“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she said, nudging me. “Maybe henceforth, historical records will be filled with tales of wives and daughters and polite painters of Madonnas. Besides, maybe Pope Leo will only lock these rooms away like my father did to the old Borgia rooms. Maybe Leo will move downstairs and tear down the Pinturicchio frescoes instead.”

I found a speck of green paint on my fingernail. I didn’t bother to try and pick it off. No matter how often I tried, it always came back. “Even if this pope does decide to save my walls and move back downstairs, some future pope will only lock his new frescoes away, move up here, destroy mine, and the cycle will continue, pope after pope, painter after forgotten painter.”

“Oh come, now, Raphael, you’re usually such an optimist. Don’t leave me without a hint of hope.”

Sometime around then—I don’t know when—a throat cleared, and we turned to see Bramante standing in the doorway. Felice got up, brushed off her skirts, and curtseyed. Then, she was gone. (Did you know that she became a widow again a couple of years ago? In the will, her Orsini husband left her in charge of the family estate, and why not? No man could manage it better. Independent and wealthy, she’ll never have to marry again. I still see her sometimes, striding across a piazza, head high, widow’s weeds swishing.)

Bramante waited for Felice’s footsteps to fade before speaking. “I spoke to His Holiness.”

Those two words evoked the image of Julius for me. It would take years before the picture in my head matched reality; it still doesn’t sometimes.

“It’s good news,” Bramante went on. “His Holiness promised that I can keep my position as long as God will allow, and as long as I have my position, you have yours. And, as you know, with a new pope there will come new turns, new alliances, new opportunities . . .”

I nodded and offered a weak smile. At least I could tell Margherita there was still hope.

“So, don’t worry, my young countryman,” Bramante said, standing over me and staring up at my fresco. “Now, all I have to do is outlive the pope.”

Chapter LXI

Chapter LXI

Spring 1514

You can’t give up now,” Chigi said, as we waited for Bramante’s coffin to make its way down the nave of Old St. Peter’s. It’s ironic—isn’t it?—that the architect was being buried inside the same building that he’d been assigned to destroy and rebuild.

“I thought you wanted me to give up the Vatican and spend all my days covering your villa in paint,” I whispered back, as Pope Leo led the funeral procession down the aisle.