Georgiana took the painting Laggett handed her.
As the black velvet covering the painting was slowly unfolded, she saw a sketch drawn in red and black pencil. The woman in it wore a gentle smile, and it looked very much like a Renaissance painting. Given the age of the paper, it might really have been from the Renaissance.
"This is Michelangelo's lover, Vittoria Colonna," Laggett explained. "He met her when he was sixty."
Georgiana looked at the woman in the painting. She was not particularly beautiful, or rather, she lacked feminine softness and looked somewhat masculine instead, with a high forehead and a long, straight nose. Considering that Michelangelo had painted all the women in the Sistine Chapel ceiling with muscular bodies, perhaps that was simply the type he liked.
"What do you think?" Laggett asked expectantly.
"I don't feel anything," Georgiana said quietly.
Laggett looked very disappointed.
Georgiana felt she should not have been so honest. She ought to have said something flattering, considering Laggett had brought her the painting so early in the morning.
"The Pietà was also sculpted by Michelangelo," Laggett said dejectedly. "You said the Virgin Mary was smiling because she had a brave son."
"Oh!" Georgiana understood. She looked again at the Vittoria in the painting.
She was no longer young, and Michelangelo had not "dealt with" those wrinkles as other painters did. That sort of "honesty" was actually rather irritating.
"I know almost nothing about her," Georgiana said after a while. "I mean, not the things people say in rumors."
Laggett was confused.
"I heard Michelangelo had quite an eccentric personality," she explained helplessly.
"I thought you meant something else."
Meeting Georgiana's puzzled gaze, Laggett said, "He once wrote love letters to men."
"But you just said Vittoria was Michelangelo's lover. She was a