We meet Alessandra Cecchi, the protagonist and narrator of this first person novel, who we meet as a young girl, only fourteen-years of age in 1492 when the book starts. She lived, as the curse goes, in interesting times. Alessandra was raised in Florence at the height of the Renaissance, the city of Botticelli and Michelangelo proudly styled by its inhabitants the "New Athens." Except the preacher Savonarola is about to try to turn it into the "New Jerusalem" in ways that remind me less of the Puritans and more of the Taliban. Alessandra's dream is to be a painter, in a time when women just didn't receive the training. Dunant paints a vivid portrait of this time and place and of a young woman more curious and intellectually alive than is safe. I loved not just Alessandra but Erila--a young African who is a slave in the household of Alessandra's father and husband in turn--but above all her friend. I thought this book immersive, smoothly written, absorbing and moving, a fast, satisfying read for anyone interested in Renaissance Italy, and left me wanting to read more of this author.
