The design and construction of the Church of Santa Croce began in 1294 and was not initially completed until 1443. The current Church of Santa Croce was only completed in 1863. This Tuscan Gothic style church has always been the largest square in Florence. There are monuments and mausoleums of some heavyweight celebrities in the church, such as Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, etc.
When Bayonetta brought Salomon here on a motorcycle in the early morning, a small number of tourists had already arrived at the fountain square in front of the church. There is a statue of Dante on the left side of the gate, with a deep frown and sunken eyes, seemingly dissatisfied with tourists disturbing its peace.
The bells on the right side of the church suddenly sounded a profound sound, causing the waiting tourists to look up.
The ticket costs eight euros and comes with an exquisite brochure that Salomon got from a tourist.
The front of the church was not open, but Salomon still used magic to open the door and sneaked in while no one was paying attention. Bayonetta and Salomon walked into the church through the Gothic doorway with white marble and the heavy oak door. They did not raise their heads and carefully looked at the exquisite statues on the forehead and the Star of David at the top. That would just be a waste of time for them.
When they entered the chapel, the sun shone through the church's stained windows with large mottled colors. However, the church was not gorgeous, and its structure was relatively simple, poor, and lacked decoration. This was a characteristic of the Franciscans. The only colorful windows were from the late 14th century, but Bayonetta was not interested in these precious works of art. She looked around casually.
She said, "Little guy, how are you going to convince the administrator here to let you check those documents. Or do you want to read them secretly? But I think you may not have that much time."
"It's just a little trick to control people's hearts." Salomon said, "But we don't know where the documents are stored, and the travel brochure doesn't indicate where the documents are stored. But I think it's impossible. The sacristy, if it were, would be too bad.”
Following the directions in the travel brochure, Salomon led Bayonetta through the central aisle and cloisters separated by rows of octagonal columns, and around the sixteen chapels arranged on both sides of the church. Those chapels belong to famous families in Florence, including the Medici family, and there are many murals left by famous artists in these chapels.
But Salomon and Bayonetta were not here for sightseeing. They went straight to the monastery where tourists were not allowed to enter. When Salomon met the first monk, he used the spell "Charm Humans".
This made him and the monk immediately become good friends who talked about everything.
Along the way, the two began to discuss the Renaissance murals. In order to let his friends appreciate the history of this church, the monk deliberately took them to avoid other monks and go to the church in spite of the rules of the monastery. The small library in the monastery. The most abundant documents here are the manuscripts of various artists during the Renaissance. He believed that as long as he read these precious manuscripts, it would be of great benefit to his dearest friend.
Of course, it refers to artistic accomplishment.
"Did you see it?" Salomon spread his hands, "What a friendly person this is! I think even the devil in hell will be moved by his sincerity! So, Bayonetta, why do you still want to knock him out? What about him?"
"I don't like monks," the witch replied, turning her head. After the monk led them to the library, Bayonetta simply hit the monk on the back of the head with the handle of the gun, and the lovely monk fainted on the ground without saying a word.
"I hope he won't have too much of a headache when he wakes up." The Mystic Master pulled the monk's legs and dragged the completely unconscious monk behind the bookshelf. "I mean headache in the literal sense. I hope he won't think it's a devil." I tempted him, hoping...forget it, whatever, I still quite like him."
"Where do you get such artistic literacy?" The witch watched Salomon busy rummaging around in front of the bookshelf. "I think learning magic will take up most of your time. Where did you learn it?" Of those things.”
"Take extra lessons, Bayonetta." The mystic mage did not look back. He was carefully taking the precious manuscripts with his mage's hands. "Not only do I have art appreciation courses, painting and sculpture are also my compulsory courses, not to mention... There are science courses. The Renaissance was an important period for mankind to get rid of religious ignorance, and this period accounts for a large part of my courses."
Among the manuscripts collected by the Holy Cross Church, there are not only the notes of many artists during the Renaissance, but also alchemical research led by the church.
The Franciscan Church has always been a pioneer of alchemy, and one of them was the Franciscan friar Rogier Bacon. He also wrote three alchemical books at the invitation of the then Pope Clement IV. These writings contained powerful arguments for improving knowledge and strengthening the power of the Christian state through the study of languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, and alchemy.
Friar Bacon believes that human alchemy is not weaker than nature, but stronger. If done properly, this is true for all laboratory products, and human beings can copy nature better than natural objects.
This idea continues to this day and has become the basis of modern chemistry.
The church even contained manuscripts by spiritual Franciscan monks, which surprised Salomon. Because these spiritual priests fell into the fanaticism of apocalypse, they liked prophecies and believed that the antichrist was about to appear. The church ordered the arrest of these monks, including Jean de Roquetayard.
He was arrested in 1344 and spent the rest of his life in prison, although he was visited by many people, including high priests.
Roktayard wrote many works during his imprisonment, including "The Book of Light". In his book "On the Making of the True Philosopher's Stone", he first proposed the concept of "mass balance", that is, "the weight of the reaction product must Exactly equal to the weight of the starting material”. Salomon speculated that the Franciscans at that time had not given up on spiritual ideas. They believed that the church needed knowledge to deal with the attacks of the Antichrist, so this part of the manuscript was collected in the library.
"Holy shit!" Salomon couldn't help but exclaimed while looking through the manuscript.
"What's the matter, little one?" The witch, who was bored and had her long legs on the table, came over fiercely, but Salomon did not react to the witch's sudden move. His attention was all attracted by the manuscript in front of him. .
There is a hand-drawn pattern on this yellowed parchment. It is a circle that looks like a shield, with an eagle spreading its wings on the shield. Salomon looked back and saw that the owner of this manuscript... Leonardo da Vinci.
