The Man of Sorrows — Prologue
— Cornelis de Bondt
Der Schmerzensmann — Dr. Theo Goethe
Prologue
One year and two weeks after the inauguration of the new Pope Alexander VII, precisely on April 21st of the year of our Lord 1656, the Jesuit-educated priest Athanasius Kircher walked through a hidden tunnel to the secret foundation vaults beneath the Pantheon in the Eternal City of Rome. Kircher walked with cautious yet determined steps. Despite the rubble, debris, and rats scurrying between his legs, he seemed to know exactly where to place his feet. He illuminated his path with a lamp of his own making, as he was an inventor of various devices: magic lanterns, speaking tubes, encryption machines, a composing machine, musical instruments, a magnetic clock, a design for a talking and listening robot, as well as a design for a perpetual mobile — too many to name. He had also engaged in translating Chinese, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and based on medical analyses of diseases like malaria and the plague, he had devised treatments and preventive methods. He was, in short, a walking encyclopedia, inventor, and charlatan all in one. Everything about the man was dual, ambiguous, and simultaneously meaningful. ‘All in one, and one in all’ was his motto. He had thoroughly documented all his translations, theories, findings, and inventions, gaining considerable respect for his work. He kept a complimentary letter from Leibniz in a specially crafted harmonywood box; a certain sense of vanity was not foreign to him, but it was always coupled with a naive sense of wonder and deep piety. He had made everything public, except for one invention on which he had been working in utmost secrecy since his thirty-third year of life.
Kircher closed the thick metal door behind him and entered a large room with high ceilings but no windows. The room was illuminated by twelve curious lanterns that emitted a bluish light. It was filled with all sorts of devices, metal and glass tubes, gears, mirrors, copper wires, workbenches, loose materials, and a large bookcase. A worktable, an armchair, and a simple bed completed the furnishings. In the middle of the room stood a closed metal cabinet — or so it seemed. Kircher knelt down in front of an image of the Man of Sorrows, an ancient depiction on a wooden panel of the holy Son; he immersed himself in prayer. The words he murmured were too soft to comprehend, and even the language he spoke was unclear. It certainly wasn’t Latin or any profane, modern European language — it was a language from a distant and ancient time. After his prayer, he stood up and walked toward a large wheel connected to a complex mechanism. He began turning the wheel, and after a few moments, a beam of light appeared on the ceiling. He kept turning the wheel until the entire room was bathed in a sea of light. He then approached the metal cabinet in the center of the room, now bathed in sunlight. He opened the door, revealing an immensely intricate machine with a leather chair at its center, surrounded by switches, tubes, wires, and an ingenious clockwork. Kircher stepped inside, closed the door, and sat on the chair. With determination, he pulled a large lever. It was exactly 12 o’clock.
