MARINA’S MISSION

Rome, November 1943

Marina Tozzi crossed Piazza di Santa Maria, hugging her parcel to her chest. The late afternoon sun reflected off the gold-flecked tower of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, giving Marina a glimmer of hope.

The Nazis may have made it impossible to get food, turning even the most honest Roman citizens into experts on the black market. They may have prompted all the young men to join the Italian army, leaving the streets filled with mothers missing their sons, young women longing for their husbands. But they couldn’t dim the famous Roman light, the light that had drawn artists to the city for centuries.

Marina would know. Her father, Vittorio, was an art dealer who often spoke of the great artists who once resided in the city: Caravaggio, Bernini, Michelangelo. Some historians claimed they had come because they had been sponsored by wealthy Romans or had sought camaraderie with other artists at the workshops. But her father insisted it was for the light. Nowhere in Italy, not in Venice, Florence or Naples, was the light as spectacular as in Rome, strands of gold