In Renaissance Florence, a woman's name can open doors-or close them forever.

Lucia Bellandi is the dutiful daughter of a respected silk merchant, promised to a wealthy banker who can save her family from ruin. But beneath her family's palazzo, she hides a forbidden life.

At night, Lucia paints in secret.

Because Florence will not accept a woman as an artist, her work appears under the name of an imaginary man: Lorenzo Nero. Behind that false identity, her paintings begin to earn admiration throughout the city.

Then she meets Matteo Valeri.

A gifted stone carver with no fortune, no title, and no powerful family name, Matteo has spent his life watching richer men claim credit for his work. Proud, restless, and unwilling to bow before authority, he challenges everything Lucia has been taught to accept.

What begins as an argument inside the ruins of San Michele soon becomes a dangerous love neither of them can deny.

But Lucia's future husband, Giuliano Moretti, discovers their secret. Determined to protect his inheritance and control the woman promised to him, he threatens to destroy Matteo and expose Lucia's hidden identity.

When Lucia uncovers letters proving corruption, betrayal, and a secret connected to Matteo's birth, she must choose between saving her family's reputation and revealing a truth powerful enough to set Florence on fire.

Set against the beauty, ambition, and cruelty of sixteenth-century Italy, The Rose of San Michele is a sweeping historical romance about forbidden art, family honor, hidden identities, and two people fighting for the right to live-and love-under their own names.