Showing titles in Renaissance

Tre redattori editoriali, dopo aver frequentato a lungo autori che si dilettano di scienze occulte, società segrete e complotti cosmici, decidono di inventare, con avventata leggerezza, un Piano. Ma qualcuno li prende sul serio. Affabulatorio, incalzante e coltissimo, è questo un romanzo che spazia furiosamente nel tempo, dove fanno la loro comparsa una sterminata serie di personaggi, di miti, di leggende, dai Templari ai Rosacroce, dai Miti Celtici ai Culti dell'antico Egitto, dal Santo Graal ai Vangeli Apocrifi, da Napoleone a Hitler, a Cagliostro.

Written in the winter of 1849, The Scarlet Letter unfolds the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman branded as an adulteress in the harsh Puritan world of seventeenth-century New England. As Hester calls on her inner strength to transcend her shame, the scarlet letter ceases to be a stigma and...

1450s France. A young Englishman, Tom Swan, is kneeling in the dirt, waiting to be killed by the French who have taken him captive. He's not a professional soldier. He's really a merchant and a scholar looking for remnants of ancient Greece and Rome - temples, graves, pottery, fabulous animals, unicorn horns. But he also has a real talent for ending up in the midst of violence when he didn't mean to.

A young Englishman captured by slavers must survive the snakepit that is seventeenth-century Venice. 1604. As pirates seeking slaves to sell in the markets of North Africa terrorise the coasts of Europe, headstrong Richard Sheriff and his sister Elizabeth are torn from their Devonshire home and...

'Superbly researched and vividly told' Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury 'Affecting, action-packed' Carolyn Kirby 'This is neither men's history nor women's history. It is good, gripping history, sharply and immediately told... A real treat' Aspects of History A country torn apart...

Longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger 2026 Tuscany. Winter, 1540. Travelling north into the hills above Florence, investigator Cesare Aldo seeks answers about his past. The trail leads him to Ospedale de’ Pazzi, a secure institution for the criminally insane. Soon after arriving a blizzard...

1560: Amy Robsart is trapped in a loveless marriage to Robert Dudley, a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Surrounded by enemies and with nowhere left to turn, Amy hatches a desperate scheme to escape – one with devastating consequences that will echo through the centuries. Present Day: When Lizzie Kingdom is forced to withdraw from the public eye in a blaze of scandal, it seems her life is over. But she’s about to encounter a young man, Johnny Robsart, whose fate will interlace with hers in the most unexpected of ways.

From “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory comes this instant New York Times bestseller that tells the story of the remarkable Elizabeth of York, daughter of the White Queen, and mother to the House of Tudor. When Henry Tudor picks up the crown of England from the mud of...

The Curse of the Hungerfords by acclaimed historian Alison Weir is a companion piece to the captivating fourth novel in the Six Tudor Queens series, Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets. Each sunset, as I go to the chapel, I find myself looking for her. I look for details. What she is wearing, some...

London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies. He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire - with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt. When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark.

Renaissance Venice is a furnace of ideas and ambition. Artists flock here, not just for wealth and fame, but for revolutionary colour. Yet artist Giorgione 'Zorzo' Barbarelli's career hangs in the balance. Competition is fierce, and his debts are piling up. When Zorzo hears a rumour of a mysterious, other-worldly new pigment, brought to Venice by the richest man in Europe, he sets out to acquire the colour and secure his name in history. Winning a commission to paint a portrait of the man's wife, Sybille, Zorzo thinks he has found a way into the merchant's favour.

In 1570, Pope Pius V signed a document that changed everything. With a single papal bull, Elizabeth I became a heretic—excommunicated, her assassination blessed by Rome, her subjects absolved of all loyalty. For thirty-three years, Elizabeth navigated a world where every Catholic courtier might be an assassin and every foreign ambassador a spy. The Northern Rising. The Ridolfi conspiracy. Mary, Queen of Scots. The Spanish Armada. The Earl of Essex's betrayal.

England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency, and newfound poise are sure to finally attract a suitor. Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for an heir. He changed his country's religion to leave his first wife, a princess of Spain, for Anne Boleyn—but she, too, has failed to provide a son.

Threatened by powerful enemies, William Blackburn, Earl of Ketterham, lives in exile in the Scottish Highlands with his daughter Vanessa. When she comes of age, William urges her to return to her mother in England to make her debut. Raised with all the advantages and freedom a boy would have, Vanessa doubts she can fit into the mold of a proper young lady. Still, she agrees to re-enter fashionable society, determined to end the vendetta against her father, never imagining the high price she will have to pay. 

The Binding meets The Handmaid's Tale - Discovering a book of dark and ancient power, a convent librarian must defend it with her life. Perfect for fans of dark academia and historical feminist fiction. 'A wonderfully rich and absorbing tale' Observer 'Expertly crafted and beautifully told'...

*SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH, MARCH 2021* ‘Absolutely spellbinding. I gobbled it up in two days and could not stop' Miranda Seymour A remarkable and meticulously researched novel from award-winning writer Alan Judd, exploring the life of literary genius Kit Marlowe, whose...

Terry Jones introduces ten dramatisations of choice Florentine Fancies, adapted from Giovanni Boccaccio's classic human comedy by the BBC Monty Python star and medieval historian Terry Jones presents ten BBC Radio dramatisations of tales from Giovanni Boccaccio's humane and comic masterpiece...

‘The master of historical crime fiction’ LAURA SHEPHERD-ROBINSON Don't miss the gripping new historical thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ashes of London, perfect for fans of CJ Sansom, Robert Harris and Hilary Mantel England, 1688 King James II finally has an heir –...

In seventeenth-century Rome, an arrogant and reckless artist named Caravaggio drinks and brawls his way through his violent, insatiable life, all while painting some of the world’s greatest religious works of art. But it is his bitter feud with Giovanni Roero, a brutal knight in the Maltese Order of St. John, that is his fatal error. Now, in the village of Monte Piccolo, a priest claims to have discovered a lost painting by the famed artist in the storage room of an orphanage. Retired professor A. R. Richman believes it’s a delusional dream.

On May 17, 1536, a young court musician was executed, accused of adultery and treason with the queen. Most historians believe both he and Anne Boleyn were innocent—victims of Henry VIII’s rage. Mark Smeaton was a talented performer who rose from poverty to become a royal favorite. He played for the king in private and entertained at sumptuous feasts. He witnessed Anne Boleyn’s astonishing rise and fall—her reign of a thousand days. History tells us little about him, other than noting his confession and execution.