Florence,1557. As dawn breaks, a painter is discovered lying on the floor of a church, stabbed through the heart.

Above him, the paintings he laboured over for more than a decade. At his home, a hidden portrait scandalously depicting Maria de Medici, daughter of the Duke of Florence, as a naked Venus. Who is the murderer? Who made the painting? As the city erupts in chaos, Giorgio Vasari, the great art historian, is picked to lead the investigation.

Letters fly back and forth carrying news of plots and speculation about the killer’s identity – between Maria and her aunt Catherine de’ Medici, the queen of France; between Catherine and her secret agents; and between Vasari and his friend Michelangelo. And the truth, when it comes to light, is as shocking as the bold new artworks that have made Florence the red-hot centre of Europe.