Historical Fiction Renaissance

Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family - and is the most unhappy creature in the world. Anne Turner has wit and talent - but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution. When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a powerful friendship is sparked.

Febbraio 1519. La brezza mattutina sparge il suo soffio su Roma, avvolgendola in un'atmosfera incantata. Raffaello Sanzio passeggia assorto per via Giulia, lungo l'argine del Tevere, lasciandosi ispirare dai colori che si riflettono nell'acqua e nel cielo, che gli pare una tela color lapislazzuli, arricchita solo da una punta di viola. Agostino Chigi, il banchiere più ricco della città, lo ha convocato al suo servizio per dipingere la loggia di villa Farnesina, un palazzo sontuoso nel cuore di Trastevere, frequentato dai più noti artisti e intellettuali che vivono nell'Urbe.

Катерину, девушку, рожденную свободной, угнали в рабство и отняли все – Родину, мечты, будущее. Невероятно сильная духом она выстояла – боролась, страдала, любила, вернула себе свободу и человеческое достоинство. Одного из детей, которого она родила еще рабыней, Катерина любила больше жизни. И он отвечал ей взаимностью, хотя ему нельзя было называть ее мамой. Имя этого ребенка прогремело по всему миру. Его звали Леонардо да Винчи.

"Ich, die Königin" von Susan Hastings ist nicht nur ein historischer Roman - es ist eine Zeitreise ins Kastilien von 1464, ein Land geplagt von Unordnung und Ungerechtigkeit. In dieser raue Welt, wo Reisende und Kaufleute der Gnadenlosigkeit von Räuberscharen ausgeliefert sind und Adel und Klerus sich unerbittlich an der armen Bevölkerung bereichern, erscheint die Lage düster und verzweifelt. Aber aus dem Schatten tritt Isabella hervor, die Schwester des unauffälligen Königs Enrique. Mit ihrer eisernen Entschlossenheit und scharfen Intelligenz trotzt sie den Gezeiten und bringt Veränderung.

Orphaned at birth, Eliza lives with her beloved Grandparents in a waterlogged Somerset cottage surrounded by willow beds where she ekes out a living making laundry baskets and eel traps. Although poor she is content, until childhood friend Clem regales her with tales of his adventures along the river and she begins to wonder what life is like beyond the Droves. When fate brings handsome, wealthy Theo to her workshop she is instantly attracted and a rosy future beyond the Droves beckons.

L’opera al nero è la storia di un personaggio immaginario, Zenone, medico, alchimista, filosofo, dalla nascita illegittima a Bruges nei primi anni...

The country is in turmoil in this thrilling historical adventure of the English Civil War. It is 1643, and the struggle between Parliament and the King erupts in the West Country, tearing families apart and setting village against village. But for some, this fight is not only about crown and country: it is far more personal than that. Royalist soldier Hugo Telling wishes Parliamentarian William Sparrow dead. This rivalry will take them across battlefields the breadth of England, and all for the love of a beautiful woman.

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.

Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art. There she is drawn into a small circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, each with their own secrets and desires, including the museum's curator, Patrick Roland, who is convinced that the history of Tarot holds the key to unlocking contemporary fortune telling.

"Bist du immer so ein Trampeltier oder tust du nur so?" "Und bist du immer so ein Arschloch oder tust du nur so?" Die Hamburger Literaturstudentin Persephone ist unsicher wegen ihrer Figur und darauf bedacht, möglichst wenig Aufmerksamkeit auf sich zu ziehen. Das ist schlagartig vorbei, als sie eines Tages ausgerechnet mit Alexander van Montford, ihrem viel zu gutaussehenden, aber chronisch schlecht gelaunten Mitstudenten, zusammenstößt.

È l'anno del signore 1550 L'Europa è ancora percorsa da venti di guerra. Il lungo scontro tra Spagna e Francia, durato decenni, causando tante morti e tanta distruzione, senza risparmiare nemmeno Roma, messa a ferro e fuoco dai lanzichenecchi, non si è ancora concluso. Il luteranesimo e le altre confessioni protestanti infiammano gli animi del Nord Europa e dell'Inghilterra. E la minaccia dei turchi, che hanno già conquistato tutto l'Oriente e raso al suolo quel che restava dell'impero bizantino, è più viva che mai.

The King's Favorite is a mystery thriller set during one of the most spirited, scandalous, and memorable periods in English history - the Restoration - when the son of an executed king brought monarchy back to England after the repressive years of the Commonwealth. Following the coronation of Charles II came a reopening of the theaters, with the first women performing on the English public stage. What follows is a devastating London plague and fire, a monarch who openly indulged his sexual proclivities, a series of plots against the crown, and the first true collection of female celebrities - as actresses, mistresses, and even orange girls.

1553: deeply divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary's mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn't. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.

Florence. Spring, 1537. When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city’s northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets. His case becomes far more complicated when a naked man’s body is found deep inside the convent, stabbed more than two dozen times. Unthinkable as it seems, all the evidence suggests one of the nuns must be the killer. Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi finds human remains pulled from the Arno that belong to an officer of the law missing since winter.

Cesare Aldo, a former soldier and now an officer of the Renaissance city's most feared criminal court, is given four days to solve the murder: catch the killer before the feast of Epiphany—or suffer the consequences. During his investigations Aldo uncovers a plot to overthrow the volatile ruler of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici. If the duke falls, it will endanger the whole city. But a rival officer of the court is determined to expose details about Aldo’s private life that could lead to his ruin.

A night patrol finds a wealthy merchant hanged and set ablaze in the city’s main square. More than mere murder, this killing is intended to put the fear of God into Florence. Forty years earlier, puritanical monk Girolamo Savonarola was executed the same way. Does this new killing mean his fanatical disciples are reviving the monk’s regime of holy terror? Cesare Aldo is busy hunting thieves in the Tuscan countryside, leaving Constable Carlo Strocchi to investigate the ritual killing.

Florence. Autumn, 1539. Cesare Aldo was once an officer for the city’s most feared criminal court. Following a period of exile, he is back but demoted to night patrol when only the drunk and the dangerous roam the streets. Chasing a suspect in the rain, Aldo discovers a horrifying scene beneath Michelangelo’s statue of David. Lifeless eyes gaze from the face of a man whose body has been posed as if crucified. It’s clear the killer had religious motives. When more bodies appear, Aldo believes an unholy murderer is stalking the citizens of Florence.

Dos mujeres de mundos diferentes en la Francia del Renacimiento se cruzan de una manera que cambia sus vidas. Una es Margarita de Navarra, hermana de un rey. Poderosa, privilegiada y muy admirada, Marguerita debe casarse por conveniencia familiar, independientemente de sus sentimientos y, a pesar de las nuevas y emocionantes ideas de reforma religiosa que causan furor en Francia, debe seguir la tradición por el bien del reino de su hermano. Siempre dispuesta a asumir riesgos, hace lo que puede para proteger a sus amigos reformistas.

The saga that has enthralled the millions of fans of The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End now continues with Ken Follett's magnificent, gripping A Column of Fire. Christmas 1558, and young Ned Willard returns home to Kingsbridge to find his world has changed. The ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn by religious hatred. Europe is in turmoil as high principles clash bloodily with friendship, loyalty and love.

Mia madre era una strega. O almeno così dissero quando la trascinarono via. Ma per me era vera solo una cosa: lei era il centro del mio universo. Avevo nove anni e la mia vita cominciò quel giorno. Inghilterra, 1573: in un mondo già illuminato dalla luce del Rinascimento, ma in cui ancora si dà la caccia alle streghe, la piccola Rose è figlia di una madre accusata di stregoneria, e per lei la vita sembra avere in serbo solo povertà e amarezza.