Applying pigment into fresco, on the other hand, is terrifying. You get one chance—one day—when the plaster is wet, and once it dries, you can’t change it. And you can’t mix colors in fresco, either; they’ll muck brown. During the first hours of frescoing, when the plaster’s so wet that it doesn’t want to absorb pigment, you must press hard with a dry brush, but not so hard that you destroy your smooth surface. Once your basic blocks of color are drawn in and the plaster starts to dry, build up your colors with quick, confident strokes—a hundred brushstrokes a minute; your arm will never burn like it does during this stage of frescoing. I don’t even stop for pulling up sleeves and rolling wrists during this stage; there isn’t time. Near the end of the drying process, the plaster laps up paint like parched soil, and your brushstrokes must be short and true because they harden fast as polish.

As dusk dropped that winter day and the plaster dried hard, I touched in the final bit of Plato’s white beard; if I’d needed one more stroke, I wouldn’t have made it. I lowered my brush; my arm—shoulder to fingertips—throbbed. My eyes scanned the blue sky and clouds under that central arch all the way down to Plato’s aging face and scraggly beard . . .

I don’t want to boast about how those crowds reacted whenever I finished a new giornata. Do you like talking about the reception of your work, or do you prefer when someone else does the lauding? But, for context’s sake, I should provide a couple of details to help you understand how I felt in those days. Please, forgive me. I’ll be brief. I promise.

Imperia said things like, “He’s too good. Tell the pope to give that man a set of red robes.” (Promoting me to cardinal? Honestly? Yes, it was a nice fantasy with which to rock myself to sleep at night, but it’s not as if I ever believed it would happen. I didn’t. I swear.)

Then, Cardinal Riario took off his own red hat and tossed it to Lorenzo Lotto, who plopped it on my head. “Why stop at cardinal?” Riario cried. “Let’s make him the first painter pope!” (That’s so ridiculous that I can’t even look at you when I say it, but that was the suggestion—not by me, by others—so now perhaps you can start to understand why some of it was going to my head.)

“He can’t be cardinal or pope,” called Cardinal Bibbiena. “He’s marrying my niece.”

“I’m not marrying anyone,” I called over the cacophony. “Not until I achieve perfection.”

And Guillaume grinned. “Mais oui, at this rate, mon ami, that won’t be long.”

Basta. I’m finished. They liked what I was doing. You don’t need more than that.

The only reason I even tell you all of this is so that you understand that, like my mother, I was beginning to suspect that what I had birthed might have been well worth all that pain.