Immersing myself in the rich culture and history of Florence while writing this book was an absolute delight. I love learning how cities have changed over the centuries. Mina might have shopped in the Mercato Vecchio, site of the old Roman forum, but in Emily’s day the space had become the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. Today, it’s the Piazza della Repubblica. It’s hard to imagine the city without the Uffizi Galleries, but they weren’t constructed until the sixteenth century and never a part of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Florence. It would have been at the top of Emily’s list of places to visit; but in her time, Botticelli’s Primavera was not yet housed in the museum. The famous statue of Dante that now stands on the steps of the church at Santa Croce was originally in the center of the piazza, where Emily sees it.
Agnolo bringing his illegitimate daughter into his household was inspired by Cosimo I, who did just that with his own daughter after his mistress died.
Women in Renaissance Florence did not take their husbands’ names, which is why Mina and her compatriots retain their own surnames throughout the book.
The significance of the manuscripts found by Renaissance book hunters is profound. I highly recommend that all book lovers read Stephen Greenblatt’s magnificent The Swerve: How the World Became Modern to learn more about these extraordinary men.
Emily finds Lena’s body in a hidden room in the Medici Chapel. The room does exist but was not discovered until 1975, when Paolo Dal Poggetto, then director of the museum, moved a wardrobe and found a trapdoor. The walls are covered with 180 sketches, 97 of which are thought to be the work of Michelangelo. Dal Poggetto speculates that the artist may have spent two months hiding in the space when the Florentine Republic fell in 1530 and was under threat of attack by papal forces.
Signore Bastieri’s shop is based on one of my favorites in Florence, Cuoiofficine. It’s run by two brothers, Timothy and Tommaso Sabatini, who apply the seventeenth-century art of marbling paper to perfectly tanned Tuscan leather. Their work is exquisite (as you can see if you visit either the store or their website).
Emily’s story is set in 1903, when relations between Great Britain and Germany were already on the decline that would lead to World War I. The British public was being bombarded by stories of possible invasion and German spies hiding in the countryside. In January 1900, the Daily Mail claimed that “Every German officer has his own little bit of England marked off.” Books and stories like those written by William Le Queux fueled what became known as spy fever. Although after the war it became clear there had been virtually no spies in Britain—and certainly no effective ones—the paranoia of the prewar years catalyzed the formation of intelligence services in both countries. One of the great triumphs of the period was that Britain developed its famous dreadnought battleship without the Germans so much as suspecting what their enemy was doing. Berlin, already too aware of Britain’s naval superiority, was taken completely by surprise when its enemy launched the dreadnought in 1906, rendering every other battleship in the world obsolete. During the development of the design, Colin and his colleagues would not have wanted to see the plans fall into German hands.
Darius Benton-Smith is loosely based on Kim Philby, arguably the greatest spy in history. Most secret agents are motivated by money, but Philby was a firm ideologue, believing from his days at Oxford that communism would benefit the British people. His astonishing story is brilliantly told in Ben Macintyre’s A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Finally, Colin’s superior, Sir John Burman, is named in honor of John Mortensen Burman, longtime supporter of the Albany County Library in Laramie, Wyoming. He is missed by friends, family, and colleagues every single day.