Indeed, sculpture and painting and chapel embroidery take center stage on page after page. Dunant describes Renaissance art in glowing detail. Alessandra herself wishes to be an artist, an impossible dream for a woman in those days. And most critically, Alessandra’s husband turns out to be someone with mixed loyalties and (in)fidelities.Īlso woven into The Birth of Venus are the artistic propensities of Florence as the de Medicis flourished and then faltered.
Her sister loses a daughter, while one brother turns traitorous toward the other. Her father’s business falters because it caters to beauty rather than austerity. Once Alessandra is wed, Dunant deftly weaves her fate into the events that befall all the Florentine citizens. She and her parents and siblings agree that marriage will provide the safest haven in such trying times. So even though the events of The Birth of Venus-such as Savonarola’s charismatic madness and the bonfire of the vanities-are historically accurate, Alessandra and her family are created characters, not real men and women you might actually find in a history of the times.īecause of the moralistic changes (and an almost messianic terror) Savonarola is bringing to Florence, the city is in a state of upheaval. Lucretia Borgia was an actual Renaissance figure, while Alessandra Cecchi springs wholly from Sarah Dunant’s imagination. There is one major difference between the two novels, however.
The mad monk, Girolamo Savanarola, dominates The Birth of Venus, just as Pope Alexander VI controls the actions of Blood and Beauty. In both novels, too, historical figures dictate many of the events. In both novels, an arranged marriage ultimately sets the teen-ager on a path to an unforeseen maturity. It also traces the teen-age years of a precocious young woman whose intellect and talents are inappropriate for the life she is destined to lead. Like Blood and Beauty, The Birth of Venus takes place in Renaissance Italy, but it is set in Florence rather than Rome.
Fascinated by Dunant’s reconsideration of Lucretia Borgia and Renaissance Italy in Blood and Beauty, I wanted to read what is perhaps her best-known novel, The Birth of Venus. Sarah Dunant is such an author, someone whose historical novels are delectably real and deliciously provocative.
I seem to be revisiting authors I’ve already reviewed for “Bookin’ with Sunny.” Now I’m going back to their earlier books because I so enjoyed their latest.
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