Inferno: (Robert Langdon Book 4)

whitewashed domes that exuded an airy, almost festive appearance, causing more than a few of the guidebooks to compare St. Mark’s to a meringue-topped wedding cake.
    High atop the central peak of the church, a slender statue of St. Mark gazed down into the square that bore his name. His feet rested atop a crested arch that was painted midnight blue and dotted with golden stars. Against this colorful backdrop, the golden winged lion of Venice stood as the shimmering mascot of the city.
    It was beneath the golden lion, however, that St. Mark’s displayed one of its most famous treasures—four mammoth copper stallions—which at the moment were glinting in the afternoon sun.
    The Horses of St. Mark’s.
    Poised as if prepared to leap down at any moment into the square, these four priceless stallions—like so many treasures here in Venice—had been pillaged from Constantinople during the Crusades. Another similarly looted work of art was on display beneath the horses at the southwest corner of the church—a purple porphyry carving known as The Tetrarchs . The statue was well known for its missing foot, broken off while it was being plundered from Constantinople in the thirteenth century. Miraculously, in the 1960s, the foot was unearthed in Istanbul. Venice petitioned for the missing piece of statue, but the Turkish authorities replied with a simple message: You stole the statue—we’re keeping our foot.
    “Mister, you buy?” a woman’s voice said, drawing Langdon’s gaze downward.
    A heavyset Gypsy woman was holding up a tall pole on which hung a collection of Venetian masks. Most were in the popular volto intero style—the stylized full-faced, white masks often worn by women during Carnevale. Her collection also contained some playful half-faced Colombina masks, a few triangle-chinned bautas, and a strapless Moretta. Despite her colorful offerings, though, it was a single, grayish-black mask at the top of the pole that seized Langdon’s attention, its menacing dead eyes seeming to stare directly down at him over a long, beaked nose.
    The plague doctor. Langdon averted his eyes, needing no reminder of what he was doing here in Venice.
    “You buy?” the Gypsy repeated.
    Langdon smiled weakly and shook his head. “Sono molto belle, ma no, grazie.”
    As the woman departed, Langdon’s gaze followed the ominous plague mask as it bobbed above the crowd. He sighed heavily and raised his eyes back to the four copper stallions on the second-floor balcony.
    In a flash, it hit him.
    Langdon felt a sudden rush of elements crashing together—Horses of St. Mark’s, Venetian masks, and pillaged treasures from Constantinople.
    “My God,” he whispered. “That’s it!”

CHAPTER 72
    ROBERT LANGDON WAS transfixed.
    The Horses of St. Mark’s!
    These four magnificent horses—with their regal necks and bold collars—had sparked in Langdon a sudden and unexpected memory, one he now realized held the explanation of a critical element of the mysterious poem printed on Dante’s death mask.
    Langdon had once attended a celebrity wedding reception at New Hampshire’s historic Runnymede Farm—home to Kentucky Derby winner Dancer’s Image. As part of the lavish entertainment, the guests were treated to a performance by the prominent equine theatrical troupe Behind the Mask—a stunning spectacle in which riders performed in dazzling Venetian costumes with their faces hidden behind volto intero masks. The troupe’s jet-black Friesian mounts were the largest horses Langdon had ever seen. Colossal in stature, these stunning animals thundered across the field in a blur of rippling muscles, feathered hooves, and three-foot manes flowing wildly behind their long, graceful necks.
    The beauty of these creatures left such an impression on Langdon that upon returning home, he researched them online, discovering the breed had once been a favorite of medieval kings for use as warhorses and had been brought back from the brink of extinction in recent years. Originally known as Equus robustus , the breed’s modern name, Friesian, was a tribute to their homeland of Friesland, the Dutch province that was the birthplace of the brilliant graphic artist M. C. Escher.
    As it turned out, the powerful bodies of the early Friesian horses had inspired the robust aesthetic of the Horses of St. Mark’s in Venice. According to the Web site, the Horses of St. Mark’s were so beautiful that they had become “history’s most frequently