In this book by Maggie O’Farrell, Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso, in the winter of 1561. As they sit down to dinner, it occurs to her that their journey to this lonely place has a sinister purpose; he intends to kill her.
Introduction to the author and book
Maggie O’Farrell was born 27 May 1972) in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and grew up in Wales and Scotland. At the age of eight she was hospitalised with encephalitis and missed over a year of school.
She was educated at North Berwick High School and Brynteg Comprehensive School, and then at New Hall, Cambridge (now Murray Edwards College), where she read English literature.
O’Farrell worked as a journalist, both in Hong Kong and as deputy literary editor of The Independent on Sunday in London. She also taught creative writing at the University of Warwick in Coventry and Goldsmiths College in London. She is married to a fellow novelist, William Sutcliffe, whom she met while they were students at Cambridge. They live in Edinburgh with their three children.
Written in 2022, Maggie O’Farrell’s ninth novel, “The Marriage Portrait” was shortlisted for The British Book Awards 2023 Fiction Book of the Year
“Storytelling at its finest!”
Upon reading Robert Browning’s 1842 poem, My Last Duchess, Maggie O’Farrell was inspired to investigate the titular duchess further. On seeing a photographic image of the 1560’s Bronzino portrait of Lucrezia de’ Medici, O’Farrell was compelled to write a fictional account of the life of the tragic young duchess who was reportedly poisoned by her husband.
Lucrezia de’ Medici, youngest daughter of Cosimo de Medici, ruler of Tuscany, and his wife Eleanora, is married off to Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, as a replacement when her older sister Maria dies unexpectedly before the planned wedding.
Still a child who would rather collect feathers and paint tiny animal portraits, the unprepared Lucrezia is removed from her home in Florence and the only life she knows at the Palazzo Vecchio, and sent to live with Alfonso. At first they honeymoon in a beautiful villa and it seems hopeful and possible that all could be well. Alfonso has the ability to be kind and doting, gifting her a beautiful white mule. However, life in the new court is more formal and grown up and Lucrezia is expected to produce an heir. Her inexperience in relationships and her confused young mind leads (rightly so) to paranoia that she is not wanted or safe and the belief that her husband might just be planning to kill her.
O’Farrell cleverly marries Browning’s poem, Bronzino’s portrait and what little history is known of Lucrezia and weaves us the most sumptuous historical tale. The novel is beautifully written, the prose is as rich and decadent as the clothing and art of the time and although we think we know the story it’s impossible to put it down, the suspense and fear make for compulsive reading.
The story is set a good fifty years later than the infamous Lucrezia Borgia lived.
This story is about Lucrezia Dei Medici, who had the misfortune to marry Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, the grandson of Lucrezia Borgia. This means that the murderous Cesare Borgia was his great-uncle, and that the scheming Pope Alexander VI was his great-grandfather. This is only hinted at in the book, but clearly Alfonso has inherited the Borgia spirit.
What do you think of this novel?
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Vicki James & Helen Sinclair
The next book for January 24 will be …
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
My thoughts after finishing this book. I felt the authors use of imagery really help you visualise the time as it was. Whilst I really enjoyed the book I found the characters to be predictable. I felt the tiger story was exciting but then ended abruptly without serving much purpose than to be symbolic of the way Lucrezia behaved when she was young and then similarities as to how the maid and the tiger die ‘savagely by two lionesses’. The menagerie was historically correct so perhaps that was her purpose but I still felt it drew you in but ended abruptly.
The author uses techniques to foreshadow events such as; He wrapped her finger with the handkerchief but the blood still comes through, this is an ominous prediction of what is time come.
The tiger being killed by two lionesses is foreshadowing the future of lucrezias maid, and how ‘she didn’t stand a chance’.
There is a theme of things that happen to Lucrezia as a child that happen again as an adult
The maid being burned badly, the water missing the duchess, then maid being killed by the duke and again the dutchess getting away.
She was removed from her family as a baby and again moved away from her family as a young teenage girl.
The author tries through out to show the duchess as being a bit different to the others in the court.
She could have been autistic.
Lucrezia was describe as being like wild animal as a child but hated any kind of aggression as an adult the way her family saw her and the way she saw herself is different. I felt some of the dialogue between Lucrtiza and the Duke was too simple, not so engaging. I didn’t feel it linked with the times.
The language she learned from her mother and Sophie that allowed her to communicate with the artist who saved her. The link between her love for art and being saved by an artist. Is very touching and links together her past, present and future.
The ending was predictable however it felt wrong and out of keeping with the portrayal that Lucrezia was, empathetic, kind and thoughtful throughout, that she would think to escape and leave her maid in a room that she knew they would enter to look for her. I felt this portrayal is at odds with the rest of the book and down to the character being quite one dimensional.
On the whole I very much enjoyed the book x