The events of the past extraordinary fifteen minutes - which might have been fifteen hours, even days, so long had they seemed - ran through Ezio’s head once more as he stumbled, his brain reeling, from the vault beneath the Sistine Chapel.

He remembered, though it seemed like a dream, that in the depths of the vault he had seen a vast sarcophagus made of what looked like granite. As he’d approached it, it had begun to glow, but with a light that was welcoming.

He touched its lid and it had opened, as if as light as a feather. From it a warm, yellow light glowed, and from within that glow a figure rose, whose features Ezio could not make out, although he knew he was looking at a woman. A woman of unnatural stature, who wore a helmet, and on whose right shoulder sat a tawny owl.

The light that surrounded her blinded him.

‘Greetings, O Prophet,’ she said, calling him by the name which had been mysteriously assigned to him. ‘I have been waiting for you for ten thousand thousand seasons.’

Ezio dared not look up.

‘Show me the Apple.’

Humbly, Ezio proffered it.

‘Ah.’ Her hand caressed the air over it but she did not touch it. It glowed and pulsated. Her eyes bore into him. ‘We must speak.’ She tilted her head, as if considering something, and Ezio, raising his head, thought he could see the trace of a smile on her iridescent face.

‘Who are you?’

‘Oh - many names have I. When I … died, it was Minerva.’

Ezio recognized the name. ‘Goddess of Wisdom! The owl on your shoulder. The helmet. Of course.’ He bowed his head.

‘We are gone now. The gods your forefathers worshipped. Juno, queen of the gods, and my father, Jupiter, their king, who brought me forth to life through his forehead. I was the daughter, not of his loins, but of his brain!’