Customer Reviews

Murder of a Medici Princess

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At first, I scoffed at the title, thinking that this might be a work of fiction, and a real potboiler at that. And to be honest, despite my fondness for historical novels, nearly every other novel set in the sixteenth century seemed lately to be centered on either Tudor England or Renaissance Italy -- and both of them done to death.

But in spite of my misgivings, this turned out to be a stunning read. Caroline Murphy, author of a previous book on women and politics, has continued her stories of women who played an influental role in the backgrounds of Italian history. This time, the focus is on the city of Florence and the powerful Medici family.

Begining with the fall of the Medici, the book focuses on a member of the junior branch of the family who brought the glory back to Florence. Cosimo de' Medici was a consummate politican and manipulator, but also a fervid patron of the arts and architecture. With his wife, the beautiful Eleonora di Toledo (who was known as La Fecundissima) they had eleven children, many of them sons, but Cosimo's favourite was his daughter Isabella.

A middle child in a huge brood of offspring, she was closest to her brother, Giovanni, and they could be found together constantly, playing games and partnering each other in dancing lessons. Several paintings survive of the princess, a lovely dark haired child with expressive eyes and nearly a smirk on her lips as she surveys the world before her. Clearly she is her father's darling, and knows it. When it came time for her to marry, her father brokered a deal with the Orsini family, based in Rome, and a wedding to Paolo Giordano d'Orsini, a young man with an itch for power and money, and seemingly in love and adoration with Isabella to judge from his letters.

But Cosimo slipped a small clause into the wedding contract -- Isabella would only accompany her husband to his home in Rome if she wanted to. It was a curious condition to the marriage, especially in a time where women were considered to be not much more than two legged birthing machines and subject to abuse and violence from their spouses. For a time, all went well between the couple -- Paolo was off working for advanage of both the Medici and the Orsini, with Cosimo supplying plenty of money for his spendthrift son, and keeping his daughter by his side. He indulged her as best he could, supplying her with the trappings of the high life in the artistic capital of the world.

Isabella created a world of poets and music, sending a steady supply of letters to her husband, letters that were filled with assurances of her love and devotion. But read between the lines, and something else emerges. There's a sly quality to the letters, something that bothers the reader, and if read carefully enough, it becomes clear that Isabella doesn't care very much for her absent husband, and is determined to live her life as she chooses. Even if that means having a lover or two.

The story takes on a much darker tone as it progresses. Her beloved brother, Giovanni, dies of malaria along with another brother and their mother, word comes of Paolo's affairs with various prostitutes in Rome, and Isabella's own growing irritation of her husband. And when Cosimo dies, Isabella tries to keep her glittering fantasy of a life going, but it might already be too late...

This is a tale that is not for the squeamish, as Murphy doesn't hold back on the lives, and especially the deaths, of various members of the Medici family, and also of more ordinary folks. The book is filled with details about daily living, clothing, food, the art of spectacle, and the role of servants and those unseen. What I found very interesting was that the book shifts the focus to women, who usually get shoved to the background of most history. And the subject of the book, Isabella de' Medici, I had never heard of before.

I happily recommend this book for anyone interested in Renaissance Florence, especially for life after the heyday of Lorenzo di Medici. Caroline Murphy has created a story full of life here, creating a woman that is very vivid and aware. The use of family letters is very effective, giving insights into how their minds works, their hopes and moving them beyond the surviving images that have come down through the centuries.

Along with the story, the book is full of black and white drawings taken from the time, which give little snapshots of the world that the Medici moved in. A map of Florence at the time give a sense of place. A genealogical chart sorts out the many branches of the Medici family, and helps to keep everyone straight. Along with the illustrations in the text, there is a gorgeous collection of colour plates, with several paintings of Isabella along with the other players in the story. An extensive bibliography gives enticing suggestions for further research, along with footnotes and an index.

I suspect that this is a book that is going to hit one of my top-ten book lists for 2008. It is a stunning story that breathes new life into what I had thought was a stale topic, and has renewed my interest in Renaissance life and culture.

Caroline Murphy has also written The Pope's Daughter, which does have a tie-in to this story, as Paolo is the grandson of Felice della Rovere, another woman of the Renaissance who was able to hold her own and more in what was very much a man's world.

Five stars overall.

Isabella de' Medici (1542-1576) sparkled among the glittering ruling family of Florence, but she was tragically snuffed out in the prime of her life. In a further injustice, her brother Francesco, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, tried to erase her from memory, an injustice that Caroline Murphy has done an admirable job of rectifying in this fascinating biography of Isabella.

Isabella was the third child of Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence (second cousin of Catherine de' Medici, the Queen of France) and Eleonora di Toledo (of Spanish nobility). The Duke and Duchess enjoyed a very happy marriage, and Isabella had a happy childhood and particularly an excellent education. In 1558 it was arranged for her to marry Paolo Giordano Orsini, a degenerate profligate from a prominent Roman family. He was created Duke of Bracciano on account of his Medici connections, but Isabella visited his castle only briefly. She opted instead to stay in her beloved Florence, where she lived a luxurious, celebrated life independent of her husband in Rome. (She had an affair, and he had many.) Her independence was possible because of her husband's indebtedness to her father and her father's influence--he was soon elevated to Grand Duke of Tuscany.

After Cosimo's death, his eldest son Francesco became the new Grand Duke and was much less sympathetic to Isabella. He reneged on Cosimo's promise to provide for Isabella's two children (Paolo was busy spending his children's inheritance in Rome), so Isabella stayed in Florence to negotiate the children's affairs. Paolo started asking her to join him in Rome, but she used the negotiations as well as her health as an excuse to refuse. Eventually matters came to a head when Francesco banished Isabella's lover and Paolo went to Florence ostensibly to take Isabella on a hunting trip. Instead, Isabella was cruelly murdered by her husband and a henchman, apparently with Francesco's approval. Her cousin/sister-in-law was similarly killed at this time for the same reason: the Medici family honor. Murphy points out that Francesco sanctioned these honor killings to punish female adultery even though he let much graver crimes go unpunished in Florence--and even though he humiliated his Habsburg wife by keeping his mistress as practically a rival duchess. This is all in sharp contrast to his father Cosimo's having upheld law and order in the city and allowed loose (but not humiliating) morals at court.

Like other powerful and independent Renaissance women--Veronica Franco and Mary Queen of Scots spring to mind--Isabella was both a product and a victim of her time. She enjoyed a degree of autonomy that was rare until the 20th century, and she perished under a medieval system that subjugated women. ("Honor" was an admitted legal defense in Italy until 1981!)

Murphy tells this compelling story well--her writing is fluid if occasionally choppy, and the main characters come to life in the context of local and European politics. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Medici family or the lives of Renaissance women.

When I picked this book up, I was expecting a historical blockbuster, the kind that is better than historical fiction because it is all true. I was hoping for A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, instead I got a painfully researched, academic book that was a bit painful to read. The fact that it is meticulously researched was fabulous, the subject matter - extremely interesting. The book , eh. I kept thinking I will fall in love with Isabella and be crying when she is murdered. But it didn't happen. When she is bumped off - I felt relief, thank goodness the book is over, yet it continued for three more chapters. Seriously.

I love History, I love historical fiction, I don't know what was missing from this - perhaps it is the Midwife's Tale of Florence, but I kept finding myself wondering who cared about this person and why was this book written? The point? The time period is a fascinating one, the contrivances of court and how things got done in royal society was so intriguing but Isabella never came into her own. I never heard her voice through Caroline P. Murphy. However, I do not regret reading it. It was a good book. But it was also a book I could put down easily and fell asleep reading it more than once. I loved the details but got lost once in awhile with the names, everyone seemed to be named the same thing. Isabella, the Medici Princess seemed so vibrant and full of life but the book never captures that as well as I kept hoping it would. Does anyone know is there a good historical fiction book out there about Isabella?

Caroline Murphy's new book is another "must have" for lovers of remarkable lesser-known royal stories. One is taken into the extraordinarily "ahead-of-her-time" life of Isabella de Medici, a Renaissance princess and daughter of the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. A thoroughly gifted, cultured and independent individual with an interesting personality that still resonates after 500 years, Isabella was unique among female royal women of the time in her ability to live her life on her own terms, even as a married woman, which truly defied all convention. From the title, obviously things do not go well in the end, and with recent tomb excavations mentioned in passing at the end, the full extent of murderousness in this generation of the Medici is only nowadays fully coming to light. If you think your family is dysfunctional, you will feel as though you grew up in the very bosom of normality after learning what eventually happened within this once-upon-a-time "big happy family."

I was expecting better from this book. Based on the title and description, I was expecting a captivating tale of murder and intrigue that grabs you right from the beginning. Instead, what I got was an overly meticulous history of the Medici family. In fact, the murder seemed very anti-climactic. I did not need to know who their preferred architects and artists were. I didn't need to know what they ate, or the lineage of a hired assassin. I took over 6 months to read this book because I couldn't get into it - I had to force myself to finish it. If the book had been pared down by probably at least 1/3, it would have been so much better. Instead it is weighed down by unnecessary details, that in a history book would be important, but not so in a book that one assumes is focused on how and why Isabella was murdered. It's tone was even that of a history text. Overall it was just very disappointing.

My, oh my. What a family the de Medici - forget about Catherine and her poisons. At least for now....

I have to admit when I ordered this via the Vine Newsletter I was expecting a novel and not a work of non-fiction so I approached this book with some trepidation. That said I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Murphy recounts the life of Isabella de Medici, adored and doted upon by her loving father Cosimo. Even after a marriage to Paolo Orsini, a worthless spendthrift she continues to live in Florence with her father. Highly educated and cultured, she lives a life of leisure, decadence and alleged adultery, much to the ire of her husband and brother Francesco - although Cosimo always sides with his beloved Isabella. However, Cosimo cannot live forever and once he dies Isabella is no longer in charge of her fate and the resentment her husband and brother share bring on unforeseen consequences....

And that's as far as I go - read it for yourself. Despite being non-fiction (a genre that I normally do not care to read), this one did keep me entertained whilst I read about the foibles and machinations of the de Medici. The book was very readable and not as dry as some NF I've attempted. A nice family tree and map of Florence in Isabella's time is included, as well as some color photos of family portraits. This is a story that has serious potential for a cracking good historical novel. Hint. Hint. Hint.

What are the consequences when a woman chooses to live her life as a man might? Now make that woman virtual royalty, with a permissive father, who lives during the 1500's in Florence - what might the consequences for those actions be then? For Isabella Medici, daring to take a lover and live on her own terms cost her the ultimate consequence - her life.

Isabella was, by all accounts, a beautiful, intelligent and vivacious woman. Her father had raised her with much more freedom than most women of that period would have been allowed, and Isabella came to expect it as her due. Unfortunately, while men were often encouraged to take lovers, women could be (and often were) put to death for "shaming" their families. While the manner of Isabella's death is disputed by some, the book makes a very convincing argument into the how and, more importantly, the why of Isabella's killing.

Murder of a Medici Princess is an excellent look into the life, and death, of Isabella Medici. While the book is categorized as fiction, in many respects it reads more as nonfiction. There are excerpts taken from letters written by Isabella and those around her, documentation of events that took place during her lifetime, and photos of paintings done of Isabella and her family. However, it is still fascinating reading, particularly if you enjoy history.

"Murder of a Medici Princess," by Caroline P. Murphy, is a nonfiction account of the life and death of Isabella de Medici Orsini, one of the more prominent members of one of the most important Florentine families - the Kennedys of their time -- during the Renaissance, that period when Florence was the world. The Medici, a banking family, had subverted Republican Florence during the early Renaissance, (generally considered to have taken place between the 14th and 17th centuries, and to have been centered in Italy.) They had made themselves dukes of the city, beautified it, and, in addition, become leaders of the art world by commissioning many important art works and buildings from artists still world famous today. The family controlled Florence's life and destiny; threw up several Popes, and intermarried with Italian and European nobility.

Isabella was the daughter of Grand Duke Cosimo; a marriage was arranged for her, to Paolo Giordano Orsini, of the ruling family of Rome. He was fat, dissipated, none-too-bright, dissolute, fiscally irresponsible, and not much of a soldier, in a family that traditionally made its living as "Condottiere,"soldiers for hire. Mind you, then, as now, princesses are traditionally raised with the understanding that they will have to leave their homes, to reside with the noble husbands found for them. But Isabella did not much care for Orsini, or for Rome, and, backed by her rich and powerful father, did not live with him, or in Rome, for any extended period of time. She was born beautiful, gifted, and rich: her father Cosimo doted upon her. She was the acting, uncrowned Queen of Florence during a particularly productive time in its history. She lived her life in a way other women, or noblewomen of her time hardly dared dream about, and light-years away from what ordinary women might aspire to.

She set style for the city, had her own houses, where she entertained poets, musicians, artists, the elite of the city, her lovers. Like Icarus, she flew too high. Then Cosimo died and her misogynist elder brother Francesco acceded to the throne. He allowed her despised, cuckolded husband to assassinate her, an action approved by the mores of the time and place, and still, in fact,largely approved-of in Italy. She had had three children, whom Orsini claimed were not his, and disinherited; she was just 37 years old at her death.

I studied Renaissance History at Cornell University, even took some Italian. At one time, long ago, I tried to write a biography of another of the famous Isabellas of the Renaissance, of an earlier generation: Isabella D'Este Gonzaga, born of the Ferrarese ruling family, married to the Gonzaga duke of Mantua. I trudged around the New York Public Library, 42nd Street, and the British Library; and was stymied, as most of the original material was in Latin, which I've never studied.

However, I find the contrast of the two Isabellas to be most instructive. Both were of the nobility, obviously; both were married off young, in arranged marriages. Both were beautiful women, style-setters, deeply involved in the art world: a sketch of Isabella D'Este, by Leonardo Da Vinci, survives. D'Este, however, had children immediately, and always knew they were her responsibility; de Medici had hers late, after many years of, shall we say, fooling around. From the earliest days of her marriage, D'Este was Mantua's ruling duchess, and in the frequent, lengthy absences of her husband, another "Condottiere," or soldier for hire, she ruled in Mantua. She attempted to beautify it; also to improve its sanitary conditions, strengthen its economy, gain popedoms for it, and otherwise increase its influence.

Isabella De Medici was interested in nothing beyond her city; Isabella D'Este was interested in everything. The Mantuan moved heaven and earth to get Christopher Columbus to come see and talk to her, after his epochal discovery of the Americas in 1492. He came. She was very concerned about the future of the Catholic Church, attended, and was influential at, its ground-breaking Diet (Conference) of Worms. Her activities for the Church led to her being present in Rome, in 1527, at its Sack, by the mutinous soldiers of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor: she acquitted herself heroically, saving many women and children. She long outlived her womanizing husband, who'd caught syphilis, a disease then just come from the Americas: she enjoyed her grandchildren, and died in her own bed, at a good old age.

For me, at least "Murder of a Medici Princess" was an engaging page-turner, reading like fiction. It is extensively researched, is based on solid history, and is excellently written. We are given reproductions of paintings showing the most important characters. Evidently Murphy, previously author of "The Pope's Daughter", understands Latin. In addition, she appears to have had access to some fresh, new materials; and has clearly done a lot of research. She is a cultural historian and biographer who lives in Cambridge, Mass. If you are interested in the Renaissance, women's history, or history in general, highly recommended.

This is the fascinating true story of Isabella de Medici, the spunky socialite of Renaissance Florence. She seems like the type of girl you'd want as a friend--independent, interested in the arts, and quite a flirt. The writing is very fluid--you cheer as Isabella runs the show and gasp at her husband's bold violence.

Depending on whom you ask, Isabella de Medici was either a fluff-headed adulteress who met an unfortunately untimely end at what we today would consider the rather young age of 34 (practically decrepit in the late 1500's) or a crusader of women's rights, holding her own in a society ruled by men, murdered by the men threatened both by the dishonor of her continued adultery and her flagrant autonomy. You can imagine which side the author comes down on.

Although too much of this felt like political histrionics, as a lover of all historical minutia, this was a pretty book to read. I always enjoy descriptions of period clothing, food, music and art and other little odds and ends, are there are plenty here. But there really wasn't much more about this biography that distinguished it from any others of the time period. Isabella was hardly some pioneer for a woman's ability to have an affair that was widely whispered about, nor was she the first woman who was quite happy to set up her own household independent of her husband's; it wasn't even uncommon for wives to rule entire estates while their husbands were off playing war and bedding other women for years at a time.

Since this is the first biography devoted entirely to Isabella that I've read, I'll take it on faith that the author's factually correct on what can actually be corroborated, which, given the time, isn't really that much. It seemed to me that more of the book was speculation based on the societal tone of the time and region, although it was hardly news that a woman who blatantly committed adultery would find herself in some danger from either her husband or even her own family. The author's writing didn't do much to elevate the story either; by turns acceptable then choppy, there wasn't anything delivered in the style of prose that would make up for any other deficiencies.

The conspiracy theory regarding Isabella's death isn't much more than supposition. Obviously, her husband was unhappy with her apparent long-term adultery and it wasn't being helped by the fact that most of their peers knew she was quite happy living on her own and was doing it with gusto. While it makes for a juicy story (and title), there's nothing in any official record that says Isabella was murdered; the author can't say with any authority that her husband and his family were behind her death any more than anyone else was or wasn't. As it is, the actual "murder" takes barely a chapter-full of pages and is a bit of a letdown after the title's promise.

Isabella may have been an intriguing woman and political figure, but in this case at least, the author didn't have what felt like enough to fill a book to fully flesh the woman out. Women who were equally notorious are instantly recognizable: Marie Antoinette, Lucrezia Borgia, Mary, Queen of Scots and Catherine the Great, to name a few. In each case though, when I finished one of their biographies, I knew exactly who I'd read about and remembered them; as written here, Isabella just wasn't compelling and I think it's the fault of the author for stretching her research more than the fault of the subject not being worthy.