About the Author
Linda Proud is an English author best known for her novels set in Renaissance Italy. She was a freelance picture researcher before teaching creative writing to US students studying in Oxford, UK, which she did for twenty years, working mainly for Sarah Lawrence College. Her first novel, A Tabernacle for the Sun, published by Allison and Busby in 1997, was long-listed for the Booker Prize. It also won a bursary from Southern Arts and a month's residence at the writers' retreat of Hawthornden Castle. It was the first part of The Botticelli Trilogy which has drawn praise from authors and academics as well as the general reader, and is considered as best of its kind by many reviewers, including Lonely Planet Guide to Florence and Tuscany: 'The historical detail in all three is exemplary, and each is a cracking good read.'
In 2018 she published Chariot of the Soul set in Rome and Britain in the first century AD. The sequel, The Albios Way, was published October 2025. The third and final volume of the series is now in progress.
She lives in Wolvercote with her husband.
A Gift for Magus Historical
By Linda Proud
| Buy online – 1599
OXIA Bookstore price – 1000
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A Gift for the Magus is the story of Fra Filippo Lippi and his powerful relationship with Cosimo de' Medici. Through the guidance of his patron, Lippi - a liar, a cheat and a gambler who fathers children on the nun who models for him - becomes a painter of divinity. It is a prequel to The Botticelli Trilogy.
A Tabernacle for the Sun Historical
By Linda Proud
| Buy online – 1187
OXIA Bookstore price – 1000
A Tabernacle for the Sun is a novel set in the Florence of Lorenzo de' Medici and is the first part of The Botticelli Trilogy. Freedom - is it Florence without the Medici, or a condition of the soul? This is the question facing Tommaso de' Maffei, an...Show more
A Tabernacle for the Sun is a novel set in the Florence of Lorenzo de' Medici and is the first part of The Botticelli Trilogy. Freedom - is it Florence without the Medici, or a condition of the soul? This is the question facing Tommaso de' Maffei, an apprentice scribe who cannot forgive Lorenzo for sacking his native city of Volterra. But if he would join the Platonic Academy and take the journey of the soul, he must reconcile himself to Lorenzo. Meanwhile his family draws him into a conspiracy against the Medici. To avoid the turmoil, both inner and outer, he takes refuge in the painter's workshop where his friend, Filippino, is an apprentice.
This book draws the reader into the Renaissance, to walk the streets of Florence, meet its famous men, loiter awhile in Botticelli's workshop and see one of the world's greatest paintings grow from first sketches through to finished panel, even as daggers are drawn and blood begins to spill.
Since its first publication in 1997, A Tabernacle for the Sun has met rapturous response from readers and reviewers and has become a classic travel companion for anyone going to Tuscany, as recommended by Lonely Planet guide to Florence and Tuscany. 'The historical detail ... is exemplary and [it's] a cracking good read.'
Chariot of the Soul Historical
By Linda Proud
| Buy online – 914
OXIA Bookstore price – 1000
Togidubnus, son of King Verica of the Atrebates, has been living in Rome for ten years. During a visit to the Oracle at Delphi, he is given a divine injunction to return to barbaric Britain. He wants to stay in Rome with his host, the scholarly Claud...Show more
Togidubnus, son of King Verica of the Atrebates, has been living in Rome for ten years. During a visit to the Oracle at Delphi, he is given a divine injunction to return to barbaric Britain. He wants to stay in Rome with his host, the scholarly Claudius, and his teacher, the philosopher Seneca. But events conspire with the gods: Claudius becomes emperor, Seneca is thrown into exiles and King Verica arrives in Rome to beg help in regaining lands lost to the warlord Caratacus.
Claudius sends Togidubnus home in advance of the Roman army to persuade the Britons not to resist or else face a bloodbath. Why should they resist? After all, the Roman way of life is better. Isn’t it?
Pallas and the Centaur Historical
By Linda Proud
| Buy online – 600
OXIA Bookstore price – 1000
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The second novel in The Botticelli Trilogy has a dual narration. The voice of Tommaso is now accompanied by that of Poliziano's sister, Maria. Set at the time when Florence is at war with Rome, it is very much the ladies' story, stuck as they are in a safe house. Lorenzo's wife, Clarice, is at complete odds with the poet Poliziano, who has been commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici to look after the family. Their war is the microcosm of what is going on 'outside'.
The Albios Way Historical
By Linda Proud
| Buy online – 1379
OXIA Bookstore price – 1000
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Second in the Awen Series. AD 43. Rome's legions are carving their way into Britain, imposing a new world order. Togidubnus, king of the Atrebates. is determined to forge peace between conqueror and conquered but rebellion festers in the hills and forests.
The Rebirth of Venus Historical
By Linda Proud
| Buy online – 1054
OXIA Bookstore price – 1000
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The Rebirth of Venus is the last part of The Botticelli Trilogy, following A Tabernacle for the Sun and Pallas and the Centaur. Set in the 1480s and 90s, it tells the story of murder, not only of the leading men of the age, but of the age itself, the Renaissance dying in Savonarola's bonfires. Tommaso de' Maffei was charged with the task of taking the Platonic wisdom to England, but in England he finds he has lost touch with the truth of his philosophy, and he returns to Italy in the early 16th century to find what, if anything, survives from the golden age he lived through.
