Review of “The Birth of Venus” by Sarah Dunant

The beginning of this book is rather startling. Sister Lucrezia of the convent of Santa Vitella outside Florence, Italy has died, having requested previously that her body not be touched, and that she be buried in her habit. Because of an outbreak of plague in a nearby village however, the nuns deem it necessary to rule it out as a cause of death, and unrobe the late sister. To their surprise, they find that Lucrezia was a girl with a serpent tattoo, one that runs from her shoulder down to her groin, where the snake’s head has the shape of a man’s face, “the head thrown back, the eyes closed as if in rapture, and the tongue, snake-long still, daring out from his mouth downward toward the opening of Sister Lucrezia’s sex.” The rest of the book looks back to tell her story.

Sister Lucrezia, formerly Alessandra Cecchi, was a resident of late 15th-early 16th century Florence. We follow her life from age 14 until her death. From girlhood, Alessandra wanted to be an artist, but roles for women at that time were quite constricted:

“…I am stuck in this house while my parents look for a husband for me. Eventually they will buy one with a good name and I will go to his house, run his household, have his children, and disappear into the fabric of his life like a pale thread of color in a tapestry.”

As soon as Alessandra starts bleeding (and therefore is officially no longer a child), her parents do indeed find her a husband, who is forty-eight. He doesn’t intrigue her like the young painter her parents hired to adorn the family chapel, but Alessandra understands what is possible and what isn’t, and becomes the wife of Cristoforo Langella.

As Alessandra’s life unfolds, simultaneously we learn about the politics of Florence, a city then rapidly falling under the spell of the fire-breathing fanatical Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola. We also get a taste of the artistic excitement in a period graced by Botticelli Donatello, Botticelli, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Brunelleschi, among others. And we learn about the sad situation for women (not to mention gay men), and how Alessandra nevertheless manages to realize love and happiness for a time, memorialized in her skin.

Evaluation: Dunant is a talented writer of historical fiction. Her women are strong characters, and her evocation of Renaissance Florence brings to vivid life the sights and smells and colors of the time. Both this book and Sacred Hearts paint detailed and poignant pictures of what life was like for women at a time when society was in a ferment of change, but women’s options were still limited and often stifling.

Rating: 4/5

Published by Random House, 2004

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