The birth fo Venus (Sarah Dunant)

The birth of Venus

Sarah Dunant

Alessandra Cecchi is the protagonist of this historical fiction set in Florence in the 1400s. She belongs to an aristocratic family connected to the Medici in power.

She loves painting and knows how to read and write in Greek and Latin. She would love to dedicate her life to the Arts but at that time of History that was forbidden to women. When her father hired a painter to illustrate the roof of the family chapel, she soon feels attracted to him. She tries to get his help and to improve her skills towards painting.

However, the bachelor Cristoforo Langella seems to be interested in Alessandra and later she gets married being only 16 years old. Innocent and gullible, she makes a deal with him that soon she is goint to regret as her husband becomes a complete stranger.

Besides the twists of the plot, the reader enjoys the description of the sculptures, paintings and even the faccades of the buidings in Florence at that time. The Renassaince is its plenitude.

The political upheaval at the time is also something realistically portrayed by the author, with the powerful influence of the Catholic church in the city.

A powerful narration of a part of an important classical period  portrayed in the life of a girl who will have to fight for her rights in a time that only seems to imprison her.

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