Database: Maria Auditore (Assassin's Creed II)

Date of Birth: 1432. Profession: Writer, Noble.

"I grow tired of these walls that surround me and am bored with safety. Now, is the time to make a decision: I will go out there and see what my life may truly be."

Maria wrote those words when she was 16, a week before she met Giovanni Auditore.

Born into a powerful banking family, the Mozzi, Maria is one of the most famous historical sources of the time period due to her multi-volume diary, which has been translated by several notable scholars and is on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

With funding from her parents, Maria opened up a bakery in the courtyard of her family palazzo, which she transformed into an artistic gathering place. It was there that she met "a man with such conviction I found myself rooted to the spot, unable to look anywhere else". That man was Giovanni Auditore.

Maria and Giovanni were married in 1450. Maria's diary entries continue for the next few decades, describing her patronage of several up-and-coming artists and her trials as a mother, at which point she abruptly abandons her writing, to the disappointment of historians everywhere.