Proof was that woman trying to wrench my sketchbook from my hands, as flames wrapped around that Botticelli portrait. I was running out of time to save it, so I looked up at the woman and offered my best smile—the crooked one where only one of my dimples shows—and said, “These are devotional images, my lady. Madonnas, mainly.”

“Madonnas?” Several men crowded around. I felt like I was standing in the bottom of a well with walls made of strange followers of that madman friar.

“What else would a boy draw?” I pulled out my sketchbook and riffled through the pages. I was telling the truth—sort of. It was a book of Madonnas—mostly. I stopped where I knew there were several pretty Madonnas in a row. “Nothing but drawings of the most perfect woman in the world.”

“And nudes!” that woman cried, pulling a page out of the back.

The drawing was a study of the pagan Greek goddess Aphrodite, not exactly proper subject matter for such a religious gathering. “That’s how you draw a Madonna,” I said, backing into a thick man blocking my escape. “You draw the natural body first and add clothes later.”

“One way or another, those drawings are going in.” The woman grabbed my neck and pushed me toward the fire.

If she made me burn my sketchbook, could I re-create the drawings inside? No. A drawing doesn’t only capture a scene, but a particular moment in an artist’s career, and that moment is always changing. As Leonardo said, it’s like stepping into a river as the water rushes by; it’s never the same river twice. (All right, yes, Leonardo was paraphrasing Heraclitus, but so what if I prefer to credit the master from Vinci over a notoriously malcontent Greek?)

I glanced toward the Botticelli—where is it? There. A glimmer of her pale face. I could still save it, but how many people were ahead of me in that line, waiting to throw their belongings into the flames? Fifteen, twenty? Why was the line moving so slowly? And why was the fire burning so hot? Smoke seeped into my nose and mouth. My eyes started to sting.

At the sight of tears on a boy’s cheek, the woman softened. “Where are your parents?”

I turned my large, round eyes up—I knew that they would reflect the fire quite dramatically—and sighed. “Both gone into the great sea, signora.”

“Why . . .” Her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t have anyone to show you better.”

I shook my head.

She took my face in her hands and said, “Give your sinful things to God. Only then will He will save you—save us all—in a sea of miracles.” Her face shone bright with faith. Those tears in her eyes were tears of hope. I felt sorry for her.