I listened to this on tape, and it was an abridgement, which I usually avoid, but this one worked. it was beautiful and exciting and I was excited to drive places!

Intensely slow moving, especially at the start, historical novel set in Florence in the 1500s. And yet I really enjoyed it and found it very evocative. Worth a look for the historical art buffs or if you want to read about women's lives at the time. These novels always remind me how cheap women's lives were at the time. Consider that our narrator, Alessandra, is almost 15 when she marries. And she's a well-to-do daughter of a merchant. It's all teenage lust and pregnancy, but at a time when it was the norm. Tragic when you think the risks of dying in childbirth, so many women would never have reached twenty. On the other hand the men get to learn, live and develop and wait until they are in their thirties before they marry.

This slow moving story is the life story of Alessandra, daughter of a merchant, with one sister and two brothers, who is living in Florence as the Renaissance is off and away - she is fascinated by art and a talent for it herself. But the French are threatening to occupy Florence, so for her safety she is married off early and swiftly to a guy who doesn't have a lot of interest in the ladies, but is using her as a cover. And after the French the city gets occupied by the religious zealots, led by a mad priest who kicks off witch hunts of the rich, the vain, the sodomites etc and plunges the city into a bit of a fearful, repressed state.

I'm undecided whether the birth of Venus refers to Alessandra's own renaissance, when she eventually ends in a situation where she can be herself and paint, or more literally to the birth of her own daughter, Plautilla. I remember her having a conversation with her husband and about the painting the birth of Venus and something about it being the meeting of the classical and the Christian. Could Alessandra with all her learning be the classical, with the painter with his monastry upbringing be the Christian?

Set in Florence in the late 15th century and beginning of the 16th, the story begins with old Sister Lucrezia, dying in her convent, before flashing back to 15-year-old Alessandra, a would-be artist, youngest daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant. She has comfort, siblings who don't understand her, and a mother with more than a few secrets.

Will she get the artistic training she longs for, or the freedom to polish her craft? Will her marriage to an older man protect her from the religious and cultural upheaval in this beautiful Renaissance city, as an extremist monk and his followers gain power? Who in her family will die when the plague returns to Florence?

Heavily sensual with many details about food, drink, fabrics, sights, sounds, odors. There are romantic elements, but it's not really a romance. It's a journey to another place and time.

I liked everything except the last 10-20 pages of this book. It featured the "oh, I'm about to die so I better have sex with 'the one that got away'" bit.

Readable but I did not rate it as historical fiction.

Interesting story about a strong artistic Florentine woman during the Renaissance.

This is a good easy read, probably in the same category as The Other Bolyen Girl. Good romp through history, a little romance, a little mystery. Not necessarily a keeper, but not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

Incredible Italian Renaissance setting with a beautiful story of a strong young woman.

Honourable mention 2023.

Fascinating historical fiction, set in the time of the Italian Renaissance. Alessandra’s desire to be a painter (forbidden at the time) is at the root of the conflict, and the story blossoms in many interesting directions. Loved it.