Father Hennessy showed me the manuscript when I was a student.
I was having a journey in Ireland and I met him, as he was friend of a professor
of mine.
We were walking through the ruins of Hore Abbey, at the foot of the rock
of Cashel.
After a long talk about the future -I was already studying Sociology of
the Network- we begun talking about the past, and all the wonders I saw
in Ireland, including those astonishing prehistoric passage graves, with
their mysterious spiral patterns... And the abbeys.
It was at this point that father Hennessy became really serious... I
should say gloomy.
-I know... I trust... that God owns all the answers.- he told me while
we were walking round what remains of the cloister of the abbey.
-Nevertheless I would be happier if I could understand more of this Universe.-
He stopped in front of a stone window .
-Look... do you see that stone, down there... the one which does not fit
well with the others?-
Yes, I saw it.
It was evident that the stone had been moved not so long ago. And then put
in its place again.
- We had some restoration works, some months ago. There was an archeologist,
a young lady, Mary Reardan, very clever. She noticed a deep sound when she
hit with her working boot that spot under the window. Everybody told her
it was a fancy to imagine something was hidden there. You know, there is
an Abbey in Italy where they say the original manuscript of the "Divina
Commedia" was walled up: but none has ever been able to find where,
and, so they said to Mrs Reardan, they should demolish all the abbey in
order to search for it. It would bee too simple to find something by chance,
in such an evident place like the one we see here. And the risk was to damage
the last preserved windows.
Nevertheless Mrs Reardan wanted to try and assumed the full responsibility
for that.
She moved carefully the stone, and succeeded without damaging anything.
Inside the cavity there was a wooden box, sealed with wax. The box contained
this manuscript, she decided to hand over me after having read it.
I decided to keep this secret, without informing any kind of authority,
neither religious nor public...-
Father Hennessy opened the leather briefcase he had with him, and showed
me the manuscript without any other explanation.
We stopped strolling through the ruins of the cloister, and we both sat
on the remains of a stone wall.
Father Hennessy begun to follow his thoughts, and I started to read the
translation written by himself on white paper.
White, incredibly white if compared with the yellow-brown colour of the
original parchment.
Here follows that translation.
"After the sixth hour, brother Gregory, one of the sculptors working
to make this abbey more beautiful and more worthy of Our Lord, came in my
room asking to talk with me about a very secret and delicate matter.
I welcomed him, promising I would keep the secret as it was a Confession.
He told me that three nights before he was walking in the cloister under
construction asking God the inspiration for some new sculptures he had to
begin, when he saw someone moving in the darkness.
He asked with frightened voice "Who is there", as he knew all
the monks should have been sleeping at that time.
Then he saw a man dressed in strange clothes, who walked towards him smiling
and rising a hand in a friendly signal. He had no weapons with him, so Gregory
rised his hand too, and welcomed the stranger in the name of God and Saint
Mary.
The stranger spoke, but that language was never heard before, even from
brother Gregory , who travelled in England, France and in the German Empire,
to study and improve his art.
They spoke a little, using words from Latin and from the languages of England
and France.
The stranger claimed to come from the future, and at that point brother
Gregory suspected he could be a fool or an erethic. Nevertheless he was
not able to explain how the man could have come inside the Abbey at that
hour in the night.
The stranger said his name was Jaidius Florae, or this is what brother Gregory
understood.
This Jaidius gave many surprising proofs of his travel in time. Brother
Gregory talked of a machine that counts hours and minutes, as small as the
seal of the Archibishop, or even smaller. And of other surprising wonders
I do not want to refer here.
So our skillful craftman decided to ask a question to Jaidius. And asked
what people in the future will think of the artworks in our Abbey.
The stranger became sad, and at last said that the Abbey will be destroyed
again, abandoned in anno Domini 1541, and all the sculptures and the artworks
will be lost. Only a small head of stone will survive until the age
of the stranger, which is centuries in the future, he did not want to reveal
when.
Brother Gregory asked the stranger to show him what would be the surviving
artwork.
The stranger guided brother Gregory through the cloister, demonstrating
he did know how our Holy Abbey is built. Then came near one door and showed
the left corner under the arch of it.
This was an empty space, where brother Gregory had to put one of the new
sculptures he had to make. In his heart he was happy because after
all a work of his own would be chosen by God to survive havoc and time.
When brother Gregory turned at the stranger again, he was disappeared.
He crossed himself, and after some troubled days he decided to confess me
this story.
At that point, even if he is not a superstitious man, he was afraid the
stranger could be the devil himself, or some other kind of spirit or ghost.
But when I asked him what he felt at that moment, and not after three days
of wonderings, he answered he had no fear of that strange dressing man,
for he was quiet end friendly.
In the following three days brother Gregory made the sculpture to put on
the door.
This is a stone head which brother Gregory carved as the faithful portrait
of the mysterious stranger called Florentius.
I reccomended brother Gregory not to reveal this story to anyone, as he
could be suspected of being an erethic or a wizard.
I write all this because I trust that God's ways are endless and we are
not able to understand them all.
This story could appear only as the dream of a fool. But the mysterious
Florentius could be part of Our God's Creation even if we can not understand
this now. And this man or spirit called Florentius could have said
the truth.
You who have found this manuscript will perhaps be able to verify it.
If the story will reveal itself as true, you will believe the power of God
is so Great we will never be able to understand it completely.
If it is not, you will be warned against the tricks that the evil could
prepare for you in such fanciful ways.
This I, pro tempore Abbot Patrick De Burgo, appointed by Archibishop David
MacCearbahaill, wrote on the twenty first day of June, in anno Domini 1272"
On the original manuscript there was a map of Hore Abbey.
The places where Florentius appeared and where Gregory put the stone head
were both pointed out.
- Look, my young friend. Here is where the head should be, as shown on the
map.-
He made a couple of steps on the gravel and stopped in front of a threshold,
where, on the top of the left column, a small stone head gazed upon us with
a kind of smile on his face.
