She would be buried behind the Holy Door, trodden on by popes and parishioners, and her grave would be forgotten, lost to renovations and revisions of history. All in all, there were nearly fifty candles, this in a time when the volume of wax was worth the pound of flesh, signifying the lifely status of those they were lit for. Her father stood behind her, silent in mourning of a woman who had been neither his wife nor his mistress. She had left behind a great collection of art, paintings and sculpture, and a large fortune, as well as a daughter, seven years old, who stood by at the bier as her mother’s body lay in wake. She had died young, forty-eight years old. In accordance with the Signora’s wishes, there would be two thousand masses said to hurry her soul onwards, one hundred on the day of its departure and more in the months to come. Below the block where she would soon rest her head, a woman’s body was laid out, dressed in a rich black. Inside, beneath the squared and gilded ceiling, Saint Catherine knelt before her own execution, painted in tribulation. On the first of Decemeber, 1662, the bells of Santa Maria Maggiore were tolling.
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