I got given this book for Christmas, and was initially surprised as it wasn’t from my Wishlist. My boyfriend, knowing I enjoyed Maggie O’Farrell’s last novel, Hamnet, got it for me. He also thought it was right up my street too, set in the Italian Renaissance, and I have to say I was very intrigued.
The plot
The central character is Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici. Born into and brought up Florence’s grandest Palazzo in the C16th, Lucrezia lives a sheltered life until the age of 15 when she is wed to the Duke of Ferrara creating a powerful alliance between her Father’s kingdom and Ferrara’s.
O’Farrell’s research also extends into Lucrezia’s life as she was a real historical figure. Her portrait, famously also the subject of c19th poets Robert Browning’s poem, My Last Duchess. If you know the poem, it didn’t seem to end well for Lucrezia, as history shows us she died at 16 years old, not even a full year into her marriage with Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara.
The novel flow between her childhood into Florence and the encroaching danger she encounters in her marriage, as she fails to produce a male heir.
The novel begins quite intensely, almost beginning at the end. She is having a awkward and intense dinner with her husband, somehow (bizarrely for the new reader), in full knowledge of her impending murder.
Childhood and Tigers
O’Farrell’s other novel that I have read, Hamnet, depicts a childhood. Also in a similar time period, I enjoyed seeing how she creates a child perspectives whilst still using intensity in her descriptions of the world, especially the natural world around the child.
Lucrezia’s childhood is obviously very different from little Hamnet’s. She and her sisters, and young brothers are basically confined to the nursery and classroom, until their betrothals, or for the boys until they are of an age to learn how to be a Duke.
The confinement is intense, her and her siblings do not even see parts of the Palazzo until their father let’s them all go and see his live menagerie, in the basement. He keeps lions, chimps and, most exciting for Lucrezia, a tiger arrives.
I think the children’s journey down through the Palazzo, to see the menagerie, was my favourite writing in the whole book. I felt the wonder of the seeing the stately rooms of the Palazzo, for the first time, alongside the children.
The Renaissance
I have probably said it a lot but I studied the English Renaissance in my Masters. I knew from this, the Italian Renaissance was different and much earlier than the English Renaissance. Also, having read this book, despite it being fiction, I think my studies in the poetry and drama of the period altered my view of the period, making me believe it was a fun and jovial full of great literature, music and entertainment.
O’Farrell’s novel twists that round. There is entertainment and fun, but not for women part of powerful families. Through her extensive research O’Farrell exposes the dark, patriarchal underbelly of Renaissance Italy. Really drawing forward the dangerous machinations of Court life, for high-status women born into it.
The ending (spoilers aren’t possible)
It is difficult, as I found with Hamnet, entering a new book knowing the central character will die (because of history). But reading these kinds of books is a kind of trust the process of it all. You put faith in the author, hopefully not to upset you too much along the way, and also that it’ll be an enjoyable read.
The novel isn’t about her death, but her life.
O’Farrell breaths a vibrancy into this forgotten figure in history, that has inspired so much literature and art. O’Farrell gives the once silent portrait of Lucrezia, a personality and will of her own. She gives her the capacity, (yes fictional) to make decisions, to feel and react to the events in her life that have been so documented.
Yes, it is a fictional creation of her emotions and personality, but O’Farrell does it very sympathetically, and the duality she creates in Lucrezia’s ending, makes the novel’s ending less harsh and abrupt, and allows the reader to think, what if or maybe….
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