Sacred Hearts (56 page)

Writers are not the most even-keeled of human beings when working on a book. I’d like to apologize to my daughters, Zoe and Georgia, for the excessive number of conversations about nuns in our house, and, for their critical support, to thank Eileen Horne, Christopher Bollas, Gillian Slovo, Maria Maragonis, Don Guttenplan, Ian Grojnowski, Scarlet MccGwire, Joseph Calderone, Sue Woodman, Christina Shewall, and Isabella Planner. But final thanks must go to Tez Bentley who, as well as giving my words the polish of his rigorous subeditor’s pen, suffered (and I do not use the word lightly) alongside me when the going got really rough. It is fitting, perhaps, that for a novel with no men within it there should have been one on the outside whose sanity and generosity kept me from madness.

—London

May 2009

www.sarahdunant.com

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Frank J.
An Illustrated History of the Herbals
. Columbia University Press.

Baernstein, P. Renee.
A Convent Tale
. Routledge Press.

Baxandall, Michael.
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy
. Oxford University Press.

Bell, Rudolph M.
Holy Anorexia
. University of Chicago Press.

Bornstein, Daniel, editor.
Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
. University of Chicago Press.

Broedel, Hans Peter.
The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft
. Manchester University Press.

Brown, Judith C.
Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy
. Oxford University Press.

Burke, Peter.
Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe
. Scholars Press.

Bynum, Carolyn Walker.
Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women
. University of California Press.

________.
Jesus as Mother
. University of California Press.

Camporesi, Piero.
The Anatomy of the Senses
. Cambridge Polity Press.

________.
Bread of Dreams
. Cambridge Polity Press.

________.
The Incorruptible Flesh
. Cambridge University Press.

Cardono, Girolamo. “The Book of My Life.”
New York Review of Books
, 2002.

Clark, Stuart.
Thinking with Demons
. Clarendon Press.

Dear, Peter.
Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions 1500–1700
. Princeton Paperbacks.

Debus, A. G.
Man and Nature in the Renaissance
. Cambridge University Press.

Eamon, William.
Science and the Secrets of Nature
. Princeton University Press.

Eisenbichler, Konrad, editor.
The Pre-Modern Teenager: Youth in Society 1150–1650
. University of Toronto Press.

Evangelisti, Silvia.
Nuns: A History of Convent Life
. Oxford University Press.

Fenlon, Iain.
Music and Culture in Late Renaissance Italy
. Oxford University Press.

Findlen, Paula.
Possessing Nature
. University of California Press.

Flinders, Carol Lee.
Enduring Grace
. HarperCollins.

Glucklich, Ariel.
Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul
. Oxford University Press.

Greenfield, Amy Butler.
A Perfect Red
. Black Swan Books.

Hills, Helen.
Invisible City: Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents
. Oxford University Press.

Hollingsworth, Mary.
The Cardinal’s Hat
. Profile Books.

Horne, P. “Reformation and Counter-Reformation at Ferrara” (essay).
Italian Studies
, 1958.

Hufton, Olwen H, editor.
Women in Religious Life
. European University Institute.

Kendrick, Robert.
Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan
. Clarendon Press.

Laven, Mary.
Virgins of Venice
. Viking Press.

Le Goff, Jacques.
The Medieval Imagination
. University of Chicago Press.

Lowe, Kate.
Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy
. Cambridge University Press.

Maclean, Ian.
The Renaissance Notion of Woman
. Cambridge University Press.

Matter, Anne, and John Coakley, editors.
Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy
. University of Pennsylvania Press.

McNamara, Jo Ann Kay.
Sisters in Arms
. Harvard University Press.

Monson, Craig A., editor.
The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in Early Modern Europe
. University of Michigan Press.

________.
Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Italian Convent
. University of California Press.

Mooney, C. M., editor.
Gendered Voices
. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Nutton, Vivian. “The Rise of Medical Humanism in Ferrara” (essay).
Renaissance Studies
.

Park, Katharine, and Lorraine Daston, editors.
Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750
. Zone Books.

Porter, Roy.
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: Medical History of Humanity
. HarperCollins.

Reardon, Colleen.
Holy Concord Within Sacred Walls: Nuns and Music in Siena, 1575–1700
. Oxford University Press.

Rose, Mary Beth, editor.
Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
. Syracuse University Press.

Ruggiero, Guido.
The Boundaries of Eros
. Oxford University Press.

Schutte, Anne Jacobson.
Aspiring Saints
. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Siraisi, Nancy G.
Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine
. University of Chicago Press.

Sobel, Dava.
To Father: The Letters of Sister Maria Celeste to Galileo
. Fourth Estate.

Sperling, Jutta Gisela.
Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice
. University of Chicago Press.

Trexler, Richard C.
Public Life in Renaissance Florence
. Academic Press.

________.
The Women of Renaissance Florence
. Pegasus Press.

Walker, D. P.
Spiritual and Demon Magic from Ficino to Campanella
. Sutton Press.

Ward, Benedicta, translator.
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of Early Christian Monks
. Penguin Classics.

Wear, Andrew, R. K. French, and I. M. Lonie, editors.
The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century
. Cambridge University Press.

Weaver, Elissa B.
Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women
. Cambridge University Press.

________.
Scenes from Italian Convent Life: An Anthology of Theatrical Texts and Contexts
. Longo Editore.

Weinstein, Donald, and Rudolph M. Bell, editors.
Saints and Society
. University of Chicago Press.

Woolfson, Jonathan, editor.
Renaissance Historiography
. Palgrave Macmillan.

Zarri, Gabriella, and Lucetta Scaraffia, editors.
Women and Faith
. Harvard University Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S
ARAH
D
UNANT
is the author of the international bestsellers
The Birth of Venus
and
In the Company of the Courtesan
, which have received major acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Her earlier novels include three Hannah Wolfe crime thrillers, as well as
Snowstorms in a Hot Climate, Transgressions
, and
Mapping the Edge
, all three of which are available as Random House Trade Paperbacks. She has two daughters and lives in London and Florence.

www.sarahdunant.com

Sacred Hearts
is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the
well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in
the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are
the products of the authors imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or
to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Dunant

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in the United Kingdom by Virago Press,
an imprint of the Little, Brown Book Group, London.

Dunant, Sarah.
Sacred hearts / a novel / Sarah Dunant.
p. cm.
1. Nuns—Italy—Fiction. 2. Convents—Italy—Fiction. 3. Women—Italy—Social
conditions—16th century—Fiction. 4. Ferrara (Italy)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6054.U45756S33 2009
823′.914—dc22      2009002246
eISBN: 978-1-58836-902-4

www.atrandom.com

v3.0

Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books By This Author

Title Page

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Two

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four