Chapter 47 The Secret in the Church of the Holy Cross

The design and construction of Santa Croce began in 1294, and it was not completed until 1443. Today's Santa Croce was completed in 1863. This Tuscan Gothic church has always been the largest square in Florence. Jige Church, there are some monuments and tombs of heavyweight celebrities in the church, such as: Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini and so on.

When Bayonetta brought Salomon here on a motorcycle in the early morning, a small number of tourists had already arrived at the fountain square in front of the church. There is a statue of Dante on the left side of the gate, with deep frown and deep-set eyes, as if dissatisfied with the tourists who disturb its tranquility.

A sudden and profound chime from the bell on the right side of the church draws the waiting tourists to look up.

Tickets cost eight euros and come with an exquisite booklet that Salomon got from a tourist.

The front of the church was not open, but Salomon still opened the door with magic, and sneaked in while no one was looking. Bayunita and Salomon walked into the church through the Gothic porch covered with white marble and the heavy oak door. They didn't look up, carefully watching the delicate statues on the forehead and the Star of David on the top. That would just be a waste of time for them.

When they stepped into the chapel, the sun shines through the colorful windows of the church and casts a large amount of mottled colors, but this church is not gorgeous, and its structure is relatively simple, poor and lacking in decoration, which are the characteristics of the Franciscans. The only stained window that can be called gorgeous and colorful is a work from the end of the 14th century, but Beunita is not interested in these precious works of art, she looked around casually.

She said, "Little guy, how do you convince the administrator here to let you look at those documents. Or do you want to secretly read them? But I think you may not have that much time."

"It just needs a little trick to control people's hearts." Salomon said, "but we don't know where the documents are stored, and the tourist brochures don't indicate where the documents are kept. But I think it can't be The sacristy, if it were, would be too bad."

Salomon followed the guidelines in the tourist brochure and led Beunita through the central aisle and the cloister separated by rows of octagonal columns, bypassing the sixteen chapels lined up on both sides of the church. Those small churches belonged to famous families in Florence, including the Medici family, and there are many frescoes left by famous artists in these small churches.

But Salomon and Beunita didn't come for sightseeing. They went straight to the monastery where tourists were not allowed to enter. When Salomon met the first monk, he used the spell "Charm Human".

This made him and the monk immediately become friends who talked about everything.

Along the way, the two began to discuss the frescoes of the Renaissance. In order to let his friends experience the historical precipitation of this church, the monk deliberately led them to avoid other monks and went to the Small library in the monastery. The most literature here is the manuscripts of various artists in the Renaissance period. He believes that as long as he reads these precious manuscripts, it will definitely benefit his dearest friends.

Of course, it refers to the aspect of artistic accomplishment.

"See?" Salomon spread his hands, "What a friendly man! I think even the devil in hell will be moved by his sincerity! So, Bayonetta, why are you still knocking me out?" What about him?"

"I don't like monks." The witch turned her head and replied. After the monk led them to the library, Bayonetta struck the monk on the back of the head with the handle of the gun neatly, and the lovely monk also fainted on the ground without saying a word.

"I hope he won't have too much headache when he wakes up." The mystic grabbed the monk's leg and dragged the completely unconscious monk to the back of the bookshelf. Tempted him, I hope... Forget it, whatever, I still like him a lot."

"Where did you get such artistic accomplishment?" The witch looked at Salomon busy up and down, rummaging in front of the bookshelf, "I think learning magic can take up most of your time, where did you learn it? of those things."

"Make up lessons, Bayunita." The mystic did not look back, he was carefully taking those precious manuscripts with his mage's hand, "Not only do I have art appreciation courses, painting and sculpture are also compulsory courses for me, let alone There are science courses. The Renaissance was an important period for human beings to escape from religious ignorance, and this period occupies a large part of my curriculum."

Among the manuscripts collected by the Church of the Holy Cross, there are not only the notes of many artists in the Renaissance, but also the alchemy research led by the church.

The Franciscan Church has always been a pioneer in alchemy, and Franciscan monk Rogier Bacon was one of them. He also wrote three books on alchemy at the invitation of Pope Clement IV at the time. These writings contained strong arguments for the improvement of knowledge and the strengthening of the Christian state through the study of languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, and alchemy.

Brother Bacon believes that human alchemy is not weaker than nature, but stronger. If it is done properly, all laboratory products are like this, and human beings can copy nature better than natural things.

This idea has continued to the present and has become the basis of modern chemistry.

Salomon was a little surprised that the church even housed manuscripts of spiritual Franciscan monks. Because these spiritual priests fell into the fanaticism of apocalypse, they liked to prophesy and believed that the Antichrist would appear soon, the church ordered the arrest of these monks, including Jean de Roquetayde.

He was arrested in 1344 and spent the rest of his life in prison, but was visited by many people, including prelates.

Rocktayard wrote many works including "The Book of Light" during his imprisonment. In his book "On the Making of the True Philosopher's Stone", he first proposed the concept of "mass balance", that is, "the weight of the reaction product must exactly equal to the weight of the starting material". Salomon guessed that the Franciscans at that time did not give up spiritualism. They believed that the church needed knowledge to deal with the attacks of antichrists, so this part of the manuscript was collected in the library.

"Holy shit!" Salomon couldn't help exclaiming as he flipped through the manuscript.

"What's the matter, little guy?" The witch, who was bored and put her long legs on the table, rushed over, but Salomon didn't react to the witch's suddenness, and his attention was all attracted by the manuscript in front of him. .

There is a hand-painted pattern on this yellowed parchment, which is a circle that looks like a shield with an eagle spreading its wings. Salomon looked back, the owner of this manuscript... Leonardo da Vinci.

Have a meal.