Chasing the Rose

The author of the best-selling A Venetian Affair now gives us a charming chronicle of his search for a fabled antique rose - a tale that takes us back to the time of Josephine Bonaparte, and looks into the future of this much beloved flower.


In his 2008 biography of the great Italian lady Lucia Mocenigo (his great-great-great-great grandmother), Andrea di Robilant described a pink rose that grows wild on the family's former country estate. This led to an invitation for an audience with the humble but deeply knowledgeable doyenne of European roses, Sra. Eleonora Garlant. Could this unnamed rose possibly be the long-lost Rose Bichonne, a China rose that nineteenth-century growers cultivated but which had apparently disappeared since? In search of the identity of the anonymous rose, Di Robilant finds himself captivated by rose-o-philes through time - from Lucia and her dear friend Josephine Bonaparte to the brilliant Sra. Garlant, whose garden of nearly 1500 species is one of the most significant in Europe - and by the old roses themselves, each of which has a tale to tell.


Illustrated in full color, the book will delight rose lovers, European travelers, and amateur historians in equal measure.