Venice - Handshouts

[robertod]

What the investigators know about the Simulacrum in Venice:

1) The last words of Prof. Julius Smith, before they left London.

"Paris was where the statue was dismembered. The owner was a noble, Comte Fenalik, who lost it just prior to the French Revolution. Some part of it may still be in France. Napoleon’s soldiers carried a piece into Venice when they invaded that city. Another fragment made its way to Trieste at the same time. I don´t know what became of it, I suggest you look up Johann Winckelmann at the museum there. There may be a piece in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Start at the National Museum of Belgrade. Dr. Milovan Todorovic is the curator.
One part was lost near Sofia during the Bulgarian War in 1875. At that time things of value were hidden from the invaders, so it may be buried somewhere. The final piece was in circulation in Paris just after the Great War, and was sold to someone from Milan. I don´t know who.
Please collect the statue pieces and destroy them. The only one sure way is to take it back to its original home, a place in Constantinople known as the Shunned Mosque. A ritual which will destroy it utterly is included in a set of documents known as the Sedefkar Scrolls, but I have been unable to consult them."
His voice nearly gone, he begs them to do this for him.
Go. Go quickly, God help you."

2) A piece of information they got in Paris, at the library.
The Devil’s Simulare, an illuminated Latin manuscript, may de referred to the Sedefkar Simulacrum. It was written by an anonymous Cistercian monk around 1260, and bound as a book in Venice in 1505. The book is considered apocrypha and the work of a mad cleric. It is known of in occult circles but the only known copy was kept in the church of San Maria Celeste in Venice.

[robertod]

3) The leg that may belong to the Simulacrum was probably in a statue of St. Isidore in the Basilica of San marco . The statue is being restored under the responsibility of Mr. Stagliani, Maria's deceased father and an artist called Giovanni Carraro, known as Nanni. The priest of the basilica provided the addresses of both. Meanwhile, the local fascist blackskirts questioned the hotel about the investigators presence in Venice.