Intelligent and passionate, Marietta, 19, lives at a time when dowries are reaching for the skies. Child of a prestigious noble family, the Morosinis, she is no more than a pawn in a frenzied money game to win honour and social status, and consequently, she falls victim to religious fervour and political machinations.
Forced by her family to take the veil, Marietta contemplates the impossible. She makes up her mind to defy God, throw off the chains of her destiny, and try to escape to a life in exile with her childhood love, her peer, the nobleman Tommaso Contarini.
An old, forgotten painting by Paolo Veronese, showing her beautiful great aunt Rosalba Morosini as a young bride to be, turns out to be essential for her plans to leave behind bleak convent life, the hellfire of the Inquisition, her hateful mother and vile brother, and the convent confessor Orsolo Lupi. Rosalba‘s romance brings the passion back into Marietta´s life.
This is a story of love and the striving for personal freedom in a world where paradox and hypocrisy rule. Historical facts blend with fiction in this tale of the dark side of early 17th century Venice.
