Lisabetta

LEONARDO TAUGHT HIS KID SISTER TO PAINT... ... SHE TAUGHT HIM HOW TO SURVIVEA portrait's voice is captured in the eyes. Only beloved eyes may speak the truth in silence. My brother and I conversed this way for eleven years after my death. He called me through the art that was the best of us. I materialized to ease his grief and comfort his final moments.Leonardo heard my thoughts as a voice inside his head, as a waking dream, inside a memory. I listened back in the ways open to me. Leonardo shared his lifeforce with me the day I was born, refusing to let me die, and later, during his last days, when he lay close to death, I held his hand so he could feel the weight of my bones.To Leonardo, I remained, the fleshed-out Lisabetta of his middle-years. Such was our close connection, that even as an apparition, I had density. Leonardo taught me where illusion began and in 1519 it was my duty to show him where it ended.- Lisabetta