The Sixteen Pleasures: A Novel

ISBN: 1616955805

Author: Hellenga, Robert

Condition: Used

Art, poetry, and desire collide in a sensual, "elegantly moving" (The New Yorker) literary romance set in the cobbled streets and painted halls of Florence, Italy.Margot Harrington, an American volunteer in Florence, is an expert at book conservancy. While struggling to save a waterlogged convent library, she comes across a fabulous volume of sixteen erotic drawings by Giulio Romano, accompanying sixteen steamy sonnets by Pietro Aretino. When first published over four centuries ago, the Vatican ordered all copies destroyed. This one-now unique-volume has survived.The abbess prevails upon Margot to save the orders finances by selling the magnificently illustrated erotica discreetly-meaning without the bishops knowledge.Margots other clandestine project is a middle-aged Italian who is boldly attempting radical measures to save endangered frescoes. She is 29 and available; he, older and married. He shares her sense of mission and soon her bed in this daring story of spiritual longing and earthly desire.