Botticelli in the Fire

Book excerpt: They're going to kill you. They're going to worship you, don't get me wrong. But they are going to kill you. Playboy Sandro Botticelli has it all: talent, fame, good looks. He also has the ear - and the wife - of Lorenzo de Medici, as well as the Florence's hottest young apprentice, Leonardo. But whilst he is at work on his breakthrough commission, The Birth of Venus, Botticelli's devotion to pleasure and beauty is put to the ultimate test. As plague sweeps through the city, the charismatic friar Girolamo Savonarola starts to stoke the fires of dissent against the liberal elite. Botticelli finds the life he knows breaking apart, forcing him to choose between love and survival. Jordan Tannahill's hot-blooded queering of Renaissance Italy questions how much of ourselves we are willing to sacrifice when society comes off the rails. Botticelli in the Fire made its European premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in October 2019.