Minerva lit a cigarette, snapped her lighter shut, squinted at it. ‘Yeah. Baroque. Brave and baroque. Very male, lots of macho, a man’s-man, and of course a genius; anyway I think so. Nothing weak. Do you know, at age fifteen he had seven notches cut into the stock of his rifle? He’s a deadly shot.’

‘Friends of the family?’

‘No, American GIs. Verona, June 1945. He was part of a happy band of faithful Fascist kids who swore to defend the patrie … until Benito got strung up at the gas-station and then they just swapped hats and joined the Commies. He was the best little sniper in the group. Swears he had a round dozen but only got around to marking up the first seven. He was still in short pants.’

Cuckoo worriedly adjusted her velvet bow. ‘He sounds hellish. I’m absolutely terrified! How can you possibly like him? Your own soldiers, really Minna.’

‘Oh, what the hell. It was wartime. Things are different then. All fair and so on. You know? And he was a kid. They thought they were being patriotic … it was really just for the kicks. But I’ll tell you, he was the only member of that whole goddamned family who was really nice to me when I married Volturino. They just hated my guts, each and every one, but they needed the loot and I brought plenty in my goodie-bag. They were ruined; Fascist to the hair line and beyond, thrown out of every position they’d held; if it hadn’t been for me and the Vatican who did a nifty bit of smoothing over, they’d have been destroyed. But I restored that damned great Palazzo, got the factory rebuilt for the fizzy water, got the deal through with Bloomingdale’s and floated Manhattan Island in Grottorosso Water; and still they hated my guts. Except for Umberto who was dear, he really was. I made him laugh, and I was tough … he likes that, tough women; and I was as tough as anyone he’d ever met. I had to be, in that family; tough “Zia Minerva”.’ She blew a pair of smoke rings into the still air. ‘It was the chapel, of course, which finally did it. They never forgave me for that. A crummy goddamned little chapel, covered in dust, peeling with damp, cracks all over, some tatty old frescoes not even finished, pigeon shit everywhere. So what do I do? Kind lady, I restore it all. Got a great team up from Rome, kids I knew; when they’d finished it looked like the Doge’s Palace. Terrific! And what happened? Screams and shrieks. A bloody Greek funeral, beating of breasts, sobs and wails, rolling of eyes, you have never, in your vie, seen such hysteria!’

She leant over and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘How the hell did I know it was Giotto? I didn’t know Giotto from Osso Bucco in those days, for God’s sake!’ She grinned wryly. ‘I learned. But Umberto was just darling, he laughed so much he threw up. Said I should try my hand with the Foro Romano: I loved him for that.’