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I will confront this wizard, this goblin, in the place of his own appointing, under his late intimate friend's very nose. I am a man of many transgressions, but something assures me that Heaven will not deem this a fit occasion for calling them to remembrance. Time presses; I lead on; follow, Cardinal Barbadico, follow! Yet stay, let us not forget temporal and spiritual armouries."
This cardinal was actually entrusted by Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion upon which the "sardonic grin" imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico was a remarkable instance of a man "kicked upstairs."
"Why tarries Cardinal Barbadico thus?" the Pope at last asked himself aloud. The inquiry was answered by a wild burst of squeaking and clattering and scurrying to and fro, as who should say, "We've eaten him! We've eaten him!"
This being over, peace was concluded in November, 1441, at which Francesco Barbadico and Pagolo Trono were present for the Venetians, and for the Florentines Agnolo Acciajuoli. Peschiera, Asola, and Lonato, castles in the Mantuan territory, were assigned to the Venetians.
His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, and confer with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal's mind seemed an entire blank on the subject.
Vainly the city reeks with toasted cheese, and the Commissary-General reports himself short of arsenic." "And how are the people taking it?" demanded Alexander. "To what cause do they attribute the public calamity?" "Generally speaking, to the sins of your Holiness," replied the Cardinal. "Cardinal!" exclaimed Alexander indignantly. "I crave pardon for my temerity," returned Barbadico.
For his authentic history, see the article in the Biographie Universelle by Ginguené; for the legendary, Tieck's romantic tale, "Pietro von Abano" , which has been translated into English. Alexander the Rat-catcher. Cardinal Barbadico.
Opening them immediately afterwards, he saw with relief that the phantoms had vanished, and that he confronted what at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient ratcatcher, habited precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for all his mean apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the potentates of the earth on other subjects than the extermination of rats.
But this exultation was at least premature, for just as the terrified Pope clutched his bell, the door opened to the narrowest extent compatible with the admission of an ecclesiastical personage of dignified presence, and Cardinal Barbadico hastily squeezed himself through. "I shall hardly trust myself upon these stairs again," he remarked, "unless under the escort of your Holiness's terrier."
The wizard had kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the pilgrimage, which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the number of passages to be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length the companions stood before the portal of the Appartamento Borgia. "Your Holiness must enter alone," Cardinal Barbadico admonished, with manifest reluctance.
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