“Burn your mirrors, your dresses, your paintings, your books,” a grim voice called over the crowd. “If you don’t repent, this city shall be no more than a well of blood, a den of thieves, a house of poverty.” Standing atop a platform next to the bonfire was—did you guess?—Fra Girolamo Savonarola. (Mi dispiace, that name makes a lot of people uneasy. If you don’t like it, I won’t repeat it again. I promise.) Did you ever visit Florence during that madman friar’s rule? Ah, you missed quite a spectacle. That night, he was wearing dark robes with a heavy hood pulled low over his forehead, shadowing deep-set eyes, long nose, angular cheeks. He waved his arms like a conductor and spoke in a melodious rhythm. “If we do not cleanse ourselves of sin, the sword of the Lord will come down upon us all, quickly and soon!”

I pressed my hands over my ears to keep from being entranced and pushed toward the flames. Where was that Botticelli? There. The wood panel looked thick and hard like oak. That was good, but flames were clawing at the wood, digging ragged caves of orange cinder around the edges. I reached for the portrait. Flames tickled my fingers. I yanked back. Burned arm hair smells a lot like dead ermine.

“The line for atonement is there, son,” a woman said, face smudged with ash.

“I’m not here to . . .” thankfully, I swallowed the word “atone” and instead said, “I don’t have anything to give.” I turned back to the Botticelli. A crack filled with bubbling orange cinder was splitting the portrait in two.

“But your pictures . . .” The woman grabbed the strap of my traveling bag.

“These are nothing,” I said, making my voice calm as creamy white brushed flat on treated wood. “Only crude drawings.”

“Sinner.” I swear that woman’s tongue flicked out, purple and forked, like a snake. (All right, perhaps that was only my imagination, but that’s how I remember it, so that’s the way I tell it.) In that moment, oh, how I regretted coming to Florence.