Bianca's Cure

A Novel

Gigi Berardi

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9798896360711
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

For fans of Lessons in Chemistry, a based-in-fact novel imagining young Renaissance noblewoman Bianca Capello’s experiences as she pursues a cure for malaria in the Medicis’ Florence.

Florence, 1563. Forbidden from practicing her herbal cures in Venice, the young noblewoman Bianca Capello flees to Florence, where the ruling Medici family practices alchemy. There, she wins herself an invitation to their palace, and, as it turns out, a path to the duke regent Francesco’s bed.

The impassioned bond between Francesco de Medici and Bianca is at the core of this fact-driven dive into medicine, politics, love, and ultimately death in Renaissance Florence. Malaria killed many of the Medicis, but traces of the poison arsenic were recently found in Francesco’s remains. Even more sinister: Bianca’s remains have never been found. To this day, what happened to Bianca and Francesco remains one of the greatest mysteries surrounding Renaissance Italy’s legendary Medicis.

Bianca’s Cure probes what might have been as Bianca’s quest for a malaria cure—in palaces, gardens, sick rooms, and whorehouses—collides with Francesco’s intensifying illness. Her main tool is the herb artemisia—medicine still used today. A woman who dared to practice science well ahead of her time, Bianca fights off self-doubt until she believes herself invincible. But is she? When only she stands between Francesco and death, her skill may save him or doom them both.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• 1. Venice A Death and a Beginning 1558
• 2. The Sick House of Venice 1563
• 3. Cassola, near Bassano Locked In
• 4. Escape to Florence
• 5. Florence Unhappy Wife
• 6. Sant’Elisabetta 1564
• 7. The Blunder That Couldn’t Be Buried
• 8. Florence Streets
• 9. A Ball
• 10. Virginia
• 11. The Medici Mistress
• 12. The Casino
• 13. Francesco’s Men 1565
• 14. A Garden of Cures
• 15. Distractions
• 16. Red Robes
• 17. The Heat Disease 1572
• 18. Desperate Women 1574
• 19. House of Sin 1575
• 20. A Secret Shared
• 21. Sickness at the Via Maggio Palace 1576
• 22. A New Garden 1577
• 23. Joanna Laid to Rest 1578
• 24. Till Death Do Them Part 1579
• 25. Mama Bianca
• 26. Like Mother, Like Son 1580
• 27. Pratolino 1587
• 28. Crusca
• 29. Illness at Villa Poggio a Caiano
• 30. The Price of a Cure
• 31. When Alchemy Kills
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
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