Love in the time of the Medici - Pnina Shinebourne

12-year-old Livia flees her forced marriage in Genoa for glamorous Florence and an affair with Don Giovanni de’ Medici, son of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

To protect Livia from the Medicis’ hostility, they move to Venice. They succeed in having Livia’s first marriage annulled, get married and have a son.

But the Medicis will stop at nothing.

Constructed through fragments and intense, eloquent letters that only recently surfaced. Love in the time of the Medici inhabits the spaces between what is recorded and what is imagined. A story with the magnitude and tragedy of that of Abelard and Héloïse.