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silk. A skullcap was perched at the back of his balding head and across his shoulders was an ermine-trimmed cape of crimson-colored velvet. Around the pontiff a collection of cassock-clad cardinals, bishops, secretaries, and emissaries gathered. They stood both in protection and judgment while, across the room, a boy sat on a tufted cassock, lightly strumming a lute for the pontiff’s pleasure. Behind him, another stood holding a silver tray piled with marzipan, pastries of pine nuts and sugar, Eastern sweetmeats, and other delectables topped with little clouds of whipped cream.
    This was the second major room Raphael had been commissioned to decorate in the Vatican. Begun for Pope Julius II, this
stanza,
expansive and grand, with great high ceilings, was the private receiving room in which the pontiff welcomed dignitaries. But the grandeur of these commissions, and the urgency to see them completed, signaled something far more than a love of art. Since these men of the Church could not have children—at least not ones they could openly acknowledge—these exquisite works, done especially for each of them, would give them an immortality nothing else could. It was their only legacy, and the scheme for many was to manipulate however—and whoever—necessary to see that legacy made reality.
    Still incomplete, the walls of this second room were steadily being covered with intricate, evocative, and passionately colorful scenes from different chapters in the history of the Church. Raphael and his team of assistants had grandly depicted the
Expulsion of Heliodorus,
the
Mass of Bolsena,
and, in their final panel, now half finished, the
Repulse of Attila
, in which an image of Pope Leo himself was to be immortalized. It was intentional, Raphael knew, as he was ushered into this room, that the scaffolding and drapery sheeting in the unfinished area had been cleared away.
    “I bid Your Holiness, forgive my delay. But at last I have found the perfect Madonna for your panel for the church at San Sisto.”
    The pope lifted a jeweled hand and swatted at the air. He was unimpressed. The Madonna had been commissioned by his predecessor, Julius II, and Pope Leo had other works—his own ideas—that had come to concern him far more.
    Breathing heavily, the pontiff ran a hand down the rotund expanse of his white damask cassock as he, too, gazed up at one of the ceiling images, that of
God Appearing to Noah.
His face was full and pasty, his lips like a pink rosebud stuffed into the folds above his chin. But the eyes, limpid blue, bore a kindness that had won Raphael’s personal allegiance quickly. A moment later, he sank back into the gold and jewel-encrusted throne, covered over in crimson silk.
    “So tell me, Raffaello.” He stroked his chin, then reached for a rich, sugary pastry from the glistening silver tray poised beside him. “What are
your
thoughts on our increasingly tenuous position with France now that the new young, and very ambitious, Franois is poised to be crowned king? Certainly you know even now, before the death of the old king, he is attempting to form an alliance with Spain in order to gain strength against Henry in England. He would like us allied with him in that.”
    Raphael was surprised, and taken off guard—the desired effect, he assumed.
Politics?
he thought.
What on earth has that to do with me?
“I would not dare to offer an opinion on something so important,” he cautiously replied.
    “Nonsense. You are among our inner circle here,” Pope Leo nodded, doubling his chin. “And from time to time all of my most intimate members have been called upon to offer keen insight in matters to which I have become too close.”
    “Your Holiness knows I am but a simple artist, unqualified to advise someone so great and learned as yourself on matters of state.”
    “Ah, but your art betrays you, my son.” He smiled patiently. “Nobility has always come through your paintbrush, as in the grand motif of church