The Deadly Sisterhood
A story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The women who wielded the real power behind the throne in Renaissance Italy, from a bestselling historian.
This book is one of drama on a grand scale, a Renaissance epic, as Christendom emerged from the shadows of the calamitous 14th century. The sweeping tale involves inspired and corrupt monarchs, the finest thinkers, the most brilliant artists and the greatest beauties in Christendom.
Here are the stories of its most remarkable women, who are all joined by birth, marriage and friendship and who ruled for a time in place of their men-folk: Lucrezia Turnabuoni (Queen Mother of Florence, the power behind the Medici throne), Clarice Orsini (Roman princess, feudal wife), Beatrice d'Este (Golden Girl of the Renaissance), Caterina Sforza (Lioness of the Romagna), Isabella d'Este (the Acquisitive Marchesa), Giulia Farnese ('la bella', the family asset), Isabella d'Aragona (the Weeping Duchess) and Lucrezia Borgia (the Virtuous Fury). The men play a secondary role in this grand saga; whenever possible the action is seen through the eyes of our heroines.
These eight women experienced great riches, power and the warm smile of fortune, but they also knew banishment, poverty, the death of a husband or the loss of one or more of their children. As each of the chosen heroines comes to the fore in her turn, she is handed the baton by her 'sister', and Leonie Frieda recounts the role each woman played in the hundred-year drama that is THE DEADLY SISTERHOOD.
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Frieda (Catherine de Medici) recreates the glittering, turbulent, and densely entwined lives of eight intrepid, highly intelligent Italian Renaissance "consorts and ducal daughters," who greatly influenced the fates of the men who ruled their milieu. Among them were Lucrezia Tornabuoni, a "trusted emissary" for her husband Florentine leader Piero Medici and later a "principal adviser" to their son, the famous statesman and patron of the arts Lorenzo the Magnificent. With Lucrezia's death, her overshadowed daughter-in-law, Clarice Orsini, took "a more prominent role as Lorenzo's proxy," helping him expand Medici alliances with Naples, Rome, and the papacy, "while securing a consistent power base within Florence." Caterina Sforza, Countess of Forl , was a beautiful virago who "led troops into battle," commandeering Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo and threatening the city's "great men" to protect her family's interests. Lucrezia Borgia's three marriages into the powerful Sforza, Aragona, and Este clans furthered the political ambitions of her father, Pope Alexander VI, and brothers, but she was reviled for rumors of having an incestuous relationship with her father and blamed for a husband's murder. Although too much information is crammed into one book (though, thankfully, there are detailed family trees), this is still an alluring and worthy study of the powerful matriarchs at the helm of Italy's great Renaissance-era dynasties. 24 pages of color illus.
