Luciana Vetra, a slyly intelligent, headstrong prostitute in Florence, and the irreverent hero of The Botticelli Secret, models for what will become Sandro Botticelli’s famous masterpiece La Primavera. But when the artist dismisses her without payment, Luciana impulsively steals an unfinished sketch of the painting, unleashing a series of murders all meant for her.

With the help of Brother Guido, a learned novitiate and the one man who can resist her feminine charms, Luciana flees Florence and interprets the message encoded in this mysterious sketch; a message that leads Luciana and Guido on an extraordinary adventure through the cities of 15th century Italy.