MLE
08-25-2008, 07:15 PM
City of God: a novel of the Borgias by Cecelia Holland
After enjoying Holland’s Rakossy, I decided to continue my renaissance reads with this one, covering historical events in Italy from 1499-1503
Nicholas Dawson is a man without a loyalty, without a country. Raised by Spanish monks after his English parents died of plague in Pamplona, he now works as under-secretary for the Florentine Embassy in Rome, considers himself a wise man surrounded by idiots, and has a taste for art and young boys. (Reviewer’s note: gag.) At the book’s opening he is set upon by a thug, and to save his throat from getting cut, he persuades Stefano to come to his house for money.
Continuing the list of unsympathetic characters, Stefano remains in the plot as Nicholas’ lover, a gambler, pimp and thief who manipulates everyone. Knowing that Nicholas is a coward and besotted by him, Stefano takes the older man for all he can get.
Shortly Nicholas proposes to betray Florence to Caesare Borgia as a mole in the Florentine embassy. Borgia is at the height of his power, and Holland delights in portraying the unsavory nature of both Ceasare and his father Pope Alexander IV.
Nicholas proves valuable as the man who conceives the plan for Borgia’s subsequent betrayals of the cities of Camerino, Urbino, and Florence.
The plot painstakingly follows Caesare’s conniving, the Pope’s corruption, the unfaithful and unsatisfying relationship between the gay lovers, the evil activities of the Borgia henchmen – In fact, there wasn’t one single character in this collection you could root for.
By the time the novel drew to a close with the death of Alexander VI, complete with a historical change that had a major character dying four years before he really did, I was ready to chuck this clunker in the garbage. But it belongs to the library, so I have to return it.
If you like to wallow in unrelieved unpleasantness, try City of God.
After enjoying Holland’s Rakossy, I decided to continue my renaissance reads with this one, covering historical events in Italy from 1499-1503
Nicholas Dawson is a man without a loyalty, without a country. Raised by Spanish monks after his English parents died of plague in Pamplona, he now works as under-secretary for the Florentine Embassy in Rome, considers himself a wise man surrounded by idiots, and has a taste for art and young boys. (Reviewer’s note: gag.) At the book’s opening he is set upon by a thug, and to save his throat from getting cut, he persuades Stefano to come to his house for money.
Continuing the list of unsympathetic characters, Stefano remains in the plot as Nicholas’ lover, a gambler, pimp and thief who manipulates everyone. Knowing that Nicholas is a coward and besotted by him, Stefano takes the older man for all he can get.
Shortly Nicholas proposes to betray Florence to Caesare Borgia as a mole in the Florentine embassy. Borgia is at the height of his power, and Holland delights in portraying the unsavory nature of both Ceasare and his father Pope Alexander IV.
Nicholas proves valuable as the man who conceives the plan for Borgia’s subsequent betrayals of the cities of Camerino, Urbino, and Florence.
The plot painstakingly follows Caesare’s conniving, the Pope’s corruption, the unfaithful and unsatisfying relationship between the gay lovers, the evil activities of the Borgia henchmen – In fact, there wasn’t one single character in this collection you could root for.
By the time the novel drew to a close with the death of Alexander VI, complete with a historical change that had a major character dying four years before he really did, I was ready to chuck this clunker in the garbage. But it belongs to the library, so I have to return it.
If you like to wallow in unrelieved unpleasantness, try City of God.