Women, eh? Put them in charge!
“Lost in history. Is there any better place?”
This question is rhetorically asked by the spectral presence of Isabella D’Este observing yet another scholar pore over the huge treasure trove of her papers in the deconsecrated convent and church that house the State Archive of Mantua.
Isabella is one the key figures in Renaissance Italy, a wily political operator, and one of the great patrons and collectors of art. Through her we will meet Borgias, Medicis, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, and encounter the glory and savagery of Fifteenth Century Italy.
This is a time and place that Sarah Dunant has made her own and she has a marvellously firm hand on the tiller. Somebody has said that she combines flawless historical scholarship with beguiling storytelling and I can’t argue with that. She brings her historical figures brilliantly to life so that they live and breathe and, well, smell as real people (the Fifteenth Century was a fragrant time).
Sarah Dunant – Ravenna Press (Paperback) – £11.99
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