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Knopf
September 2012
On Sale: September 4, 2012
416 pages
ISBN: 0385536313
EAN: 9780385536318
Kindle: B007MGTOCU
Hardcover / e-Book
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Against a teeming canvas of Borgia politics, NiccolΓ² Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci come together to unmask an enigmatic serial killer, as we learn the secret history behind one of the most controversial works in the western canon, The Prince... When Pope Alexander dispatches a Vatican courtesan, Damiata, to the remote fortress city of Imola to learn the truth behind the murder of Juan, his most beloved illegitimate son, she cannot fail, for the scheming Borgia pope holds her own young son hostage. Once there, Damiata becomes a pawn in the political intrigues of the popeβs surviving son, the charismatic Duke Valentino, whose own life is threatened by the condottieri, a powerful cabal of mercenary warlords. Damiata suspects that the killer she seeks is one of the brutal condottierri, and as the murders multiply, her quest grows more urgent. She enlists the help of an obscure Florentine diplomat, NiccolΓ² Machiavelli, and Valentinoβs eccentric military engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, who together must struggle to decipher the killerβs taunting riddles: Leonardo with his groundbreaking βscience of observationβ and Machiavelli with his new βscience of men.β Traveling across an Italy torn apart by war, they will enter a labyrinth of ancient superstition and erotic obsession to discover at its center a new face of evilβand a truth that will shake the foundations of western civilization.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - September 17, 2012
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