Chapter 5 l’Evêque de Luçon “There is a need to avoid debauchery, such as celebrating engagements after sun set: Darkness and wine obliterate all respect,” (L’instruction du chrétien, Armand Jean Du Plessis, Evêque de Luçon, 1607 AD). A quill poised in the right hand, Armand Jean Du Plessis was making annotation on the copies he had received from the Vatican regarding the speech the Archbishop Gaspare Ricciulli de Fasso, Reggio de’ Calabria had made in front of the Council of Trent some forty-five years earlier. The Evêque of Luçon was only a young man of twenty-two then, but one full of ambition. He wanted power most of all. In the Middle Ages power resided with the clergy, more specifically with those who were close to the dynasties of Europe. He silently wished he had met Gaspare Ricciulli. The man had attained recognition and power at a time there was practically no mercy for those who dared speak against the tenets of the Church. Changing the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday was indeed a feat worthy of recognition on the part of the young Du Plessis. Armand was full of vigor and full of unrequited love. He would invoke chastity from the pulpit but would succumb to manly desires when ‘no one was looking’. He was plagued with venereal diseases and suffered from the sequels of illicit intercourses for all the years he remained in the chair of cardinal and that until his death in December 1642 at the age of fifty-seven. However, for his sins, he never had the pleasure to sit amongst the prelates such as Ricciulli had done a half-a-century previously. In order to get closer to the papal court, while sojourning and studying in Rome, he succeeded to impress the Pope by repeating an entire sermon verbatim a day after it was pronounced. Thus ingratiating himself in the Pope’s favor, Armand Jean Du Plessis was ordained Bishop of Luçon in April of 1607 in Rome. Since he was younger than any other bishop ever ordained to this rank, the Pope justified the ordination by saying: “It is just that the man who displays sagacity far above his age be ordained before the requisite age.” Yet, the young bishop had another agenda in mind when spending time in Italy after his ordination. He wanted to meet the Ricciulli family. He wanted to acquaint himself with men of the cloth that had been blessed with the power of swaying even the papal courts of the era. However, the Ricciulli were not Romans. They lived in the south of Italy and Armand had even heard of a branch of the family residing in Salerno – St. Matthew’s resting place. A family of devout men and women, he was firm in his decision to make the journey to the Ricciulli’s place of residence, in secret. He could not be seen to have any contact with anyone who could repeat his intentions later in his clerical and diplomatic career. The man he wanted to meet was only three years his senior and resided at the time in Belcastro, Italy. Historically, certain information sees Belcastro as an Episcopal seat in the ninth century during the Byzantine age. The walls were erected to defend against Saracen attacks, as they were already established in Sicily since 830. However, the Saracen finally stormed the village in 896 and occupied it for forty years. The Byzantines redeemed Belcastro during 936 but had to cede it again with the arrival of the Normans in 1065, who assigned the centre to the Faloch family and made Belcastro a county of the Reign. In 1500 the Countess Costanza d’Avalos d’Aquino acquired Belcastro. It remained in the d’Aquino family until Giovan Battista paid eighty thousand ducats to purchase the city. The Battista family was well acquainted with the Ricciulli’s and after the death of Gaspare de Fasso, the Italian monarchy was expecting great things from the newborn heir, Antonio Ricciulli. On his way down to the tip of the Italian peninsula, Armand Jean Du Plessis – now Bishop de Luçon – stopped for the night in Salerno. He had to visit the tomb of the twelfth apostle of Christ – Matthew. To say he was surprised when he stepped off the carriage and gazed at the tower and Byzantine cathedral housing the tomb, would have been understating his annoyance. Born a Roman Catholic and filled with disdain for anything remotely related to the Arabic state or Islam, he was clearly astonished to see that the apostle of Christ was buried in a house that reminded the young man of the Middle East. Dressed in the vestments of a monk, the bishop entered the cathedral with mixed feelings. He could not reconcile the sepulcher’s outside appearance with the inside of the cathedral. The apse alone caught the bishop’s breath. It was definitely a place of atonement.

• published: 14 Apr 2016
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