The anatomist - Federico Andahazi

Mateo Columbo, the most famous physician in sixteenth-century Italy, finds himself behind bars at the behest of the Church authorities, He has been charged with heresy, but not for organizing a clumsy team of body snatchers to feed his anatomical research, nor for his obsessive pursuit of Mona Sofia, Venice's most notorious prostitute, who at the precocious age of eight is reputed to have bitten off a client's penis. No, his crime is more heinous, not only heretical in the Church's eyes, but equally subversive of the whole secular order of Renaissance society. Like his namesake Christopher Columbus, he has made a discovery of enormous significance for mankind. But whereas Christopher voyaged outwards to explore the world and found America, Matthew's journey looked inwards, across the mons Veneris, and uncovered the clitoris.
The Anatomist caused a huge literary scandal in Argentina: awarded the prestigious Fortabat Foundation prize, it was then publicly denounced in large newspaper ads by the outraged sponsor of the prize - and went straight to the top of the bestseller lists. Meticulously researched and based on historical fact, The Anatomist offers a witty excursion into Renaissance Italy, exposing with bland irony not only the social hypocrisies of the day, but also the prejudices and sexual taboos that may still be with us 400 years later.
'A hugely enjoyable, clever and sensual novel' Jane Charteris, Literary Review
'Wonderfully comic . . . Beautifully written and skilfully translated, this is a cunning, witty and brave book on the most fundamental of human desires which is not, after all, for sex but for control' Ranti Williams, TLS
'Make no mistake, this is a sexy book' Raffaella Barker, Frank