Jean Lucas-Dubreton

A reconstruction of Florentine Society, based on contemporary documents. Includes summary of history of Florence.

Samuel Pepys achieved fame as a naval administrator, a friend and colleague of the powerful and learned, a figure of substance. But for nearly ten years he kept a private diary in which he recorded, with unparalleled openness and sensitivity to the turbulent world around him, exactly what it was like to be a young man in Restoration London. This diary lies at the heart of Claire Tomalin's biography. Yet the use she makes of it - and of other hitherto unexamined material - is startlingly fresh and original. Within and beyond the narrative of Pepys's extraordinary career, she explores his inner life - his relations with women, his fears and ambitions, his political shifts, his agonies and his delights.

For the first time in one volume, Jean Plaidy's duet of Borgia novels brings to life the infamous, reckless, and passionate family in an unforgettable historical saga. Madonna of the Seven Hills: Fifteenth-century Rome: the Borgia family is on the rise. Lucrezia's father is named Pope Alexander VI, and he places his daughter and her brothers Cesare, Giovanni, and Goffredo in the jeweled splendor-and scandal-of his court. From the Pope's affairs with adolescent girls, to Cesare's dangerous jealousy of anyone who inspires Lucrezia's affections, to the ominous birth of a child conceived in secret, no Borgia can elude infamy. Light on Lucrezia: Some said she was an elegant seductress. Others swore she was an incestuous murderess. She was the most dangerous and sought after woman in all of Rome. Lucrezia Borgia's young life has been colored by violence and betrayal. Now, married for the second time at just eighteen she hopes for happiness with her handsome husband Alfonso. But faced with brutal murder, she's soon torn between her love for her husband and her devotion to her brother Cesare. And in the days when the Borgias ruled Italy, no one was safe from the long arm of their power. Not even Lucrezia.