Review: The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

While having a cold affects your productivity in a lot of ways, it certainly doesn't hurt your reading!  I tore through two books yesterday on my self-appointed "day of rest", and now I will review the second.  But a note first, so that (hopefully) I'll look back on it and remember.  Pushing myself to get better has the opposite effect on me.  It only makes me worse.  I took one half day this week in an attempt to rest up and get better.  This was clearly not enough, as I spent the latter half of the week in a zombie-like state.  Taking Sunday off to sleep, rest, and read was the best decision I could have made.  Maybe I'll be smarter next time.

Anyway.  On to Number 43 of 100.

The Birth of Venus is historical fiction set against the backdrop of late 15th century Florence, Italy, during the city's control by the ruling houses of Medici and Borgia.  A young woman, Alessandra Cecchi, is torn between her family's wishes for her and her own great desire: to become a artist.  When her family brings in a painter to decorate their personal family chapel, Alessandra is immediately drawn to him and his work.  But the politics of Florence on the brink of invasion by the French, along with the loud protestations of Friar Savonarola, lead Alessandra into a hasty marriage that has serious repercussions.  As Florence and its inhabitants are caught up in the whirlwind around them, Alessandra takes her destiny into her own hands and makes the only decisions she knows she can, in order to secure the future.

This book was not easy to get into.  The prologue has a great hook, but the first few chapters are slow and difficult at first.  I put Venus down to read Bumped, I will admit.  The story doesn't really pick up until after Alessandra is married.  After that turning point, I found it much easier to stay involved with the book.  The ending is unfortunately, as another reviewer put it, a "cop-out".  Alessandra's much-beloved painter is never named.  Also, the title is misleading -- I believed until about midway through the book that the painter was Sandro Botticelli, the artist who painted the titular "Birth of Venus".  After that, I was lost until I got to the afterward -- and even then, author Dunant never explicitly says who the painter was...it's more of a hint. 

It's an extremely vivid book, however, if one is interested in both historical fiction and art.  I took a class in Art History my freshman year of college, and Renaissance artwork has always been a favorite era of mine (I would dearly love to travel to Italy and see these masterpieces first-hand).  Dunant is very good at painting a vivid picture (excuse the pun) of Florentine life around this turbulent period.  The book definitely makes me want to learn more about Italian history, particularly the Medicis and the Borgias, who are hinted at throughout the book.  However, it's not something I'm likely to reread, and I submitted it on PBS right after I was finished.  Good, but not a re-read.

Rating: ***