TheCodeBreakers
" His landlady liked to strum on her
guitar, and "none but drivers of bullock-carts could, for a single night,
stand the music of the Lady della Luna." The kitchen girl "hangs my
linen and that of the whole family over my balcony for drying, and then,
with laudable resolution, sets to ironing it on my writing-table."
More troubles faced him at the Archivio General. It consists of an old
castle, with crenellated walls pierced by loopholes, surrounded by deep
moats and drawbridges. Its 46 rooms contain more than 100,000
bundles, or legajos, in each of which are filed from 10 to 100 documents,
making a total of several million. From this staggering accumulation
Bergenroth had to select the pertinent items. It was hard for him even to
get at them. When Spain's archives administration finally granted him
entree, the crabbed Renaissance semiuncials made long and dogged
practice necessary before he could read the handwriting. Indeed, the
annaabi.ee 
