THE VENETIAN CONTRACT by Marina Fiorato
1576. Five years after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto, a ship steals unnoticed into Venicebearing a deadly cargo. A man more dead than alive, disembarks and staggers into Piazza San Marco. He brings a gift to Venicefrom Constantinople. Within days the city is infected with bubonic plague – and the Turkish Sultan has his revenge.
In despair the Doge commissions the architect Andrea Palladio to build the greatest church of his career – an offering to God so magnificent thatVenice will be saved. But Palladio’s own life is in danger too, and it will require all the skills of Annibale Cason, the city’s finest plague doctor, to keep him alive. What Annibale has not counted on is the Turkish ship’s other stowaway, Feyra, a beautiful young harem doctor who not only matches his medical skills but will also teach him how to care…
