The Palace

World Fantasy Award: Best Novel nominee (1980).

They say his palazzo is to be a magnificent work of art – a dazzling edifice to rival the most opulent in the city. Its owner is a stranger to Florence, a wealthy foreigner who dresses in black silk and practices the age-old secrets of alchemy. But the man who calls himself Francesco Ragoczy da San Germano conceals his own dark secrets that have exiled him to a life of blood-filled torment and eternal wandering. Yet in the sensation-craving Estasia, cousin to Botticelli, San Germano has found a woman whose unquenchable passions could exceed his own. And in the fanatical monk Savonarola, he has found a powerful enemy: a dangerously obsessed ascetic who exerts a hypnotic power over the citizens of Florence. Savonarola is embarked on a reign of terror that will not end until every thing of beauty is destroyed and every heretic burned at the stake. As the city becomes a hotbed of religious fervor and escalating violence, San Germano is faced with an impossible choice that could doom those he loves forever... and transform his own existence beyond recognition.

Peopled by such unforgettable real-life figures as the de Medicis and Sandro Botticelli, THE PALACE evokes Renaissance Italy in all its dangerous glory, as it weaves a darkly erotic spell of love, power, obsession and seduction that will keep you in thrall until the stunning conclusion.