The year is 1254. Caterina da Colleaperto, a young woman who devotes herself body and soul to studying the art of medicine, practises in the most important hospital in Paris. Determined to rebel against the blackmail of a corporation with a strictly male prerogative, she is presented at court by Rolando Lanfranchi, an illustrious master of medicine whom she is in love with, and manages to win the trust of certain members of the high aristocracy. Caterina is a free, strong and capable woman, and this is just why she is dangerous. Thus, when news starts to spread of a crime that risks damaging the hospital’s good name, all the accusations are turned against her. No-one defends her, not even Rolando. To escape from an inevitable law case, Caterina is obliged to flee immediately to her homeland, along paths beset with obstacles and suffering. On arriving in Milan, she discovers a contradictory city, where misery and luxury exist side by side: whilst hunger and sickness decimate the needy, the people in power compete to display their precious clothes, created by the city’s most prestigious tailor. Injustice again seems to have the upper hand but her love for others and the will to take control of her own life shelters the seed of a hope that may bud once more.

In her most ambitious novel, Valeria Montaldi develops a masterly fresco of first-century Milan, which is already finding itself the capital of tailoring and fashion, and, most of all, gives us a powerful, unforgettable female character who is the symbol of struggles that belong to any age.