Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador (also known as The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story)
Divorce. Deceit. Diplomacy: the history of a man at the heart of the negotiations for Henry VIII’s first divorce. Read more.

Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome. An academic book about the rise of permanent embassies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Read more.

The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de’ Medici. My biography of the first Medici duke of Florence, said to be the illegitimate son of an enslaved African woman. Read more.

The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance. The dramatic story of the Italian peninsula through its sixteenth-century wars, giving a new perspective on the famous names. Out in paperback in April 2021. Read more.