The Coptic Secret

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Father Simon had found the key.

Well, if not exactly "found," borrowed, taken without its owner's knowledge long enough to have it copied. A very expensive process.

Another reason to suspect this man Buonarroti.

Why would an artisan, a mere artist, be entitled to such an elaborate key to his room? The Holy Father had granted other workmen laboring on the new St. Peter's Basilica lodging here at the Vatican. But none had such a costly key if they had one at all.

What need did carpenters, stonemasons and the like have to lock their rooms, anyway? Such simple men had perhaps an extra shirt and a sheepskin to shelter them from the weather, hardly anything worth locking away.

Buonarroti was different.

Five years earlier, he had fled his small studio behind the Piazza Rusticucci, hardly one of Rome 's more prestigious neighborhoods, for Florence. Only the command of Pope Julius II and a heated written exchange brought him back to finish the business.

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