The Glorious Ones by Francine Prose

The story of a troupe of actors in seventeenth-century Italy, from "one of a handful of truly indispensable American writers" (Gary Shteyngart).

The Glorious Ones are an unlikely troupe of actors, traveling up and down the seventeenth-century Italian countryside performing commedia dell'arte for kings, for peasants, for anyone with coin. There is Armanda, the cheerful dwarf and ex-nun; chattering Columbina; Pantalone the miser; and the wicked Brighella--all led by Flaminio Scala, the self-proclaimed most courageous man in Christendom.

But for all their wild differences, not one of them is prepared for the arrival of Isabella, their mysterious new director, who is about to turn their whole world upside down.

Dramatic and imaginative, this tale of adventure, love, and theater is a historical romp from the award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of novels, including Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, and Household Saints, as well as the literary guide book Reading Like a Writer.