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Updated: June 16, 2025
"The Abbe Preciozi.... My brother Caesar." The Abbe Preciozi was one of the household of Cardinal Fort, who had sent him to the hotel to act as cicerone to his nephew. "Uncle has sent the abbe so that he can show you Rome." "Oh, many thanks!" answered Caesar. "I will make use of his knowledge; but I don't want him to neglect his occupations or to put himself out on my account." "No, no.
A little after this Preciozi disappeared, and reappeared again in the opening of a glass door, saying, in the discreetly lowered voice which was no doubt that of his domestic functions: "This way, this way." They went into a large, cold, shabby room. Through an open door they could see another bare salon, equally dark and sombre.
"And Father Miro too," added Preciozi, "and if you could talk to Father Ferrer, of the Gregorian University, it wouldn't be a bad idea." "That will be more difficult," said Cittadella. "You could tell them," Preciozi suggested, "that your uncle the Cardinal sent you, and hint that he doesn't want anybody to know that he is backing you." "And if somebody should write to my uncle?"
That palace is situated in the Via di S. Apellinare, opposite a seminary. The brother and sister proceeded to the palace one morning, went up the grand staircase, and in a reception-room they found Preciozi with two other priests, talking together in low tones. One was a worn, pallid old man, with his nose and the borders of his nasal appendage extremely red.
Preciozi was a bit perplexed; before making a reply he gazed at the statue, and then said, confusedly: "I think so." They crossed the Piazza Campidoglio and went out by the left side of the Palazzo del Senatore.
Preciozi talked to all his friends and acquaintances about Cardinal Fort's nephew, picturing him as an extraordinary man; some took these praises as a joke; others thought that it was really very possible that the Spaniard had great talent; only one abbe, who was a teacher in a college, felt a desire to meet the Cardinal's nephew, and Preciozi introduced him to Caesar.
Preciozi laughed at these jokes, as if they were a child's bright sayings; but at times Caesar appeared to him to be an innocent soul, and at other times a Machiavellian who dissembled his insidious purposes under an extravagant demeanour. When Preciozi was involved in some historic dissertation, Caesar used to ask him ingenuously: "But listen, abbe; does this really interest you?"
I am at your disposition," replied the abbe, "His Eminence has given me orders to wait on you, and it will not put me out in the least." "You will have dinner with us, Preciozi?" said Laura. "Oh, Marchesa! Thank you so much!" And the abbe bowed ceremoniously. The three dined together, and afterwards went to the salon to chat.
Preciozi would admit that the past didn't matter much to him, and then with one accord, they would burst out laughing. Caesar said that Preciozi and he were the most anti-historic men going about in Rome. One morning they went to the Piazza del Campidoglio. It was drizzling; the wet roofs shone; the sky was grey.
This abbe was named Cittadella, and he was fat, rosy, and blond; he looked more like a singer than a priest. Caesar invited the two abbes to dine at a restaurant and requested Preciozi to do the ordering. "So you are a nephew of Cardinal Fort's?" asked Cittadella. "Yes." "His own nephew?" "His own nephew; son of his sister." "And he hasn't done anything for you?" "Nothing." "It's a pity.
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