Three men in a car ...

We are standing at the Southern end of an immense square, rather narrow, but at least half a kilometer long. In its interior, fountains and an obelisk are its main accoutrements, whereas its longsides are embellished with churches and other elaborate buildings from the baroque and renaissance epochs. What on earth are we doing here, on this slightly cloudy day of April? This rectangular vastness is called “Piazza de Navona” and is located amidst the myriad of buildings and small streets constituting the Renaissance quarters of Rome; the most charming part of the eternal city, if you query my views. We are here on a quest, to locate the estate of a formidable Vatican fonctionnaire, Cardinal Merk Sittich III von Ems  (1533-95), one of the richest and most influential cardinals of his time.  You are of course already familiar with this Emser cardinal, from an earlier post in this series ( Celestial Protection ). But now is the time to add some facts to fiction! If you look c...