"Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy" by Sarah Bradford

For years I have been both fascinated and repelled by what I thought I knew of Lucrezia Borgia. I saw her as a powerful and selfish murderess, on the slightest whim poisoning anyone who stood in her way, not concerning herself in the least with trifles such as morality. Topped off by the suggestion that she had an incestuous relationship with both her father and her brother, Lucrezia just about made my eyes pop out of my head.

As it turns out, my impression was completely wrong. It's understandable that I had such an unfavorable opinion of the poor girl, as the intervening years have been unkind to her; even some of her contemporaries painted her as a villainess and a whore. Though some of the malicious gossip was a result of jealousy, most can probably be attributed to guilt by association. Her father, Rodrigo Borgia--though he became the Pope--was not especially pious, to say the least; her brother, Cesare Borgia, apparently deserved every bit of his notoriety.

But Lucrezia herself really wasn't such a bad person. Those who knew her by more than reputation found her modest, astute and wise. Many who had at first believed the reports of poor character thought of her much more favorably after meeting her.

This book does not give a clear and vivid picture of Lucrezia Borgia, but rather a negative image created by the world that surrounded her. You can see her outline, but there's a Lucrezia-shaped hole in the story, especially in the years preceding her third and longest marriage.

I suppose that fault was unavoidable in a work of non-fiction. There's nothing in this book that was not derived from research. No filler, no fabrication, no embellishment. In my opinion, this is both good and bad. Good in the sense that the book relates pure history; bad in the sense that it doesn't bring Lucrezia's personality and motivations to life like I'd hoped.

Slight disappointment aside, I was impressed by the scope of the research that went into this book. And I was amazed by the amount of personal correspondence still in existence! Didn't these people have mothers to teach them that they should only put in writing what they wanted the whole world to read?

This book has dispelled the mystique surrounding Lucrezia Borgia in my mind. She was not vile, evil, or scandalously naughty. She had her share of extramarital affairs, but no more than any other person of nobility during the Italian Renaissance, and she handled them discreetly. While I'm left feeling like I don't have a complete picture of the woman, I'm also convinced I have as complete a picture as is possible after the passage of five centuries. Sarah Bradford has done a remarkably thorough job with the resources available.

Too bad my former conception of Lucrezia Borgia, though much more salacious than the reality, was also much more fun.

"The Ground is Burning" by Samuel Black

Books like this are why I read.

I'm a sucker for a book about Italy, especially set during the Italian Renaissance, but there's so much more to love about The Ground is Burning. The characters are fascinating, though that's hardly surprising when we're talking about Cesare Borgia, Niccolò Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci. The plot is fast-paced and engrossing without sacrificing depth. And then there's the evocative beauty of sentences like this one: "I can smell dead leaves burning somewhere in the distance--that sweet, sad, summer's-end scent."

I must admit that before I started reading this book, I was a teensy bit afraid it might be somewhat dry and dull, mainly because I was (and still am) in the middle of reading a biography on Lucrezia Borgia (Cesare's sister) that has been slow going at times. But I shouldn't have worried. The day I started reading this book I burned my baby's toast and was late to my son's awards assembly. Good book or negligent mother? Well. Probably a little bit of both. But, setting aside my questionable parenting abilities, The Ground is Burning is bursting with life. Events of more than five centuries ago are as fresh as yesterday, and people long dead once again live and breathe within these pages.

One thing that brings the characters to life is the way their unique ambitions are laid bare for the reader. Cesare's motivation is power, wielded aggressively enough to elicit fear and dread in his supporters. Machiavelli, too, wants power, but he is willing to act with much more subtlety and diplomacy. Leonardo strives to create something that will stand the test of time and lead to immortal fame. All three men are similar in their drive to leave a lasting impression (and it's not hard to argue that they succeeded), yet they are written with distinct voices that highlight their very different personalities.

One complaint: I felt like I could detect a modern British voice at times. Would a fifteenth-century Italian teenager really say "sod it"? I could have bought affanculo or whatever the Italian equivalent is. On the other hand, that underlying contemporary feel is responsible in part for the vividly real characters. After all, the book begins with a quote from Machiavelli which says, "If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were." I suppose that's a fancier and more verbose way of saying, "there's nothing new under the sun," but it also says the people in this book aren't so very different from YOU.

I want you to read this book, so I am doing a giveaway. You can't have my copy, but if you're the lucky winner I'll buy you your own. Anyone is eligible, unless you are my mom (mainly because Cesare Borgia was a potty mouth, among other slightly scandalous reasons). Leave a comment with your email address before the end of January if you would like a chance to win.

My thanks to Faber for providing me with a proof copy of The Ground is Burning, which will be released on February 3. If you don't win my giveaway, you can purchase your own copy from amazon.co.uk.

Yum. Samuel Black, I WANT MORE!

Reading in Retrospect: "Mirror, Mirror" by Gregory Maguire

This was the second book I read by Gregory Maguire. It's definitely different. The story is based on that of Snow White, but I would call it more of an alternate history than a retelling of the fairy tale. In fact, when I read the "teaser" for Mirror Mirror which I found at the end of my copy of Wicked, I'm not sure I even realized it was supposed to be the Snow White story.

After reading Wicked and seeing how Maguire’s treatment of the Wicked Witch of the West portrayed Elfaba as more kindhearted than wicked, merely masquerading as a witch, and not even really from the west, I assumed that in Mirror Mirror the allegedly wicked queen would really be a tragically maligned figure while Snow White would be the truly wicked one. (And, in fact, until finishing Mirror Mirror I assumed that the ugly stepsisters of Maguire's Cinderella retelling would really be beautiful, sweet and kind, and Cinderella would be a mean and thoughtless harpy, but Mirror Mirror caused me to revise my expectations.) Maguire may have explored the theme of fairy tale retellings through several books, but his methods are by no means formulaic.

In Maguire's version of Snow White, displaced Spaniard Vicente de Nevada and his motherless daughter Bianca (get it? that's White) have a small but comfortable Italian holding in Montefiore. Bianca’s mother and the love of Vicente’s life, Maria Ines, had died in childbirth in approximately 1494. Seven years later, although the residents of Montefiore have managed to avoid the civil unrest that swirls around them, destruction is visiting them in the form of the Borgias, Cesare and his sister (and sometime lover) Lucrezia.

Cesare forces Vicente to depart from Montefiore on a quest to obtain the one remaining branch of the Tree of Knowledge, leaving Montefiore (and thus, Bianca) under Cesare’s control. Vicente is compelled to obey this demand as he owes the holding of Montefiore to the Borgias. Over the next five years, Lucrezia is overcome with jealousy as she realizes that Bianca has unwittingly and unwillingly caught the eye of Cesare, so Lucrezia pays a young hunter to take Bianca into the woods and kill her.

Of course the hunter cannot complete the evil deed, and instead releases Bianca into the forest, where she is found by a group of strange stone creatures that are slowly evolving into dwarves. (That's one of the more bizarre aspects of this story, of which I’m not absolutely sure I grasped the point.) Another odd part of the story is the way time seems to slow down for Bianca while she is with the dwarves. She lies in a sort of a coma for perhaps 6 years. There is really no explanation for this passage of time (no poison, no illness) other than the fact that the stony beings she is with have a different concept of time from humans; nor is there any good explanation for why she finally wakes up.

This book is definitely a departure from the Disney version. I am sure that in this case I prefer the original story. Some of Grimm’s fairy tales can be grisly (in the case of the original Snow White story, Disney doesn't tell us that the wicked queen salts, cooks, and eats what she believes to be Snow White's heart, or that while Snow White and her prince were living happily ever after, the queen was punished with dancing in red-hot shoes until she fell down dead), but Maguire's retelling went beyond grisly. It was corrupt and perverted (though I understand that for some of you that may be a draw rather than a deterrent).

One great thing about the way Maguire told the Snow White story was how he stirred in actual historical figures. The Borgias fascinate me in the mesmerizing way of a poisonous snake. I'm not sure I can think of a more conniving and infamous family in all of history. Though their presence in a fairy tale can't be historically accurate, I'm convinced the portrayal of their tendencies and personalities was.

My biggest complaint about the book is that odd dreamlike quality I was frequently frustrated by in my own creative writing assignments when I was in grade school. So often when I was required to write a story I had trouble making it sound concrete and realistic, as when something you think you understand inexplicably morphs into another thing, or perhaps even disappears entirely. Much of this book was plagued by a similar problem. It may sound intriguing, but I saw this as a weakness in my own writing, and when I recognize it in a book I can't help but view it as a flaw.

"I'm Not Scared" by Niccolò Ammaniti

I heard about this one from another book blogger (I think . . . but then I looked for the review so I could link to it, and couldn't find whose it was). The book jacket tells me that the main character, nine-year-old Michele, lives in a tiny village in southern Italy and "discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he dare not tell anyone about it." I just had to know what this terrible secret was. Just after I started reading it, I remembered I'd heard that a movie was made from this book, so I went to order it on netflix, and found that the synopsis there was not so kind and spoiler-free. Dang it, I kind of ruined it for myself. And I had been so excited about the book until then.

Even though netflix told me more about the book than I wanted to know (and it was really only two tidbits, but they were big huge major main tidbits), it was still a very gripping read. A potboiler, maybe, but well-written and never boring. I truly enjoyed every minute, and it went by quickly. Being quite a plot-driven book, I wasn't inclined to gather many profound thoughts while reading (not that my thoughts are especially profound in general), but I will mention that I was just sure someone was going to get eaten by pigs.

Knowing how it felt to read the spoilers on netflix, I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot here, so those of you who haven't read it can thank me later. But if you have read this book, I want to ask you some questions. First, do you think Melichetti knew what was going on, especially at the end? I wasn't sure if he usually sat on his porch with a shotgun on his knees, or if he was doing this because he knew what was behind his house. Second, and more importantly, what do you think happened to Filippo? I prefer to think that he managed to get away in all the confusion, and lived happily ever after. But apparently your guess is as good as mine.

"The Bellini Card: Inspector Yashim Goes to Venice" by Jason Goodwin

I was not especially wanting to read this book. I'm not sure why I bothered to borrow it from Joyce, because although the first two Yashim the Eunuch books were decent reads, I wasn't so wild about them that I wanted to read every one that Goodwin ended up writing. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for a book set in Italy.

Even with an Italian setting, though, it took me a long time to pick up this book. And not just the first time. You would think I'm trying to say the book is boring, but it wasn't. It was, like the others, a decent story with a few tasty-sounding meals thrown in and standing out like jewels. Once again I wish Goodwin had included a more specific recipe for those meals (or that I was a more adventurous cook and could just wing it and end up with a scrumptious meal instead of something to feed to the dogs). Anyway, my main problem in picking up the book probably had more to do with the fact that all of a sudden spring has sprung, and I'm finding more often I'd rather be outside digging in the dirt than reading.

I think I have found a fault in Goodwin's writing. I frequently have trouble picturing the scene he is describing. OK, so I admit, the fault might possibly lie with the reader rather than the author, but somewhere between his descriptions and my brain there is what sometimes seemed like an unbridgeable gulf. This was especially evident during the "fight scenes," where all Goodwin's careful choreography was lost on me. He might as well have just said, "they fought, and he won," because that's about all I got out of it. I also had no idea what the "Sand-Reckoner's Diagram" might look like, so thank goodness for google (again).

Yashim's Polish friend Palewski gets a much larger part in this book, although it is funny that from the other two books I got the idea that Palewski was a friendly, heavy-set, older drunk; in this book he is described as younger, slimmer, and more handsome than I realized. Yashim and Palewski fall into what seemed to me to be Sherlock-and-Watson roles for the first time, probably because Palewski is more involved in the investigation this time.

This time, instead of loaning me more books, Joyce gave me some amaryllis bulbs to plant. I'm heading out to dig in the dirt again.

"Death at La Fenice" by Donna Leon

I am not sure why, but I have been dragging my feet about reading the two murder mysteries that Joyce loaned to me most recently. I have such a good bunch of books to choose from every time I'm ready to start a new one. This is both good and bad; it's wonderful to have a great selection, but it's so hard to choose just one! But I hate to keep books that have been loaned to me for too long, so it's time I tackle them.

Here's one big difference between this book and Agatha Christie's mysteries: in a Christie book, I find myself suspecting just about every single character at one time or another. In fact, if I ever "guess" the murderer, it really doesn't count because I probably guessed everyone else too. This book is the opposite, because throughout most of it, I guessed no one. It sounded like there were three main suspects (the wife, the opera singer, and the opera singer's lover), but none of them seemed guilty to me. In real life it would have been the wife. But I really hoped it would turn out to be someone entirely different.

Although I suspected no one, I sure sniffed out a lot of false trails. First I thought maybe Wellauer's second wife's death might have been a murder rather than a suicide. I also thought maybe the conductor was killed before his "last performance," and an imposter (of course, the murderer--or at least an accomplice) conducted in his stead, which would explain his lack of talent after years of genius. I found myself waiting for a second murder to occur. Then, when it came out that Wellauer hadn't done a good job during rehearsals either, and that he perked up during a crescendo, and his doctor knew he had suffered slight hearing loss several months earlier, I thought he had experienced sudden and devastating deafness, which would explain the poor quality of his recent conducting; and that he killed himself, which would solve the "murder." Really, though, I hoped all of my guesses were wrong and that I would be utterly surprised (but only if the solution were completely logical and exceedingly clever). And I won't tell you which of my ideas I was right or wrong about, because there is no more sure way to ruin a murder mystery than to know "whodunit" before you even read the book, but I will say I didn't guess everything.

I love the way the main character, Brunetti, treats his boss, Patta, for whom he does not have an excess of respect. Brunetti is perfectly polite and correct in his conversations with Patta, but he answers his questions literally or gives ridiculously obvious replies, playing dumb just to get on Patta's nerves. The boss isn't smart enough to see through Brunetti, and I believe that Patta actually thinks Brunetti really is a little bit stupid. It's so subversive.

I was a little bit insulted by the comment in the book that "the American government seemed to fare well with a population that wanted [censorship of the press]." I can't figure out where the author got this idea, and I would love to hear more from her about it. As soon as I read this I thought, "Who is this author, to think such a thought? Is she an American insulting her own people, or is she some other nationality?" I turned to the synopsis about her (which was hiding from me in the front of the book, rather than being in the back where it belonged) and found that she is American but is basically what I would consider an expatriate, having lived in many different countries, including Venice for the past twenty years. Of course, now that I think about it, I do recall friends of mine who have lived both in and out of the country lamenting the amount of world news that is regularly disseminated in America (i.e., not enough). I wonder if that is the same sort of thing Leon was referring to. Anyway,
I was mollified somewhat when she insulted Germans too, by mentioning a "Germanic ability to remove truth simply by ignoring it." I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it made me feel better that the author was not taking potshots at Americans alone.

This was a good book, well-written and enjoyable, but it took me a week to read it. This normally indicates one of two things: either it's a longer book, or I never really got very excited about reading it. This book was 270 pages. You do the math.

"War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944" by Iris Origo

This book was highly recommended by the tour guide at La Foce (who happens to be Welsh. Which is neither here nor there; I just thought that was an interesting tidbit of information). For the most part, I don't like books about war, but this title stuck in my mind. I put it on my wish list (I was requestor #2 of 2) and waited for weeks for someone to post a copy, and then got impatient and ordered a used one through amazon. I assume that, since I've finished reading this, the requestor who is now #1 of 1 will be very happy to get it.

The cover you see here is not the same as that of the copy I read. I couldn't find cover art to match my super-awesome library-binding large-print edition, so I chose one that I think looks much nicer (and shows an actual photo of La Foce, rather than a drawing that could be of anywhere in the Italian countryside).

This book (for me) started off slowly, and for a while I only stuck with it as if it were an assignment I had to complete. Most of the "1943" part of the book was a lot of flitting around and discussing rumors of war. Once 1944 hit, however, the intensity ramped up as the fighting drew nearer. For the Origos and those living nearby, life was distilled to its simplest and most basic elements. Many of the things once thought important were left by the wayside, and the most valuable quality (along with quite a bit of patience, steadfastness and courage) was the tenacity needed to persevere until they could reach the other side of the dreadful war that had been thrust upon them. At their lowest point, Iris writes, "We have left behind everything that we possess, but never in my life have I felt so rich and thankful as looking down on all the children as they lay asleep. Whatever may happen tomorrow, tonight they are safe and sound!"

It was amazing to see how quickly one's worldview can change in such a situation. At one point, Origo and a companion make a risky pony-cart drive to Montepulciano for medicine, and were happy in their success, as they "only had to jump down into a ditch twice, as the fighter planes swooped down over our heads." Of course this could have been written in irony, but judging by the straightforward manner in which the rest of the book was written, I don't believe Iris Origo was given to sarcasm. At another point, Origo mentions that the electricity and telephone wires were both cut, "so we get no news, which matters the less, in that the news is now happening here . . . I ask [a German medical officer]: 'Are you going to the front?' [To which he] laughs and replies: 'And where do you think you are?' " And then, during the frightening walk to Montepulciano on June 22, 1944, the Origos and those under their care hid in a cornfield as planes flew overhead. Iris lay thinking, "This can't be real--this isn't really happening."

I think that, not only was this sort of mental disconnect necessary for her to be able to handle the situation and go on, but that that would probably have been my own method of coping (assuming I were capable). I am just glad that I have not had to prove this. It has never been more clear to me that Americans are very lucky to have not, in many generations, experienced war on our own turf. The worst that any of us still living have experienced at home is 9/11, which of course was bad enough, but thankfully was not sustained over the long period of time that wars tend to cover.

There were many poignant moments in the book, among which was the first birthday party of Origo's daughter Donata, on June 9, 1944. "While planes drone overhead and swoop down on the valley roads, we have a children's party in the garden. (The children have, by now, completely lost their original nervousness . . . )" It is just so odd to think of growing accustomed to the sight and sound of war planes flying overhead.

Equally odd is how small a mention D-Day receives in this book. On the one hand this shouldn't surprise me, as this woman's diary mostly just covers her own little universe, and Normandy was not a part of it; but on the other hand, that Allied invasion is (in my mind, anyway) one of the most widely-known events of WWII among Americans (along with the Pearl Harbor attack and the atomic bombs in Japan; those three things probably mark the beginning, turning point, and ending of the war, as far as the U.S. was concerned). But perhaps I should be impressed that the Origos heard the news that very same day. Iris writes, "Hear at eleven-thirty that the Allied troops have landed this morning on the coast of France. Proclamation of Eisenhower to the people of France."

Another thing that surprised me was Origo's observation that the German Field Hospital Units were curiously inefficient and apathetic. She says, "They hang about interminably with nothing to do, and never seem to be where they are really wanted, nor do any of the German troops show the slightest interest in, or helpfulness towards, members of other units than their own." This mainly surprises me because I have always thought of the German people as very efficient and disciplined, and I had always assumed their military fought WWII with great order, structure, and effectiveness. I wonder if this inefficiency that Origo noticed was common throughout the German military of the time, or if it came on along with low morale when the troops began to see that they might lose the war.

I think perhaps the opinion of Americans regarding the German soldiers of WWII is that they were all either monsters or mindless grunts. Although the Origos were certainly not on the side of the Germans, at least Iris portrays them in a very fair and even-handed manner. The Origos came in contact with any number of very polite and understanding Germans (most of whom Iris described as "correct"), like the officer charged with conserving the priceless artwork in Florence.

This is most evident in the footnote regarding a German soldier the Origos probably never even met. When the Origos were finally forced out of their home at La Foce, they were unable to bury the body of Giorgio, the consumptive partisan they had been nursing. When they returned to their home, they found that someone had buried the body and marked the grave with a cross labeled Unknown Italian (in German). For a German to have had the decency and respect, not only to bury the body of his likely enemy but even to mark the grave, clearly shows they were not all heartless.

I think the entire book, and my view of WWII (and wars in general), is summed up at the end of Origo's entry from June 22, 1944. She writes, "This glimpse of a tiny segment of the front increases my conviction of the wastefulness of this kind of warfare, the disproportion between the human suffering involved and the military results achieved . . . the events of the last week have had little enough effect upon either side: it is the civilians who have suffered."

I can't wrap up my post about this book without admitting that, during the several mentions in Origo's writing of Allied planes mistakenly machine-gunning innocent Italian peasants, it popped into my head that it must have been Yossarian . . .

Now I want to read Iris Origo's memoirs, entitled Images and Shadows. I would love to read more about La Foce and hear about life in the Val d'Orcia in happier times.

"The Monster of Florence: A True Story" by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

I first noticed this book while browsing at my beloved home away from home, Target. References to Florence always get my attention, and I recognized the scuplture on the cover as Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women. In reading the blurb on the back of the book, I at first assumed this would be a novel about a centuries-old crime, but this idea was dispelled when I came to the end of the synopsis and saw that the authors "themselves became targets of a bizarre police investigation," which to me (correctly) suggested that the crimes involved must have been much more recent.

I found it surprising that other countries have serial killers. I kind of assumed (though regrettably, and with embarrassment) that that sort of evil is limited to Americans. It was funny (in an odd, not humorous, way) that this idea is echoed in the book. In fact, many Italians were surprised at having a serial killer in their midst. This, to them, seemed like a British or German thing, or especially American.

The details of the murders were certainly gruesome. Whenever I've read fiction that contains such lurid information, I wonder to myself, Now, was it really necessary to include that? But here it is just the truth. Not that being true makes it any less horrifying, but it at least seems much more excusable to include the horrifying truth in a book as opposed to horrifying fiction.

On a lighter note, I loved how the novel was interspersed with depictions of the beautiful countryside, or rare brief descriptions of delicious Italian meals. It made this novel seem, at times, to be kind of like Under the Tuscan Sun, but interesting. And it was always nice to actually recognize a location as I place I've had the good fortune to see for myself.

It was somewhat frustrating to come to the end and find, although I am as convinced of Antonio Vinci's guilt as Preston and Spezi are, it seems this will never be proven. On the other hand, I do kind of wonder if the Monster might not have been the drowned doctor, Narducci. No Monster killings occurred after his death. I just don't believe such a Monster would have ever quit killing except at his own death or incarceration. It seems pretty likely that Narducci may have committed suicide at the threat of being exposed. I can't explain how he could have gotten ahold of the Sardinians' gun, but neither can I explain how Antonio Vinci could suddenly stop killing more than two decades ago.

Apparently quite a few books have been written on the subject of the Monster of Florence. It would be interesting to see how logical and straightforward the others seem (this book has convinced me--would the others, in turn, also convince me?) but I'm not quite interested enough to actually search out these other books. I do wonder if Mignini is really as misguided as he is portrayed in this book. He seemed to be painted black with such broad strokes that I wondered if he is really such an idiot or if Preston exaggerated as a means of revenge.

Part two was all about the justified outrage concerning the restriction of journalistic freedom and abuses of Italy's justice system, and the very interesting Afterword extended this idea, dealing with the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. I actually remember reading about that case in some magazine (probably People) in my husband's chiropractor's waiting room. From the magazine article, I was convinced of Amanda Knox's guilt, but in reading what Preston has to say about it, it's pretty clear that she had nothing to do with the murder. Apparently she couldn't prove this, however, because I looked it up on the Internet just now, and I see she was just recently sentenced to 26 years in prison.

A final note on the sculputure shown on the book's cover: you can see the loggia where it is housed here, (about halfway down the page). Although you won't see a photo of this specific sculpture on that blog, I did take my own picture of it:

Pretty cool, huh? I mean, not the photography so much, but that I had the opportunity to be right there. Of course, I don't mean to brag or anything. I'm just sayin'.

"The Birth of Venus" by Sarah Dunant

After I finally finished reading the Bourne book, I started The Birth of Venus. This is one of the books I picked up during my most recent Books-A-Million shopping spree. I don't believe I'd heard of the book or its author before; it merely caught my eye, especially because this one was part of a buy-two-get-one-free offer going on at the time. Funny thing is, a month later this same book caught my eye at Sam's, and I entertained the idea of buying it until I remembered I already had.

Another thing that interested me in this book was its historical setting in Florence during the Italian Renaissance, just as the fundamentalist monk Savonarola is rising to power. I had the good fortune to make my first (and hopefully not my last) trip to Florence just this year, and in fact I recall the plaque in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria which marked the place where Savonarola was burned at the stake in the year 1498.

Preconceived notions about the book: The back mentions a young painter who is affiliated with the main character's family in Florence. This tidbit, together with the book's title, made me wonder if perhaps that young painter would turn out to be Botticelli, who painted "The Birth of Venus" you see below. That painting is still on display at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, and--hoping this will not sound like bragging, although I'm afraid it will, but things like this are just too exciting to me to not mention it--I got to see this painting in person during my trip. Of course there are other paintings with the same title, but in my mind this one is the most famous. Anyhow, I found out fairly quickly that I was wrong about the painter's identity. Botticelli is mentioned a few times in the book, as is the painting below, along with some other work he did to go with Dante's Divine Comedy, but the artist in this book was definitely not Botticelli. In fact, he is actually never named; he is always and solely referred to as "the painter."

I normally do not favor reading historical fiction for two reasons. First, history tends to bore me (there, I've admitted it). Second, except in cases where I already know the facts (which isn't often), I never know for sure which parts are history and which parts are fiction. But I was eager to read this book since I already know a little bit about the history of that time in Florence (which might well be called that city's "heyday"), and because I foresaw that I would frequently be given the opportunity to picture the setting perfectly in my mind since I've actually seen it in real life! In this respect I was not disappointed. The majority of the novel takes place indoors, but there were plenty of scenes out in the city that took me back to the façades of the beautiful old buildings in my memory.

Several times in this book I found myself wondering, Now what did they mean by that? I wish I had marked these parts down because now I can only remember two of them, and I would really like to reread those parts now that I've finished the book and see if they make more sense now. Here is the first one I remember: At one point, Alessandra's mother insults her by comparing her to a young woman in a painting who is "engaged in such earnest conversation with the young man. I wonder how well her talk of philosophy is keeping his mind on higher things." I guess this means that, rather than sharpening a young man's mind with philosophical talk, a young woman should either A) try to keep his mind on her, which makes sense for that era of coquetry, or B) try to keep his mind on God, which is what I would assume "higher things" to mean; this second explanation also fits the time frame, but I don't see how talk of philosophy would obscure thoughts of God.

My second remembered point of confusion was answered quickly. When Alessandra mourns the fact that her daughter would grow up both without her father and her blood grandfather, I began to flip back to try to find out if her father had died and I had missed it. But as I read on I realized soon enough that this meant Alessandra had figured out the father she'd grown up with was not her father by blood. I can't understand why I didn't pick up on this right away, since I had already suspected Plautilla and Tomaso were not her full brother and sister (I wasn't sure about Luca). Plautilla and Tomaso were so nice-looking but dim-witted, while Alessandra wasn't much to look at but was a very intelligent girl. (The reason I wasn't sure about Luca was because the poor guy was both dim-witted and ugly).

As far as the remainder of the book, I enjoyed reading about the passion for art held by several of the main characters (Alessandra, the painter, and Christoforo), which reminded me of books like Girl With a Pearl Earring, or My Name is Asher Lev. I was intrigued by the secrets for which I sought answers: How and why did the old nun end up with the awesome serpent tattoo all over her torso? Why did she fake the tumor that was supposed to have caused her death? The story was given an extra shiver with the brutal murders that ran through the plot like a bloody thread (it turned out that the killings were committed by one of Savonarola's followers, Father Brunetto Datto... an example of a case where I can't tell fact from fiction in a historical novel, but I googled him and found nothing, so I assume that part of the story was a fabrication). And, although much forshadowing hinted at the fact that Alessandro's marriage to Christoforo would not be a perfect one, I never guessed the cause for their sorrows until it was spelled out for me.

This is not a very cinematic book and I don't think it would translate well to screen, but I find it funny to note that in spite of this I continually pictured Christoforo as played by Gary Oldman, similar to his role as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies (though never as disheveled and frantic as he was just after his release from Azkaban).

I enjoyed this book and found it very well-written, but now that I've read it I feel like I would have been just as happy borrowing it from the library as owning it. It's not like The Monsters of Templeton which I disliked so much that I donated it to the library because I knew I'd never want to read it again, but it's definitely not like The Amnesiac or The Time Traveler's Wife which I loved and will certainly read again someday.

"The Aeneid" by Virgil

I'm sure you all know the story. Aeneas, a hero of Troy, escapes its sacking by the Greeks and sets sail with a group of noble refugees, guided by his mother Venus. The first half of the book covers their travels that eventually take them to Italy; the second half vividly describes the gory battle scenes that take place as the new arrivals skirmish with the previous inhabitants of the land. This is another book I thought I had read in high school, but now I'm not so sure. I am also not sure how this epic fits with the story of the twins Romulus and Remus who are also credited with founding Rome. They were briefly mentioned in this book but it was unclear as to whether they came before Aeneas, who merely later added his seed to the lineage, or if the twins were on the scene in years following Aeneas, or if they are separate and mutually exclusive myths. Either way, I thought it was appropriate that I began to read this book on my way to Rome.

As poetry, this story seemed exceedingly prolix. I would think that a message just as forceful and exalted could have been presented in a poem more the length of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (a long poem, to be sure, but nowhere near a 331-page epic).

When I first picked the book up, I inwardly scoffed at the glossary at the back (containing mainly the names of people and places), but as I read I found myself referring to that index multiple times. Without the glossary I would have had a bit of trouble remembering the difference between the Danaans (the Greeks) and the Dardans (the Trojans)--definitely an important distinction, but a difficult one to remember due to the similarity of their names. However, at other times, as during battle scenes, unless a key character was being discussed, I found it didn't matter much who they were talking about.

It is notable that, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to others as an enjoyable read, the last few pages were downright suspenseful for me! Aeneas and his enemy Turnus were locked in single combat, and until the very last lines, I wasn't quite sure who would win!