Pandora launched a new series of short and bewitching vampire novels. Vittorio, the second in this series, tells the mesmerising story of a vampire in the Italian Age of Gold, introducing a seductive new character to Anne Rice's immortal pantheon.

Sixteen-year-old Vittorio, sole survivor of a bizarre and violent massacre at his father's Tuscan hilltop palazzo, escapes to the Florence of Cosimo de Medici seeking vengeance. He has been saved from death by a mysterious woman, only to find him-self at the mercy of demonic and bloody nightmares, war and political intrigue, and torn apart by a dangerous love.

Against a backdrop of the wonders - both sacred and profane - of Renaissance Italy, with its art and ferocity, angels and demons. Anne Rice creates a passionate, tragic legend of doomed young love and lost innocence.

Vittorio the Vampire ~ Chatto & Windus 1999 (UK)

 

With Pandora, Anne Rice began a magnificent new series of vampire novels. Now, in the second of her New Tales of the Vampires, she tells the mesmerising story of Vittorio, a vampire in the Italian age of Gold.

Educated in the Florence of Cosimo de Medici, trained in knighthood at his father's mountaintop castle, Vittorio inhabits a world of courtly splendor and country pleasures - a world suddenly threatened when his entire family is confronted by an unholy power.

In the midst of this upheaval, Vittorio is seduced by the vampire Ursula, the most beautiful of his supernatural enemies. As he sets out in pursuit of vengeance, entering the nightmarish Court of the Ruby Grail, increasingly more enchanted (and confused) by his love for the mysterious Ursula, he finds himself facing demonic adversaries, war and political intrigue.

Against a backdrop of the wonders - both sacred and profane - and the beauty and ferocity of Renaissance Italy, Anne Rice creates a passionate and tragic legend of doomed young love and lost innocence.

Vittorio the Vampire ~ Knopf 1999 (US)