LEONARDO TAUGHT HIS KID SISTER TO PAINT… … SHE TAUGHT HIM HOW TO SURVIVE

A 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