"This moving, gripping and impressive work is Dunant's most beautifully achieved novel...working artistic motifs and subject matter into a compelling narrative, she weaves the big themes of love, sex, death and art into the everyday."
--- Sunday Times

"Dunant throws out ideas about sex, art and the divine with Renaissance-style sprezzatura."
--- The Independent

"As soon as I finished this book I wanted to go straight back and read it all over again."
--- Observer

"Forget the cliches. Dunant has created a vivid and compellingly believable picture of Renaissance Florence : the squalor and brutality; the confidence and vitality; the political machinations...magnificent. "
--- Daily Telegraph