New York: Random House, (2004.). First edition - Highly praised historical novel set in Renaisance Florence - in the early 16th century, when the Medici state was for a while under the spell of the monk Savonarola - "A beautiful serpent of a novel, seductive and dangerous . . full of wise guile, the most brilliant novel yet from a writer of powerful historical imagination and wicked literary gifts. Dunant's snaky tale of art, sex and Florentine hysteria consumes utterly---but the experience is all pleasure." (Simon Schama.) Historical notes. 346 pp.