The Brewer of Modena, Three: novel

By Pignatti Riccardo

In this third book, Giorgio Vandelli, the brewer of Modena, does his best to uphold the House of Duke Francesco V of Austria-Este of Modena in its final years of futile struggle against local revolutionaries, the Piedmontese, and the fledgling state of a unified Italy. He operates as an agent under cover in Modena, parties merrily with the Emperor Franz Josef in Vienna, and goes on a reconnaissance mission in Mexico. Everywhere he is caught up in amorous adventure and misadventure. In 1861 he also creates a well-known Mexican beer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meligrana Giuseppe Editore
• Release date: Oct 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9788868154585

Book preview

The Brewer of Modena, Three

novel

Riccardo Pignatti

Published by Meligrana Editore

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Copyright Meligrana Editore, 2023

Copyright Birra di Modena srl

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9788868154585

First edition ebook: november 2023

Meligrana Editore

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Tel. (+ 39) 338 6157041

www.meligranaeditore.com - [e-mail]

TOC

Title page

Colophon

License Notes

Riccardo Pignatti

Cover

The Brewer of Modena, Three

License Notes

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Riccardo Pignatti

Riccardo Pignatti is the pen name of a writer of mystery stories. He splits his time between Milan and Emilia Romagna and cultivates a passion for the history of Modena. He also cultivates a passion for beer. In these novels about the brewer of Modena he wanted to take himself away from his usual themes of modern-day homicides with their erotic and sinister tones in order to undertake a more cheeerfull narrative with themes that are historical, picaresque, and related to beer.

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The Brewer

of Modena,

Three

novel

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CHAPTER 1

It was 5 o’clock in the morning on 11 June 1859. With a genuflection on one knee Giorgio Vandelli took leave of his sovereign, Francesco V Duke of Austria-Este of Modena. A few hours later at his parents’ home he found himself in a fiery embrace with Luciana, the family cook.

Vandelli was 39 years old and had spent the last 19 years wandering around the world with the occasional return to Modena. He had three special gifts, more precisely two instincts, which were somehow related to each other, and one talent. He had an instinctive and complete knowledge of languages and of foodstuffs. If he heard a single word of a language, even if it was only the name of a person he had just met, he inferred its entire structure, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. If he took a nibble of a food or a sip of a beverage, he knew already all its ingredients together with its preparation. He had a talent with women, a great but not total talent; he concluded with about 80% of those he desired. He succeeded or not depending on their susceptibility to his seductive widening of the eyes and to his galantries.

Vandelli had accumulated a fortune with the exercise of his infallible palate for foodstuffs, in particular for his preferred beverage, beer. He owned breweries and villas in the Hapsburg lands and held bank accounts in London and Munich. Beyond his mastery of foodstuffs, his fortune depended on the shrewdness of his father, who gave him advice, directly, or indirectly through his Viennese bankers, on the commercial aspects of his businesses.

CHAPTER 2

Vandelli had limited notions of the political and military developments that were embroiling Europe, the Austrian Empire, the Estense Duchy, and the rest of Italy. He remembered these developments in connection with events of his own, above all with his dalliances. The historical framework of Vandelli looked like this:

1834. At the age of 14, Vandelli began to disport himself with willing lasses and then went on to Luciana and Rachele. He came to know the latter, a splendid Neapolitan Jewess visiting Modena, and absorbed from her in an instant the Neapolitan dialect, with which he immediately formulated some very persuasive whispers. The girl could not resist and proffered herself in a fervid embrace of great intimate fragrance. In this period Duke Francesco IV, having put down the revolutionary uprisings of 1830, imposed his despotic power on Modena and surroundings. This did not displease the Vandelli family, which considered itself very loyal to the Estense sovereign.

1841. In Vienna, Vandelli had a love affair with Aranca Varga, a very beautiful Hungarian singer at the Hofoper (The Opera House of the Court). Her charms almost reached the highest level of his ideal woman. Her only shortcoming was a beauty that was too perfect. When he was not taken up with Aranca, Vandelli had the opportunity to get to know the grandeur of the city, which was the capital of the Austrian Empire, to which the dominion of the Estensi belonged.

1842. In Munich, Vandelli found himself again in the arms of his beautiful and demanding Valkyrie, Hannah, and also, less often, in the arms of Colette, a cheerful beer waitress who offered him encounters that were not only amorous but also carefree. He had been invited to the celebration at Munich’s All Souls Church of the marriage of Francesco, son of the Estense duke, to Adelgunde, the daughter of Ludwig King of Bavaria. This strengthened his attachment to the House of Austria-Este in general and to the young Francesco in particular.

1846. For Vandelli this was a year of Bohemian beer and women. Following the advice of a Viennese banker he bought two bankrupt breweries in Prague and rehabilitated them thanks to the exquisite beers produced with recipes devised by his intuitive and infallible palate. He also met many beautiful women there. Later he passed on to Pilsen for a couple of retastings. First, he drank many mugs of Pilsner Urquel, which had been created with an essential contribution of his own given during his previous visit to the city four years earlier. Second, he savored again Evka Svobodová, who was petite, beautiful, and pleasingly fragrant. As had been their practice before, they put up a tent bed made of quilts and sheets, within which Vandelli enjoyed in a concentrated way the body and intimate fragrance of the woman. Later that year he returned to Modena to celebrate the investiture of Francesco, who upon his father’s death had become Duke Francesco V of Austria-Este.

1848. Vandelli was again in Munich and again grappling