Stars: 4
Review by: Mandy Apgar
A historical
fiction biography of the artist, one of the very few post Raphaelite
female painters of the Italian Renaissance. Born in Rome to a father who
was also a painter, her mother died young and
she was apparently raised a lot by the local nuns but was still taught
art. When she was 18 she was raped by another painting instructor and
branded a whore by the populace so her father married her to Pietro,
another semi obscure artist in Florence, to try
to restore her reputation. She never got along well with him, in part
due to his tendency to gloss over her assault and make friends with the
man who attacked her, but was able to use her father's connections to
meet Michelangelo the Younger (the artist's nephew).
The latter became a very important champion of hers, and with his name
she became the first female painter to be accepted into the area studio -
no small feat, but it destroyed her marriage when her husband began to
drown his jealousy in horses and mistresses.
Striking a friendship with Galileo and securing and important Medici
patron further alienated him and the two parted ways eventually.
Apparently. The books ends just after she is able to marry her only
child, a daughter, to a minor nobleman and she did live
some years after that - plus with this being the kind of book it is who
knows how much of this is stretched around or not. Does put me in the
mind to find a more studious biography however, and despite it all was
very well written with the characters being
very solid and grounded.
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