I was so distracted by the crumbling city that I didn’t even think to count my steps. I don’t know whether I arrived at the Vatican on a count of four, eight, or even an unlucky fifteen, but I marched right up to the entrance and demanded the guards take me to His Holiness at once, as confident as if I’d landed on a perfect number seven without having to try twice. (Oh, how I miss being young. With age comes such fear, doesn’t it? I used to think that knowledge would make me more sure of myself, but instead, knowledge only feeds fears founded in truth: things can—and do—go wrong. Like the other day, I was overcome with fear that someone would steal my newest portrait. The rest of my day spiraled as I tried to figure out how to prevent the unpreventable. I painted my name on a band on the lady’s arm, thinking that it would prevent the imaginary thieves from taking credit for my work, but that didn’t make me feel better because, beh . . . fires, floods, storms that blow wooden panels to splinters . . . Solve one worry and there’s always another waiting.) But back then, I was still young and didn’t let the guards’ suspicious looks deter me. No. I flashed my summons from the pope and told them—with a smile, sì certo—that if they didn’t take me to him, I would tell His Holiness that it was they who had ripped my shirt and roughed me up so. They escorted me inside—that was easier than I’d thought; Rome isn’t so scary—and when the pope’s steward told the guards that we would find His Holiness in the Sistine Chapel, I felt a thrill. The pope was waiting for me inside the Sistine. This went beyond the luck of Urbino; the Fates of Old must be guiding my step.

Do you remember the first time you entered the Sistine? Did you lose your breath, too? That long, slender, undivided chapel feels eternally large. And painted along the walls are those famous frescoes. They’d been painted, what? Forty years before? And yet, back then, they were still some of the most modern paintings on the peninsula. Which is your favorite? Wait, let me guess. You favor the grand architecture in Rosselli’s Last Supper. No, I know, your soul can’t turn away from the watery landscape in Domenico Ghirlandaio’s mystic Calling of the Apostles. Don’t tell me that you prefer Perugino’s Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter; I thought you’d be more provocative than that. My favorite is Botticelli’s Temptations of Christ; have you ever seen a temptation with so few references to suffering and so much focus on beauty? Nor have I.