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Shop nowSignora da Vinci
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Learn moreCaterina was fifteen years old when she fell in love with a man much above her station. The daughter of a humble village apothecary, she was considered unmarriageable by her lover’s wealthy and ambitious family. She had no recourse when they took her child away from her, leaving her bereft and rejected by society as a “fallen woman.”
But Caterina had always hidden a part of herself from society. Unlike most women of that time, she had been educated since childhood—not only in her father’s medicinal arts, but in Greek philosophy and pagan mysticism, considered heretical by the church.
Now, to be close to her son, she would carry that deceit further than she had ever imagined, taking up a new life under a dangerous new identity. In Florence at the height of Italy’s cultural Renaissance, Caterina would discover undreamed-of opportunities and freedoms—and her gifted son, Leonardo, would change the world forever.
Robin Maxwell is the acclaimed author of several books, including The Wild Irish, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, The Queen’s Bastard, and Jane.
Bernadette Dunne is the winner of more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.
Reviews
“Maxwell re-creates Renaissance Italy in splendid detail…the setting and known events of the artist’s life are meticulously rendered.”
“Lush and lusty, fascinating and smart, this fictionalized biography is a stroke of genius crafted by a gifted historian.”
“A glorious novel of Leonardo da Vinci and his courageous, passionate mother.”
“[An] exquisite gem of a novel…Signora da Vinci is a tour de force celebration of one woman’s unquenchable ardor for knowledge and of a secret world that historical fiction readers rarely see.”
“Signora da Vinci is without a doubt the best historical fiction I have read all year…remarkable…Maxwell takes us back to the turbulent times of the Italian Renaissance to give us a beautifully rendered and captivating portrait of Leonardo da Vinci’s mother…A masterful blend of fact and fiction, Signora da Vinci mesmerizes.”
“Thanks to Maxwell, we get a superbly imagined portrait of a woman living in turbulent times who boldy behaved as few dared…[A] sparkling epic…the novel continually delights with intriguing details.”
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