The factual Italian Renaissance story Giovanni and Lusanna, written and researched by Gene Brucker, comments upon love and marriage in Renaissance Florence. The experiences of these two ill-fated lovers illustrate the social, political, and economic conditions of the time. Although cases such as the one Lusanna brought against her former lover Giovanni were not commonplace, it is precisely the individuality and uniqueness of the story that challenged the social hierarchy of the time.

When Gene Brucker began his research of Renaissance court cases in the 1980s he never thought he would stumble across such an extraordinary and matchless dispute. As he thumbed though the Florentine state archives he came across some documents from Ser Filippo Mazzei of an "alleged marriage" between Lusanna di Girolama and Giovanni di Ser Lodovico della Casa, "the daughter of an artisan...and a wealthy merchant".1 For years...