Illustrious people of great fame and renowned reputation rarely seem to live up to it in the flesh, do they? Well, my Pope being the exception—he was the only man I knew whose fleshly presence dwarfed his rank. But for the most part, people of renown were something of a disappointment when one actually met them. As Maestro Botticelli bowed to kiss my Pope’s ring in the great sala, I couldn’t help but think that he looked nothing like a titan of art whose brush had been kissed by God. He looked like a worn-out man of fifty with pouches under his eyes and gray heavily streaking his hair, and I could hardly understand his rough Florentine dialect as he mumbled his greetings.

“We are honored to receive you,” Rodrigo said, expansive. In truth, I think Maestro Botticelli could have done without the honor—he was eyeing Rodrigo as though he’d been put into a cage with a wolf. I’d scolded my Pope when he told me Maestro Botticelli was passing through Rome on a recent journey and had been commanded to present himself at the Vatican to discuss the possibility of painting me. “Rodrigo, really. He’s a follower of Fra Savonarola and all his rantings about the fleshly evils of the world. If he’s renounced the painting of sinful subjects, do you really think he wants to paint the Pope’s concubine?”

“Bah, he’ll be delighted,” Rodrigo returned. And then added a more ominous “If he knows what’s good for him.”

My Pope was all charm now, sitting through the last of his petitioners as the morning passed, then finally rising with a gesture of dismissal and ushering the artist to follow him out of the informal sala. “I fear I’ve a few more appointments this afternoon, Maestro Botticelli—God’s work is never done! Do accompany me, and we can talk further about this portrait of Madonna Giulia . . .” The rest of us trailed after my Pope: myself holding the gilt leather leash of my little pet goat, Leonello trotting at both our heels, an entourage of cardinals and bishops and their hangers-on gathering like a tail. I was the only woman, but I was used to that within the halls of the Vatican.

“Perhaps you’d like to see the frescoes in Our private apartments, Maestro Botticelli?” Rodrigo was saying warmly. “Maestro Pinturicchio has done splendid work, though he does have one figure left to paint in the Resurrection—”

“Is that figure—Madonna Giulia? In a Resurrection?” Maestro Botticelli looked as though he were about to choke on the sacrilege of it all.

“No.” I smiled, coming up beside his other elbow. “It’s the Holy Father who is to sit for Pinturicchio this afternoon. He’s been putting it off for months. All my sitting is done, thank the Holy Virgin.”