It is time for me to end this story and begin a new one.
If there is one thing you take from my experience I want it to be this: I would have you, like Signor Botticelli, look beyond the composition of people’s features, and find the spirit underneath.
I do not possess Botticelli’s vision, but I fancy I can see inside the four of you. I watch you chase each other through the meadow, swat ripe fruit from trees, line up on the balcony to see who can spit best in the fountain below. And I know for certain we don’t love people because they’re perfect. Take Nonna, for example. I loved her despite the poison and the dire warnings. Are you sure you want to hear this? she had said, peeling an orange in the firelight.
Yes, Nonna. I’m sure. I know it will be a pretty story after all.
Acknowledgments
It seems that every book has a bookstore behind it, and I had the good fortune to have two. I would like to thank my colleagues at the now-defunct Madison Park Books for moral support, especially Leslie Marble, who lit a candle for me in a cathedral in Rome. I would also like to thank the staff at All for Kids Books in Seattle not only for supporting me but, by example, showing me how gracious authors behave. In case you’re wondering: the best ones bring chocolate.
Peggy King Anderson was a wonderful close reader of this book from start to finish and never let me slack off. Justina Chen Headley blazed the trail. Dr. Michael Weiss and crew at Northwest Asthma and Allergy not only kept me alive through the writing of this but, through weekly allergy shots, provided me with time and space to write it.
Steven Chudney, agent extraordinaire, was generous enough to take me on and hold my hand for the more perplexing parts of the publication process. At Little, Brown, Andrea Spooner invited me to the party, and Jennifer Hunt graciously allowed me to stay. Grazie mille.
The biggest slobberiest thank you has to go to Juan, Sofia, and Ricardo for putting up with endless nights of macaroni and cheese for dinner, and getting used to repeating themselves whenever they needed anything from me. “Huh? Sorry, babe. I didn’t hear you. I was in the Renaissance.” A giant smooch to you all.
The last thank you, though, has to go to Signor Andrea of Custom Italy, for ushering me around Florence, especially for getting me into the courtyard of the Pazzi Palazzo. After four hours of richly colored paintings and frescoes, not to mention red domes and bronze doors, he lamented to me about the state of Florence today, saying that it was just a shell of its former glory. I didn’t understand and told him so. Florence was one of the most beautiful cities I’d ever seen. “Yes, but can you imagine what it must have been like back then?” he said.
Perhaps I can.
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