The Rebirth of Venus

The Rebirth of Venus is the last part of The Botticelli Trilogy, following A Tabernacle for the Sun and Pallas and the Centaur. Set in the 1480s and 90s, it tells the story of murder, not only of the leading men of the age, but of the age itself, the Renaissance dying in Savonarola's bonfires. Tommaso de' Maffei was charged with the task of taking the Platonic wisdom to England, but in England he finds he has lost touch with the truth of his philosophy, and he returns to Italy in the early 16th century to find what, if anything, survives from the golden age he lived through. 'In recent decades, a number of highly regarded novels have been set in Tuscany. Perhaps the best known of these are by English writer Linda Proud, whose Botticelli trilogy – A Tabernacle for the Sun, Pallas and the Centaur and The Rebirth of Venus – is set is Renaissance Florence during the Pazzi Conspiracy, the Medici exile and the rise of Savonarola. The historical detail in all three is exemplary and each...