Historical Fiction Renaissance

It's 1669, and feisty Isobel de Toledo is betrothed to be married to the son of a rich landowner when she learns people in her Seville, including her friends, are being burned at the stake. Outraged, she joins a revolutionary group of ladies of intrigue and danger, healers, and others who question the Church's preoccupation with sexual crimes and women who heal, shaking her very values and birthright. Isobel flees her homeland with Richard, a handsome sailor who saves her from being burned at the stake. They marry and board a ship, setting sail for the New World.

"I promessi sposi" è ambientato nella Lombardia del '600 sotto la dominazione spagnola. Il romanzo racconta la storia di due giovani innamorati, Renzo e Lucia, che desiderano sposarsi, ma a causa della tirannia del signore locale Don Rodrigo, che innamoratosi di Lucia intimidisce la popolazione e il clero locale, devono intraprendere una lunga serie di avventure per riuscire a coronare il loro sogno d'amore. Il libro contiene fedeli ricostruzioni storiche e temi quali la divina provvidenza, la peste, la dominazione straniera e la povertà.

Halley, who covers house-sitting jobs for her self-absorbed mom, has Hollywood dreams, but no real life. That is, until the day a job for her mom leads to a tumble back to London in1598, where Halley meets a hot, rich earl named Edmund, and accidentally brings him to the 21st century.

London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies. He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire - with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt. When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark.

The daughter of a wealthy merchant, young Dolça Llull Prat is besotted with the dashing, bootstrapping Miguel Cervantes from their first meeting. Despite Miguel’s entreaties, the ever-practical Dolça, with her love of luxury and her devotion to her own art, repeatedly refuses to upend her life for him, although she always welcomes his attentions on her own terms. When Miguel renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his great Quixote, revealing their association, he commits an unforgivable offense and their decades-long affinity is severed—until he reaches out to her one last time.

In Oberammergau herrscht kurz vor Pfingsten 1670 helle Aufregung. Bei den Proben zum berühmten Passionsspiel wird der Christus-Darsteller tot aufgefunden. Er wurde gekreuzigt. Der Schongauer Henker Jakob Kuisl und der Bader Simon Fronwieser werden um die Aufklärung des Todesfalls gebeten, doch sie stoßen auf eine Wand des Schweigens. Als ein weiterer Darsteller den Märtyrertod stirbt, glauben die Dorfbewohner an eine Strafe Gottes und wollen erst recht nicht mit den beiden Fremden reden.

Montpellier in 1566 - only fools walk the streets at night unarmed while a profession of faith in the wrong company can lead to a knife in the back. Not even this proud city of philosophers is safe from the menaces that endanger the peace of France. The city militia are struggling to contend with the lawlessness and religious hatred that threaten to tear the whole country in two.

Les aventures du Chevalier de Pardaillan sont celles que l'on dévore sans voir passer les heures, pour retrouver, confus et enthousiaste le bouillonnement d'une épopée traversée par la générosité d'un héros qui se place aux côtés de d'Artagnan et de Cyrano de Bergerac.

Nous sommes en 1573. Jean de Kervilliers, devenu Monseigneur l'évêque prince Farnèse, fait arrêter Léonore, sa maîtresse, fille du baron de Montaigues, supplicié pendant la Saint Barthélémy. Alors que le bourreau lui passe la corde au cou, elle accouche d'une petite fille. Graciée par le Prévôt, elle est emmenée sans connaissance vers la prison.

Nous sommes donc toujours en 1588, sous le règne d'Henri III, en lutte contre le duc de Guise et la Sainte ligue, le premier soutenu par Pardaillan, et le second par Fausta... Sans vous dévoiler les péripéties multiples et passionnantes de cette histoire, nous découvrirons que le duc de Guise et Henri III mourront tous deux (Zévaco, malgré son imagination, ne peut changer l'Histoire...), et que Pardaillan vaincra Fausta.

Les aventures du Chevalier de Pardaillan sont celles que l'on dévore sans voir passer les heures, pour retrouver, confus et enthousiaste le bouillonnement d'une épopée traversée par la générosité d'un héros qui se place aux côtés de d'Artagnan et de Cyrano de Bergerac.

Carlo meets the famed nun, Sister Giulia di Marco, and her confessor, Father Aniello Arcieri, a few years later, while restoring an altarpiece in a church. The charismatic pair gradually draw the lonely artist into their scandalous Confraternity of Carnal Charity, whose wealthy noble acolytes believe divine glory can be achieved through sexual ecstasy. Unable to continue living a lie, Carlo confesses a big secret to Sister Giulia. The crafty nun wastes no time assigning the novitiate a prominent role within the cult, which soon captures the attention of the Holy Inquisition....

The Church is fracturing, revolution is brewing, and society is changing rapidly. Three authors who shaped this new world with their pens—Martin Luther, Desiderius Erasmus, and Philipp Melanchthon—will now be shaped by it in turn. When the pope and King Henry VIII of England pressure Erasmus to take a public stand against Luther, both authors will be forced to wrestle with literal and figurative demons. Erasmus is haunted by his illegitimate birth. Luther struggles with the rejection of the Church and his own father.

I 1761 udsendte Frederik V en ekspedition til Mellemøsten og Den arabiske halvø. Fem videnskabsmænd og en tjener drog ud på en rejse, der kom til at vare syv år og gav anledning til oplevelser, der vakte stor opmærksomhed i hele samtidens Europa. Den eneste af deltagerne, der vendte levende tilbage, var den unge astronom og landmåler Carsten Niebuhr. Romanen fortæller om en rejse fyldt med strabadser, intriger og et meget levende tidsbillede fra 1700-tallet. Det er ikke kun en beskrivelse af de meget fremmedartede lande, der besøges undervejs.

"Bist du immer so ein Trampeltier oder tust du nur so?" "Und bist du immer so ein Arschloch oder tust du nur so?" Die Hamburger Literaturstudentin Persephone ist unsicher wegen ihrer Figur und darauf bedacht, möglichst wenig Aufmerksamkeit auf sich zu ziehen. Das ist schlagartig vorbei, als sie eines Tages ausgerechnet mit Alexander van Montford, ihrem viel zu gutaussehenden, aber chronisch schlecht gelaunten Mitstudenten, zusammenstößt.

Febbraio 1519. La brezza mattutina sparge il suo soffio su Roma, avvolgendola in un'atmosfera incantata. Raffaello Sanzio passeggia assorto per via Giulia, lungo l'argine del Tevere, lasciandosi ispirare dai colori che si riflettono nell'acqua e nel cielo, che gli pare una tela color lapislazzuli, arricchita solo da una punta di viola. Agostino Chigi, il banchiere più ricco della città, lo ha convocato al suo servizio per dipingere la loggia di villa Farnesina, un palazzo sontuoso nel cuore di Trastevere, frequentato dai più noti artisti e intellettuali che vivono nell'Urbe.

Sette famiglie, sette sovrani, sei città: questa è l'Italia del XV secolo, dilaniata da guerre, intrighi e tradimenti, governata da signori talvolta lungimiranti, ma molto spesso assetati di potere e dall'indole sanguinaria. A Milano, Filippo Maria, l'ultimo dei Visconti, in assenza di figli maschi cerca di garantire la propria discendenza dando in sposa la giovanissima figlia a Francesco Sforza, promettente uomo d'arme. Intanto trama contro il nemico giurato, Venezia, tentando di corromperne il capitano generale, il conte di Carmagnola.

Ducato di Milano, 1548. La dominazione spagnola sta devastando la città e il contagio, le malattie sembrano inarrestabili, regna la disperazione. Un unico impulso, in questo mondo allo stremo: sopravvivere. Ma la paura della peste, il dilagare della superstizione, l'incombere dell'Inquisizione, la brutale arroganza dei potenti diffondono rabbia e miseria, cancellando qualsiasi speranza per i più deboli. In questo clima di violenza Ludovico de Valois, arrogante e feroce vicario del Capitano di Giustizia, è l'uomo dal pugno di ferro.

When rumors reach Vienna that an attack by the Ottoman army is imminent, Wilhelm von Schor, one of the emperor’s courtiers, prepares to evacuate his family—including his sister, Katja. But Katja’s reluctance to leave the city and the people she loves so well grows the farther the family carriage gets from her childhood home. When she learns that another brother, Xavier, is returning to Vienna with his musketeers, she decides to remain behind and face the shadow of war. But all too soon, the Ottomans encircle the city, blanketing its inhabitants in fear.

Join Celeste Gabriele in this second book of the Master’s Protégé Trilogy as she finds herself torn between desire for fame and fortune in the turbulent Renaissance art world and the call of home and family. Will she have the strength and courage to resist the lure of the siren song and brave churning waters to make her way home?