Tuscan Daughter is a National Bestseller!

“Lisa Rochon’s glorious debut novel...impeccably researched and rife with lush detail and life’s wisdom.”

Janet Somerville, Toronto Star

Beatrice, the main character in Tuscan Daughter, aspires to be an artist but she is too poor to afford paints and paper. Alone, her father murdered, her mother disappeared, she graffities on the stonewalls of Renaissance Florence and walks from her hilltown village to sell olive oil to artists toiling behind the Duomo. Her customers include Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa Gherardini, a young mother grieving over the tragic death of her toddler daughter. Tuscan Daughter is set during five epic years in the early 1500s when Florence was rebranding itself through its creative geniuses, when Michelangelo was sculpting the David and Leonardo was starting to paint the Mona Lisa. The novel reveals the humanity and struggles of a young woman longing to find the only family she has left and to be an artist in her own right, entwining her fate with Agnella, a sage healer, Lisa Gherardini and the artistic masters of the time. Inspired by Beatrice, what she has suffered and survived, the characters share a faith in moving past their rivalries to stake everything on the power of beauty to transform and heal their wounds. The book’s cover image is partly inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of La Scapigliata, or Lady with Dishevelled Hair. Tuscan Daughter is available in bookstores across Canada starting July 13, 2021, and next year, translated into Italian throughout Italy. The audio book is narrated by the NYC-based Italian American actress, Carlotta Brentan.

Tuscan Daughter is set during five epic years in the early 1500s when Florence was rebranding itself through its creative geniuses, when Michelangelo was sculpting the David and Leonardo was starting to paint the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, a cloth merchant’s wife, she of the Mona Lisa. The novel reveals the humanity and struggles of a young and defiant Beatrice who longs to find the only family she has left and to be an artist in her own right, entwining her fate with Agnella, a sage healer, Lisa Gherardini and the artistic masters of the time. All of the characters have suffered as outsiders but together, with Beatrice as their guide, they share a faith in moving past their rivalries to stake everything on the power of beauty to transform and heal their wounds. The book’s cover image is partly inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of La Scapigliata, or Lady with Dishevelled Hair.

Tuscan Daughter is available in bookstores across Canada starting July 13, 2021. In Italy, as a hardcover, the translated book is titled La Moglie del Mercante di Stoffe (Newton Compton Editori).

The audio book is narrated by the NYC-based Italian American actress, Carlotta Brentan.

Feltrenelli Books Florence, Italy

Mondadori Books, Duomo Square, Milan