La intriga del Lapislázuli

Pope Julius II has lost all passion for his prayers and has decided to convoke the eleven greatest painters of the Renaissance to paint the most beautiful and pious painting of the Madonna that the human eye has ever beheld. Master Artisan Giacoppo Biancasa has the risky task of traveling throughout the Peninsula to transmit the Vatican’s message to Michael Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli and the rest, in the midst of the plague that decimates Venice, the confabulations of the Nestorians, and the clandestine and dangerous business of acquiring ultramarine blue pigment… In The Lapis Lazuli Intrigue, Mallarino masterfully delves into the convulsed Sixteenth Century Italy, to deliver readers this vigorous Renaissance thriller. The mystery of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Vatican’s secrets, the period paintings and the exorbitant price of lapis lazuli come together in a plot that one gets caught up in from beginning to end.