Blood & Beauty
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Blood & Beauty
Narrated by:
John Telfer
Buy Now for $21.49
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Narrated by:
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John Telfer
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By:
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Sarah Dunant
Summary
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.©2013 Sarah Dunant
Critic Reviews
The pre-eminent novelist of Renaissance Italy . . . Blood & Beauty is a high-class, colourful Renaissance soap opera, and one that will leave readers itching for the next instalment (Stephanie Merritt aka S. J. Parris)
This is Dunant's fourth Renaissance novel and she is in her element . . . She brings 15th century Italian cities vividly alive - the lawlessness and violence, the diseased and damaged bodies, the debauchery and corpses . . . an intelligent and passionate book (Lucy Atkins)
Wonderful . . . from a master of historical fiction . . . an ambitious, thrilling read from a novelist at the height of her powers. The Borgias leap from the page . . . the book offers total immersion in an alien Rome . . . A comparison to Wolf Hall is not out of place here (Viv Groskop)
Gripping . . . a must read for anyone interested in the period, and for those who simply enjoy intelligent historical fiction
Hugely enjoyable . . . From the outset Dunant takes possession of her sprawling, unwieldy material. She sets up a resonant dynamic between the political - the dangerous machinations of the papal conclave - and the domestic . . . it is in her asides that Dunant triumphs, like all good novelists: in a deft, shrewd, precise use of killer detail . . . it is difficult not to look forward to the next ride on an old-fashioned rollercoaster of a story (Christobel Kent)
A wonderful novel - taking you deep into the world of Renaissance passion and the Renaissance papacy. Part of me was happily lost in the time travel, part of me repeatedly struck by how vividly ancient Rome met modern Rome, and how the city of history came to life (Mary Beard)
What a marvellous feast of vices and desires Sarah Dunant gives us in Blood & Beauty - lust and ambition, passion and power, destiny born and bought. The Borgias are arguably the most intriguing and ruthless family in all of history, and Dunant brings them ravishingly, bristlingly to life. Absolutely convincing on every page. I was enthralled (Paula McLain, author of THE PARIS WIFE)
Blood & Beauty is a fascinating read full of vivid detail and human pathos. Dunant opens a window into the extraordinary machinations and skullduggery of the Borgias and provides us with a richness of description that beautifully locates them within their own time (Amanda Foreman)
The Machiavellian atmosphere - hedonism, lust, political intrigue - is magnetic . . . Readers won't want the era of Borgia rule to end
I find it hard to believe, but it actually happened during the Reinessance
marvellous story and narrative
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