The author and violinist Leonor de Recondo will present her novel, Grand Feu, a story of Venice in the time of Vivaldi. 

In 1699, Ilaria Tagianotte is born into a family of fabric merchants.  When she is just a few weeks old, her mother places her in the Pieta, where she is taught music. 

Music is taught at the highest level and Venetians flock to the concerts organized in the adjoining church. Ilaria learns the violin and becomes maestro Antonio Vivaldi’s copyist. The Great Fire refers to the love which strikes down Ilaria at the dawn of her fifteenth birthday, tearing down the walls which have both protected and confined her.

It is this fire that mixes carnal desire with music so closely and so intensely, to the point of confusing them and getting lost in them. The murmur of Venice and its beauty are a setting for the young girl’s quest: to experience love and rise through music, like a Great Fire. And Léonor de Récondo confides: The Great Fire is the one that animates me, and consumes me, when I play the violin and when I write.