The star-crossed tale of Romeo and Juliet, told through the eyes of Romeo's cousin, Benvolio, a thief known as the Prince of Shadows.

The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm -- and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia -- decadent children of a wicked pope -- no one can claim innocence...

In sixteenth-century Florence, in what would become Italy, Antonio and Donatella flee the wrath of Duke Cosimo de Medici from whom Antonio has stolen a sprig of jasmine, and they use that rare plant to make a fresh start. Includes facts about the duke and Italian history.