Quattrocento

In the tradition of Time and Again, a sweeping love story/time-travel epic situated between the modern-day New York art world and fifteenth-century Tuscany.

Matt O’Brien has a quiet life: A painting restorer with a particular love of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance, he toils away millimeter by millimeter, bringing old oils to new light. But one day he happens upon a painting in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum that is thick with centuries of yellowed varnish and dust. As he uncovers the portrait of a mysterious, beautiful woman, he finds himself suffering from an urgent sense of déja vu coupled with the pain of falling in love with a person long dead. Meanwhile, strange things have been happening in the museum since the installation of a wood-paneled room from Gubbio called a studiolo. As Matt increasingly seeks refuge in this magical room from the pressures of having potentially discovered a Leonardo da Vinci, the centuries slip away and he finds himself in the center of a love triangle, with Anna on one side and the Machiavellian knight Leandro, fighting for her fortune, on the other.

Obsession and passion combust in this exotic tale that is at once contemporary and rich in period detail. Rooted in art history, music theory, and the rudiments of physics, McKean's debut novel is a mesmerizing tale of time travel and possibility. With twists and turns that are as thrilling as they are unexpected, Quattrocento is escapist storytelling at its very finest.