Cream Tea with Sarah Dunant: The Marchesa

Friday 14 November 2:30pm, Old Library - Derby Museum & Art Gallery DE1 1HS

This event will be filmed and made available as a digital recording after the Festival. Available for purchase here.

Sarah Dunant’s novels, including The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, brilliantly evoke the Italian Renaissance.  Her latest focuses on Isabella d'Este, the first female art collector and patron of her time. Her famed collection has long since been dispersed or lost, but what remains is her correspondence - thousands of letters preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent in the archive of Mantua.

The Marchesa is Renaissance history at its most vivid, mixing historical fiction with biography, scholarship and imagery.   It is also a meditation on our attitude to history itself, challenging how far we can set aside our own values and certainties when it comes to understanding those who grew out of very different cultural soil.

Please note seating will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. 

An email will be sent to you closer to the event to confirm your scone choice and any dietary requirements. You can at this point let us know of booking numbers/names of any others you wish to be sat with.