Man is a delicate mechanism. he can easily be set off course...
It is the late 18th century and nobleman Vitellio Scarpia finds himself, penniless and in disgrace, on the streets of Rome. After leaving his home, on a quest for a successful military career, his fiery passion has seen him expelled from the Spanish royal guard and left to seek his fortune in Italy; a fortune inseparably bound to the Pope, whose regency has been in question since the French Revolution.
Intent on furthering his position in Rome, Scarpia supplements his income as a guard by accompanying a seductive countess, delighted at the prospect of having an ex-soldier on her arm. With her as his guide, Scarpia is able to attend the many decadent parties and festivals open to the upper echelons of the city. That is, provided he does his duty.
But, traversing a society swirling with questions of political and sexual morality, the provincial soldier feels himself harden. And, as his own path converges with that of the gifted, beautiful Floria Tosca, he discovers that the fate that led him to power will be the same one that tears him from it.
Steeped in factual detail and exploring the fictional figure whose actions define Puccini's famous opera, Tosca, novelist Piers Paul Read here tells the powerful tale of Vitellio Scarpia, a story that shines a light into the dusty corridors of history and the dark corners of the human soul.
