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G-M Gaunt, Richard Medici woman Gilbert, Michael The etruscan net Giuttari, Michele A Florentine Death Glanville, Brian Along the Arno Cry of crickets Kissing America Griffin, John Florentine Madonna Grindle, Lucretia Walsh The faces of angels Harris, Thomas Hannibal Hellenga, Robert The sixteen pleasures Hill, John Spencer Ghirlandaio's daughter The last castrato: a mystery of Florence Hines, Joanna Angels of the flood Hoffman, Mary Stravaganza - City of Flowers Holme, Timothy Vile Florentines Huxley, Aldous Time must have a stop James, Henry Portrait of a lady The diary of a man of fifty (short story) Kalogridis, Jeanne Painting Mona Lisa King, Francis Henry The ant colony Dividing stream Kent, Christobel A party in San Niccolo A Florentine revenge Lamming, R.M. The notebook of Gismondo Cavalletti Langton, Jane The Dante game Leoni, Giulio The Third Heaven Conspiracy (aka The Mosaic Crimes) Lewis, Sinclair World so wide Llorente, Pilar Molina The apprentice Lloyd, Kathleen Phoenix in Firenze Lorrimer, Claire Voice in the dark McAuley, Paul J. Pasquale's angel McKean, James Quattrocento Machiavelli The Prince Manetti, Antonio The fat woodworker Marinello, Edward A. Lorenzo Marshall-Andrews, Robert The palace of wisdom Mathew, D. In Vallambrosa Miller, Alison Demo |
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William Congreve Incognita |
Jack
Dann The Memory Cathedral
A novel about a lost year in the life Leonardo da Vinci. What if Leonardo had got the chance to build his flying machines, and to take them East and use them in a war against the infidels. This adventure takes a while to get going, but as the preparatory half-novel takes place in a convincingly-painted Florence of the Medici, us Florence fans will want the preparations to go on forever. Leonardo's loves and intrigues are believable even when you know that the relationships are sometimes invented. The Medici, models and painters are all given lives and flesh, maybe not the ones they actually possessed but they are authentic enough to convince and enthral all but the driest pedant. |
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Dante
The
Divine Comedy
One of the real biggies in World literature, you really must try to read this, probably many times, in the hope that one day you'll manage more than a few pages. His mixed feelings for the city he loved, but from which he was exiled, are evident in passages in the Inferno and Purgatory. It's a notoriously brain-boggling job for any translator - it took until 1782 for anyone to try to render it into English. The best translation of the whole thing is said to be the one by Allen Mandelbaum, which I bought from a bookshop in Florence, to add extra incentive by association, but it didn't work, although I did read more than I had with any other version. There is a new translation of just The Inferno recently out (late 2004) by Ciaran Carson, which sounds temptingly fluid and unfussy and clear, so maybe I'll try again. Sarah Dunant The birth of Venus The story of a girl of good family in Renaissance Florence, who has more spirit than wiles and more intellect then beauty, and who wants to be an artist. A pale northerner arrives to fresco the family chapel and...well, I think you can guess what happens, but there's more. While this is a not unpredictable tale of a woman in conflict with the harsh constraints of her time and whilst all the bases are covered - the art, the Medici, the plague, Plato, religious turmoil, Savonarola, homosexuality, fine fabrics, childbirth - it does its job well and with a few unpredictable turns. With its melodramatic plot turns - and self-conscious mentions of famous faces - it never quite casts off a somewhat overwrought air of being upmarket chick-lit. But it's a fine authentic Florence fix of conviction and readability. |
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Alan Fisk Cupid and the silent goddess
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John Spencer
Hill The last castrato |
Christobel Kent
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Jane
Langton The Dante game
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Giulio Leoni
The Third Heaven Conspiracy (aka The Mosaic Crimes) A rarity in at least four ways, this book is set in Florence, before the Renaissance, is written by an Italian and features Dante as a detective. Our pompous hero/poet is charged with solving the nasty murder of a mosaicist in a ruined church just outside Florence, a church with a gaping pit where the nave should be. His investigation takes him all around medieval Florence and takes in secret societies, papal intrigue, corruption and heresy. There's catacombs, flashes of female flesh, dark deeds and violence too, to add more than a little gothic spice. You might initially think it Da Vinci Code-inspired, but it was published in Italian in 2004, before most of the fuss, if not all of it. The translation preserves the superiority of the writing here, as well as it's unbreathless pacing and maturity. The cover will remind you of An Instance of the Fingerpost, with Iain Pears' book also being a closer comparison in ambition. References and resonances abound, in amongst much philosophical, mystical and theological discussion, and even a couple of in-jokes. I felt undrawn to Dante, and a little underwhelmed by the somewhat undramatic ending, but it's an enthralling and wordy ride while it lasts. Pilar Molina Llorente The apprentice A children's book, telling of a 13 year old apprentice painter and his discovery of a terrible secret in the attic. Paul
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The Monster of Florence Marshal Guarnaccia is placed on a team digging up an old serial killer case, but his appointment seems more political than practical. This is a departure for Ms Nabb, being based on a true case (also touched on in Hannibal above) and brain-boilingly convoluted. The 1oth in the Marshal series but, like the best car tyres, the old gripping power is still there. The Marshal's own case It'd been such a while since The Monster of Florence, I read an old one to keep her name fresh on the site. It begins with the Marshal suffering some hot and crowded shopping for the new term's supplies with his wife and kids. The concern with children continues, with the worried mother of a missing son - in his 40s admittedly - and more stuff about the Marshal's two. But then the dismembered corpse of a what appears to be a young woman turns up and we're plunged into the world of Florence's transsexual prostitutes. We learn, as the Marshal learns, about the vicissitudes, and downright dangers, of their lifestyle, and very educational it is too. The humanity shines through, with believable emotions and characters. Property of blood Soho Crime 2001 After a gap of 5 years comes the new Marshal novel. It seems that Collins, Ms Nabb's UK publisher, got so fed up with the wait that they dropped her, and so it has fallen to a US publisher to bring this one out. With so much pap published in the UK this seems, well, criminal. The fact that the publishing details in the book say that the book was first published in Germany in 1999 is a mite confusing too. The book opens with the first-hand testimony of of a kidnap victim, which is full of more than you ever knew about the techniques and small bits of business involved in the business of kidnapping. We then meet the family of the poor woman, who is not as rich as they think, and we begin to doubt for the life expectancy of anyone relying on this lot. Except we're reading her account of her ordeal so she must make it, you think. There's less of the Marshal's own domestic life this time, although the family is still a big theme. It follows the last, The Monster of Florence in being a bit harsher than the Marshal books used to be, but the characters and details and grip are all still there. And in 2004 - three years later - this book was finally published in the UK by Heinemann in paperback, along with the hardback of Some bitter taste and reissues of the earlier novels after years out of print. |
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Sparse, I know.
