Posts by Vicki J Kondelik

This delightful little book, which can be read in one sitting, is a diary kept by novelist and literary editor Diana Athill during a visit to Florence in 1947. She writes about the sights of Florence, the delicious food she ate, and the people she met there.

April Blood tells the story of a plot to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici, unofficial ruler of Renaissance Florence. Although nonfiction, it reads like a political thriller. The book is not just the story of the murder plot. It includes many details of life in Renaissance Florence, including the political system, banking, and the arranging of marriages.

Ancient Roman private eye Marcus Didius Falco travels to the cities of southern Italy, including Pompeii eight years before the eruption of Vesuvius, to track down conspirators against the emperor Vespasian and to win the heart of the aristocratic woman he loves, Helena Justina. This is another thrilling entry in the popular mystery series.

Art historian and University of Michigan graduate Molly M. Lindner discusses the Vestal Virgins, priestesses who were among the most honored women of ancient Rome. At the heart of the book is a catalog of the surviving sculpture portraits of the Vestals. Lindner discusses how the sculptures can tell us more about the Vestals than written evidence can, and she writes about the Vestals' influence on other Roman women.

This is the latest in a series of British village mysteries, set in Cornwall, England in the early 1970s. The two protagonists, widow Eleanor Trewynn and her niece, Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow, hunt for spies at a peace conference and track down two criminals who have kidnapped Megan's almost-boyfriend Nick and a lawyer who's an acquaintance of Eleanor's. This series is perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.

Historian Catherine Fletcher tells the fascinating story of Alessandro de' Medici, the first Duke of Florence and arguably the first person of African descent to rule a European state.

This historical novel tells the story of the brilliant Renaissance artist Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, the woman who inspired him.

In the latest entry in Alan Bradley's mystery series featuring Flavia de Luce, a twelve-year-old chemistry genius in 1950s England, Flavia returns to England after being expelled from a boarding school in Canada and finds out her father is ill with pneumonia. Her sisters give her a less than warm welcome, and to get away from the house, she carries a letter from the vicar's wife to a wood-carver, only to find the man dead, hanging upside-down from his bedroom door. She conducts her own investigation of the murder, and finds a connection between the murdered man and an author of children's poetry, who also died mysteriously.

The Unwilling Vestal is a historical novel, originally published in 1918, about Brinnaria, a young girl in ancient Rome who is forced to become a Vestal virgin after she refuses to marry the man her father has chosen for her. During her thirty years of service as a Vestal virgin, she is determined to stay true to the man she loves and marry him at the end of her service. But her rejected suitor threatens to have her accused of breaking her vows, and the emperor Commodus (who may be familiar to you as the villain of the movie Gladiator) will go along with the accusation unless Brinnaria proves her innocence. The Unwilling Vestal still reads well, and is full of fascinating details about ancient Rome.

Brunelleschi's Dome tells the story of one of the greatest achievements in architecture, the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as the Duomo, in Florence, and of Filippo Brunelleschi, the irascible genius who created it. Author Ross King details Brunelleschi's many inventions, including his few failures, and his rivalry with another great artist, Lorenzo Ghiberti.