beneath our sliding hand, the steps scooped by the hundreds of years of footfalls...

So it was on a cold January morning that Christine and I found ourselves climbing the stairs so vividly described by Thomas Harris in Hannibal Hannibal. We had an appointment in the Palazzo Capponi to meet Count Niccol Piero Uberto Ferrante Galgano Gaspare Calcedonio Capponi, and his wife, the Contessa Ross. I had finally made that cold call. Hannibal Hannibal the film, directed by Ridley Scott, had recently been shot in the Palazzo Capponi, where Hannibal Lecter, alias "Dr. Fell," was fictionally employed as the curator of the Capponi library and archives. I thought it would be interesting to interview the real curator of the Capponi archives, Count Niccol himself, and write a "Talk of the Town" piece about it for the film, directed by Ridley Scott, had recently been shot in the Palazzo Capponi, where Hannibal Lecter, alias "Dr. Fell," was fictionally employed as the curator of the Capponi library and archives. I thought it would be interesting to interview the real curator of the Capponi archives, Count Niccol himself, and write a "Talk of the Town" piece about it for The New Yorker The New Yorker, to coincide with the release of the film.

The count met us at the top of the stairs and guided us into the library, where the countess was waiting. He was a man of about forty, tall and solid, with curly brown hair, a Vand.y.k.e beard, keen blue eyes, and a pair of schoolboy ears. He looked strikingly like a grown-up version of the 1550 portrait of his ancestor Lodovico Capponi by the artist Bronzino, which hangs in the Frick Museum in New York. When the count greeted my wife, he kissed her hand in a most peculiar way, which I later learned was an ancient gesture in which the n.o.bleman takes the lady's hand and with a rapid, elegant twist raises it to within six inches of his lips, while making a crisp half-bow-never, of course, allowing his lips to actually brush the skin. Only t.i.tled Florentines greet ladies in this manner. Everyone else shakes hands.

The Capponi library lay at the end of a dim, ice-cold hall decorated with coats of arms. The count settled us in a brace of giant oaken chairs, then perched himself on a metal stepstool behind an old refectory table and fiddled with his pipe. The wall at his back consisted of hundreds of pigeonholes containing family papers, ma.n.u.scripts, account books, and rent rolls going back eight hundred years.

The count wore a brown jacket, a wine-colored sweater, slacks, and-rather eccentric for a Florentine-beaten-up ugly old shoes. He held a doctorate in military history and taught at the Florentine campus of New York University. He spoke perfect Edwardian English that seemed a relic from an earlier age. I asked him where he had acquired it. English, he explained, had entered his family when his grandfather married an Englishwoman and they raised their children speaking English at home. His father, Neri, in turn, had pa.s.sed his English on to his children like a family heirloom-and in this way the language of the Edwardian age had been fossilized inside the Capponi family, unchanged for almost a century.

The Countess Ross was American, very pretty, guarded and formal, with a dry sense of humor.

"We had Ridley Scott in here with his cigar," said the count, referring to the director of the movie.

"The group would arrive," the countess said, "led by the cigar, followed by Ridley, followed by an attentive crowd."

"It created quite a bit of smoke."

"There was a lot of fake smoke, actually. Ridley seems to be obsessed with smoke. And busts. He was always needing marble busts."

The count glanced at his watch, then apologized. "I'm not being discourteous. I myself smoke only twice a day, after twelve and after seven."

It was three minutes to twelve.

The count continued: "He wanted more busts in the Gran Salone Gran Salone during the shooting. He ordered up papier-mache busts that were made to look old. But they wouldn't do. So I said that I had a few of my ancestors down in the bas.e.m.e.nt, shall we bring them up? He said marvelous. They were quite dirty, so I asked him, shall we dust them? Oh during the shooting. He ordered up papier-mache busts that were made to look old. But they wouldn't do. So I said that I had a few of my ancestors down in the bas.e.m.e.nt, shall we bring them up? He said marvelous. They were quite dirty, so I asked him, shall we dust them? Oh no no, he said, please don't don't! One of them was my quadrisnonna quadrisnonna, my great-great-great-grandmother, born Luisa Velluti Zati of the Dukes of San Clemente, who was a very proper woman. She refused to attend the theater. She thought it was immoral. Now she is appearing as a prop in a movie. And what a movie! Violence, disembowelments, cannibalism."

"You never know, she might be pleased," the countess said.

"The movie crew behaved very well. On the other hand, the Florentines were really b.l.o.o.d.y-minded while they were filming. Naturally, now that it's over, these same shopkeepers have put up signs in their windows: 'Hannibal was filmed here.' "

He checked his watch, found it had attained mezzogiorno mezzogiorno, and lit his pipe. A cloud of fragrant smoke rose up toward the distant ceiling.

"Aside from smoke and busts, Ridley was fascinated with Henry the Eighth." The count rose and rummaged through the archives, finally extracting a letter on heavy parchment. It was a letter from Henry VIII to a Capponi ancestor, requesting two thousand soldiers and as many harquebusiers as possible for Henry's army. The letter was signed by Henry himself and from the doc.u.ment dangled something brown and waxy, the size of a squashed fig.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That is Henry the Eighth's broad seal. Ridley quipped that it looked rather more like Henry's left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. I made a photocopy for him. Of the doc.u.ment, I mean."

We moved from the library into the Gran Salone, the palace's main reception room, where Hannibal Lecter plays the clavier while Inspector Pazzi, hiding in the Via de' Bardi below, listens. The Salone contained a piano, not a clavier, which Anthony Hopkins played in the film. The room was decorated with dark portraits, fantastical landscapes, marble busts, armor, and weapons. Due to the expense of heating such a vast s.p.a.ce, the air temperature hovered just above that of a Siberian torture chamber.

"Most of that armor is fake," said the count, with a dismissive wave. "But this suit over here, this is a good suit of armor. It dates from the 1580s. It probably belonged to Niccola Capponi, who was a knight in the Order of Saint Stephen. It once fit me well. It's quite light. I could do push-ups in it."

There was a l.u.s.ty wail from a hidden room in the palace and the countess bustled off.

"These are mostly Medici portraits. We have five Medici marriages in our family. A Capponi was exiled from Florence with Dante. But in those days Dante was probably looking down his long nose at us. We were among, as Dante wrote, la gente nova e i subiti guadagni- la gente nova e i subiti guadagni-'the new people and the suddenly rich.' Neri Capponi helped bring Cosimo de' Medici back to Florence in 1434 after his exile. It was an enormously profitable alliance for the family. We were successful in Florence because we were never the first family. We were always second or third. There is a Florentine saying: 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered back in.' "

The countess reappeared with a baby, Francesca, named after Francesca Capponi, a great beauty who married Vieri di Cambio de' Medici, and who died in childbirth at the age of eighteen. Her rosy-cheeked portrait, attributed to Pontormo, hung in the next room.

I asked the count who his most famous ancestor was.

"That would be Piero Capponi. All Italian schoolchildren know his story. It's like Was.h.i.+ngton crossing the Delaware, oft repeated and much embellished."

"He's downplaying the story, as usual," said the countess.

"I am not, my dear. The story is is largely exaggerated." largely exaggerated."

"It's largely true."

"Be that as it may. In 1494, Charles the Eighth of France, on his way with his army to claim Naples, pa.s.sed Florence and, seeing a way to make some fast money, demanded a huge payment from the city. 'We shall blow our trumpets' and attack, he declared, if the ransom were not paid. Piero Capponi's answer was, 'We shall then ring our bells,' meaning they would call up the citizens to fight. Charles backed down. He is reputed to have said, Capon, Capon, vous etes un mauvais chapon. Capon, Capon, vous etes un mauvais chapon. 'Capon, Capon, you are one evil chicken.' " 'Capon, Capon, you are one evil chicken.' "

"Chicken jokes are quite prevalent in the family," the countess said.

The count said, "We eat capons at Christmas. It's a little cannibalistic. On that subject, let me show you where Hannibal Lecter took his meals."

We followed him into the Sala Rossa Sala Rossa, an elegant drawing room with draped chairs, a scattering of tables, and a mirrored sideboard. The walls were covered in red silk that was woven from coc.o.o.ns produced on the family's silkworm estates two hundred and fifty years ago.

"There was a poor woman in the film crew," said the countess. "I had to keep saying to her, 'Don't move anything without permission.' She kept moving everything around. Every day while they were filming, Niccol's little brother Sebastiano, who runs Villa Calcinaia, the family estate in Chianti, brought up a bottle of their wine, and he would place it in a strategic location in this room. But it never managed to get into the picture. This woman kept moving it out. The producers had an arrangement with Seagram's to use only their brands."

The count smiled. "Nevertheless, by the end of the day the bottle had always managed to get itself uncorked and was empty. It was always the best riserva riserva."