Pietro Bembo, poet, scholar, Vene-

tian nobleman, held all members of

the family of Borgia to be degenerate

and dangerous, and Madonna Lucre-

zia, Ducbess of Ferrara, to be among

the worst of them. Then when he met

her, her beauty flickering like an un-

certain candle flame, her hair like

amber against the milky white of her

neck and shoulders, he knew that he

was wrong, that she was nothing like

the debauched and murderous harpy

whom the gossips portrayed. They

met again, they loved, though it could

not last--the dangers were too great,

the calls of the world too exigent and

too obtrusive--hut for three brief

years the love of Pietro and Lucrezia

was one of the idylls of the age.

Jean Briggs tells their story against

the rich background of sixteenth-

century Venice and Ferrara. It is a

world which she has studied deeply

and describes with authority. The life

of the palaces and of the counting-

houses ; Carlo Bembo buying his gold

thread in Constantinople to trade for

English cloth and pewter; Raffaello

Sanzio excitedly sketching his plans

for a cardinal s bathroom in the Vati-

can; the beauty and brutality, courtly

romance and ruthless savagery: all

the great panorama Of Renaissance

Italy is painted with artistry and fire.

A literate and fascinating historical

novel by a new writer.