Sarah Kennedy Flug and Marty Flug, thank you for your friendship and support. Angel Glow recharged me to continue writing during trying times.
Thank you to my great Amazon team: Jessica Poore, Gabriella Van den Heuvel, Susan Stockman, and Dennelle Catlett, among many others. Special appreciation to Danielle Marshall, my new editor at Amazon.
To Lindsay Guzzardo, former Amazon editor, now screenwriter. I will never forget you.
To my copyeditor, Mia Lipman. Your careful work made this novel better. I am grateful to you.
To Phyllis DeBlanche, my proofreader: Thank you. I know it was extra hard work proofing with all the Italian words!
Thanks to all the production and design team at Amazon, especially Sean Baker.
Mumtaz Mustafa: You created the perfect cover.
Melody Guy, my developmental editor, is an incredibly sensitive editor who draws my best work from me. I love working with her. I have been blessed having her guide all four of my published books.
Terry Goodman has championed my work for several years now—book #4! Thank you, Terry, for your support and good nature. It has been a pleasure. Happy retirement!
Special thanks to Jeff Belle. I’m a happy—and grateful—Amazon novelist.
To my foreign rights team at Curtis Brown, especially Sophie Baker and Betsy Robbins. Thank you for spreading Virginia’s story to other lands and in other languages.
The team at Gelfman Schneider/ICM Partners has guided my contracts and all matters of business, looking out for me all along the way. Thank you especially to Cathy Gleason and Victoria Marini.
To my friend and agent, Deborah Schneider . . . you have been behind this book from the first second of inspiration. What a fun ride!
To my beloved parents, Betty and Fred Lafferty. You raised all your girls to love books, storytelling, and horses. We love you more than you can possibly know.
Finally, my profound gratitude to Andy Stone, my husband, research assistant, and first editor. You are the love of my life. I don’t know if I ever could have written all these books without your love, encouragement, and hard work. And that’s the truth.
AUTHOR NOTES
In writing The Shepherdess of Siena, I primarily used documents that were part of the de’ Medici archives, but also everything I could track down about Virginia Tacci. Of great help was the Accademia dei Rossi and specifically Ettore Pellegrini, who shared all the information he had found in his own research. Also the dissertation of Dr. Elizabeth M. Tobey, The Palio in Italian Renaissance Art, Thought, and Culture, was of enormous help to me. (Even the Senese were astonished by her depth of research.)
Sarah Dunant’s marvelous novel Sacred Hearts was of tremendous research value. For those who want to learn more about convent life in Ferrara, I highly recommend Dunant’s book.
Among the many books on the Palio I used for reference, the following were brightly fanned with sticky notes: La Terra in Piazza: An Interpretation of the Palio of Siena by Alan Dundes and Alessandro Falassi; Palio and Its Image: History, Culture, and Representation of Siena’s Festival by Maria A. Ceppari Ridolfi; Tutta Siena, Contrada per Contrada by Piero Torriti; Palio: The Race of the Soul by Mauro Civai and Enrico Toti; Io, Rompicollo by Rosanna Bonelli.
The de’ Medici family’s story is so well documented that I basically followed the storyline. Caroline Murphy’s book Murder of a Medici Princess was indispensible. I really didn’t have to create drama—the de’ Medici family provided it. There are some plot points I have modified slightly.
Mary Steegmann’s book Bianca Cappello (1913) gave me insights into Francesco de’ Medici’s mistress and wife.
Thanks to the Medici Archive Project, and especially Sheila Barker for her assistance. I found a document that showed the Granduca Francesco’s gratitude to Pietro for the gift of a hunting eagle. The letter shows a very cordial—even lighthearted—correspondence between the two brothers. If Francesco de’ Medici were not complicit in the murders of the two women, I doubt he would have maintained such a good relationship with his brother, the murderer.
As mentioned, the de’ Medici family is well documented. Virginia Tacci’s story, on the other hand, was much harder to investigate. I could not find any record of her life after 1581. The second half of her story is my invention.
Orione, too, was poetic license. However, it is part of the historical record that Federigo Barbolani di Montauto, governor of Siena, gave Virginia Tacci a horse as a present. The governor was a great admirer of hers, as evidenced in this letter to Granduca Francesco de’ Medici in 1581:
This young woman has begun to practice this art of race riding . . . not without manifest danger of breaking her neck . . . but she doesn’t make any sign of falling, but rides with much artfulness and dexterity . . . . She not only knows how to master and hold the mature and unbridled race horses, but also the hot-tempered and speedy colts, and she is able to assert herself with many of them, such that, tamed of their ferocity, they become gentle with her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Roger Adams
Linda Lafferty taught in public education for nearly three decades, in schools from the American School of Madrid to the Boulder Valley schools to the Aspen school district. She completed her PhD in bilingual special education and went on to work in that field, as well as teaching English as a second language and bilingual American history. Horses are Linda’s first love, and she rode on the University of Lancaster’s riding team for a year in England. As a teenager, she was introduced by her uncle to the sport of polo, and she played in her first polo tournament when she was seventeen. Linda also loves Siena, Italy, and the people of the region and has returned to the city half a dozen times in the past three years to research her novel. Linda is the author of three previous novels: The Bloodletter’s Daughter, The Drowning Guard, and House of Bathory. She lives in Colorado with her husband.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CONTENTS
PART I A Medici Princess and the Little Shepherdess
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
PART II The Death of Cosimo de’ Medici
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
PART III Murder in Tuscany
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
PART IV The Heroine of Siena
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
PART V Ferrara
CHAPTER 65
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br /> CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
PART VI The Art of Death
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
PART VII The Reign of Granduca Ferdinando
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CHAPTER 102
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHOR NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany Page 45
