Review"Park has fashioned a dense, sweeping narrative of Renaissance Italy." -- New York TimesA sweeping saga of intrigue and romance set during the Italian Renaissance and told through the eyes of Grazia dei Rossi, a young Jewish woman torn between duty and forbidden romance, who wins our hearts with her recorded secrets of love.Grazia dei Rossi, private secretary to the world-renowned Isabella d’Este, is the daughter of an eminent Jewish banker, the wife of the pope’s Jewish physician, and the lover of a Christian prince. In a “secret book,” written as a legacy for her son, she records her struggles to choose between the seductions of the Christian world and a return to the family, traditions, and duties to her Jewish roots. As she re-creates Renaissance Italy in captivating detail, Jacqueline Park gives us a timeless portrait of a brave and brilliant woman trapped in an unforgiving, inflexible society.About the AuthorJacqueline Park is the founding chairman of the Dramatic Writing Program and professor emerita at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She lives in Toronto.
