In this episode of 15 with Fosca, I speak with professor, scholar, and author Gigi Berardi about her latest novel, Bianca’s Cure, a richly imagined story set in Renaissance Florence.

Gigi’s work moves between science, food systems, sustainability, dance, storytelling, and the arts, and in this conversation, all of those worlds come together. We talk about Florence as a living city rather than a postcard, the hidden histories behind its streets and buildings, and the women whose scientific curiosity and intellectual labor have too often been pushed to the margins.

At the center of Gigi’s novel is Bianca Capello, the great love of Francesco de’ Medici, a scientist and alchemist searching for space, resources, and a cure. Our conversation touches on Medici alchemy, convents as spaces of women’s work, the power of storytelling, the danger of flattening Florence into a tourist fantasy, and why we need to be travelers, not tourists.

We also talk about writing across disciplines, the complexity of female characters, and what it means to preserve the cultural heritage of Florence by telling stories that are still alive in the city today.

Biography and Links

Gigi Berardi teaches food and writing classes at Western Washington University and in Global Learning Programs. A Fulbright scholar, she holds three graduate degrees, but considers herself mostly a professional writer. She has authored over 300 popular articles and reviews for print and broadcast media—much of these on the arts and in reference to her widely-read book, Finding Balance. As one reviewer noted, “Once in a while a book comes along which makes me wish I had written it—such a book is Finding Balance.” Her book, FoodWISE, received a DOZEN WRITING AWARDS and over 30 endorsements, including from Michael Pollan, “[it’s] full of wisdom” and Forbes, hailing it as one of nineteen noteworthy food books. Her newest work is historical fiction, a chilling retelling of a woman scientist’s search for a malarial cure in Renaissance Florence.

Gigi’s newest work, Bianca’s Cure, is a deep-dive into the Renaissance feminist character of Bianca Capello, mistress to the Medici. Alchemist and chemist, too, she works on a cure for malaria that rejects the occult practices of her aunties in Venice and the duke she marries. In a time when neither Church nor alchemy authorities allow it, can a woman do science and make medicines, much less test them, before the heat disease kills them all?

Links

https://gigiberardi.com/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580352734240

https://www.instagram.com/gigimberardi/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGIfTBA0eIsV4I3Rujh-czQ

Get your copy: https://gigiberardi.com/biancas-cure/

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Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis

Recorded via Zoom, post-production Lorenzo Maiani, Faminore Sound Agency