Helpful Score: 4
Reading this recent historical fiction novel was a very strange experience its based on the same historical facts as another book, Duchess of Milan by Michael Ennis which I love. So reading this book was almost like re-reading Duchess but feeling that everything, has, somehow, changed Although, I believe, factually accurate, Essexs book is much less flattering to her characters, I believe. Both focus on the two sisters, Beatrice and Isabella dEste, who were prominent players in the Renaissance courts of Italys late 15th century (and were patrons to Leonardo Da Vinci and many other artists of the day.) But while Ennis portrays these women as the well-educated, powerful, and savvy politicians that they likely were (without sacrificing a strong element of personal drama), Essex has the women be much more motivated by personal jealousy and vanity their connivings are shown as more petty games than far-sighted political moves. They are constantly worrying about who is more beautiful than whom, who their husbands are sleeping with, and even Isabellas main goal of being painted by Da Vinci is equal parts vanity and desire to get one over on her sister. Isabella came across as shallow and irritating which, Im fairly sure, historically, she was not.
The other annoying thing about this book is that Essex obviously did some of the research for this book by looking at existing portraits and carvings of her characters, an she spends a great deal of time in the book describing in great detail her personal interpretations of these artworks. OK, so she got me to do a Google image search for some of the works she described, so I guess she succeeded in getting me to want to look at them. But it got to the point where at times I felt like I was reading a museum didactic, not a novel.
Overall, this wasnt bad but I would definitely recommend Duchess of Milan over this book any day!
The other annoying thing about this book is that Essex obviously did some of the research for this book by looking at existing portraits and carvings of her characters, an she spends a great deal of time in the book describing in great detail her personal interpretations of these artworks. OK, so she got me to do a Google image search for some of the works she described, so I guess she succeeded in getting me to want to look at them. But it got to the point where at times I felt like I was reading a museum didactic, not a novel.
Overall, this wasnt bad but I would definitely recommend Duchess of Milan over this book any day!
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