The long-running British quiz show, Mastermind, has a very simple premise: Contestants sit in a chair and face the quizmaster who asks them a series of trivia questions. In the first round of an episode, the questions are all on a single subject that the contestant has chosen as his or her specialty. The specialty subject questions can be quite specific – for example, “The 7th Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] provided for the right to a jury trial if the amount concerned in the case exceeded a certain sum of money; how much?” The only way to succeed on Mastermind is to have dedicated a good deal of time to your specialty topic. In essence, Mastermind is deep involvement packaged as a game show.

The much-feared event of Lorenzo’s death happened on 8 April 1492, heralded ominously by a bolt of lightning striking the cupola of the Duomo in the direction of the Medici palace.1 Piero’s years of apprenticeship were over and everyone awaited his response to the challenges ahead. ‘Who would Piero side with’, Parenti wondered, ‘and how would he be treated, as the boss, the equal or the inferior of the others?’2 Uncertainty about Piero’s reaction to the new, upside-down world that confronted him was widely shared, not least by Lorenzo’s secretary, ser Niccolò Michelozzi, who found himself isolated in Naples as his patron lay dying, consoled only by the letters he received from Florence.