Tuscan Daughter: A Novel
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In Renaissance Florence, a young artist searching for her missing mother is discovered by arch-rivals Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci ┬а
In Tuscany during the early 1500s, Beatrice, a peasant girl, finds herself alone in the countryside after her father is killed and her mother disappears into the walled city of Florence. Barefoot and defiant, Beatrice enters the city to sell her familyтАЩs olive oil to the artists who toil to create masterworks that will elevate the status of the republic.┬а
While selling her wares, Beatrice befriends Michelangelo as he struggles to sculpt David and helps heal a melancholic woman who is having her portrait painted by the brilliant but aging Leonardo. Bonds deepen even while Michelangelo and Leonardo are pitted against each other in a competition organized by Machiavelli.┬а
Set during five epic years, Tuscan Daughter reveals the humanity and struggles of a young woman who longs to find the only family she has left while seeking to be an artist in her own right. In her own way, Beatrice influences the artistic masters of the time to find peace with their inner demons as they stake everything on the power of beauty to transform and inspire.
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LISA ROCHON is an award-winning architecture critic and cultural commentator. The author of Up North: Where CanadaтАЩs Architecture Meets the Land, she has contributed numerous essays and articles to books and journals. She is a two-time winner of the National Newspaper Award for her Cityspace column in the Globe and Mail, and the recipient of the Royal Architectural Institute of CanadaтАЩs PresidentтАЩs Award for Architectural Journalism. Educated at the University of Toronto, and in Paris at Sciences Po and LтАЩ├Йcole du Louvre, Rochon travelled to Florence many times to retrace the steps of Lisa Gherardini (the Mona Lisa), Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci as she conducted original research for this novel. She was granted rare access to LeonardoтАЩs monastery studio in Florence and to Windsor Castle to study his original drawings. A passionate chronicler of art and our times, Rochon splits her time between Toronto and an olive grove in Tuscany. Find out more about her at www.lisarochon.info
