The Marriage Portrait
Ratings68
Average rating4.1
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.
Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?
As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.
Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.
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Although i appreciate the period, and I think O'Farrell writing was less florid than Hamnet the sum of the parts on this made up less than my appreciation of Hamnet.
Lucrezia has always been a difficult child. When she is asked to marry the ruler of Ferrara in the stead of her dead sister, she begs her father to allow her to remain with her family in Florence. But the wedding takes place anyway, and off the young girl goes to a land of intrigue and dissent, a land for which she is poorly prepared. Her husband, too, is perplexing, kind one day and cruel the next. It is immediately clear that her husband is desperate for an heir to resolve some of his kingdom's issues, but it doesn't seem at all certain that Lucrezia will be able to provide one.
A rich novel, with strong and complex characters, set in a time when even bold girls like Lucrezia had few choices.
Can't decide if this was a 4.5 or 5 for me but all I know is that it was a masterpiece.
