The Birth of Venus - Read by 5/1/07

Our current book is “The Birth of Venus” by Sarah Dunant. The next get-together will be hosted by Martha, 1st or 2nd week of May. This has been out for a few years now so you should have no problem finding a copy in the library or 2nd hand book store. Thanks to Kristin for suggesting and hosting the last gathering!

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter's abilities.But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra's parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola's reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra's married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

-from ReadingGroupGuides.com

For discussion questions and more info on the book go to:
http://readinggroupguides.com/guides3/birth_of_venus1.asp