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went over my head. We have a Computer Lab in the Secret Archives, but that’s not my department.”
    “Then let me explain how we use digital imaging to uncover the past. Archimedes’ treatises were copied in a codex sometime in the tenth century. Two hundred years later, the pages were erased and reused to write a Byzantine prayer book called the Euchologion. We needed a nondestructive technology to make the prayers disappear so we could read what was underneath. So we take multiple photographs of the same page using different colored filters. With computer software, the color representing the Euchologion is deleted and what’s left is the original text. Even then, not all of it is visible.”
    “You said that’s how you used to do it. What do you do now?”
    “European libraries and archives are dealing with an overwhelming problem of deteriorating texts. Aside from the damage caused by floods and fire, the iron ink used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is faded and has often disappeared. And the poor quality paper from the nineteenth century is disintegrating because of high acid content. We had to develop a low-cost method to recover the contents, even if the actual documents couldn’t be saved.”
    Isabelle walked to the tripod in the middle of the room. “This type of digital camera is used by American spy satellites and forensic scientists, as well as art museums, to authenticate rare paintings. The camera takes multiple photographs using these different colored filters.” She pointed behind the lens to the wheel holding round disks. It’s linked to our own computer program, so the analysis is done automatically. The system is small, cheap, and simple to use. Put the Psalter on the easel and open it to the page you want deciphered while I set up the computer.” She walked to the monitor. “Are you ready, Father?”
    “I suppose.”
    Isabelle typed a command on the keyboard, and the camera lit up. The wheel spun until the correct colored filter moved behind the lens. An internal fan began to whir.
    “What do we do now?” Father Romano said.
    “We wait.”
    Romano slid down in his chair, stretching his long legs and crossing them at the ankles.
    “Tell me about this Giovanni,” Isabelle was intrigued. “What can you learn about a scribe from his handwriting?”
    “Believe it or not, ninth-century scribes were mostly uneducated. Writing was more like painting a small image that happened to be a letter. But this one was different, not just lettered or clever. He had uncommon intelligence even by today’s standards.

6
Johannes Anglicus
    Iunius in the Year of Our Lord 843
June
    The reek from the wooden bucket gagged the frail youth as he dipped a coarse rag into foul, diluted lye. Its rank odor made him want to retch his meager breakfast. Later in the day, he would notice less. Nevertheless, each new morning found the power of the vapors renewed and filled his head with nauseating stink.
    He seemed at an age between a boy and a man, slender with delicate features accentuated by a straight, narrow nose and red curls, yet looked even thinner in a brown robe that was too large. A braided cincture made the cloth billow above and below his waist.
    He rolled out a long scroll on rough-hewn planks in the courtyard of the patriarchum , the Papal Palace of Pope Gregory IV. Holding the soaked rag over the parchment, he dripped fetid liquid onto the writing. Once a section was sufficiently wet, the novice grabbed a pumice stone and scrubbed. The words blurred, then dissolved into rivulets of black ink.
    The boy was disgusted by the destruction and turned away. He gazed instead at the ancient Apostolic Palace and adjoining basilica of Saint John. The palace had originally belonged to a noble family of Roman emperors, the Laterani. Constantine’s wife, Fausta, had given the property to the Emperor as part of her dowry. As a rebuke to the Laterans, who were virulent anti-Christians, Constantine had