I am Franco Ellera, who has been the chamberlain, companion, bodyguard and counsellor to a pope. I became a cardinal of the universal church as a service to my master. I was born a Jew, I have lived as a Jew, and I will die a Jew. My master's lifetime is over, my own is nearly done. The Church accused my lord of a catena of crimes – heresy and simony; murder, sodomy and fornication – when he was merely a man who put power and its sensuality foremost among the things which people need.

His story must be told to raise up his memory so that his life may be seen for what it was, an achievement and an adventure. His place is among the great men of his time. We lived among them and beside all of them: the kings, the popes, the cardinals and the great soldiers. I knew Cosimo di Medici well, and Sigismund, King of Hungary, King of the Romans, King of Bohemia, and the Marchesa di Artegiana. I knew the great cardinals D'Ailly and Spina. I supped with the woman who rid this earth of King Ladislas of Naples. I knew the warrior archbishop John of Nassau and the Duke of Anjou. These people, were the keys to the kingdoms of earth in our time.