Florence, 1486: a series of murders shocks life in the city.The victims are women belonging to the rich bourgeoisie, and the ruthless assassin seems to take inspiration from the Allegory of Spring, a masterpiece by Sandro Botticelli and his assistant Filippino Lippi. An object is found on each corpse, relating to a detail of the painting: the twig slipped between the lips of a nymph, the red cloak wrapped around the Goddess, the garland of flowers adorning the neck of Spring...Pass...

**Now a docuseries from Ken Burns on PBS!The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker).**Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deft...

Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art--The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise. His latest f...

Now celebrated as one of the great painters of the Renaissance, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio fled Rome in 1606 to escape retribution for killing a man in a brawl. Three years later he was in Naples, where he painted The Seven Acts of Mercy. A year later he died at the age of thirty-eight under mysterious circumstances. Exploring Caravaggio's singular masterwork, in The Guardian of Shadows and Light Terence Ward offers an incredible narrative journey into the heart of...

Captivating portraits of two of the world's most beguiling cities from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Group.Mary McCarthy blends art, politics, religion, music, and history to create unique living portraits of two of Italy's most enchanting cities in these enthralling books now available in one volume.The Stones of Florence: The book Library Journal called "Mary McCarthy's classic" takes readers on a timeless...

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni exercised a huge influence on the development of Western art. He is considered a nominee for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. Giorgio Vasari proposed that he was the high point of all artistic achievement of the Renaissance. In this way Michelangelo, indirectly, marked the beginning of the next major movement in Wes...

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, military-engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest...

An enchanting novel on the life and origins of Leonardo da Vinci’s mother, as imagined by the author of the “absolutely superb” (Diane Haeger, author of The Secret Bride) Mademoiselle Boleyn.A young woman named Caterina was only fifteen years old in 1452 when she bore an illegitimate child in the tiny village of Vinci. His name was Leonardo, and he was destined to change the world forever.Caterina suffered much cruelty as an unmarried moth...

“Matching gorgeous prose to gorgeous artworks, Prose responds to each image as a moment of theatrical revelation, sensual or spiritual, and frequently both.” — Boston Sunday GlobeIn Caravaggio, New York Times bestselling author Francine Prose offers an enthralling account of the life and work of one of the greatest painters of all time.Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed—street boys, prostitutes, the p...

Seventeen-year-old Chiara Dragoni is a master glassmaker of Venice, a position that is both a privilege — and a trap. For the glassmakers of Murano are forbidden to ever leave the islands of the Venetian lagoon.When Chiara's uncle is caught on the mainland and thrown into the dungeon of the Doge's Palace, she must use all her talents, including magic, to help free him. But the gift she creates for the prince of Venice has unintended consequences, and now Chiara must decide whether ...

Nominated for the 2004 Commonwealth PrizeWinner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize of the BC Book PrizesFinalist for 2004 The Giller PrizeNominated for the 2005 City of Victoria Butler Book PrizeThe artistic world of mid-16th Century Italy comes to life through the eyes of a piebald slave stolen from her home and family in Africa.Chiara, as she is eventually named, is sold to Paolo Pallavicino, an artist in service of Giuliano de Medici. When several unfor...

A solitary child, Leonardo da Vinci's only intimate is Lisa Gherardini, the girl who spies on him in his workshop. Spurned by his tutor, he is sent by his despairing father to Florence as an apprentice. Under the guiding hand of Verrocchio, the master sculptor, he begins to make his name. But success requires sacrifice; Florence demands a level of conformity impossible for him. Forced to leave, Leonardo places himself at the service of the charismatic, power-thirsty Duke of Milan. His jour...