The rebellious girl refuses to sing until she realises she can use her voice as a means of escape. Her vocal talent is as valued as the dowry she brings: the convent of Santa Caterina, a closed order of Benedictines, is famed for its choir of nuns. Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant An absorbing story of convent life in the sixteenth century, Sacred Hearts takes us inside the walls of Santa Caterina and the. Dunant ( The Birth of Venus ) revisits 16th-century Italy, where the convents. Serafina is dragged to the convent after falling in love with her music tutor and refusing to marry the man her rich Milanese family had lined up. Random, 25 (415pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-6382-6. She centres on the relationship between 16-year-old Serafina, an unwilling novice, and Suora |Zuana, the scholarly nun who runs the dispensary. Sarah Dunant has set the final novel of her Renaissance trilogy in a Ferrara convent in 1570, when the Counter-Reformation was embarking on repressive measures. Listen Free to Sacred Hearts: A Novel audiobook by Sarah Dunant with a 30 Day Free Trial Stream and download audiobooks to your computer, tablet and iOS. Around half of all noble women in the city states of Italy became nuns, as the dowry for |a bride of Christ was much lower than those demanded by eligible males. Convents were the Italian equivalent of oubliettes for women of the upper classes during the Renaissance. Acclaimed author Sarah Dunant brings the intricate Renaissance world compellingly to life in this rich, engrossing, multifaceted love story encompassing the passions of the flesh, the exultation of the spirit, and the deep, enduring power of friendship.