Faber & Faber

Lucia in the Age of Napoleon: Andrea di Robilant

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Synopsis:

A stunning portrait of a remarkable woman, by the author of the international bestseller A Venetian Affair.

In 1797, Lucia, the beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter of a Venetian statesman, was married off to Alvise Mocenigo, a member of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families of the once glorious maritime Republic. They were a golden couple in Venice's twilight years. But Lucia's life was suddenly transformed when the dynamic young Napoleon Bonaparte led his army into northern Italy and the Venetian Republic fell apart.

Whether as a dazzling young hostess in Habsburg Vienna, lady-in-waiting at the court of Prince Eugene in Milan, single mother in Paris during the fall of Napoleon's Empire or as Byron's hard-nosed landlady during the poet's stay in Venice, Lucia lived to be a remarkable witness to an age of great turmoil.

Two hundred years later, Andrea di Robilant, Lucia's great-great-great-great grandson, has unearthed letters and diaries in archives across Europe to draw an intimate and vivid portrait of his ancestor, and of the exceptional times she lived in.

Tags:

Categorised as:

Non-fiction

Sub-categories:

Biography & Memoir; History

Places:

Paris; Venice; Vienna

People & Characters:

Lord Byron; Napoleon

Genres & Themes:

Diaries; Napoleonic; Society; Women