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adam_mcphee 's review for:
Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age
by Ada Palmer
Liked this, once I got used to the informal tone. It's a bit grating at first, especially the lulzy internet speak, but I have to admit I found myself able to fly through it, and it also does a good job of keeping all the repetitious dynastic names comprehensible to the reader. The mini-biographies are well-written.
I do have one big issue and a few minor ones on the Lucrezia Borgia chapter. The big issue: the author talks about the well-known debate Isabella d'Este had over who was the better fictional knight, Rinaldo or Orlando, suggesting this was spurred by Ariosto sharing the first chapters (ahem, cantos) of his Orlando Furioso. This is preposterous. Ariosto was seventeen in 1491, still a law student. Isabella might have/probably knew Ariosto, maybe even knew him as a poet (at that point he'd written some latin poetry and a student play that's since been lost), but the OF was still years away. We know this because he had another, earlier chivalric epic that he started working on but abandoned, at around the turn of the century. The first known reference to the OF isn't until 1507, when Ariosto is sent on embassy to congratulate Isabella on the birth of her (third?) son, and in her thank-you letter, Isabella mentions the poem. Isabella's debate was more likely spurred by Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, of which she was a huge fan, writing him to ask for a third book. She also would have known the characters from, among other things, Cieco's Mambriano and possibly Luigi Pulci's Morgante.
Minor quibbles: the author writes, "Ferrante sided with Giulio, demanding that (Alfonso), as duke, punish Ippolito, but Alfonso and Ippolito were close (having grown up together while Ferrante grew up in Naples) so Alfonso refused." Alfonso and Ippolito worked together and became close, but this actually came as a surprise to Ferrara-watchers, as in childhood the two did not always get along, with Ippolito being much closer to Giulio and Sigismondo. Also, the author seems to have forgotten that Ippolito spent a big portion of his childhood in Hungary, where he was educated.
"You (Palmer is writing in the second person, she means Lucrezia, it's a nice touch) bore Alfonso more children in these years: Alessandro, Eleonora, Francesco, then more miscarriages. You were in your thirties now—an age at which many wives in political marriages find their husbands’ attentions moving to younger concubines—but from 1513 on Alfonso started keeping you continually pregnant, even though you already had healthy sons, almost as if… Almost as if he wants you to die in childbirth? Of course there can’t be direct evidence. It was certainly unusual in the period for Alfonso to keep you pregnant so much, despite not liking you very much, but why? Was he trying to kill you? Was he just that lustful? Were you just that lustful? Insatiable? Implausibly fertile? This is exactly the kind of moralistic speculation historians will make about both you and everyone around you for centuries to come, tipping your portrait back and forth between villainous femme fatale and tragic heroine."
I don't really take issue with this one (though possibly the author might be slightly conflating Alfonso d'Este with Alfonso II d'Este, of My Last Duchess Fame). The author is entitled to her opinion, but since the book is about how there are so many different renaissances, I just thought I would offer mine. In short, Alfonso was humiliated in his first marriage, and again to a lesser extent by Lucrezia in their early years. Lucrezia's experience with men was even worse than Alfonso's with women, far worse. So the marriage got off to a rocky start, more performative than loving, with both doing their duty (three times on the wedding night, as per Sarah Bradford) but not investing too much in it emotionally. But the wars against first Venice and then Julius II made them realize they had to rely on each other, and both turned out to be capable leaders with unlikely qualities, and my read is that this brought them together. Sadly, for Lucrezia, this meant a lot of troubling pregnancies. But it's important to note that Alfonso didn't replace her in the way he was expected to. That is, by entering into another dynastic marriage with another elite family. Instead, after LB died he took up with the daughter of a hat-maker and lived contentedly with her for the rest of his life, possibly marrying her. Yes, Alfonso loved brothels and prostitutes when he was young, but I suspect that left him as he aged, and that he was looking for a more grounded, emotional love. And now that I think about it, Alfonso would've been justified in finding a new wife anytime after the Borgia family network collapsed, but he didn't, did he? I think there was something there.
Still, my take is but one among many.
I do have one big issue and a few minor ones on the Lucrezia Borgia chapter. The big issue: the author talks about the well-known debate Isabella d'Este had over who was the better fictional knight, Rinaldo or Orlando, suggesting this was spurred by Ariosto sharing the first chapters (ahem, cantos) of his Orlando Furioso. This is preposterous. Ariosto was seventeen in 1491, still a law student. Isabella might have/probably knew Ariosto, maybe even knew him as a poet (at that point he'd written some latin poetry and a student play that's since been lost), but the OF was still years away. We know this because he had another, earlier chivalric epic that he started working on but abandoned, at around the turn of the century. The first known reference to the OF isn't until 1507, when Ariosto is sent on embassy to congratulate Isabella on the birth of her (third?) son, and in her thank-you letter, Isabella mentions the poem. Isabella's debate was more likely spurred by Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, of which she was a huge fan, writing him to ask for a third book. She also would have known the characters from, among other things, Cieco's Mambriano and possibly Luigi Pulci's Morgante.
Minor quibbles: the author writes, "Ferrante sided with Giulio, demanding that (Alfonso), as duke, punish Ippolito, but Alfonso and Ippolito were close (having grown up together while Ferrante grew up in Naples) so Alfonso refused." Alfonso and Ippolito worked together and became close, but this actually came as a surprise to Ferrara-watchers, as in childhood the two did not always get along, with Ippolito being much closer to Giulio and Sigismondo. Also, the author seems to have forgotten that Ippolito spent a big portion of his childhood in Hungary, where he was educated.
"You (Palmer is writing in the second person, she means Lucrezia, it's a nice touch) bore Alfonso more children in these years: Alessandro, Eleonora, Francesco, then more miscarriages. You were in your thirties now—an age at which many wives in political marriages find their husbands’ attentions moving to younger concubines—but from 1513 on Alfonso started keeping you continually pregnant, even though you already had healthy sons, almost as if… Almost as if he wants you to die in childbirth? Of course there can’t be direct evidence. It was certainly unusual in the period for Alfonso to keep you pregnant so much, despite not liking you very much, but why? Was he trying to kill you? Was he just that lustful? Were you just that lustful? Insatiable? Implausibly fertile? This is exactly the kind of moralistic speculation historians will make about both you and everyone around you for centuries to come, tipping your portrait back and forth between villainous femme fatale and tragic heroine."
I don't really take issue with this one (though possibly the author might be slightly conflating Alfonso d'Este with Alfonso II d'Este, of My Last Duchess Fame). The author is entitled to her opinion, but since the book is about how there are so many different renaissances, I just thought I would offer mine. In short, Alfonso was humiliated in his first marriage, and again to a lesser extent by Lucrezia in their early years. Lucrezia's experience with men was even worse than Alfonso's with women, far worse. So the marriage got off to a rocky start, more performative than loving, with both doing their duty (three times on the wedding night, as per Sarah Bradford) but not investing too much in it emotionally. But the wars against first Venice and then Julius II made them realize they had to rely on each other, and both turned out to be capable leaders with unlikely qualities, and my read is that this brought them together. Sadly, for Lucrezia, this meant a lot of troubling pregnancies. But it's important to note that Alfonso didn't replace her in the way he was expected to. That is, by entering into another dynastic marriage with another elite family. Instead, after LB died he took up with the daughter of a hat-maker and lived contentedly with her for the rest of his life, possibly marrying her. Yes, Alfonso loved brothels and prostitutes when he was young, but I suspect that left him as he aged, and that he was looking for a more grounded, emotional love. And now that I think about it, Alfonso would've been justified in finding a new wife anytime after the Borgia family network collapsed, but he didn't, did he? I think there was something there.
Still, my take is but one among many.