Are you the sort of person who can do eight things at once— painting, eating, squashing a bug with your heel, all while carrying on a conversation? Have you ever seen Leonardo da Vinci paint with one hand, play a lute with the other, all while dancing and telling a joke? I’m no juggler. If I’m focused on something, I focus only on it. The rest of the world fades away. I used to think that everyone was the same as me, but now I know better. Sometimes, I wish we all functioned the same, so we didn’t have to explain ourselves to one another. If we all acted the same, thought the same, were the same, then life would be simpler. Life as it should be . . . Right?

“Rafa!”

I turned to face Tessa, standing in the doorway, looking annoyed. She was a servant from the duke’s quarters in Urbino who’d come with me to keep my house in the Castello. I said, “You’ll have poetry this evening, mia cara, but right now . . .” I turned back to my painting, tugged up both sleeves, rolled my wrist—uno, due, tre . . .

“You said you were taking me to church today,” her voice went up like a question.

I stared blankly. Then, oh! I knocked over my tray. “Persephone!” How was I supposed to become the greatest painter, if I couldn’t even keep a tray steady? I scrambled to pick up my brushes and began reordering them from shortest to longest.

“Rafa, per favore, amore, I know you’re nervous . . .”

“I’m not nervous.”

Sì certo, I was nervous. I was twenty-one years old, and after years of painting Madonna after Madonna after Madonna, I’d finally unveiled a work that had captured attention. And today, my former teacher, Perugino, was coming to view that work. Today, I would find out: would he finally call me maestro? Or not. I placed the brushes back on the tray in a neat row. I straightened the first brush, then another and another.

Tessa sighed. “Rafa, today’s more important than . . .”

“I know how important today is,” I said, straightening the last two brushes and crossing to the mirror. I tucked my hair behind both ears, ran my fingers across my eyebrows, and checked my nose and mouth for dregs. Yes, people call me handsome (high forehead, oval eyes, strong jaw, the whole traditional look), but—as my mother always said—handsomeness without cleanliness is wasted.