The first time I saw that lump bulging in my father’s stomach, I thought God had granted a miracle and turned my father into the first man to grow a baby. My father would birth that baby, which would, no doubt, be a girl and grow up to be a mother with daughters of her own. My house would once again be filled with mothers and sisters. But that was before I discovered that God doesn’t grant miracles and a lump growing in a man’s stomach is never a sign of life, but only a sign of sick.

So, I felt sorry for that lady—that follower of that madman friar—because she hadn’t yet learned the truth that God doesn’t grant miracles, and it’s a painful thing to learn, isn’t it?

“Yes, yes!” I cried, throwing one arm in the air and rolling my eyes back into my head just like that boy cured of demons in the Gospels. “I feel the Lord!” As the woman fell to her knees to thank God for leading me to salvation, she released my face. I stumbled backward and dropped to the ground among the forest of feet and legs.

“Boy!” the woman cried. “Help that boy, he’s fainted!”

I darted through the undergrowth of legs and weeds of shadows, my sketchbook held tight to my chest. I pushed my way to the edge of the fire. Where was the painting? A mirror, a stack of books, the lid of a harpsichord . . . There! Almost gone, but her face still intact. With my left hand—I could still paint without a left hand—I reached toward the flames, but the bonfire crinkled, and one side collapsed. Ash blanketed me. I coughed and looked over at the Botticelli—or, rather, where it had once been. Now, it was nothing but cinder.

It didn’t take long to find Perugino waiting at the edge of the piazza. “Where’s the Botticelli?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He put his arm around my shoulders and hurried us out of the square. I knew I wasn’t supposed to—Lot’s wife, Sodom, salt and all—but I did look back. How many pieces of art were going up in flames that night?

After my mother died, I’d found my father in his studio, adding gold leaf to a picture of the Holy Family. The rest of court was mourning up at the palace, so I asked, “What are you doing down here?”

And he replied, “Painting the world as it should be, instead of as it is.”