An Attorney-at-law in the Papal States

At a little after twelve o’clock on that same Ash Wednesday morning, a servant in the Castelmare livery brought a verbal message to the “studio” of Signor Giovacchino Fortini, “procurators,”—­attorney-at-law, as we should say,—­requesting that gentleman to step as far as the Palazzo Castelmare, as the Marchese would be glad to speak with him.

The message was not one calculated to excite any surprise either in the servant who carried it, or in Signor Fortini himself.  Signor Giovacchino was, and had been for many years, the confidential lawyer of the Castelmare family.  And the various business connected with large landed possessions made frequent conferences necessary between the lawyer and such a client as the Marchese, who, among his other activities, had always been active in the management and care of his estates.

Signor Giovacchino Fortini was very decidedly the first man of his profession in Ravenna, as indeed might be expected of the person who had been honoured for more than one generation by the confidence of the Castelmare family.  For the lawyer was a much older man than the Marchese, and had been the confidential adviser of his father.  And old Giovacchino Fortini’s father and grandfather had sat in the same “studio” before him, and had held the same position towards previous generations of the Castelmare family.

For three generations also the Fortini, grandfather, father, and son, had been lawyers to the Chapter of Ravenna; a fact which vouched the very high standing and consideration they held in the city, and at the same time explained the circumstances under which it had come to pass that the “studio” they had occupied for so many years, seemed more like some public building than the private offices of a provincial attorney.

In fact the “Studio Fortini” was a portion of an ancient building attached to the Cathedral, in which some of the less dignified members of the Chapter had their residences.  The building in question encircled a small cloistered court, the soil of which was on a lower level than that of the street outside it; and the residences, to which a series of little doors around this cloister gave access, looked as if they must have been miserably damp and unwholesome.  But the “Studio Fortini” was not situated in any part of this damp lower floor.  In the corner of the cloister nearest to the Cathedral, there was a wide and picturesque old stone staircase, which led to an upper cloister, as sunny and pleasant looking as the lower one was the reverse.  There, near the head of the stair, was a round arched deeply sunk stone doorway, closed by a black door, bearing a bright brass plate on it, conveying the information, altogether superfluous to every man, woman, and child in Ravenna, that there was situated the “Studio Fortini.”