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A review by jmatkinson1
Blood & Beauty: The Borgias by Sarah Dunant
5.0
Rome in the late 15th Century and the Pope is dead, through various machinations an upstart Spaniard Roderigo Borgia is elected to the Papal office. Borgia takes the name Alexander but he is the head of a powerful and ambitious family of illegitimate children including his eldest son Cesare and his only daughter Lucrezia. The Borgias are keen to found a dynasty and after the death of second son Juan, Cesare renounces his priesthood to become a feared leader of the papal army. Lucrezia is a pawn in the marriage game but love is snatched from her by her family.
The legends of the Borgia family are legion, their infamy precedes them. However in this book Dunant tries to look beyond the obvious. Her writing is, as ever, lyrical and the plot runs along at a pace - it was ever going to be with this subject matter. I do like the way that Dunant is crystal-clear with events that are historical fact but is more ambiguous with those events that are never proven (who killed Juan Borgia, whether Lucrezia had an illegitimate child). Given the style of writing these ideas coalesce into a whole narrative which is both historically accurate and detailed yet has strong place in the pantheon of challenging historical fiction.
The legends of the Borgia family are legion, their infamy precedes them. However in this book Dunant tries to look beyond the obvious. Her writing is, as ever, lyrical and the plot runs along at a pace - it was ever going to be with this subject matter. I do like the way that Dunant is crystal-clear with events that are historical fact but is more ambiguous with those events that are never proven (who killed Juan Borgia, whether Lucrezia had an illegitimate child). Given the style of writing these ideas coalesce into a whole narrative which is both historically accurate and detailed yet has strong place in the pantheon of challenging historical fiction.