FLIGHT FROM VENICE
1726
XXVIII
Except for the sounds of music and teaching, the Pieta was silent. We orphans may have been unique as females; but we were under our own form of captivity. The Pieta was a museum in daytime and a mausoleum at night. In the day, we were the artifacts of the museum. At night we became the corpses of the mausoleum. And the Lion of San Marco, guardian and director, oversaw it all—from his position, high and disdainful over the Bacino. [Antonia, 1739]
Antonia stirred from her manuscript to the light rapping at her studio door.
Opening the door, she faced a tiny replica of her former self. “Yes?” She wondered at the loss of her own innocence and trust.
“The Prioress asks you to visit her, Maestra Anna,” the girl smiled shyly as she used the familiar term the
