Caroline P. Murphy

I thought this book is a biography of Lucrezia Borgia. No! It is a portrait of Felice della Rovere, illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II (The Pope is remembered for commissioning artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael).

It is indeed pity that Felice doesn't deserve as much mention as Lucrezia Borgia, Catherine, Elizabeth, Isabella d'Este. She is an astute thinker, a shrewd politician, a hard task master, and a very benevolent regent. A survior to the core who kept wits about her to make a splash in Renaissance Italy.… (plus d'informations)

This book if a life of Isabella, daughter of Cosimo de Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany (not to be confused with Cosimo the elder), who was the rather nominal wife of Paolo Giordano Orsini, duke of Bracciano. Despite her marriage, she managed to spent nearly all her life as a favored member of her father's court while her husband squandered his resources in Rome in riotous living and a marginal military career. She was a patron of musicians and poets and presided over elaborate parties at her own estate. As long as her father lived, she led a charmed life, but after he died, her brother the new Grand Duke Francesco apparently signed off on her murder by her husband, being irritated by the way her leading lover Troilo Orsini had murdered a rival over and fled to Florentine exile circles at the French court, to say nothing of the fact that she was apparently an active accomplice in the murder of a mistress of the husband of the duke's official mistress (the intrigues got very complex). Her sister-in-law, involved in similar intrigues, was also killed just beforehand. Her death (considerably cleaned up) furnished a subplot in Webster's Jacobean tragedy The White Devil (primarily about her husband's mistress) and her son Virginio survived to pay a state visit to England and see the first performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, whose "Duke Orsino" was apparently a compliment to him. (see The First Night of Twelfth Night)… (plus d'informations)

A very interesting study of the Life and Times of Grand Duke Cosimo of Florence and his children, particularly the Princess Isabella. For anyone who has visited Florence and Tuscany, this book will be particularly evocative as the key locations are all still there. If you've visited The Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffici, the Vasari Corridor, the Ponte Santa Trinita, the Pittl Palace, and other key sites in Florence this will all be very evocative

And Caroline Murphy is fortunate that the sources are relatively good, and she makes the most of them. The Isabella De Medici she paints is free spirited, erudite, fun loving with a healthy disrespect for her buffoon of a husband. And while her father reigns and dotes on her, she is able to get away with an independence most Renaissance women could only marvel at. But with the death of her father and the ascension of her melancholic brother Francesco to the dukedom, things start to go badly wrong...

Murphy tells a great story. Instinctively you want to cheer on Isabella, boo her mean brother, and lament her woeful husband. The ending is inevitable and all the sadder for it. Recommended for anyone with any interest in Italy or the Renaissance… (plus d'informations)

This was a delightful insight into the life of an extraordinary woman who experienced the papacy from a family viewpoint. Her insights and determination allowed her to survive and even thrive against many odds. The deductions presented by the author are the result of keen insight and intuition. It was wonderful to enter the church of San Agnesi, off the Piazza Navona, and realize she worshiped there. The Bracchi Museum, at the foot of the Piazza Navona, has several paintings of enormous festivals held in the buildings on the Piazza - during the lifetime of Felice. Perhaps she even attended them. It's a very engaging story and I will read it again before my next trip to Rome.… (plus d'informations)