Lady of Monza

Synopsis

A True Story of Forbidden Love, Murder, and Betrayal in a Convent in Renaissance Italy.

She was born to nobility. Her family forced her into the veil. Desire would make her infamous.

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In 1576, fifteen-year-old Virginia Maria de Leyva—daughter of one of Spain's most powerful families—is sealed behind convent walls against her will. Stripped of her birthright, renamed Sister Virginia Maria, she transforms from powerless novice to the iron-fisted ruler of the Convent of Santa Margherita in Monza. But her authority comes with a terrible price.

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When Gian Paolo Osio, the charismatic nobleman next door, begins a forbidden affair with Virginia, their passion ignites a catastrophic chain of events. Secret pregnancies, hidden children, and the desperate measures taken to conceal them turn the convent into a place of conspiracy. When a young lay sister threatens to expose everything on the eve of crucial elections, Virginia and her lover cross a line from which there is no return.​

One by one, witnesses are silenced. Servants disappear. An apothecary is murdered in the street. As bodies accumulate and rumors spread through the small town, the most powerful men in Italy—Cardinal Federigo Borromeo and the Spanish Governor—find themselves locked in a dangerous battle over justice, scandal, and the fate of a woman who refuses to repent.​

Based on trial transcripts and Vatican archives, The Lady of Monza reveals the true story of one woman's defiance in Counter-Reformation Italy—a tale of forbidden desire, devastating choices, and the price of passion in a world that demanded her silence.​​

For readers who loved The Nightingale, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio.