Blood & beauty
By: by Sarah Dunant
Publisher: Virago
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 529
ISBN-13: 9781844087426; 9780748128723; 9781844087440; 9780349005270
Subjects: Borgia family. Fiction; Nobility Papal States Fiction; Biographical fiction; Alexander VI, Pope, 1431-1503 Fiction; Italy History 1492-1559 Fiction; Suspense; Church and state Fiction; Historical fiction; Fiction; Rome (Italy) History 1420-1798 Fiction; History
Description: Acclaimed novelist of the Italian Renaissance Sarah Dunant now takes on the era's most infamous family: the Borgias. By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and in the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: he is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women and power must use papacy and family to succeed. His eldest son Cesare, a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatest - though increasingly unstable - weapon. Later immortalised in Machiavelli's The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. His daughter Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages: from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player. Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex and relentless.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 527-528).