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. – Random House
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I am quite disappointed in this book. The best part is the prologue—it pulled me into the story more than the actual story. The book is slow in the beginning, drags in the middle and finally begins to pick up around chapter 18. Even then I feel let down once all the secrets are revealed and our heroine finds her “happy” ending. But it isn’t all bad. What I do like is the detail and the history of the time period. I’ve recently begun a love affair with historically based books and The Birth of Venus does not disappoint in that regard. The story falls a bit flat for me and doesn’t quite deliver. The synopsis is a tad misleading. The story of Alessandra’s relationship with the painter lacks in romance where there should be plenty. The underwhelming life she has with her husband Cristoforo is nowhere near as sad as it could be. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a twist to her marriage that I didn’t expect, but I was expecting more. The relationship Alessandra pursues with the painter is more an excursion than a pursuit. She even recognizes they had no idea what was between them as youngsters.
While there is mystery, tension and minor suspense, it doesn’t completely pull me into the story. I was really let down by the ending and the scenes where Alessandra reunites with the painter she is so infatuated with. Again, I expected there to be more revelation, more excitement, more something! It is beautifully written but I was unable to relate to Alessandra and the times in which she lived. Women were expected to do as their husbands bid and not have much of a voice. At a time when they are seen as a temptation to sin and cannot be in public without the presence of their husbands, I can understand the need to rebel. I just don’t feel that rebellion came through full force. Yes, Alessandra sneaks out of her parents’ house and ventures the streets at night, but nothing happens that leaves me gasping for breath. I may be desensitized. When I anticipate suspense, I want it to be so strong that I’m holding my breath and dying to get to the next page. And some of the lingo seems much too modern for the 1400s. I’m just saying.
It kills me to say it but I felt let down once we reached the climax. It was somewhat predictable to have things go smoothly for her where I thought they would fall apart and actually get exciting. I won’t be giving this one another read but that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. The visualization of the art is appealing and the draw of the painter is what made me continue reading.
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