Now, it was time to work. I only had a small tondo, but as Plato said, “Better a little well done, then a great deal imperfectly.” Yes, the designs were already dictated, but like any artist worth his wine, I was determined to improve upon them. I maintained Justice’s traditional pose—right arm raised and wielding a sword, the left holding a scale—but twisted her knees hard like a Michelangelo. I retained the prescribed clouds but made the putti weightier. I used the suggested color scheme—golds, creams, purples, green, red—but to find the best tints and tones for the light in that room, I spent days sticking chips of colors on the ceiling and lying on the scaffolding to watch the sunlight sweep along them like a boy watches clouds cross the sky. I also threw out the face of Justice in the dictated designs. I knew who I wanted to use as my model, but when I tried to recall her . . . Was her nose straight or did it curve at the end? Was it as small as I remembered or was that a trick of my imagination? How did her cheeks turn? I searched the foggy backwaters of memory, but everything was a haze.

Was even the memory of my mother gone?

I drew an idealized face: high forehead, arching brows, down-turned eyes, straight nose, curved lip, strong chin, but at least I managed to capture a bit of her spirit in that image—kind, yet strict, loving in her demands, fair in her delivery of justice, a spirit powerful enough to bend the entire world toward beauty.

But my opinion didn’t matter, did it? Artists’ opinions never matter, do they? No. It’s only the opinion of the patron that counts, so in this case, the only opinion that mattered was that of the pope.

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXI

1509

The pope is coming! The pope is coming! To view our work, the pope is coming!” You’ve never seen tarps bundled so hastily, buckets stored so quickly, or scaffolding pulled down in such a rush. Mother Mary forbid the pope see that frescoing took work.

“Why didn’t I paint faster?”

“I haven’t had time to add the gold leaf yet.”

“Can he hang me for painting ugly?”