The MARCHESA

From the acclaimed author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan comes a vibrant exploration of the Italian Renaissance through the eyes of Isabella d’Este, the leading female art collector and patron of her time. Born in 1474, she ran a famed court, was a fashion icon and a cunning political operator. She left behind a magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, books, instruments and curiosities. Long since lost or dispersed, all that remains is her correspondence - thousands of letter preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent, which make up the state archive of the city of Mantua.

Inside this cavernous space, the ghost of Isabella is searching for the right scholar to give voice to her story. When she finds her, together through the letters, they resurrect a remarkable life: from a precocious daughter of a Duke and the painfully young wife of the marquis of Mantua to a formidable court consort, collector, patron and political operator, guiding the state through the vicissitudes of war. A woman who unapologetically refuses to be bound by convention.

The Marchesa is Renaissance history at its most vivit, an immersive, multi-layered experience that mixes historical fiction with biography, scholarship and art, images 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 moral certainties when it comes to understanding those in the past who grew out of very different curltural soil.