I hadn’t been back to Florence in seven years—seven years! Even after the Florentines burned that madman friar at the stake, same as he’d burned their Botticellis—an irony that still gives me no end of joy—and fashioned their city into a modern republic, I’d been too afraid to return. But then, I heard a rumor about a new statue unveiled in Florence that, according to travelers along the pilgrimage route, “would change art forever.” One young woman—ears so pointed she could’ve been a fairy—told me that it had been made by the same sculptor who’d carved his name into his Roman Pietà. No matter what he says now, no one knew his name back then, even though we’d all heard of his Pietà: a marble masterpiece of the Virgin Mary cradling the crucified Christ. I hadn’t been to Rome, so I hadn’t seen it yet, but that sculptor was already my hero. According to rumors, he’d carved his name into the strap crossing the Madonna’s chest: Such and such from Florence carved this. Who had ever heard of such arrogance, such boasting, such . . . brilliance? Che grande! Yes, even at the time, I recognized the irony that although we’d heard about the act of signing his work, we couldn’t remember his name, but still, I’d followed his lead and painted my own name onto my Marriage of the Virgin altarpiece, too. (On the cornice of the temple in the background: “Raphael Urbinas 1503.”)

Where am I in the story, again? Ah yes . . . Not even the ghosts of Florence could keep me from seeing that sculptor’s new statue.

As I neared the city, the cathedral’s terra-cotta dome crested over the horizon first. It was late in the day, so the sky was turning warm golden pink. (If you want to make such a color, grind up the dried bodies of female Chermes insects, add a bit of white lead and a touch of yellow—ochre over orpiment—and a thin layer gold leaf over the top.) The Arno River reflected the pink-orange sky and distant violet mountains. No wonder art had grown back so quickly after that madman friar’s execution: the city looked perfect as any painting I could imagine.