Books
Isabella de’ Medici (UK) /
Murder of a Medici Princess (US)
Married to an Orsini, Isabella was the “grand-daughter in law” of Felice della Rovere, the subject of my previous book, The Pope’s Daughter, and it was in the Orsini archive in Rome where I first came upon Isabella’s letters. Her story further unfolded in the archives in Florence, and other places like Mantua and Modena. Due to the circumstances of her death, she’s often treated as a kind of passive victim. It was a joy to discover this delightful, exuberant woman and to be able to celebrate her life as much as one might lament her fate.
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Charming and funny, intelligent and immensely wealthy, Isabella was the true star of the powerful house of Medici. Her father, Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, allowed her a freedom that was experienced by few - if any - women in Italy. She spent her life on a quest for beauty, love and pleasure, determined always to hold her own among men. She an extraordinary woman, fluent in five languages, a free-spirited patron of the arts, a daredevil, a practical joker, and a passionate lover. Isabella, in fact, conducted numerous affairs, including a ten-year relationship with the cousin of her husband, whom she held in much contempt. However, with that husband conveniently absent from Florence for much of the time, Isabella held sway over a court of nobles, musicians and artists who were committed above all to decadent living. But Isabella’s golden existence could not last for ever. When her father died he was succeeded as head of the Medici clan by her unforgiving brother Francesco, and Isabella’s life took a very different and tragic turn.
Forthcoming editions in Italian (Il Saggiatore) and Portuguese (Brazil, Record)
The Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere
I began to research Felice’s life when I went to teach in California, some of her papers are kept in the part of the Orsini archive owned by UCLA. I’m trained as an art historian, and initially I thought I would write a more academic study of Felice’s patronage. But I found all the other parts of her life far too interesting too ignore. I took the opportunity when offered, to write the story of her life, and I became totally seduced by the possibilities that writing “narrative history” had to offer, the way that as both historian and writer, you can lose yourself in the character and her world.
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The illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II, Felice della Rovere became one of the most powerful and accomplished women of the Italian Renaissance. Astonishingly fearless and outspoken for a woman of her day, she scandalized the Vatican court by refusing no fewer than five husbands. With her eventual marriage to Gian Giordano Orsini she came to possess great wealth and power, assets which she used to her advantage. While her father lived, Felice exercised much influence in the affairs of Rome, even negotiating for peace with the Queen of France. After his death, Felice persevered, making allies of the cardinals and clerics of St. Peter’s and maintaining her control of the Orsini land through tenacity, ingenuity, and carefully cultivated political savvy. She survived the Sack of Rome in 1527, but her greatest enemy proved to be her own stepson Napoleone, whose rivalry with his stepbrother Girolamo ended suddenly and violently, and brought her perilously close to losing everything she had spent her life acquiring.
Also available in Italian: La figlia del papa. Giulio II e Felice Della Rovere iniziatori del Rinascimento romano (Il Saggiatore, 2007). Dutch: De dochter van de paus; Het buitengewone leven Felice della Rovere (Houtekiet, 2006). Hungarian: A pápa lánya - Felice della Rovere különleges élete (Illia & Co, 2007)
Lavinia Fontana: A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth Century Bologna
This book began life as my PhD thesis. It’s where I learned to love the archive and its surprises (even if I’ve never gotten over the inconsistency of rules from one to the next) and pulling all these bits of information together. It’s now out of print (although available in lots of libraries), and I’m planning a revised and expanded edition, which includes Fontana’s Roman career.
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Bolognese painter Lavinia Fontana was the most significant and prolific woman artist of Renaissance Europe. Her large and renowned body of work encompasses several genres, including altarpieces, history paintings, and portraits, which assesses the relation of Fontana’s native city Bologna to the artist’s work and career, proposing that the unique attributes of the city, its religious and social climate, and the citizens who became Fontana’s patrons contributed importantly to her success as an artist. It discusses sixteenth-century Bologna’s economics and emergent artistic culture, how and why Fontana became an artist, her crucial relationship with the noblewomen who became her most loyal patrons, both as married women and as widows, and the portraits and religious works she created for Bolognese children.
