Editing Ezio Auditore da Firenze (section)

====Recovering the paintings====

Ezio made his way to Delizia di Belriguardo, climbing over the palazzo's outer walls and overhearing a paranoid Lucrezia ordering the guards into high alert. Infiltrating the palazzo through the attached stables, Ezio confronted Lucrezia on the stolen paintings, clarifying that he had not come to take her life.

Willingly, Lucrezia revealed that she only had one of the paintings left, as the rest had been taken after the fall of her family. Ordering her men to place the ''Annunciation'' painting in a cart outside the palazzo's walls, Lucrezia was then thrust against the wall by Ezio, who began to kiss her neck intimately.

At this, Lucrezia told Ezio that three of the paintings had been sold to Francesco Colonna, while the fifth went to an old flame of Lucrezia's named Patrizio. Ezio apologized to Lucrezia and then pulled back, revealing that he had tied her to the hanging drape. Lucrezia angrily called for her husband's personal guard, who pursued Ezio through the palazzo until he escaped out of a window, and into a bale of hay near the cart containing the painting.

Returning to Rome, Ezio made his way to the Vaticano district, where he followed Patrizio, who was hoping to sell ''Portrait of a Musician'' to the Hermeticists. Ezio watched as Ercole Massimo belittled Patrizio for his racist views on Lucrezia's Spanish heritage, and then had him murdered when he tried to destroy the painting out of anger. Ezio pursued the Hermeticist Ercole had tasked with transporting the painting, and eventually retrieved it.

Ezio then travelled to the home of Francesco Colonna, only to find that the house had been seized by the bank. He was told that the da Vinci paintings had been sold to an art merchant from Florence, who was waiting at the docks outside the Mausoleo di Augusto.

Making his way there, Ezio was surprised to see that the art merchant was his sister's former love interest Duccio de Luca. Duccio immediately set about insulting Ezio for living in a "third-rate city" such as Rome, and then again for his sister being the Madame of the Rosa in Fiore. For his troubles, Duccio received a short, stout punch to the face from a now angered Ezio.

Duccio ordered his entourage to attack Ezio, though the Assassin was able to easily hold off his attackers. He eventually gained the information he wanted from Duccio, but the merchant pushed his insults even further against Claudia, resulting in a final blow, which knocked him unconscious.

After knocking Duccio out, Ezio made his way to the merchant's boat, which had been occupied by Hermeticists, to retrieve the third painting. Ezio swiftly eliminated them without being seen, and claimed the painting as his own. He then made his way to the Rosa in Fiore in order to ascertain a means of obtaining the last two paintings, which had been bought by a cardinal and put on display inside the Castel Sant'Angelo.