For everyone, he is the “greengrocer” painter. His grotesque heads composed of varieties of fruit and vegetables are unmistakeable. But who was Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the man who boasted to his friends that he could enter the Palace of the Hapsburgs day or night? Who was this artist so close to Emperor Rudolph II that he was allowed to leave him to history with a pear in place of a nose? What was the creative process that transformed him into the most irreverent, original and witty genius of all time? Impassioned by Renaissance history, Ketty Magni examines the works of the most bizarre Italian artist: the years of his youth and his training in birthplace, Milan, “where the terrible epidemic of the plague was still a burning memory”; his fame reached at the Imperial Court in Prague; the return to his city, dominated by the religious fervour inculcated by Cardinal Borromeo, until his mysterious death. But this is not all. In her novel, the author portrays the man, with his ambitions and his passions like his love for the Lady Ludovica Crivelli. She was courted by many but gave herself only to him and he was mad with despair at her early death. Then there was Ortensia, a poor foundling he took pity on and helped. We learn of his passionate attention for good food, a pretext in the book for offering recipes of the era. This is the story of a complex and many-faceted artist, as are his famous works. It is a story that until now no one has ever told.