Inferno: (Robert Langdon Book 4)

canto was the rough equivalent of a chapter, the word harkening back to the oral tradition of “singing” epic poems. The Divine Comedy contained precisely one hundred cantos in all, divided into three sections.
    Inferno 1–34
    Purgatorio 1–33
    Paradiso 1–33
    Paradise Twenty-five , Langdon thought, wishing his eidetic memory were strong enough to recall the entire text. Not even close—we need to find a copy of the text.
    “There’s more,” Langdon continued. “The last thing Ignazio said to me was: ‘The gates are open to you, but you must hurry.’ ” He paused, glancing back at Sienna. “Canto Twenty-five probably makes reference to a specific location here in Florence. Apparently, someplace with gates.”
    Sienna frowned. “But this city probably has dozens of gates.”
    “Yes, which is why we need to read Canto Twenty-five of Paradise .” He gave her a hopeful smile. “You don’t, by any chance, know the entire Divine Comedy by heart, do you?”
    She gave him a dumb look. “Fourteen thousand lines of archaic Italian that I read as a kid?” She shook her head. “You’re the one with the freakish memory, Professor. I’m just a doctor.”
    As they pressed on, Langdon found it sad somehow that Sienna, even after all they’d been through together, apparently still preferred to withhold the truth about her exceptional intellect. She’s just a doctor? Langdon had to chuckle. Most humble doctor on earth , he thought, recalling the clippings he’d read about her special skills—skills that, unfortunately but not surprisingly, did not include total recall of one of history’s longest epic poems.
    In silence, they continued on, crossing several more beams. Finally, up ahead Langdon saw a heartening shape in the darkness. The viewing platform! The precarious planking on which they were walking led directly to a much sturdier structure with guardrails. If they climbed onto the platform, they could continue on along the walkway until they exited the garret through a doorway, which, as Langdon recalled, was very close to the Duke of Athens Stairway.
    As they neared the platform, Langdon glanced down at the ceiling suspended eight feet below. So far all the lunettes beneath them had been similar. The upcoming lunette, however, was massive—far larger than the others.
    The Apotheosis of Cosimo I , Langdon mused.
    This vast, circular lunette was Vasari’s most precious painting—the central lunette in the entire Hall of the Five Hundred. Langdon often showed slides of this work to his students, pointing out its similarities to The Apotheosis of Washington in the U.S. Capitol—a humble reminder that fledgling America had adopted far more from Italy than merely the concept of a republic.
    Today, however, Langdon was more interested in hurrying past the Apotheosis than in studying it. As he hastened his pace, he turned his head ever so slightly to whisper back to Sienna that they were nearly there.
    As he did so, his right foot missed the center of the plank and his borrowed loafer landed half off the edge. His ankle rolled, and Langdon lurched forward, half stumbling, half running, trying to make a quick stutter step to regain his balance.
    But it was too late.
    His knees hit the plank hard, and his hands strained desperately forward, trying to reach the crossing strut. The flashlight went clattering into the dark space beneath them, landing on the canvas, which caught it like a net. Langdon’s legs pumped, barely propelling him to safety on the next strut as the plank fell away beneath him, landing with a crash eight feet below on the wooden lacunar surrounding the canvas of Vasari’s Apotheosis .
    The sound echoed through the garret.
    Horrified, Langdon scrambled to his feet and turned back toward Sienna.
    In the dim glow of the abandoned flashlight, which lay on the canvas below, Langdon could see that Sienna was standing on the strut behind him, now trapped, with no way across. Her eyes conveyed what Langdon already knew. The noise of the falling plank had almost certainly given them away.

    Vayentha’s eyes bolted upward to the ornate ceiling.
    “Rats in the attic?” the man with the camcorder joked nervously as the sound reverberated down.
    Big rats , Vayentha thought, gazing up at the circular painting in the center of the hall’s ceiling. A small cloud of dust was now filtering down from between the lacunars, and Vayentha could swear she saw a slight bulge in the canvas … almost as