The Arno Serpent: The sixth adventure of Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo da Pavia (Italian Renaissance Mystery #6)

Description

Leonardo is weary. The tremor in his hand inhibits his ability to paint. His eyesight is failing. The ravages of age depress him.

Much of Italy has been under the thumb of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare Borgia.

For more than a decade, villages were crushed under the heel of Duke Cesare, but the death of Pope Alexander VI aroused in the villages a brief dream of an independence from all political parties and ambitious warlords.

Their hopes are immediately dashed when the newly elected Pope, Julius II, wasted no time in declaring war on the vast city states of the Romagna.
This is an unsettling time. Political alliances are changing and wars for money and power have everyone scrambling to get their share.
The new pope is not popular. An attempt is made on his life with a poison that cannot be identified. Who among the warring families and conspiring cardinals are planning to assassinate him?

Pope Julius demands that suspects be apprehended, interrogated and tortured resulting in a growing number of victims succumbing to his vengeance.

Because of his knowledge of poisons Leonardo is implicated as a co-conspirator in the attempt on the Pope's life. To clear his name he searches for the identity of the poison which is discovered in an ancient text in the Medici library and exposes the poisoner.

Once again the mystery is solved and once again Leonardo is in need of sanctuary from assassination.
Will Leonardo ever find peace in his last years?

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