Jeanne Kalogridis - Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

I have tried to deal with His Holiness as with Pico. But Alexander is too canny, too well guarded. There is no hope we can replace him with one more sympathetic to our aims .

The prophet’s time is waning too quickly, and my own has not yet come. I can no longer rely on papal troops; I have not enough friends in the Signoria. But I will not surrender my hopes! There is still a way. Give the prophet his miracle .

If that fails, then we must find a way, quickly, to be palatable to the Signoria and the people. If Savonarola is cast in the role of devil, then I must be presented as a savior. Consider this, and give me your thoughts .

In the studio at Santissima Annunziata, I stared at the portrait on the easel. The paint was still drying-a coating of the palest shell pink, which brought a gentle bloom to my cheeks and lips-so I dared not touch it, though my finger hovered, yearning, over a spot in the hollow of my neck.

“There is a bit of blue there,” I said. And green; the merest hint of a vein lurking beneath the skin. I followed the line with my finger; I felt that if I could set it down on the panel, I would feel my own pulse. “It looks as though I’m alive.”

Leonardo smiled. “Have you not noticed it before? At times, I think I can see it beating. Your skin is quite translucent there.”

“Of course not. I have never stared in the mirror that long.”

“A pity,” he said, without a trace of mockery. “It seems that those who possess the greatest beauty appreciate it the least.”

He spoke so honestly that I was embarrassed; I changed the subject at once. “I will sit now.”

And, as always, before I sat for him, I recited the letter. He listened, frowning slightly, and when I finished, he said, “They have grown desperate. If Savonarola does not get his miracle, they will feed him to the wolves and try another strategy. He will never give up.”

“And he-whoever he is-wants to seize control of Florence.” I paused. “Who is he? I already know that he is one of the Pazzi, but I want to understand why he craves power.”

Leonardo did not answer immediately.

I pressed. “How can it hurt for me to know these things? If I’m captured, I’m already likely to be killed because I know of these letters. After all, I know that this man wanted to kill the Pope; I know that Ascanio Sforza and his brother Ludovico are involved.”

He studied me a moment, then let go a small sigh. We both knew that I was right. “His name is Salvatore. He is the illegitimate son of Francesco de’ Pazzi,” he answered. “He was perhaps ten years old at the time of Giuliano’s murder, when many of his family were executed by Lorenzo and the rest were exiled. They lost everything: their possessions, their lands… He and his mother fled to Rome.

“Most of the Pazzi are good, honorable people; they had been horribly wronged by Lorenzo, and there was a good deal of bitterness. But they simply wanted to return to Florence, to their ancestral home.

“In the case of Salvatore, however-his mother instilled him with intense hatred and bitterness from an early age. He was very precocious and ambitious; he decided, early on, to take Florence for the Pazzi, out of revenge.”

“It all repeats,” I said. “Lorenzo took his revenge, and now the Pazzi want theirs.”

“Not all of the Pazzi. Just Salvatore. He took advantage of the family’s position as papal bankers in order to ingratiate himself with the Pope.”

I leaned forward, perplexed. “Then why… why would he get involved with Savonarola?”

Leonardo took the chair across from mine. “That,” he said, “is a very long story. It began with Giovanni Pico. As a young man, he was a womanizer and a fair philosopher. The Pope was eager to excommunicate him-and was even considering burning him-for his rather un-Christian syncretism.

“It was Lorenzo de’ Medici who used diplomacy to save him in 1490, well before the Medicis’ relationship with the papacy soured. Pico, however, had a short memory. He took a Pazzi mistress, who turned him against Lorenzo. When Giuliano died and Lorenzo took his horrible vengeance on the Pazzi, Pico began looking for ways to influence the people against the Medici, to bring the Pazzi back.

“When Pico went to hear Savonarola speak in Ferrara, he saw a very charismatic man who disapproved of the wealthy and corrupt. He saw an opportunity for swaying the people against Lorenzo. And Fra Girolamo is an enormously gullible, impetuous man. Pico guessed correctly that he would be able to convince Savonarola to preach against the Medici, and make the friar believe it was his own idea.”

I interrupted. “Does Savonarola know about the Pazzi? About this Salvatore?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. Savonarola listens to your father, and to Fra Domenico. But that is another part of the story.

“As for Pico… through his mistress, he knew of Francesco de’ Pazzi’s son Salvatore. And when the Pazzi were expelled from Florence, Pico exchanged letters with Salvatore. He fueled the boy’s rage with tales of the Medicis’ excesses, of their pilfering from public funds. By the time Salvatore was a youth, he wanted to wrest Florence from the Medici. And so he consulted Pico as to how the city might be won.

“Pico suggested the use of Savonarola to sway public opinion-and came up with the notion of using slow-acting poison on Lorenzo. Pico was intimate enough with the Medici to know that Piero had never nurtured his father’s political connections, and so would be weak and easily removed. The original plan was to kill Lorenzo, oust Piero, and install Salvatore as the new ruler of Florence.

“Unfortunately-or fortunately, as you prefer-Lorenzo died before Salvatore was able to muster enough troops, or enough support in the Signoria.

“But Salvatore had managed to find one stalwart supporter in the government: a Pazzi advocate, one Francesco del Giocondo. And he put Francesco in touch with Giovanni Pico. Together, they concocted a plan to turn Florence against the Medici. I’m sure it worked far better than they ever dreamt it would.

“After a time, though, Pico’s guilt over Lorenzo’s murder overcame him. He actually began to take Savonarola’s words to heart, to repent. This made him dangerous and liable to confess. For that, he was killed.”

“By my father,” I said miserably.

“By Antonio di Gherardini,” he corrected, not unkindly. “Antonio had his own reasons for supporting the Pazzi. He never meant to become entrapped in a political scheme.”

I looked down at my hands. Out of habit they rested one on top of the other, the way Leonardo preferred to paint them. “And Francesco married me so that he could control my father.”

Leonardo’s reply was quick in coming. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Lisa. You are a beautiful woman. Your husband knows it; I saw how he behaved in your presence at the christening.”

I shrugged off the flattery. “What of the ‘prophet’s letter’? How did it ruin things for them?”

He smiled faintly. “Savonarola is a very difficult man to contain. In a moment of self-aggrandizement, he wrote to the princes of Europe-to Charles of France, Federico of Spain, and Emperor Maximilian, among others-urging them to unite and depose the Pope. He said that Alexander was not a Christian and did not believe in God.”

I gaped. “He is mad.”

“Most likely.”

“And you must have been involved,” I said. “Someone gave the letter to Duke Ludovico, who then gave it to his brother, Cardinal Sforza, who then gave it to the Pope.”

He did not answer. He merely regarded me pleasantly.

“But if,” I said, “this so-called miracle fails… if the people refuse to unite behind Savonarola… then what will happen?”