Karen Gelmon and Eileen Horne were astute readers of early drafts, and Tim Demetris, while trying to finish a PhD in fifteenth-century papal politics, did a detailed reading of the text, pointing out numerous small mistakes, as did James M. Bradburne, director of the Pinacoteca di Brera gallery in Milan.
My agent, Clare Alexander, was with me every step of the way, most especially when the going got rough, and Lennie Goodings in London, Iris Tupholme in Toronto, and Susan Kamil in New York were creative, committed editors. If I ever bared my teeth at them it was only because we all cared equally intensely about the novel I was writing.
And, finally, of course, there is my companion, Anthony, a man who knows more about the Borgias than was ever his intention, but who kept me as sane and as happy as it is possible for a writer to be.
Sarah Dunant
Florence
August 2016
Bibliography
For translations of the original Italian I am grateful to:
Shankland, Hugh, The Prettiest Love Letters in the World: Letters Between Lucrezia Borgia and Pietro Bembo 1503 to 1519 (London: Collins Harvill, 1990).
Shemek, Deanna, Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters (Academic Press and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2017).
The following works were important in my research, and are recommended for those who would like to dig deeper into this fascinating time of history:
Arrizabalaga, Jon, John Henderson and Roger French, The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
Bellonci, Maria, Lucrezia Borgia (Phoenix: Phoenix Press, 2003).
Black, Robert, Machiavelli (New York: Routledge, 2013).
Bobbitt, Philip, The Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World That He Made (New York: Grove Press, 2013).
Bradford, Sarah, Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976).
—————, Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy (New York: Viking Press, 2004).
Brown, Kevin, The Pox: The Life and Near Death of a Very Social Disease (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2006).
Burchard, Johann, ed. and trans. by Geoffrey Parker, At the Court of the Borgia (London: Folio Society, 1963).
Cartwright, Julia, Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua (New York: AMS Press, 1974).
Castiglione, Baldassare, trans., and George Bull, The Book of the Courtier (New York: Penguin, 1967).
Chamberlin, E. R., The Fall of the House of Borgia (New York: The Dial Press, 1974).
Chambers, David. “Papal Conclaves and Prophetic Mystery in the Sistine Chapel.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1978).
Cummins, J. S. “Pox and Paranoia in Renaissance Europe.” History Today (1988).
De Grazia, Sebastian, Machiavelli in Hell (New York: Vintage, 1994).
Gilbert, Allan, trans. and ed., The Letters of Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
Greenblatt, Stephen, The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began (London: Bodley Head, 2011).
Gregorovius, Ferdinand, trans. by J. L. Garner, Lucrezia Borgia (London: John Murray, 1908).
Grendler, Paul F., Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).
Kidwell, Carol, Pietro Bembo: Lover, Linguist, Cardinal (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2004).
Lev, Elizabeth, The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).
Lowe, K. J. P., Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy: The Life and Career of Cardinal Francesco Soderini, 1453–1524 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Art of War (Mineola: Dover Publications, 2006).
—————, The Prince (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
—————, The Discourses (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003).
Majanlahti, Anthony, The Families Who Made Rome: A History and a Guide (London: Chatto & Windus, 2005).
Mallett, Michael, The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Dynasty (Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1987).
Marek, George R., The Bed and the Throne: The Life of Isabella d’Este (New York: Harper and Row, 1976).
Nicholl, Charles, Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind (New York: Penguin, 2004).
Partner, Peter. “Papal Financial Policy in the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation.” Past and Present (1980).
Pastor, Ludwig, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1899-1908).
Pitkin, Hanna, Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (Oakland: University of California Press, 1984).
Pizzagalli, Daniele, La signora del Rinascimento: Vita e splendori di Isabella d’Este alla corte di Mantova (Milano: Bur Saggi, 2013).
Ray, Meredith K., Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015).
Ridolfi, Roberto, trans. by Cecil Grayson, Life of Niccolò Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963).
Rolfe, Frederick (Baron Corvo), A History of the Borgias (New York: Modern Library, 1931).
Roo, Peter de, Material for a History of Pope Alexander VI: His Relatives and His Time (Spain: Desclee, De Brouwer, 1924).
Rowland, Ingrid D., The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Ruggiero, Guido, Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
Sabatini, Rafael, The Life of Cesare Borgia: A History and Some Criticisms (London: Stanley Paul & Co., 1926).
Setton, Kenneth M., The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976).
Shaw, Christine, Julius II: The Warrior Pope (Hoboken: Blackwell, 1993).
Stinger, Charles L., The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).
Taylor, F. L., The Art of War in Italy, 1494-1529 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924).
Tuohy, Thomas, Herculean Ferrara: Ercole d’Este and the Invention of a Ducal Capital (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Viroli, Maurizi, trans. by Antony Shugaar, Niccolò’s Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli (New York: I. B. Tauris and Co. Ltd., 2000).
BY SARAH DUNANT
In the Name of the Family
Blood and Beauty
Sacred Hearts
In the Company of the Courtesan
The Birth of Venus
Transgressions
Fatlands
Snowstorms in a Hot Climate
Mapping the Edge
Under My Skin
Birth Marks
About the Author
SARAH DUNANT is the author of the international bestsellers The Birth of Venus, In the Company of Courtesans, Sacred Hearts, and Blood and Beauty, which have received major acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Her earlier novels include three Hannah Wolfe crime thrillers, as well as Snowstorms in a Hot Climate, Transgressions, and Mapping the Edge. She has two daughters and lives in London and Florence.
sarahdunant.com
Facebook.com/SarahDunantAuthor
@sarahdunant
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Sarah Dunant, In the Name of the Family
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