About this item
A baby abandoned in the palace gardens leads scribe sleuth Christine de Pizan into a mystery involving murder, superstition and scandal in fourteenth-century France. Paris, 1396. Scribe Christine de Pizan is shocked when the Duke of Orleans' fools find a baby, wrapped in rags and covered in sores, abandoned in the palace gardens. Was there really a wicked plan to substitute the child for the queen's own baby daughter and blame the Duchess of Orleans, Valentina Visconti? Who would commit such an evil act, and why? Accused of being a sorceress, Valentina is the victim of much slander and has powerful enemies at the palace, where rumours of witchcraft and superstition run riot. Convinced of the duchess's innocence, Christine is determined to uncover the truth, and soon makes a number of disturbing discoveries.
About the Author
Tania Bayard is a freelance writer and lecturer specializing in medieval art, culture, and horticulture. She has a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University, and she has taught at several universities. She has also been the assistant horticulturist at The Cloisters, a museum of medieval art that is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the curator of the Biblical Garden at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. Her publications include a study of the thirteenth century sculpture of Bourges Cathedral, books and articles on medieval plants and gardens, a translation of a fourteenth-century housekeeping manual, and two books on roses, co-authored with the rosarian at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She is now working on a series of mystery novels set in14th century France.
