Italy & Sicily

Bloodstone Castle stands sentinel on the shores of the Ligurian Sea. Secreted somewhere in its dungeons is an ancient Roman treasure of immense value. Contessa Morena of Bloodstone Castle possesses a mysterious bloodstone pendant, the only proof the treasure exists. Since childhood, she has been promised in marriage to Duke Ernesto of Savona. Ernesto is a desperate man, a gambler who has lost his family’s fortune, a man who resorts to murder to not only hide his dirty secret, but for the sake of money. Marriage to the lovely Morena will make the treasure his and restore his power and desperate circumstances.  After the brutal murder of his father, Duke Amoro of Genoa swears two oaths. The first is to avenge his father’s death. The second is to honour his father’s dying wish and wed Morena of Bloodstone Castle, to end the violent feud with between their two families. Her life thrown into chaos, Morena must choose between obligation and honour, truth and lies, good and evil. In medieval Italy, two men face each other with ruthlessness and intensity. Enter their world of splendour and depravity, of passion and wickedness. It is Italy’s most dazzling and dangerous age, and as Duke Amoro of Genoa and Duke Ernesto of Savona match wits and cunning, it is a dance the death to decide which one of them will win the hand of the beautiful Countess Morena and the hidden treasure of Bloodstone Castle.

The Slave
Author: Pauline Montagna

A novel set in 14th century Italy about the relationship between the
daughter of a wealthy merchant and an Asian slave boy.

Isabella, d'Aragona, Duchess of Milan, consort of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 1470-1524.

NLS RC 36785

A visually-impaired young man, the adopted son of glass-makers in Murano, with a strange and acute gift for distinguishing colour and tone, embarks on a quest to find the perfect ultramarine blue - the colour of heaven - a journey that will take him across the world, through Persia, Afghanistan, and China, in which he learns not only about color, but sight and distance, death and beauty, faith and love. 

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice from a female perspective

Gynethe Mehaut is spied upon with hatred and horror as she tends a
convent's night-blooming gardens. On the way to Rome for a Papal
Inquisition, she meets Count Saint-Germaine. 

In June 1300, in the city of Florence, the body of an artist, his face
covered in quicklime, is discovered next to the mosaic he had almost
completed. Dante Alighieri, the man who would one day write the Inferno,
has just been named prior of the city, and this is his first official
investigation. 

The spiritual journey of a young orphan boy takes him from the brothels
of 14th century Florence to friendships with the luminaries of the
Italian Renaissance.

Asia is the a source for rich jewels but getting to them is fraught with
danger.

A novel of chess, art, and detection involving Leonardo da VincI

A murder investigation at an italian monastery.

Dwarf Bucino Teodoldo and celebrated courtsean Fiammetta Bianchini
escape the 1527 sacking of Rome with a few clothes on their back and
some jewels gulped into their gullets, making their way to Venice. With
her beauty destroyed, Fiametta and Bucino must enlist the help of the
mysteious blind healer, the secretive La Draga, who is not the
altruistic friend that that Fiammetta believes. 

A young woman disguises herself as a man in order to get an education
and ends up becoming Pope.

A delightful and slightly weird book that explains how the stock characters of Commedia dell'Arte originated.  Wonderful characters.  NH;

Did a woman really become Pope? All we know for sure is that Pope Joan is one of the most popular myths of the Middle Ages.

A doctor is imprisoned by the Church and charged with heresy because of
his startling anatomical discovery: the clitoris.

This novel set in 11th century Italy tells of the battles between the
Normans and the Saracens from a female point of view.

Sexual and political rivalry in 15th century Italy centered around the
sisters Isabella and Beatrice d'Este.

St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare.  See also Movies.

Rome, 1520, the painter Raphael has just died and his beloved model seeks to enter a convent, but the price for her admission is the ruby ring he gave her.  KIN

Woman painter must fight her family's and society's expectations for her to pursue her genius.  Wonderfully thoughtful book.  NH

A novel of love and art in 15th century Florence.

Leonardo da Vinci's most famous model.

Love and intrigue in 12th century Sicily.

This novel, set in Italy and Persia in the 1400s, involves a design by
Leonardo da Vinci for a miraculous flying machine.

Pope Joan.

Cesare Borgia.

A retelling of Snow White. Lucrezia Borgia plays a prominent part

This family's name isn't Correleone... but Borgia.  Still, the offer cannot be refused.

Incest, poison betrayal--three wedding presents for the Borgia Bride,
Sancha de Aragon who, in 1492, married the youngest Borgia son, Jofre,
but fell in love with his brother Cesare.