I spent three weeks in Florence, Italy, in Oct 2019, just before the covid plague spread across the world. I fell in love with the city and its history. I found my characters in Botticelli's paintings at the Uffizi Gallery, the largest collection of renaissance art in the world. When I got home to Laurel Canyon, I immersed myself in the history of the late 15th century - the rise of the Medici family, the Pazzi conspiracy, the "Cousins War" in England - and my characters dict
