Italy, winter 1482. Did Simonetta Vespucci, the most beautiful of women, whom all of Florence idolized and with whom Botticelli painted his Venus, really returned from the land of the dead? But this could only happen in one case: someone learned the law of the shadow and mastered the secret of the ancient rite that opens the doors to other world. After all, the manuscript in which it was described was considered lost forever. And so in Rome, where there is a mortal struggle for the papal throne, Pico della Mirandola, a friend of Duke Lorenzo, the ruler of Florence, begins an investigation. The young philosopher has at his disposal only enormous passion, a keen intellect and a phenomenal memory. Following the trail of a mysteriously elusive beauty, Pico unexpectedly discovers that the woman who came from the other world is not alone: behind her there is a whole string of shadows. For the first time in Russian!