The idol

The Idol is a woman, Vittoria, whose extraordinary beauty, in 16th-century Italy, unleashes passions, making her alternately adore and curse. Divine or demonic? In a society of male domination, it will be one or the other, but never understood. Sold rather than bride, spied, defamed, sequestered, the Idol will pay the fascination it inspires from the price of a destiny forged by others. Around her we discover a Rome where bonfires officially greet St. Bartholomew's Day; a Florence where the Medici clan governs through assassination and clientelism; an Italy where lords and bandits of the long way, monsignors and Moorish slaves, ambassadors and mobsters, great ladies and loan sharks rub shoulders and supporting each other; where soon appears a great reforming pope, Sixte Quint. A whole world that the novelist of Fortune de France revives with a virtuosity both learned and prodigiously alive. "