Quattrocento.
Reviewed by Leda Schiavo, Buenos Aires, Argentina -- Críticas, 4/15/2008
Fortes, Susana.
U.S.: Rayo: HarperCollins & Planeta. 2007. 351p. ISBN 978-0-06-156548-9. pap. $14.95. FICTION
A student travels to Florence to study the work of Pierpaolo Masoni, a Renaissance artist who has left to posterity some interesting paintings along with notebooks commenting on them. But her research is obstructed by the Vatican, which wants to stop her and her thesis supervisor from discovering an important clue in Masoni’s Madonna di Nievole that connects Pope Sixto to a famous political conspiracy. Set in 2005, this plot alternates with another one set in 1478 Florence concerning the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici and its repercussions for Masoni. Though Masoni is fictitious, this novel combines all the ingredients of recent best sellers in the vein of The Da Vinci Code: the secrets of the Catholic Church, a mixture of historical and fictional events, a plot organized as a detective story, and some erotic scenes. History professor Fortes received important awards for her previous three novels, and this one will certainly appeal to readers interested in historical fiction.
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