As Florence burns its beauty, a Dominican friar must choose obedience or the courage to see clearly.
Florence, 1498.
The city trembles under the rule of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, whose sermons promise purification while tightening their grip on the soul of the republic.
When a gifted painter creates a portrait unlike any Florence has seen, the work quietly binds together three lives:
- a young Dominican friar struggling to reconcile beauty with obedience,
- a married woman whose quiet authority refuses to bow to fear,
- and the aging artist who risks everything to capture a truth the Church would rather leave unseen.
As Savonarola’s influence deepens and suspicion spreads through the city, the portrait becomes more than a work of art. It becomes a witness.
And once beauty has been truly seen, it cannot stay hidden forever.
The Confessor’s Portrait is a historical novella about faith, power, and the cost of seeing clearly in a world that punishes sight.
