Product Description

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10131 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-30
• Released on: 2004-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.com
Sarah Dunant's gorgeous and mesmerizing novel, Birth of Venus, draws readers into a turbulent 15th-century Florence, a time when the lavish city, steeped in years of Medici family luxury, is suddenly besieged by plague, threat of invasion, and the righteous wrath of a fundamentalist monk. Dunant masterfully blends fact and fiction, seamlessly interweaving Florentine history with the coming-of-age story of a spirited 14-year-old girl. As Florence struggles in Savonarola's grip, a serial killer stalks the streets, the French invaders creep closer, and young Alessandra Cecchi must surrender her "childish" dreams and navigate her way into womanhood. Readers are quickly seduced by the simplicity of her unconventional passions that are more artistic than domestic:

Dancing is one of the many things I should be good at that I am not. Unlike my sister. Plautilla can move across the floor like water and sing a stave of music like a song bird, while I, who can translate both Latin and Greek faster than she or my brothers can read it, have club feet on the dance floor and a voice like a crow. Though I swear if I were to paint the scale I could do it in a flash: shining gold leaf for the top notes falling through ochres and reds into hot purple and deepest blue.

Alessandra's story, though central, is only one part of this multi-faceted and complex historical novel. Dunant paints a fascinating array of women onto her dark canvas, each representing the various fates of early Renaissance women: Alessandra's lovely (if simple) sister Plautilla is interested only in marrying rich and presiding over a household; the brave Erila, Alessandra's North African servant (and willing accomplice) has such a frank understanding of the limitations of her sex that she often escapes them; and Signora Cecchi, Alessandra's beautiful but weary mother tries to encourage yet temper the passions of her wayward daughter.

A luminous and lush novel, The Birth of Venus, at its heart, is a mysterious and sensual story with razor-sharp teeth. Like Alessandra, Dunant has a painter's eye--her writing is rich and evocative, luxuriating in colors and textures of the city, the people, and the art of 15th-century Florence. Reminiscent of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring, but with sensual splashes of color and the occasional thrill of fear, Dunant's novel is both exciting and enchanting. --Daphne Durham

From Publishers Weekly
In this arresting tale of art, love and betrayal in 15th-century Florence, the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant seeks the freedom of marriage in order to paint, but finds that she may have bought her liberty at the cost of love and true fulfillment. Alessandra, 16, is tall, sharp-tongued and dauntingly clever. At first reluctant to agree to an arranged marriage, she changes her mind when she meets elegant 48-year-old Cristoforo, who is well-versed in art and literature. He promises to give her all the freedom she wants-and she finds out why on her wedding night. Her disappointment and frustration are soon overshadowed by the growing cloud of madness and violence hanging over Florence, nourished by the sermons of the fanatically pious Savonarola. As the wealthy purge their palazzos of "low" art and luxuries, Alessandra gives in to the dangerous attraction that draws her to a tormented young artist commissioned to paint her family's chapel. With details as rich as the brocade textiles that built Alessandra's family fortune, Dunant (Mapping the Edge; Transgressions; etc.) masterfully recreates Florence in the age of the original bonfire of the vanities. The novel moves to its climax as Savonarola's reign draws to a bloody close, with the final few chapters describing Alessandra's fate and hinting at the identity of her artist lover. While the story is rushed at the end, the author has a genius for peppering her narrative with little-known facts, and the deadpan dialogue lends a staccato verve to the swift-moving plot. Forget Baedecker and Vasari's Lives of the Artists. Dunant's vivid, gripping novel gives fresh life to a captivating age of glorious art and political turmoil.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
Lorenzo de' Medici has just died, Savonarola is busy consigning Florence to the flames, and Alessandra Cecchi, a plain, headstrong girl from a prosperous Florentine family, is about to be married off to a much older suitor (who secretly plans to use her to hide his passion for her brother). Alessandra, who loves to draw, is besotted with the young painter who has been hired to decorate the family chapel. Part feverish thriller, part historical romance, the story of the outspoken heroine's sentimental education—a comprehensive curriculum including every conceivable transgression—sometimes comes off as a heady blend of Browning's "My Last Duchess" and Anaïs Nin. But Dunant's skill lies in combining these elements with a finely textured and pertinent depiction of a cultured citizenry in the grip of rampant fundamentalism.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Engaging Story
Set in Florence, in the 1400's, Alessandra is an intelligent 14-year-old girl that is way ahead of her time. She loves art, and craves the freedom only given to the men of her time. Right before her 15th birthday, her father hires a young painter to decorate the family's chapel walls. Alessandra is completely dazzled with his abilities and somber personality. Unfortunately, her parents have arranged for her to marry an older man. The events that take place are astonishing. The author tells a wonderful story. She explores Alessandra's passions and downfalls, and does a great job of bringing this time in history to life.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a well-written, engaging, and intriguing novel. The plot is full of twists, so you are never sure what is going to happen next.

OFF TO ITALY WE GO
Sarah Dunant's "The Birth of Venus" was gift as I prepared for my solo trip to Italy. The gift giver knew I enjoyed books of historical fiction. This story told in a colorfully real way the streets and lives of Italian life in another time that I almost read it entirely before ending my plane journey.

"The Birth of Venus" is a birthing of an intelligent and spirited girl into womanhood during the 15th century Florentine society - not a good thing especially since she is born into a family of money.

The author paints richly her characters and surroundings one feels they are truly living in that time. I found the book helpful as part of my novice adventure to Florence. Arriving I couldn't wait to get into the art history---walk the streets and feel the city.

Modern sensibilities
A friend breathlessly recommended this book. I can't do the same. The plot is slow to develop. The characters, with the exception of the mother and the husband, are generally unlikeable. The mother and the husband are more modern than renaissance in their tone and character. The actions of the lead character seem implausible for the time, or indeed, any time. Finally, the writing is simply inelegant and uninteresting.

I love Florence. I am a plague scholar and a "fan" of the renaissance. I would have loved to love this book. Sadly, I cannot.