Fra Filippo Lippi is no-one's idea of a model friar. Gambler, cheat, womanizer, he yet produced some of the most divine art. This is the story of how, under the guidance - and provocation - of his patron, Cosimo de' Medici, Filippo transcends his bodily appetites to make paintings for the soul. Meanwhile he is abducting the nun who models for him - or is he? The book examines common ideas of goodness and finds them wanting.

Volterra, 1472, and a young orphan called Tommaso dreams of becoming a scribe in Medicean Florence. His dreams come true, but not in the way he expected them to, and war pitches him into the city of Lorenzo de' Medici. His cousin, Antonio, tries to enlist his help in a conspiracy to murder Lorenzo. Tommaso, now living and working with men who are members of the Platonic Academy wishes to enter the Academy himself but to do so he must make his peace with the keeper of its gates - Lorenzo. Torn, he does not know his own mind and heart until fate forces his arm.

Following the murders committed by the Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo de' Medici sends his family out to the country under the care of Angelo Poliziano. Tommaso divides his time between Marsilio Ficino, whose translation of Plato he is helping to complete, and Poliziano, who is becoming increasingly helpless under the bitter onslaught of Lorenzo's wife, Clarice. The domestic conflict is a microcosm of Tuscany at war. Poliziano's sister, Maria, a survivor when her convent is razed by soldiers, makes her way to Florence to find the brother she barely knows. Together with Lorenzo's mother and Tommaso's wife, Maria works to find peace at a transcendental level. In the end, the fate of Florence hinges on one woman: Lorenzo's wife, Clarice.

The third and final volume of the Botticelli Trilogy. With the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, Florence comes under a new regime, religious, fundamentalist, severe. Tommaso the Platonist is no longer safe in the city. Should he flee, or should he go with his friends to the sermons of Girolamo Savonarola?