But not when the woman being alluring was seventeen-year-old Lucrezia Borgia, Countess of Pesaro, and when the object of her allurement wasn’t the Count of Pesaro, but my older brother Alessandro Farnese.

“You must be sure to sit beside me when the singers begin,” Lucrezia was saying, having worked her soft little hand into the crook of Sandro’s elbow as they stood by a blaze of rosebushes in the Vatican gardens. “These musical afternoons are always so dull, Cardinal Farnese. Giulia!” she cried, catching sight of me. “I’d forgotten your brother could be so amusing!”

“Yes, he’s quite the jester.” I crossed the stretch of grass to join them, Leonello trailing behind me as usual. “Sandro, don’t tell me the Holy Father released you already?”

“He’s released a few of us. I believe Cardinal Zeno and one or two others were detained for some additional shouting.”

Whenever my Pope hosted one of these musical afternoons to follow a consistory or a more informal meeting of his cardinals, it was a sure sign there was shouting to be done beforehand. If the order of the day was merely business as usual, Rodrigo would harangue his cardinals and hand out orders to his archbishops, and may the Holy Virgin have mercy on them if they didn’t get immediately to work. But if my Pope had a difficult measure to force down unwilling throats, he was sure to detain his churchmen after the day’s business in the gardens of the Vatican. A dozen furious-faced cardinals and bishops would come stamping down among the grass and the rosebushes, muttering of my Pope’s high-handedness, but before they had the opportunity to stew in their own resentment, they would be met by refreshments and wine. Not to mention a dozen women headed by Lucrezia and myself, all of us ordered to laugh and to charm until the storms passed and all those cross old cardinals and bishops went home mellow with wine and music.

“So why didn’t the Holy Father keep you behind for a little shouting, Sandro?” I took my brother’s other arm. “He should shout at you—you’re the most useless fellow in the whole College!”

“True.” Sandro doffed his scarlet cardinal’s hat modestly. “But I’m the most entertaining. Just this afternoon I made everyone’s sides ache when I trotted out that old joke about the friar and the trout. Well, Cardinal Carafa didn’t laugh. But I did say the trout looked like him . . .”