'No one should visit Tuscany this summer without this book. It is richly textured, and driven by a thrillerish fever' TIMES ' Dunant makes the art and philosophy of the period look new and dangerous again' IND ON SUN 'A beautiful serpent of a book, seductive dangerous and full of wise guile. Dunant's snaky tale of art, sex and Florentine hysteria, consumes utterly - but the experience is all pleasure.' Simon Schama

Sarah Dunant is a cultural commentator, award-winning thriller writer and author of a trilogy of novels set in renaissance Italy exploring women's lives through art, sex and religion.