The Marchesa

Author(s): Sarah Dunant

Location(s): Mantua

Genre(s): Fiction, Biography, Historical

Era(s): 15th/16thCentury

From the acclaimed author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesancomes a vibrant exploration of the Italian Renaissance through the character of Isabella d’Este, the first female art collector and patron of her time. Her famed collection has long since dispersed or been lost, but what remains is her correspondence – thousands of letters preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent in the archive of Mantua.

Here, Isabella’s ghost lies waiting for the right scholar to give voice to her story. Together they resurrect a remarkable life: from the precocious daughter of a Duke and teenage wife to a Marquis, to a formidable court consort, patron, fashion icon, art collector and political operator, guiding the state of Mantua through the vicissitudes of war.

The Marchesa is Renaissance history at its most vivid, an immersive, multi-layered experience that mixes historical fiction with biography, scholarship and imagery, of both the people and the time. It is also a meditation on our attitude to history itself, challenging how far we can set aside our own values and certainties when it comes to understanding those in the past who grew out of very different cultural soil.

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