"In the attic of their old family palazzo on the Grand Canal, Andrea di Robilant's father had found the love letters of their ancestor Andrea Memmo, one of the last great Venetian statesmen, to a beautiful half-English girl named Giustiniana Wynne. Some of the letters were written in code, which di Robilant and his father cracked to reveal an illicit passion: Giustiniana was not of the elite ruling class and would never have been considered a suitable...

"The author of the best-selling A Venetian Affair now gives us a charming chronicle of his search for a fabled antique rose--a tale that takes us back to the time of Josephine Bonaparte, and looks into the future of this much beloved flower"--