“Because of that marble cupid you sold him. Told him it was a Roman antique?”

“He’s still angry about that?”

“You sold him a forgery. Wouldn’t you still be angry about that? ”

“It was my broker’s idea.”

“Beh, he blames you.”

“What about Bramante?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Don’t you dine on Chianti and fresh moray every evening?”

I laughed. “Can you imagine sharing a drink with Bramante?”

“What about your assistants?”

“Who? Lotto and Sodoma?”

“And the others.”

“I like them, but they’re my employees, and they treat me as such.”

He sighed. “Granacci started treating me like I was his boss. It was awful.” Even though he was obscured in shadow, I could now see him cork his flask and roll it across the boards to me. It landed against my leg. I picked it up—small, round, glass, with a crest etched into one side. I ran my thumb over that crest: five balls in a pointed semicircle with a crown on top. The Medici crest. I said, “You really grew up at the Medici palace, didn’t you?”

“Grew up is an exaggeration.” I could hear the shrug in his tone. “Lived there from fourteen to . . . about four or five years.”

I uncorked the flask and sniffed it. Wine so watered it smelled pink. “By the time I got to Florence, Il Magnifico had been gone a long time. What was he like?”

“You know how Leonardo from Vinci is impossible to describe without meeting him?”

“Of course.” I took a drink. The wine was warm, smooth, and soft.

“Same with Il Magnifico.” It surprised me—and gave me hope—when he kept talking unprompted. “He had enormous expectations, especially for his children. I’m lucky I wasn’t one of his real sons; it would’ve been impossible to live up to his hopes.” Despite his words, I could hear the longing in his tone. No matter what Michelangelo said, he’d wanted to be a Medici son. I wasn’t surprised when he changed the subject. “What about your family. Where are they?”

“Gone.”

“North?”

“Dead.” I recorked the flask and rolled it back. “My mother and sister died when I was eight. My father when I was eleven.”

“You’re an orphan?”

“I hate that word. Orfano. And it can’t only be my own bias; objectively it’s an ugly word, starting with that awkward o and that f in the middle interrupting the flow. It sounds like a curse.” I barked out an awful whoop that echoed awkwardly through the empty chapel. It was supposed to be a laugh.

He didn’t laugh with me. “Your entire family is gone?”

“I have an uncle. And . . .” Who else, who else? “My father’s old assistant.”

“Your father’s old assistant.” The way he said it made it sound pathetic.