After meeting the mysterious and beautiful Lady Beauclair at a society ball, George Cautley, a hapless young artist adrift in the gilded world of 1770s London, paints her portrait. She, in turn, tells him the scandalous story of Tristano, a castrato singer in Handel's opera company fifty years before. But Cautley also meets the eminent painter Sir Endymion Starker that same evening and his mistress, Eleanora, who has another tragic tale to tell, one that will have George unwittingly re-enacting the fate of Tristano...

Author Biography

Ross King is the author of Brunelleschi's Dome, a highly praised account of how the Renaissance architect Brunelleschi constructed the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (voted Non-Fiction Book of the Year by American Independent Booksellers in 2001), as well as The Judgement of Paris, Leonardo and the Last Supper and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling. He has also written two novels, Domino and Ex Libris. He lives in Oxford.