My fiancé is looking to get into more history, but her preferred medium is a more narrative style as opposed to reading a textbook. For example something like the book Shogun which explores 17th century Japanese culture and history while telling the story of a character, fictional though he was. Or along the lines of Shelby Foote's Civil War narrative, or an biography that focuses on the life of a single figure while using it to branch out to explore the surrounding society and world, like Robert Massey's excellent book on Peter the Great. Is there any good reading along these lines about the Italian Renaissance?