Florence looks like gold and smells like sulphur…
I’m not usually attracted to books this thick (548 pages) let alone anything delving into mysterious Da Vinci type codes. But the subject matter intrigued me: Botticelli’s painting, La Primavera, that hangs in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. And as I had previously enjoyed Madonna of the Almonds by the same author I added it to my 3 for 2, or rather 6 for 4 basket in Hatchards in Piccadilly, recently and started it a few days later.
I have to say I couldn’t put it down. The Botticelli Secret became the ultimate page-turner as I sped from Renaissance Florence to Pisa, Venice, Genoa and Rome in the company of a beautiful ‘lady of the night’, Luciana Vetra, the model for Flora in the painting, and her unlikely companion, Brother Guido della Torre, a novice at the monastery of Santa Croce.
One day I’m sure this book will make a stunning film and I will race through it again, albeit more slowly. Now I know how the story ends I can spend longer unravelling the code. La Primavera will never seem the same again, thanks to Enrico Guidoni, a professor at Rome University who attempted to crack the ‘code’ of this enigmatic painting, on whose work the novel is based. Did Lorenzo de Medeci really have a plan for unifying Italy through a network of alliances between warring city states? I must confess I was more interested in the unlikely developing relationship between Luciana and Brother Guido!
Food for thought, but this is only one interpretation amongst many others attempting to unravel the mystery of such a beautiful painting. I am content to remain unconvinced and there let it rest. But it was a Good Read!
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