In chapter 65, Langdon and Vittoria go into the Santa Maria del Popolo church where the Chigi Chapel is located. There are eight chapels in all and all eight openings were covered with huge sheets of clear polyurethane due to construction. They find which of the chapels is the Chigi Chapel and enter it. It appears empty and that they are too late. Langdon is in awe because the chapel is finished entirely in chestnut marble and on the ceiling is a field of illuminated stars and the seven astronomical planets. Below that are the twelve signs of the zodiac and further down the wall are tributes to the Earth’s four temporal seasons. On either side of the chapel, in perfect symmetry, are two ten-foot-high marble pyramids. Vittoria blurts out, “Robert, look!” Sneering up at them from the floor is the image of a skeleton – an intricately detailed, marble mosaic depicting “death in flight.” The mosaic is mounted on a circular stone that had been lifted out of the floor like a manhole cover and was now sitting off to one side of a dark opening in the floor. Langdon gasps, “Demon’s hole,” and moves toward the pit. The stench coming up is overwhelming. Langdon looks in the dark and sees the cardinal. He looks unmoving and lifeless, and yet he looks like he’s standing up. They try calling to the cardinal. Langdon decides to go down the hole to get a closer look.
In chapter 66, Glick and Macri are on their way to the chapel to see if what the caller had told them was true. On the way, four identical cars all with four passengers race by heading to the same church.
In chapter 67, Langdon climbs down the pit on a rung-ladder. At the bottom, he sees the man. The man had his back to Langdon, and Langdon could not see his face, but he did indeed seem to be standing. As Langdon draws nearer, he is close enough to see it all. Emerging like a demon from the earthen floor was an old man…or at least half of him. He was buried up to his waist in the earth, standing upright with half of him below ground. He was stripped naked and his hands were tied behind his back with a red cardinal’s sash. The man’s head lay backward, eyes toward the heavens as if pleading for help from God himself. Langdon almost gags when he sees the cause of death. The sight was gruesome. The man’s mouth had been jammed open and packed solid with dirt. He tells Vittoria that somebody stuffed a fistful of dirt down his throat and that he suffocated. Vittoria says, “Dirt? As in…earth?” The first element was Earth. Langdon looks for the brand and sees the mythical ambigram of the word “earth” on the cardinal’s chest.
In chapter 68, at the Sistine Chapel, the conclave had officially begun. Half an hour ago, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca gave opening prayer and told the cardinals that the four preferiti are not present in conclave at the moment. He told them to proceed as they must with faith and purpose. It had taken thirty minutes to complete the preparatory rituals leading up to the first vote. Now, Cardinal Mortati was receiving the final vote. Almost immediately at the beginning of the voting, he sensed this first vote would be failed. After only seven ballots, seven different cardinals had been named. The cardinals were obviously submitting votes for themselves. This apparent conceit, Mortati knew, had nothing to do with self-centered ambition. It was a holding pattern, a defensive maneuver. A stall tactic to ensure no cardinal received enough votes to win…and another vote would be forced. The cardinals were waiting for their preferiti.
In chapter 69, Langdon climbs up out of the pit and Olivetti and some Swiss Guard members are there. Vittoria is explaining what happened to Olivetti and how they found the right location. Langdon realizes that they can follow the Path of Illumination to the next church to try to catch the Hassassin there. Vittoria figures out that the Illuminati sculptor is the famous sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini. She also shows Langdon the only sculptor in the chapel that is on the far wall. It is a sculpture of two life-size human figures intertwined. Langdon realizes that it is the “Habakkuk and the Angel.” Both the angel and the Habakkuk had their arms outstretched and were literally pointing into the distance. Vittoria is confused because they are contradicting each other. The angel is pointing one way, and the prophet the other. Langdon had already solved that problem. He goes outside the building to see what direction the sculpture is pointing. Vittoria asks how he knows which finger to follow. He says, “The poem, the last line!” Vittoria says, “’Let angels guide you on your lofty quest’? Well, I’ll be damned.”
In chapter 70, Glick and Macri are parked in the BBC van in the shadows near the Santa Maria del Popolo church, watching. Langdon, outside of the church, sees that the angel is pointing southwest. He thinks about the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Earth they had found – inside the Chapel of the Earth – Habakkuk, the prophet who predicted the earth’s annihilation. Air is next. Langdon tries to think of a Bernini sculpture that has something to do with Air.
In chapter 71, Glick and Macri see an army emerge from the church. Moving like a human wall, they begin to descend down the stairs of the church. Behind them, almost entirely hidden by the wall, four soldiers seemed to be carrying something heavy. Macri tries to get a picture of what they are carrying. When the soldiers tried to lift the object into the trunk, Macri found her opening. Macri had her frame and tells Glick to call editorial because they have a dead body. Far away at CERN, Maximilian Kohler goes into Leonardo Vetra’s study. He begins sifting through Vetra’s files. When he doesn’t find what he is after, Kohler moves to Vetra’s bedroom. In the top drawer of his bedside table, Kohler finds exactly what he is looking for.
I think that the cardinal’s murder is really gruesome and disgusting. That poor old man. I do think it’s cool how the elements are tying into the murders of the cardinal. I don’t want the other cardinals to die, but then again I kind of want to see if their causes of death are related to the specific elements. I also think the part with Kohler is a little fishy. I don’t know what he is searching for, but he shouldn’t be looking through Vetra’s personal stuff. Whatever he is looking for, I don’t think it is a good thing.
Again, wonderful work here. Great reading.
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