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Blood & Beauty: The Borgias; A Novel af…
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Blood & Beauty: The Borgias; A Novel (udgave 2013)

af Sarah Dunant (Forfatter)

Serier: The Borgias (1)

MedlemmerAnmeldelserPopularitetGennemsnitlig vurderingOmtaler
9959920,746 (3.67)66
Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS
The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Italian Renaissance novels??The Birth of Venus, In the Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts??has an exceptional talent for breathing life into history. Now Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to one of the world??s most intriguing and infamous families??the Borgias??in an engrossing work of literary fiction.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: He is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women, and power must use papacy and family??in particular, his eldest son, Cesare, and his daughter Lucrezia??in order to succeed.
Cesare, with a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatest??though increasingly unstable??weapon. Later immortalized in Machiavelli??s The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages, and from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player.
Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex and relentless.
Praise for Blood and Beauty

??Dunant transforms the blackhearted Borgias and the conniving courtiers and cardinals of Renaissance Europe into fully rounded characters, brimming with life and lust.???The New York Times Book Review
??Like Hilary Mantel with her Cromwell trilogy, [Sarah] Dunant has scaled new heights by refashioning mythic figures according to contemporary literary taste. This intellectually satisfying historical saga, which offers blood and beauty certainly, but brains too, is surely the best thing she has done to date.???The Miami Herald
??Compelling female players have been a characteristic of Dunant??s earlier novels, and this new offering is no exception. . . . The members of this close-knit family emerge as dynamic characters, flawed but sympathetic, filled with fear and longing.???The Seattle Times
??The Machiavellian atmosphere??hedonism, lust, political intrigue??is magnetic. . . . Readers won??t wan
… (mere)
Medlem:amurphy
Titel:Blood & Beauty: The Borgias; A Novel
Forfattere:Sarah Dunant (Forfatter)
Info:Random House (2013), Edition: First Edition, 528 pages
Samlinger:Dit bibliotek
Vurdering:
Nøgleord:fiction, historical fiction

Work Information

Blood & Beauty: The Borgias af Sarah Dunant

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» Se også 66 omtaler

Engelsk (102)  Tysk (1)  Alle sprog (103)
Viser 1-5 af 103 (næste | vis alle)
very well written, engaging. believable characters and obviously thoroughly researched. it hints at a sequel, which I would be keen to read. ( )
  zizabeph | May 7, 2023 |
Ahh, the Borgias are so addictive. Complex, unpredictable characters in an unforgiving and changeable world. ( )
  jennybeast | Apr 14, 2022 |
I loved this book! It was fictional-history with a soap-opera twist!

Having been raised a catholic girl, I did know the Borgia name. I did know the medieval church was a well of corruption. Sarah Dunant took it to a whole new level for me. In her epilogue she states "....the Borgias have suffered from an excess of bad press. While their behavior-personal and political-was often brutal and corrupt, they lived in brutal and corrupt times." She states that she drew her story from a host of modern historians, who studied the history with a more discriminating mind-set. If these historians went easy on the Borgias, I cannot imagine what earlier historians had to say!

15th century Italy was like a piece of pie, cut haphazardly into 7 or eight pieces. Each piece ruled separately by ruthless and brutal men. The Papal States were a small portion of Italy. But with Catholicism being supreme the Pope held power like no other ruler. With the death of Pope Innocent VIII in 1492, the throne of the church was up for grabs. Rodrigo Borgia, a Spaniard, had been waiting for just this moment. A Cardinal of the church, a henchman for Innocent, he was in the prime position to take over. The other Cardinals had their doubts. The main problem; he wasn't Italian. With force and bribes Borgia battled his way through the papal tribunal and won the crown of Christ.

Cardinals could not marry. There was nothing stopping them from having a mistress. Thus, Rodrigo Borgia fathered 4 children. At the time of his assent to Pope, all four of these children were at marriageable age. If you consider 12-17 marriageable! Borgia's plan: marry these children off to the most lucrative, powerful families of Italy and Europe and build a kingdom so strong, no one would be able to penetrate it. 3 sons, 1 daughter, these were his steps to wealth and power. It is a fascinating story, filled with wars, sex, family relationships and the church at the center of it all

When I read fictional-history, my phone is always near-by. I love to fact check, then grade the authors on their ability to get it right. Sarah Dunant gets a B from me. There were only a few things I could not verify. Of course she took liberties with conversation and events, but it's "fictional", so that never enters into my thought process.

I highly recommend this book to those of you who love history with a little spice!





( )
  JBroda | Sep 24, 2021 |
This (perhaps inevitably) felt a lot like the Godfather in period dress. It's a bit more like a TV drama than a sprawling family saga, though - there's a lot of plot events but the focus is firmly on a small set of leading characters, and there is much less of the background detailing. Unfortunately, the handling of the main characters was rather unsatisfying for me. Lucretia is frequently helpless (by the nature of her position), and the author chooses to make Cesare something of an enigma, which means that we get very little of his interior life. Pope Alexander is more compelling, but he springs into the narrative fully formed, and unlike Vito Corleone, we never get much sense of his journey to the point where we meet him, as an entrenched power broker with an established family.

Note that this is only the first book, and it pauses rather than reaching a finale. ( )
  StuartEllis | Dec 13, 2020 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
I must admit that I don't usually enjoy Sarah Dunant books, having tried all three of her most popular works, including "The Birth of Venus." I always felt as if I couldn't quite connect with the characters, and that there was something off or stilted about the writing style. Dunant is a talented writer, but I just accepted the fact that her books weren't for me, although it did always annoy me that I couldn't quite put my finger on why.
When this one came out, I went against my decision to leave Dunant to other readers, because I am fascinated with the Borgias. And I am so very glad that I did! This book ended up being everything that I could hope for in a novel about the Borgias, or in a historical fiction novel, for that matter.
I'm not quite sure why I always felt so flatly distanced from Dunant's characters in her other books - but in this one, I was unable to put it down, completely immersed in the fascinating, lavishly dark story. The Borgias were such a drama-filled family, there's so much shocking material that it would be difficult to write a book that's not exciting. And yet, I also appreciated the details of the lavish and opulent setting, and the vivid characters themselves. Lucrezia was the character that I found most memorable and realistic, and her cold brother Cesare was chillingly sinister.
Corruption, rivalries, power struggles, dark secrets, passionate affairs, and of course the infamous incest story - it's all here.
With such material, it would be easy for a book to slip into the feeling of... off-putting sensationalism, as I have found in other Borgia HF. I did not get that impression at all in this book. Perhaps Dunant's more reserved, serious writing lends itself well to such a soap opera type story.
Recommended. ( )
  jordantaylor | Jun 28, 2020 |
Viser 1-5 af 103 (næste | vis alle)
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By the late fifteenth century, the map of Europe would show areas as broadly recognisable to a modern eye. (Historical Note)
Dawn is a pale bruise rising in the night sky when, from inside the palace, a window is flung open and a face appears, its features distorted by the firelight thrown up from the torches beneath.
More than many in history, the Borgias have suffered from an excess of bad press. (Historical Epilogue)
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Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS
The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Italian Renaissance novels??The Birth of Venus, In the Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts??has an exceptional talent for breathing life into history. Now Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to one of the world??s most intriguing and infamous families??the Borgias??in an engrossing work of literary fiction.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: He is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women, and power must use papacy and family??in particular, his eldest son, Cesare, and his daughter Lucrezia??in order to succeed.
Cesare, with a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatest??though increasingly unstable??weapon. Later immortalized in Machiavelli??s The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages, and from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player.
Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex and relentless.
Praise for Blood and Beauty

??Dunant transforms the blackhearted Borgias and the conniving courtiers and cardinals of Renaissance Europe into fully rounded characters, brimming with life and lust.???The New York Times Book Review
??Like Hilary Mantel with her Cromwell trilogy, [Sarah] Dunant has scaled new heights by refashioning mythic figures according to contemporary literary taste. This intellectually satisfying historical saga, which offers blood and beauty certainly, but brains too, is surely the best thing she has done to date.???The Miami Herald
??Compelling female players have been a characteristic of Dunant??s earlier novels, and this new offering is no exception. . . . The members of this close-knit family emerge as dynamic characters, flawed but sympathetic, filled with fear and longing.???The Seattle Times
??The Machiavellian atmosphere??hedonism, lust, political intrigue??is magnetic. . . . Readers won??t wan

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