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Summary
Summary
In this exhilarating cross between The Da Vinci Code and The Birth of Venus , an irrepressible young woman in 15th-century Italy must flee for her life after stumbling upon a deadly secret when she serves as a model for Botticelli...
When part-time model and full-time prostitute Luciana Vetra is asked by one of her most exalted clients to pose for a painter friend, she doesn't mind serving as the model for the central figure of Flora in Sandro Botticelli's masterpiece "Primavera." But when the artist dismisses her without payment, Luciana impulsively steals an unfinished version of the painting--only to find that somone is ready to kill her to get it back.
What could possibly be so valuable about the picture? As friends and clients are slaughtered around her, Luciana turns to the one man who has never desired her beauty, novice librarian Brother Guido. Fleeing Venice together, Luciana and Guido race through the nine cities of Renaissance Italy, pursued by ruthless foes who are determined to keep them from decoding the painting's secrets.
Gloriously fresh and vivid, with a deliciously irreverent heroine, The Botticelli Secret is an irresistible blend of history, wit, and suspense.
Author Notes
Marina Fiorato is half-Venetian and a history graduate of Oxford University and the University of Venice, where she specialized in the study of Shakespeare's plays as an historical source. She has worked as an illustrator, an actress, and a film reviewer, and designed tour visuals for rock bands including U2 and the Rolling Stones. Her historical fiction includes The Daughter of Siena and her debut novel, The Glassblower of Murano , which was an international bestseller. She was married on the Grand Canal in Venice, and now lives in London with her family.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The city-states of Renaissance Italy serve as the vibrant backdrop for this less than successful homage to The Da Vinci Code from Fiorato (The Glassblower of Murano). In 1482 Florence, while prostitute Luciana Vetra is posing for Botticelli's Primavera, she makes a casual comment that terrifies the artist. Sent away unpaid, Luciana steals a miniature of the painting in revenge. When she discovers that an assassin is on her trail, she flees Florence with the most trustworthy companion she can find, handsome and cultured monk Brother Guido della Torre. As the two decode the secrets hidden in the painting (and fall in love), its meanings send them on a quest through Italy to save their own lives and avert a conspiracy involving the greatest powers of the day. Luciana's energetic narrative voice keeps the pages turning, but lengthy passages deconstructing La Primavera yield secrets, unlike those in Dan Brown's bestseller, with little resonance for modern readers. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Fiorato (The Glassblower of Murano) crafts a historical novel in the style of Susan Vreeland's Girl with a Pearl Earring blended with painting as code Ø la The Da Vinci Code. The painting at issue is Botticelli's Primavera. What if one of the most famous paintings in the world was actually an elaborate military blueprint depicted symbolically? We shadow Luciana Vetra, a beautiful and foul-mouthed whore, through 15th-century Florence and much of Renaissance Italy. Employed by Botticelli as a model for one of the primary figures in the painting, Luciana becomes embroiled in intrigue when her theft of a preliminary sketch is discovered, and she is thought to know more than she does about its secret purpose. The clever nature of the interpretation of Primavera is not Fiorato's but based upon several scholarly resources cited in the author's note. VERDICT The heroine's foul mouth may be off-putting to some sensitive readers. Additionally, while large portions of the book read more like a romance than a historical thriller, romance readers will likely find it too crass. In the end, it seems as if the author had two books in mind. Recommended for libraries with generous budgets to purchase all new novels.-Laura A.B. Cifelli, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Florence, June 1482 1 Florence looks like gold and smells like sulphur. The buildings are massive, gorgeous, and epic. They are made of glowing gilded stone and silver marble. Yet the smells--animal dung, human waste, rotting meat and vegetables left in the gutter from market--would make a tanner blanch. In fact, the city is a mass of contradictions. It is built for giants, with the huge loggias, toothsome palaces, and massy pillars, yet the Florentines are a tiny people and scuttle around the plinths like brightly dressed pygmies. The only citizens that truly fit such a scale are the statues that wrestle their stony bouts in the Piazza della Signoria. Florence is beautiful and brutal. Her beauty is skin deep; underneath, the blood runs very near the surface. Wondrous palaces and chapels stand right next to the Bargello jail, a place worse than the Inferno. In every church, heaven and hell coexist on the walls. These opposite fates sit cheek by jowl on the ceilings too, divided only by the crossribs. In the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, our great cathedral, angels and demons whirl around together in a celestial fortune's wheel. Paradise and damnation are so close, so very close. Even the food is a contradiction. Take my favorite food, carpaccio: slabs of raw meat fair running with blood. It's delicious, but something had to die to make it. On the streets, too, gods and monsters live together. I have no illusions. I am one of the monsters--Luciana Vetra, part-time model and full-time whore. The preachers spill poison about the likes of me from their pulpits, and decent women spit at me in the street. The Lord and the Devil compete for the souls of the Florentines, and sometimes I think the Devil is winning; if you enter the Battistero and look upon the mosaics of the Last Judgment, which bit do you look at first? Heaven, with the do-gooding angels and their haloes and hallelujahs? Or hell, with the long-eared Lucifer devouring the damned? And if you were to read Signor Dante's Divina commedia, would you start with Paradiso, with its priests and pope-holy prelates? Or the Inferno, where the skies rain blood and feckless nobles fry feet first? You know the answer. So there was I, a jade and a jezebel, reviled by decent folk, touting one or more of the Deadly Sins on the street. A lost sheep. Sometimes, though, a shepherd will come among us, one of the godly, selling salvation. And that's how I met Brother Guido della Torre. It was not an auspicious meeting. He did not see me at my best. I was dressed in my best, to be sure, for I am always aware of the passing trade. But I happened to be sitting on the balustrade of the river, pissing into the Arno. Framed poetically by the saffron arches of the Ponte Vecchio looming behind. In fairness, it would not have been immediately obvious to the good brother what I was doing, as my skirts were voluminous. But I had just come from Bembo's bed, was on my way to Signor Botticelli's studio, and the quantity of muscat I had drunk for breakfast begged for evacuation. Actually, I'm telling this all wrong--before we go on to talk about Brother Guido, and the right path, let me give you a glimpse of my old life, and the wrong one. Because unless you know about Bembo, and how I came to model for Signor Botticelli, you will never get to understand the secret, and the secret is the story. So let's go back to . . . the night before? No; no need to take you through all the depraved sex acts we committed for pleasure on Bembo's part and payment on mine. That morning would be time enough: Friday, the thirteenth of June, an unlucky day for so many reasons. Spring--the right place to start. Excerpted from The Botticelli Secret by . Copyright Â(c) 2010 by Marina Fiorato. Published in April 2010 by St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher. Excerpted from The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.