'Cisnes de Leonardo' é a história das poderosas irmãs d'Este - Beatrice, duquesa de Milão, e Isabella, marquesa de Mântua - e de sua competição pelo amor de um dos príncipes mais influentes da Itália, Ludovico Sforza, e pelo prêmio maior - ser imortalizada em um quadro a óleo pelo pintor e engenheiro da corte de Milão, Leonardo da Vinci. No livro, Leonardo da Vinci aparece como homem de carne e osso que, a despeito de sua inegável genialidade, precisa lutar para pagar as contas e sustentar a família. Cada capítulo começa com um diferente trecho do diário que o mestre italiano escreveu ao longo da vida.

A very "okay" historical novel. (You'd think a Tulane graduate would do better.) ( )

Reading this recent historical fiction novel was a very strange experience – it's based on the same historical facts as another book, ‘Duchess of Milan' by Michael Ennis – which I love. So reading this book was almost like re-reading ‘Duchess'... but feeling that everything, has, somehow, changed... Although, I believe, factually accurate, Essex's book is much less flattering to her characters, I believe. Both focus on the two sisters, Beatrice and Isabella d'Este, who were prominent players in the Renaissance courts of Italy's late 15th century (and were patrons to Leonardo Da Vinci and many other artists of the day.) But while Ennis portrays these women as the well-educated, powerful, and savvy politicians that they likely were (without sacrificing a strong element of personal drama), Essex has the women be much more motivated by personal jealousy and vanity – their connivings are shown as more petty games than far-sighted political moves. They are constantly worrying about who is more beautiful than whom, who their husbands are sleeping with, and even Isabella's main goal of being painted by Da Vinci is equal parts vanity and desire to ‘get one over' on her sister. Isabella came across as shallow and irritating – which, I'm fairly sure, historically, she was not.
The other annoying thing about this book is that Essex obviously did some of the research for this book by looking at existing portraits and carvings of her characters, an she spends a great deal of time in the book describing in great detail her personal interpretations of these artworks. OK, so she got me to do a Google image search for some of the works she described, so I guess she succeeded in getting me to want to look at them. But it got to the point where at times I felt like I was reading a museum didactic, not a novel.
Overall, this wasn't bad – but I would definitely recommend ‘Duchess of Milan' over this book any day!
( )

Read during Summer 2007

Not very good. I must get back to my own books and leave Bookcrossing for the short term, I'm getting really annoyed to not enjoy what I read. This was not a total clunker, well, maybe. Essex just seemed in way over her head. She was trying to make some grand statements about the works of Leonardo da Vinci via the d'Este sisters, Isabella and Beatrica, but it just didn't work. There was high flown prose about art tossed in with crude sex and debauchery scenes. Isabella was supposed to be the smart one but was mostly pretensious and Beatrica was more wild than spirited. Not a satisfying read, esp. after Beatrica dies suddenly and the whole thing just grinds to a halt but has to drag out for page after page after page. Also, I don't care if smug little Isabella thinks she is the model for the Mona Lisa, a point Essex has clearly been working up to for about 339 pages.

Set in the court of the Duke of Milan during the stay of Leonardo da Vinci, the first half is more fun with sexual and political intrigues and insight into some of Leonardo's more famous works; the last half focuses on the fall of the city to the French. Fun way to encounter facts from a period of history I have always found fascinating.