Lucrezia Borgia: A Novel [Paperback]

John Faunce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2004

“A fascinating story, rich in detail. In every case, Faunce portrays [Lucrezia] believably, with wit and sensitivity.”--Library Journal

Hundreds of years after her death, Lucrezia Borgia remains one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of history, accused of incest, of poisoning her rivals, and even of murdering her own father. Born into scandal, she was the daughter of the treacherous Cardinal Roderigo Borgia, who would later be crowned Pope Alexander VI. When her father ascended the papal throne, young Lucrezia’s life changed forever. From then on, Lucrezia would be unable to escape the political ambitions of her father and her brother, the bloodthirsty Cesare Borgia.

In an era when the Vatican was as decadent and violent as any royal court, Lucrezia was its crown princess. Famed for her beauty, she was a valuable pawn in the marriage game, and Alexander VI would use her to create one alliance after another. When her kindly first husband no longer suited the Pope’s needs, Lucrezia’s virginity was restored by papal decree (her new maidenhood was declared “miraculous”), and she was married off again, this time to a man she truly loved, Alfonso, Prince of Naples. But her joy was short-lived. Alfonso loathed her brother and refused to participate in the Pope’s imperial schemes, which threatened to tear apart the Vatican’s political alliances--and Lucrezia’s happy marriage.

In this unforgettable debut, John Faunce perfectly captures the rotten decadence of the Borgias’ papal court and the inner steel of Lucrezia Borgia, one of history’s great survivors.

“Fascinating...a searing portrait of an intelligent woman, cunning enough to shape her own bizarre destiny.”--Booklist

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Her contemporaries painted her as an incestuous, conspiring villainess. History has deemed her a hapless political pawn. Now screenwriter and first-time novelist Faunce allows Borgia to speak for herself in this extravagant first-person narrative of Borgia's life in late 15th-century Italy. The child of Pope Alexander VI and a former whore, Borgia is separated from her mother at an early age and raised in the Vatican by her imperious, corrupt father. Her arranged marriage to Count Giovanni Sforza ends abruptly as Giovanni flees Rome for his life (a victim of the pope's ruthless political maneuvers) just as her love for him begins to blossom. With her virginity declared "miraculously" intact, Lucrezia is forced to marry again, this time to one of Italy's richest heirs. As her brother Cesare and the Borgia family name gain political influence, Lucrezia comes to fear her sibling, all the more so after she and her husband, Alphonso, are viciously attacked by assassins in Cesare's employ. Cesare's subsequent actions incite her to even the score. Faunce gives Borgia the voice of a bitchy but self-possessed modern teenager ("What was I thinking? The hell with Cesare. The hell with my impotently sentimental, girly tears, self-pity and dramatization"), which has the stylishly funny appeal of a show on the WB network. It's not as effective, however, for anchoring a historical epic; the political intrigue and scandals tend to run together, narrated in the same relentless pitch of high drama. By the novel's end, when Borgia is in self-imposed exile in a convent, readers may feel like they could use a rest as well.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Narrated by Lucrezia herself, this novelization of the life of one of history's most notorious females is a page-turning expose of the corruption, debauchery, and intrigue that characterized the sixteenth-century papal court. The illegitimate daughter of Roderigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia was raised amid luxury and deception. Viewed as a pawn by her ambitious father and brothers, she was married off twice in efforts to gain political advantage and alliances. Of course, Lucrezia was not a naively innocent victim; she, too, had her own agenda and was not afraid to risk her own safety and reputation to achieve it. This fascinating fictional memoir provides a searing portrait of an intelligent woman, cunning enough to manipulate all the physical, emotional, and political resources available to her to shape her own bizarre destiny. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (March 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400051223
• ISBN-13: 978-1400051229
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,399,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a Novel with Multiple Personalities, July 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Lucrezia Borgia: A Novel (Hardcover)

Unfortunately, the writer cannot determine if this book was to be a farce, historical fiction, porno, or theater material. It fails miserably to be a good historical novel. Characters are all drawn the same, same dialogue from each. Smut for smut's sake. Very disappointing in so many aspects.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is There A Copyeditor In The House?, April 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Lucrezia Borgia: A Novel (Paperback)

Please don't let this author write again without one!

The book is riddled with spelling and grammar errors (even my seventh-grade daughter knows that you don't seize a horse's "reigns"), but it's the anachronisms that really set my teeth on edge. I'm not an expert in 14th-century language, but I'm willing to bet that the words "spiffy" and "sappy" weren't in common use at that time. And how Lucrezia could refer to someone's utterance as a "malapropism" when the literary character on whose name the term is based didn't exist until the 1800s is beyond me.

What ultimately made this book unreadable for me, though, was the tortured prose. An example: "...these notions became an obsessive sequence of water buckets that I was throwing on my passion's wildfire." This isn't even necessarily the worst example-just the one that occurs on the page where I finally had to give up trying to wade through the book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do Not Read This Book, October 9, 2006

By 

Alexandra (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucrezia Borgia: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is an utter distortion of political and social realities of the late 15th century Italian States. It is poorly written and disappointingly researched. Case in point, Mr. Faunce has in improbable `honeymoon' sex scene between Lucrezia Borgia and her second husband Alfonso of Aragon, situated in the Villa Adriana at Tivoli. Unfortunately for Mr. Faunce, the Villa was sacked by the Barbarians of Totila in late antiquity and the excavation was not begun until 1501, several years after the wedding. The other instances of sheer mendacity are too numerous to list. The book is rife with other asinine inaccuracies that cannot be excused by literary license. It was supposed to be a work of historical fiction, not semi-historical fantasy. There were absolutely no redeeming features to this work.