Milan is burning, a smudge of black smoke on the horizon. Cannon fire thunders over thehills, the apprentices have fled, and yet the master remains in his workshop. Chisel and awl lieforgotten beside heaps of sawdust on a long table. He releases the clamps from the hollow bodyof what will one day be a violin. Steady hands riddled with spots and blue veins turn theinstrument, inspecting every angle. He closes his eyes as he runs a fingertip over the grain of thewood, tracing the ribs and soundboard. In the master’s hands, the wood seems to sing.

The master lays the body down gently, as he would a sleeping child, and turns hisattention to the scroll and neck, lovingly and meticulously carved. He does not know that thebuyer of this violin—the governor of Milan—is at this moment being driven out of the city,retreating, bloodied and beaten, and will soon return to France. It is of no importance, so long asthe instrument is appreciated and played. That is the purpose of a violin, after all. He shouldknow—he’s made almost 900 of them.

A stray musket ball sails over the low stone wall, shatters a window in the house. A voicecries out “Antonio!” This is the only voice that can cut through his focus, the only person heloves more than his work. He sets down the neck of the violin. It is time to leave.