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Sarah Dunant has written eight novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Birth of Venus, and edited two books of essays. She has worked widely in print, television, and radio, and is now a full-time writer. Dunant has two children and lives in London and Florence.
To schedule a speaking engagement, please contact American Program Bureau at www.apbspeakers.com
Dunant's first two novels were actually co-authored with Peter Busby, thus creating their pseudonym, Peter Dunant. In Exterminating Angels (1983), whether they're called terrorists or modern-day Robin Hoods, the Exterminating Angels are out to set the record straight. For them, the ends always justify the means when righting the wrongs of the world. The political thriller Intensive Care (1986) describes a chance meeting at the site of an explosion in London.
The first book to be released under her own name was Snow Storms in a Hot Climate (1987), and features Marla Masterson. Marla, a young British professor of Anglo Saxon Literature goes to New York City to rescue a friend from her drug-addled, abusive boyfriend, but not before a murder mystery ensnares them all.
Three years later, Dunant introduced readers to Hannah Wolfe, a tough and witty Private Investigator. In Birth Marks (1990), Wolfe is hired to find a missing ballerina. Unfortunately, the dancer is found by the police -- eight months pregnant and at the bottom of the Thames. When everyone but Wolfe writes off the young single woman's death as a suicide, Wolfe pushes her investigation into London's dance companies and powerful Parisian families, searching for the father. Wolfe's reputation is put on the chopping block in Fatlands (1993). Wolfe finds herself on the trail of a violent animal rights activist group after they kill the daughter of a wealthy scientist for using animals in his experiments. The novel won Dunant a Silver Dagger award for Crime Fiction. Disguised as a customer, Wolfe investigates a string of sabotage at the Castle Dean health spa in Under My Skin (1995) and soon learns that, to some, beauty is something to die -- or kill -- for.
Breaking from her Hannah Wolfe series, Dunant's next release explores the line between victim and victor. In Transgressions (1997), translator Lizzie Skvorecky is making a living translating cheap Czech thrillers into English. When the strange events of the novels seem to occur in her real life, Lizzie realizes that someone -- or something -- is tampering with her reality, and accepts the violent challenge to her sanity. Kirkus reviews describes the novel as "an unsettling, often chilling, portrait of a compulsive predator and the woman who refuses to be his prey."
Mapping the Edge (1999) also portrays a woman's unusual challenges. When Anna, a single mother, takes a short vacation to Italy, leaving her six-year-old daughter with trusted friends, no one thinks twice. Until she doesn't return when scheduled. Anna's friends and her daughter endure the painful waiting while Dunant offers two explanations of Anna's disappearance. What if Anna abandoned the responsibility of motherhood to follow a hot love affair? Or perhaps Anna's life is in the hands of a sadistic killer.
Along with writing fiction, Dunant has also edited two works of non-fiction. War of the Words: The Politically Correct Debate (1994) debates the ever-changing idea of what is "acceptable" and the effect political correctness has on Liberalism. In The Age of Anxiety (1999), ten essayists discuss their anxiety -- or optimism -- for issues such as technology, family, and the end of the millennium.
Dunant's 2004 release marks her foray into historical fiction. The Birth of Venus captures the passion and the politics of deMedici Florence in the grips of a fundamentalist religious overhaul. As the city starts to purge itself of "the low and vulgar arts," the novel's heroine, Alessandra, falls in love with a young, suffering painter. Although her family marries her to a much older man, it is mostly a dismal marriage of convenience and she has a surprisingly large amount of time to spend at the side of her true love. Intelligent and daring, Duanant has combined a love story, a thriller and a historical novel in telling Alessandra's quest to find and protect her passions.
"I once worked as a hostess in a Japanese nightclub."
"My left foot is bigger than my right."
"I cannot whistle (no Humphrey Bogart for me, then)."
"Alas I don't have time to relax, although I am trying. The most important things in my life are my work, my children, my friends, and the possibility of a plane ticket to somewhere I have not yet been. When my kids grow up I want to have enough energy to get out a rucksack and take a long trip without a due-back-by date and the wonder to be changed by what I discover en route. Though right at this moment what I would like most is to remember where I put the car keys."
"And when it comes to writing, I just want to say that the novel is not the author. Just as the life is not the work or the work the life;instead literature is a kind of alchemy: turning lead into gold. Or at least that's the ambition."
chapter one
Rome, 1527
My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.
Italy was a living chessboard for the ambitions of half of Europe in those days. The threat of war was as regular as the harvest, alliances made in winter were broken by spring, and there were places where women bore another child by a different invading father every other year. In the great and glorious city of Rome, we had grown soft living under God's protection, but such was the instability of the times that even the holiest of fathers made unholy alliances, and a pope with Medici blood in his veins was always more prone to politics than to prayer.
In the last few days before the horror struck, Rome still couldn't bring herself to believe that her destruction was nigh. Rumors crept like bad smells through the streets. The stonemasons shoring up the city walls told of a mighty army of Spaniards, their savagery honed on the barbarians of the New World, swelled with cohorts of German Lutherans fueled on the juices of the nuns they had raped on their journey south. Yet when the Roman defense led by the nobleman Renzo de Ceri marched through the town touting for volunteers for the barricades, these same bloodthirsty giants became half-dead men marching on their knees, their assholes close to the ground to dispel all the rotting food and bad wine they had guzzled on the way. In this version, the enemy was so pathetic that,\ even were the soldiers to find the strength to lift their guns, they had no artillery to help them, and with enough stalwart Romans on the battlements, we could drown them in our piss and mockery as they tried to scale their way upward. The joys of war always talk better than they play; still, the prospect of a battle won by urine and bravura was enticing enough to attract a few adventurers with nothing to lose, including our stable boy, who left the next afternoon.
Two days later, the army arrived at the gates and my lady sent me to get him back.
On the evening streets, our louche, loud city had closed up like a clam. Those with enough money had already bought their own private armies, leaving the rest to make do with locked doors and badly boarded windows. While my gait is small and bandied, I have always had a homing pigeon's sense of direction, and for all its twists and turns, Rome had long been mapped inside my head. My lady entertained a client once, a merchant captain who mistook my deformity for a sign of God's special grace and who promised me a fortune if I could find him a way to the Indies across the open sea. But I was born with a recurring nightmare of a great bird picking me up in its claws and dropping me into an empty ocean, and for that, and other reasons, I have always been afraid of water.
As the walls came into sight, I could see neither lookouts nor sentries. Until now we had never had need of such things, our rambling fortifications being more for the delight of antiquarians than for generals. I clambered up by way of one of the side towers, my thighs thrumming from the deep tread of the steps, and stood for a moment catching my breath. Along the stone corridor of the battlement, two figures were slouched down against the wall. Above me, above them, I could make out a low wave of moaning, like the murmur of a congregation at litany in church. In that moment my need to know became greater than my terror of finding out, and I hauled myself up over uneven and broken stones as best I could until I had a glimpse above the top.
Below me, as far as the eye could see, a great plain of darkness stretched out, spiked by hundreds of flickering candles. The moaning rolled like a slow wind through the night, the sound of an army joined in prayer or talking to itself in its sleep. Until then I think even I had colluded in the myth of our invincibility. Now I knew how the Trojans must have felt as they looked down from their walls and saw the Greeks camped before them, the promise of revenge glinting off their polished shields in the moonlight. Fear spiked my gut as I scrambled back down onto the battlement, and in a fury I went to kick the sleeping sentries awake. Close to, their hoods became cowls, and I made out two young monks, barely old enough to tie their own tassels, their faces pasty and drawn. I drew myself to my full height and squared up to the first, pushing my face into his. He opened his eyes and yelled, thinking that the enemy had sent a fatheaded, smiling devil out of Hell for him early. His panic roused his companion. I put my fingers to my lips and grinned again. This time they both squealed. I've had my fair share of pleasure from scaring clerics, but at that moment I wished that they had more courage to resist me. A hungry Lutheran would have had them split on his bayonet before they might say Dominus vobiscum. They crossed themselves frantically and, when I questioned them, waved me on toward the gate at San Spirito, where, they said, the defense was stronger. The only strategy I have perfected in life is one to keep my belly full, but even I knew that San Spirito was where the city was at its most vulnerable, with Cardinal Armellini's vineyards reaching to the battlements and a farmhouse built up and into the very stones of the wall itself.
Our army, such as it was when I found it, was huddled in clumps around the building. A couple of makeshift sentries tried to stop me, but I told them I was there to join the fight, and they laughed so hard they let me through, one of them aiding me along with a kick that missed my rear by a mile. In the camp, half the men were stupid with terror, the other half stupid with drink. I never did find the stable boy, but what I saw instead convinced me that a single breach here and Rome would open up as easily as a wife's legs to her handsome neighbor.
Back home, I found my mistress awake in her bedroom, and I told her all I had seen. She listened carefully, as she always did. We talked for a while, and then, as the night folded around us, we fell silent, our minds slipping away from our present life, filled with the warmth of wealth and security, toward the horrors of a future that we could barely imagine.
By the time the attack came, at first light, we were already at work. I had roused the servants before dawn, and my lady had instructed them to lay the great table in the gold room, giving orders to the cook to slaughter the fattest of the pigs and start preparing a banquet the likes of which were usually reserved for cardinals or bankers. While there were mutterings of dissent, such was her authority--or possibly their desperation--that any plan seemed comforting at the moment, even one that appeared to make no sense.
The house had already been stripped of its more ostentatious wealth: the great agate vases, the silver plates, the majolica dishes, the gilded crystal Murano drinking glasses, and the best linens had all been stowed away three or four days before, wrapped first inside the embroidered silk hangings, then the heavy Flemish tapestries, and packed into two chests. The smaller one was so ornate with gilt and wood marquetry that it had to be covered again with burlap to save it from the damp. It had taken the cook, the stable boy, and both of the twins to drag the chests into the yard, where a great hole had been dug under the flagstones close to the servants' latrines. When they were buried and covered with a blanket of fresh feces (fear is an excellent loosener of the bowels), we let out the five pigs, bought at a greatly inflated price a few days earlier, and they rolled and kicked their way around, grunting their delight as only pigs can do in shit.
With all trace of the valuables gone, my lady had taken her great necklace--the one she had worn to the party at the Strozzi house, where the rooms had been lit by skeletons with candles in their ribs and the wine, many swore afterward, had been as rich and thick as blood--and to every servant she had given two fat pearls. The remaining ones she told them were theirs for the dividing if the chests were found unopened when the worst was over. Loyalty is a commodity that grows more expensive when times get bloody, and as an employer Fiammetta Bianchini was as much loved as she was feared, and in this way she cleverly pitted each man as much against himself as against her. As to where she had hidden the rest of her jewelry, well, that she did not reveal.
What remained after this was done was a modest house of modest wealth with a smattering of ornaments, two lutes, a pious Madonna in the bedroom, and a wood panel of fleshy nymphs in the salon, decoration sufficient to the fact of her dubious profession but without the stench of excess many of our neighbors' palazzi emitted. Indeed, a few hours later, as a great cry went up and the church bells began to chime, each one coming fast on the other, telling us that our defenses had been penetrated, the only aroma from our house was that of slow-roasting pig, growing succulent in its own juices.
Those who lived to tell the tale spoke with a kind of awe of that first breach of the walls; of how, as the fighting got fiercer with the day, a fog had crept up from the marshes behind the enemy lines, thick and gloomy as broth, enveloping the massing attackers below so that our defense force couldn't fire down on them accurately until, like an army of ghosts roaring out of the mist, they were already upon us. After that, whatever courage we might have found was no match for the numbers they could launch. To lessen our shame, we did take one prize off them, when a shot from an arquebus blew a hole the size of the Eucharist in the chest of their leader, the great Charles de Bourbon. Later, the goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini boasted to anyone who would listen of his miraculous aim. But then, Cellini boasted of everything. To hear him speak--as he never stopped doing, from the houses of nobles to the taverns in the slums--you would have thought the defense of the city was down to him alone. In which case it is him we should blame, for with no leader, the enemy now had nothing to stop their madness. From that first opening, they flowed up and over into the city like a great wave of cockroaches. Had the bridges across the Tiber been destroyed, as the head of the defense force, de Ceri, had advised, we might have trapped them in the Trastevere and held them off for long enough to regroup into some kind of fighting force. But Rome had chosen comfort over common sense, and with the Ponte Sisto taken early, there was nothing to stop them.
And thus, on the sixth day of the month of May in the year of our Lord 1527, did the second sack of Rome begin.
What couldn't be ransomed or carried was slaughtered or destroyed. It is commonly said now that it was the Lutheran lansquenets troops who did the worst. While the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, might be God's sworn defender, he wasn't above using the swords of heretics to swell his army and terrify his enemies. For them Rome was sweet pickings, the very home of the Antichrist, and as mercenaries whom the emperor had conveniently forgotten to pay, they were as much in a frenzy to line their pockets as they were to shine their souls. Every church was a cesspool of corruption, every nunnery the repository for whores of Christ, every orphan skewered on a bayonet (their bodies too small to waste their shot on) a soul saved from heresy. But while all that may be true, I should say that I also heard as many Spanish as German oaths mixed in with the screaming, and I wager that when the carts and the mules finally rode out of Rome, laden with gold plate and tapestries, as much of it was heading for Spain as for Germany.
Had they moved faster and stolen less in that first attack, they might have captured the greatest prize of all: the Holy Father himself. But by the time they reached the Vatican palace, Pope Clement VII had lifted up his skirts (to find, no doubt, a brace of cardinals squeezed beneath his fat stomach) and, along with a dozen sacks hastily stuffed with jewels and holy relics, run as if he had the Devil on his heels to the Castel Sant'Angelo, the drawbridge rising up after him with the invaders in sight and a dozen priests and courtiers still hanging from its chains, until they had to shake them off and watch them drown in the moat below.
With death so close, those still living fell into a panic over the state of their souls. Some clerics, seeing the hour of their own judgment before them, gave confessions and indulgences for free, but there were others who made small fortunes selling forgiveness at exorbitant rates. Perhaps God was watching as they worked: certainly when the Lutherans found them, huddled like rats in the darkest corners of the churches, their bulging robes clutched around them, the wrath visited upon them was all the more righteous, as they were disemboweled, first for their wealth and then for their guts.
Meanwhile, in our house, as the clamor of violence grew in the distance, we were busy polishing the forks and wiping clean the second-best glasses. In her bedroom, my lady, who had been scrupulous as ever in the business of her beauty, put the finishing touches to her toilette, and came downstairs. The view from her bedroom window now showed the occasional figure skidding and hurtling through the streets, his head twisting backward as he ran, as if fearful of the wave that was to overwhelm him. It would not be long before the screams got close enough for us to distinguish individual agonies. It was time to rally our own defense force.
Excerpted from In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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About IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN
IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN grew out of two 16th century Italian paintings. In one, an attractive young woman, dressed only in her hair, lies languidly on a bed, a sleeping dog curled up at her feet. She stares directly out at the viewer; the invitation she offers is coyly explicit. An early “page three girl”, or a subtle renaissance masterpiece?
Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” (called after the city where it hung for many years), has many claims to fame. Titian was Venice’s greatest artist when he painted it in the 1530s and Venice was the most powerful city in Europe, the hub of 16th century global capitalism. But it’s that look on the young woman’s face that really marks out this portrait. Up until now, renaissance art had had its fill of classical naked Venuses, but they had all been demure; asleep or eyes elsewhere, pretending they didn’t know you were looking. There is no pretending here.
The model was almost certainly a Venetian courtesan. These were women to make your mouth water, as vital to the city’s well-being as the waterways that ran through it. To keep the wealth of Venice’s ruling elite intact, each generation of nobles had to sacrifice some of their sons to eternal batchelorhood: spoilt men used to the privileged comforts of home, and eager for a bit on the side without any pressure of marriage. Courtesans were the answer. Women of lower birth but high wit, beauty and the cunning to keep their patrons well entertained and satfistied. I spent a year researching these formidable women, half my time on the canals andback streets of Venice, the other half in the British Library. There was gold in that history. Politicians, churchmen, bankers, writers, diplomats, rich merchants, they all sat at the courtesan’s table and put down the money to get into her bed and keep her in the manner to which, for a while at least, she could become accustomed. This was Venice at its most powerful, the church at its most corrupt and sin at its most deliciously profitable. What more could a novelist ask for?
The only question was, through whose eyes did I tell the story? Not the woman on the bed. Every time I tried to imagine inside her head she came out too modern. The truth was more complex. The fact that women like Titian’s Venus were successful in 16th century Venice was not to do with any early spark of proto-feminism. No, the courtesan’s talents showed themselves in ways more fitting to the period.
But if I couldn’t tell it through her eyes, then where else could I go? The men were all too self absorbed or besotted. I needed someone with a clearer head and a eye for the absurd as well as the romantic. I found him in another painting, in the Academia Gallery in Venice. There, on the bottom left of a Venetian street scene by Vittorio Carpaccio was a dwarf, well dressed and with a keen intelligence in his eyes. A man standing outside the scene, watching the world and its power games from a different perspective, yet a man whose exoticism gave him entrance to high places. It was fact as well as fiction. There are records of courtesans who were known to keep dwarfs, along with parrots, monkeys and other “interesting pets.”
Once I had their partnership I had the story. His voice, her body. The courtesan and her faithful majordomo, the model and the manager, beauty and beast, both of them sharper than they looked and cleverer than most of the men they set out to dupe. Grifters, 16th century Venice style. What a fortune was to be made there. IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN; how to take a city by storm. Until you get caught…..
1. In what way does In the Company of the Courtesan seem historically accurate to you? What details about Renaissance Italy do you think came from the author’s imagination, and what aspects of it do you think are based on her historical research of the period?
2. Do you think a character like Fiammetta could exist in today’s world? What, if anything, is modern about her?
3. What did you think of Fiammetta’s relationship with her mother, and of her mother’s influence on her life?
4. In the Company of the Courtesan is told from Bucino’s perspective. Why do you think the author wrote it this way, rather than from Fiammetta’s point of view? What are the benefits of hearing the story and seeing Venice from Bucino’s standpoint? What are the limitations?
5. We tend to think of Fiammetta’s profession as one that is very hard on women, one that doesn’t make for a happy life. On the whole, do you consider Fiammetta to be content or unhappy?
6. Did you find La Draga to be a likeable character? Did your view of her change as your reading progressed?
7. Is it accurate to describe Courtesan as a novel of “rebirth”? What are some other themes of this novel?
8. Do you think Fiammetta was truly in love with Foscari? If you don’t, how would you define their relationship? Was Bucino’s anger at this relationship justified?
9. What does sixteenth-century Venetian society have in common with our society today?
10. Why do Bucino and Fiammetta make such a good team? What makes them successful?
11. The picture on the cover of Courtesan is adetail from a painting by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian). When you were reading the novel, did you form an image of Fiammetta that was based on this cover image, or did you make up your own image of her? If your own, can you describe it?
12. What predictions would you make about little Fiammetta’s future life? Do you think she’ll have the same profession as her namesake?
1. In what way does In the Company of the Courtesan seem historically accurate to you? What details about Renaissance Italy do you think came from the author’s imagination, and what aspects of it do you think are based on her historical research of the period?
2. Do you think a character like Fiammetta could exist in today’s world? What, if anything, is modern about her?
3. What did you think of Fiammetta’s relationship with her mother, and of her mother’s influence on her life?
4. In the Company of the Courtesan is told from Bucino’s perspective. Why do you think the author wrote it this way, rather than from Fiammetta’s point of view? What are the benefits of hearing the story and seeing Venice from Bucino’s standpoint? What are the limitations?
5. We tend to think of Fiammetta’s profession as one that is very hard on women, one that doesn’t make for a happy life. On the whole, do you consider Fiammetta to be content or unhappy?
6. Did you find La Draga to be a likeable character? Did your view of her change as your reading progressed?
7. Is it accurate to describe Courtesan as a novel of “rebirth”? What are some other themes of this novel?
8. Do you think Fiammetta was truly in love with Foscari? If you don’t, how would you define their relationship? Was Bucino’s anger at this relationship justified?
9. What does sixteenth-century Venetian society have in common with our society today?
10. Why do Bucino and Fiammetta make such a good team? What makes them successful?
11. The picture on the cover of Courtesan is a detail from a painting by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian). When you were reading the novel, did you form an image of Fiammetta that was based on this cover image, or did you make up your own image of her? If your own, can you describe it?
12. What predictions would you make about little Fiammetta’s future life? Do you think she’ll have the same profession as her namesake?
Anonymous
Posted August 11, 2008
I absolutely loved The Birth of Venus and I was looking forward to the next novel by Dunant but unfortunately I was extremely disappointed, had to drag myself to finish a book that never really hooked me. Beautiful descriptions of life in Venice and Rome but where´s the plot? I would´ve read something else had I known....
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 14, 2011
I read this when it first came out and I absolutely loved it! It drew me in from the first chapter!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.historicalfiction_fan
Posted March 20, 2010
I Also Recommend:
I chose to purchase this book because it took place in Venice and was interested in reading about life back in the 1500's. There were no elements in the story to keep me interested (element of suprise, romance, mystery, twists and turns,). Disappointed in this book as it was not what I thought it would be and it says on the cover it is a "New York Times Bestseller." Not much action taking place from the Courtesan's standpoint. The story revolves mostly around the dwarf's and La Draga's issues. If you are really interested in reading the book, borrow it from the library......
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.RyanC
Posted November 11, 2009
In her novel, In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant is able to mix fantasy and reality in a most entertaining fashion. By intermingling characters of her own creation with actual people who lived in 16th century Italy she creates a world in which the two main characters, Fiammetta Bianchini and Bucino Teodoldi, take on roles of seeming historical significance.
In the Company of the Courtesan is the story of Bucino Teodoldi, a dwarf in the service of Fiammetta Bianchini, an Italian courtesan, during the sacking of Rome. After opening her home to the attacking soldiers in order to escape death for herself and her servants, Fiammetta is forced to flee with Bucino to her hometown of Venice to escape when her plan is turned against her. The story follows the efforts of Bucino and the healer La Draga to nurse Fiammetta back to health and her subsequent re-entry into the world of Venetian courtesans.
Dunant introduces historical figures and events throughout the novel in order to advance her story. She begins with the sacking of Rome in 1527, an event which did, in fact, occur. Dunant speaks of the Lutherans and their attack on the city as well as their siege of Pope Clement VII, who was in reality the pope at that time, and who Dunant linked to the fictional Fiammetta. This is the first of the notable instances in which her fictional characters are linked to historical figures. Another important link between fiction and reality is created when Fiammetta meets and subsequently models for the painter Tiziano Vecelli, more commonly known in the art world as Titian. By forging this link, Dunant is able to position Fiammetta as the subject of one of Titian's most famous paintings, the "Venus of Urbino," which serves to portray Fiammetta as a woman who has great historical significance even though she never actually existed. It is these fabricated links between the fictional and the factual that allow the reader to suspend reality and surrender to the story, even if the reader is properly educated in matters of both history and art.
Dunant also uses historical events and locations to lend the novel an air of authenticity. Beginning with the previously mentioned sacking of Rome, Dunant is able to place Fiammetta and Bucino in an environment which is believable, if not necessarily familiar to the reader. Additionally, the use of such locales as Venice and the islands surrounding Italy give the reader the ability to follow the plot geographically. Dunant is able to use fictional characters in places such as the Jewish Ghetto to not only advance the plot but to involve the reader in plot lines outside of the main. Likewise, the inclusion of varied locales is also able to advance the story of Bucino and to develop the character of his would-be love interest, La Draga, with Bucino at one point following her not only to her home within Venice, but also to her home island off of the Italian coast.
By mixing historical fact with fictional creation Sarah Dunant is able to create a believable world for her characters to live, work, love, and die in. She intertwines the two with what at times appears to be surgical precision, developing a story which rarely lags and is greatly entertaining, from the sacking of Rome to the Venice of the 16th century. The reader is able to develop emotional attachments and connections with the fictional characters because they are so skillfully placed in a world of historical fact.
Anonymous
Posted September 19, 2009
Have yet to read Dunant's more modern books, but have read all of her historicals and LOVE them all. Her use of language is elegant, her characters original, and I always learn about the time and politics, which is a lovely bonus. Company and Sacred Hearts are my favorite.
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Posted June 29, 2009
Sarah Dunant recreates the Renaissance past very effectively. Beginning in a Rome in turmoil, she carries the reader quickly to Venice, where the protagonist - the loyal servant and companion to an expert courtesan - shows the reader both the atmosphere of La Serenissima and the action surrounding his Lady's entry into Venetian society through the eyes of a little person (dwarf). Characters are well drawn, and the reader continues to wonder what will become of the Lady Fiametta as she navigates the complicated and sometimes treacherous Venetian world. However, the action is rather slow from time to time - what carries the reader on those pages is Dunant's talent for describing character, appearance, and place. It's a good, escapist read that unfolds at a leisurely pace.
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Posted November 21, 2008
An employee of Barnes & Noble suggested I buy this along with my purchase of Susan Griffin's The Book Of The Courtesans. I am glad I did as it was a fun and easy read, but these poor characters never get a break. It seems a happy ending is always just out of grasp. If you like that kind of amusing frustration then this is the book for you. Expect physical violence and detailed descriptions of dirty peasants.
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Posted May 23, 2008
A beautifully written story, richly layered with atmospheric details of 16th century Rome and Venice. Well fleshed out characters that come to life on the page. I am now a fan of Ms. Dunant's work and look forward to reading The Birth of Venus.
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Posted February 26, 2008
After Birth of Venus I was really looking forward to this book. I was completely let down. I felt that the story started, then stopped several times and never really got going. No character developement to speak of.
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Posted September 1, 2007
I would give this a 5 but I figure some people aren't into prostitutes and dwarfs. What a wonderful pair of characters set in a wonderful place and time. So many ways to see the world and the people in it. Great escape novel and if I can't be there it is nice to read about Venice with the help of such vivid writing.
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Posted July 4, 2007
this book had me enthrall. the writing is just spectacular. Sarah Dunant's intricate research on the subject of Venice really payed off, and she uses her great discriptive abilities to emphaisze that research. she paints Venice as a city built on pleasure appeased. her characters fit perfectly into their atmosphere. i'm the sort of person who finds herself flipping unconsciously to the end pages of a book, but though i knew the ending, it still managed to surprise me, and i have no regrets as to picking up this book.
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Posted April 22, 2007
I absolutely loved this book the story was completely mesmerizing. I read every page with great interest. I thought it was interesting that some people have described this book as pornographic. It was NOT! The title indicates the book is about a Courtesan. What did they really think they were going to read about. Mrs. Smith as a Librarian. Wonderful period piece. I'm off to get The Birth of Venus.
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Posted April 7, 2007
I love the way she writes- I love her choice of words, her vulgarity gives the story an added 'charm' for lack of a better word. I thought it was a great story.
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Posted March 13, 2007
I was very disappointed. I waited all year for this to come out in paper back. I should have waited until someone else bought it and just borrowed it. There was not much to this book. I was really bored. I think it would have been better if it was from the Courtesan's point of view instead of the dwarf's. I also felt as if the author was trying to take some of the story line from the movie 'Dangerous Beauty', about Veronica Franco and put it in this book. Overall I would not recommend this book. Her other book was better.
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Posted February 11, 2007
This was my first 'historical fiction' read and probably will be my last. To me it was page after page of nothing much happening. The end saved it from being a one star review. Such a shame and waste of time when there are so many other books calling my name!
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Posted January 7, 2007
From the first page to the last I found this work to be a masterpiece of intrigue, and historically acuarate-Dunants hostorical novels are some of the best, only 2 unfortuneatley.
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Posted September 22, 2006
Although I've been a heavy reader all my life, Birth of Venus was the first book that I've read in years that I grew positively obssessed with. I got it as a book on CD when I took a trip, and I was telling absolutely everyone I knew how much I had enjoyed the book. While her new work did not impact me nearly as much as Birth of Venus, I also enjoyed it tremendously. However, in response to the last poster, I must add that one thing about this book I preferred over the last was that I felt there was much less vulgarity. Indeed, considering the book is about a courtesan, I felt that it was written very tastefully. The book is definately worth a read. If you haven't read Birth of Venus, read that one second. That way you'll enjoy this book more for its own merits, and compare it less to Dunant's previous work.
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Posted September 29, 2006
This was my first exposure to Sarah Dunant, and I was very impressed with this story. It grips you from the very beginning: Rome is being sacked, the barbarians are flooding into the city, and a lone courtesan and her household gamble their lives on her beauty and wit. I just visited Italy this summer and felt a real connection between her descriptions of the cities and their actuality. As for those who felt the book was vulgar, it is a story of a courtesan who trades her flesh for money. That is the reality of it, and there exists a certain vulgarity in that type of lifestyle. If you find the idea of sex for sale overwhelmingly offensive, you should pick up a different book. However, the book is in no way pornagraphic. All and all an incredibly well developed story line that is both intriguing and heart breaking.
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Posted July 2, 2006
Sarah Dunant's novel mixes real and fictional characters in a story set in sixteenth century Italy in the Cities of Rome and Venice. Among the actual characters featured in this novel is Titian, the famous Italian painter known for his nudes. Dunant explores the life of a Courtesan and her friend and confidante, Bucino, a male dwarf. The story is told from Bucino's first person perspective, and manages to give a lot of insight into the mores, architecture, food and daily life of the period. The book is well written and shows that the author took the time to do her research on the period. The story line was interesting enough although it held no surprises. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy historical novels.
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Posted June 26, 2006
Sarah Dunant's second novel is even more captivating than her first. She takes as inspiration Titian's famous painting, 'The Venus of Urbino', and spins a tale centered around its sensuous and beautiful subject, whom she calls Fiammetta. Most of the story is told from the perspective of Fiammetta's dwarf Bucino, who acts as companion, pimp, business manager, and friend. The two escape the sack of Rome in 1527, carrying a few jewels with them to help them get started in Venice. With Bucino's cleverness and Fiammetta's beauty and skill as a courtesan, their fortunes are soon restored. But there is more than one snake in their Garden of Eden, and this makes up the remainder of this superbly-told story. This is a character study as much as anything else, particularly of misshapen Bucino - brilliant and educated, yet doomed to a lifetime of disrespect and mockery from most of the world. A few recognize and respect his intelligence and wit, and these characters are well-developed. The themes of mistrusting those we should trust, and learning to love too late, make this a vivid and tragic tale. Ms. Dunnant's imagery of 16th-century Venice is so powerful that I felt I was there on its canals, in its piazzas, tiny alleys and fabulous palaces. Now I'm hoping to make a return visit to this queen of cities in the near future! Excellent storytelling - I recommend it highly.
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Overview
Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy. Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs ...