Gran Maestro

Gran Maestro is a Venetian head waiter, veteran, and confidant of Richard Cantwell. As the presiding figure of their invented military order, he turns shared memories into an ongoing fellowship: part private joke, part bond between men who fought for the same country. His attention to Cantwell and later welcome of Renata make him a supporting presence through several of the Colonel’s Venetian encounters.

Identity and Presence

Gran Maestro first appears in the bar in the formal attire of a head waiter. The narration presents his handsome appearance as an expression of character: his smile seems to begin within him and reach his face openly. His long, straight nose, kind and lively eyes, and white hair mark him as a man of the Veneto and as an older contemporary of Cantwell, by two years.

His greeting gives physical form to their intimacy. He approaches with affection and a conspiratorial air, then reaches out a large, strong, carefully kept hand. Cantwell extends a hand altered by old wounds. The handshake joins two men whose history includes shared secrets, military service, and attachment to a country both had defended in their youth. Gran Maestro’s warmth is personal, but it also rests on recognition between veterans.

The Order and Their Shared Past

Gran Maestro and Cantwell founded the Order through conversation. Its full name, El Ordine Militar, Nobile y Espirituoso de los Caballeros de Brusadelli, is Spanish: both men spoke the language and chose it as the language in which to name their invention. The organization is explicitly fictitious. Its elaborate title invokes a notorious Milanese profiteer, whose public legal dispute with his young wife had become the basis for the founders’ irreverent naming choice.

Behind the joke lies a specific military history. Gran Maestro had served as an infantry sergeant and Cantwell as a lieutenant. They had fought at Pasubio, Grappa, and the Piave River, and also in the earlier fighting on the Isonzo River and Carso. The narration associates their shame about the latter campaigns with the men who ordered them; Cantwell, in particular, remembers them as a technical lesson. The Order gives the two veterans a small, self-created institution through which they can preserve their companionship without pretending that every part of their service was honorable. It has only five members.

Gran Maestro’s stewardship combines ceremony with comic judgment. He reports that the cook at the Magnificent has been raised to the rank of Commendatore after claiming to have comported himself as a man three times on his fiftieth birthday. Gran Maestro accepts the account because he considers the cook incapable of lying, while Cantwell warns that the subject calls for caution about credibility. The exchange makes the Order’s mock grandeur tangible: its ranks are formally bestowed, but its rituals remain governed by the intimate teasing and trust of its founders.

Friendship with Cantwell

Their friendship includes frankness as well as loyalty. When Gran Maestro asks after Cantwell’s health, Cantwell initially describes it as wonderful apart from ulcers and a small cardiac condition. Gran Maestro’s response makes clear that the heart problem is new information to him: Cantwell had previously mentioned only the ulcers. The moment briefly shifts their familiar exchange from joking fellowship to concern, showing that even close friends can be kept from knowledge that matters deeply to them.

Gran Maestro’s care is also expressed through hospitality. As Cantwell embarks, a waiter carries the message that Gran Maestro has given him a bottle of wine. Cantwell tells the waiter to thank him properly and says Gran Maestro cannot give it to him, but the gift still travels with the party. Later, Gran Maestro has Cantwell’s Valpolicella ready in large two-litre wicker containers, accompanied by a decanter. Cantwell’s wish that he could give Gran Maestro a regiment links this ordinary service back to their shared military world: the Colonel can offer only an imaginary command, while his friend continues to provide the welcome and provisions he can actually give.

Welcome to Renata and Narrative Role

Gran Maestro’s circle is not closed to Cantwell alone. When Renata is present at breakfast, he looks at her and experiences an affectionate response described as a sudden, buoyant movement of the heart. The description places her within the emotional world of the two old friends before the Order formally admits her. His immediate warmth toward her carries the same openness associated with his greeting of Cantwell, but now it helps make the Colonel’s relationship with Renata part of a shared social life in Venice.

He later tells Renata that she is a member of the Order by war merit. Although she has not yet received her parchment, he appoints her Super Honorary Secretary and instructs Cantwell to reveal the Order’s secrets. The appointment extends the men’s private invention into a new relationship: Renata is welcomed not as an observer but as a participant, with Cantwell charged to explain what membership means. Gran Maestro’s mock-official language preserves the Order’s playful style while making the welcome unmistakable.

Across these encounters, Gran Maestro serves as Cantwell’s old comrade, host, and custodian of their invented institution. The Order’s fictitious rank and ceremony do not erase the reality beneath them: shared service, remembered errors, practical generosity, and enduring affection. By admitting Renata, he also helps connect Cantwell’s past to the intimate life he is making in Venice.