Rudolf II, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, is known to be the greatest art patron in the world. He is also known to be paranoid, spendthrift, and wayward. In sixteenth-century Prague, seat of Christendom, he rules without the ongoing assistance of the Jewish financier Mordechai Meisl.

In the ghetto, the Great Rabbi and mystic seer guides his people in the uneasy cohabitation of Jew and Christian. Meanwhile, under Rudolph’s imprimatur, Meisl becomes fabulously wealthy with a hand in transactions across Europe. But his beautiful wife, Esther, also forms a unique bond with Rudolf II . . .

By night under the stone bridge, she and the emperor entwine in their dreams under the guise of a white rosemary bush and a red rose. Only by severing the two plants can the Great Rabbi break the spell of forbidden love and deliver the city from the wrath of God.

In this “tantalizing blend of the occult and the laughable, of chaos and divine order,” Perutz brings Old Prague to life with a cast of characters ranging from alchemists to the angel Asael, and including the likes of Johannes Kepler and the outlaw prince Wallenstein (The New York Times Book Review).