Marzieh Gail

Reviewers are well-advised to avoid the word "charming". Still, there are times when that is exactly the right word, and this is one of them. Ms Gail writes with grace and confident knowledge of that much-discussed but little-understood French city where the Popes resided for many years -- long before anbody started singing that silly little song about the bridge. In the interests of Full Disclosure, this is more a set of anecdotes and reflections, and thus, is hardly scholarly history, but once that is conceded, the pleasure flows like the Rhone. Once having read it, who will forget the story of some Huguenots using the skull of the lone dead (and comparatively benign) Pope Clement VI as a football? Likewise, Ms Gail's speculations that Petrarch's Laura was nor a person, but a place? Find this book, and have some fun!… (mere)