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The Birth of Venus

Sarah Dunant

Paperback | Pages: 427 pages

Rating: 3.81 | 90254 Users | 3210 Reviews

Specify About Books The Birth of Venus

Title	:	The Birth of Venus
Author	:	Sarah Dunant
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Anniversary Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 427 pages
Published	:	November 30th 2004 by Random House (first published March 6th 2003)
Categories	:	Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Cultural. Italy. Art. Romance. Adult

Commentary Concering Books The Birth of Venus

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

Details Books Conducive To The Birth of Venus

Original Title:	The Birth of Venus
ISBN:	0812968972 (ISBN13: 9780812968972)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Alessandra Cecci, Tomaso Cecci, Cristoforo Langella, Painter, Girolamo Savonarola
Setting:	Italy Florence(Italy)

Rating About Books The Birth of Venus

Ratings: 3.81 From 90254 Users | 3210 Reviews

Commentary About Books The Birth of Venus

I loved this book. Right up until the very last chapter, I loved it. And then if I hadnt been reading on my Kindle, Id have hurled the thing across the room. Ack. I cant talk about the reasons for this without giving away spoilers, so if you dont want to know anything, dont read the second half of this review.Heres the premise: fourteen-year-old Alessandra is the oddball of her fifteenth century Florence family. Shes not beautiful, as her sister and two brothers are, shes not content to follow



For some reason, I always feel the need to apologize when giving a high rating to a book that is not marvelously written from a technical standpoint--I think I've been privy to too many technical writing conversations. While this book is not a classic of literary style, it was a very good read. Its strengths rest in its emotional honesty at difficult moments. Dunant has an eye for those small defining gestures that convey volumes. As a historical novel, it also covers some interesting territory.

A friend gave me this book as a birthday gift. Oddly, it was a book she'd never even read (and she's an even more avid reader than I am). She just indicated that she'd thought it looked like a good one, and as it was a "bestseller" she figured it must be. She wasn't wrong, however, for the first few chapters, I constantly wondered why on earth she'd pick out such a book (with such content) for me... After convincing myself I was an adult and it was ok to continue (I still have alot of my

A good solid 4.5. This was a wonderful escape from the 21st century, which was exactly what I needed as I try to ignore the news of the day a little bit (Im on a break, or trying). Of course, Florence in the late 15th/ early 16th century had its share of problems: a rising theocratic autocracy, brutal persecution of LGBT communities, epidemics, a lot of patriarchal BS . . . . oh, wait. Well, anyway, a wonderfully-written and well-plotted book that fully engaged me in its world and had me rooting

I think I liked the idea of this book more than the actual book.

I sometimes wonder if it is safe for a novelist to attempt to portray cultures other than her own. Sarah Dunant is an English writer who now divides her time between London and Florence (half her luck!) I daresay she feels that, having studied Italian history and lived amongst Italians, she knows Italian culture. However, as an Italian woman myself, I know how Italians relate to the foreigners in their midst and they are not as easily understood as a British Italophile might believe. Ms Dunants