The first Monday of July in the summer of 1492 arrived. A cool south easterly breeze blew down from the mountains, just enough to take the sting out of the summer heat and give the good people of Milan a spring in their step. Even the populace of the Lazzaretto seemed to lift their feet off the filthy streets with a little more ease.
Although weary from his night of spiritual warfare, it was not his bed that Prior Vicenzo sought, instead he sat at his desk and wrote: Most gracious Father Rodrigo of Salamanca, greetings in the name of the Holy Church. It is upon a grave matter that I now write to you. Leonardo da Vinci, from birth a bastard and hence more prone to wickedness than one born in wedlock, has devised a most pernicious and blasphemous plan. To select a man from the populace of M
