IN VITRO VERITAS

More than half a century ago, in a dusty Roman library, men of science and men of faith gathered together to unlock the mysteries of female fertility. The answer: urine from the brides of Christ. And lo, those nuns gaveth

- KEZIAH WEIR

ON A SPRING day in Rome, 1957-the season of Pope Pius XII's Ash Wednesday Mass, wisteria blooming by the Spanish Steps-30-year-old Bruno Lunenfeld gave one hell of a presentation. What he said had the potential to shape the course of history in ways even the Vatican couldn't foresee.

Inside an imposing L-shaped building that stretched down Via Casilina and then along Via L'Aquila, in a wood-paneled library distinguished by rows of leather-bound books and cream floor tiles spangled with stars, the dozen or so board members of a pharmaceutical company listened as Lunenfeld described his findings. For four years he had been developing a therapy that would induce ovulation in women struggling with infertility. What he needed now was the support of the Istituto Farmacologico Serono, whose own staff scientist, Piero Donini, had been working on a similar endeavor, and who had facilitated Lunenfeld's trip from Israel to Rome. The men listened politely, but at the end of the presentation they told him, with regret, that they couldn't help. They believed certain hurdles to be insurmountable. It seemed unlikely, for instance, that Serono would be able to procure the vast quantities of one specific essential substance without which the drug couldn't be made.

Lunenfeld left the library. Nearly 70 years later, looking back, he won't be able to remember whether or not he was crying. What he does recall is that a member of the board by the name of Don Giulio Pacelli-pictures will show the Italian prince to have had the strong features and thick dark hair, receding sharply at the temples, of a Fellini heartthrob-approached him in his despair. Lunenfeld wasn't Italian or Catholic. He didn't realize the currency of Pacelli's name in a city like Rome and certainly couldn't have understood his connection to the pope. Still, the prince had something else to offer, equally potent and instantly recognizable: belief.