CARDINAL S HAT

Second son of Lucretia Borgia, Ippolito d'Este loved gambling, hunting, tennis and women. He became Archbishop of Milan at the age of 9 ...But he had to wait another twenty years before he acquired his coveted cardinal's hat, the route to wealth and power in sixteenth-century Europe. This is his story. But it is also the story of his gardeners, carpenters, ceiling decorators, book-keeper, valet and doctor, the Master of his Wardrobe, his courtiers, squires, pages, cooks, stable boys and many other staff, and of their families. Based on the stunning discovery of Ippolito's household account books at Modena, The Cardinal's Hat does for Renaissance Italy what Liza Picard did for Restoration London.