The Marchesa

Inside the opulent world of the Italian Renaissance, Isabella d’Este ruled not just by birth-right, but by wit, will, and an unquenchable thirst for power.     In The Marchesa, Isabella tells her own story: a girl transcending a loveless marriage to become both the first and greatest female art collector of her time and its most formidable woman political operator, navigating an unstable Italy of fragile alliances, high art and brutal warfare.       Through her eyes, the vanished splendour of Mantua and the great Renaissance courts are brought back to life, contrasting their surface beauty and artistic brilliance with an underbelly of infighting, treachery and sexual transgression.     Vividly imagined and utterly immersive, Sarah Dunant’s The Marchesa is a masterful portrait of one of history’s most remarkable women and a revelatory journey into the very soul of the Renaissance.