In New York City, Mark Manship, curator at the Met, is staging the most exhaustive Botticelli exhibit in history, and hoping to convince Isobel Cattaneo, the only direct descendant of Botticelli's chief model, to help promote the show. In Italy, crazed nationalist Ludovico Borghini is terrorizing the art world, slashing priceless canvases and staging his own grotesque "exhibits"--using the human body parts of innocent victims as props. Now, as Borghini has Isobel in his clutches, Manship must summon every fiber of his being to stop a madman bent on destroying everything he holds dear.