Perspective(s)
A Novel
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4.0 • 17 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
One of The Washington Post's 50 Best Novels of 2025
“As full of epic characters as the Sistine Chapel ceiling . . . Sinfully fun to read.” —Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker
“[A] thorough success . . . A dazzling romp.” —Steven Poole, The Guardian
“Historical fiction doesn’t get much better than this.” —George Cochrane, The Telegraph (5/5 stars)
One of Vulture's Best Books of 2025 (So Far)
A pulse-quickening murder mystery set in Renaissance Florence by the renowned author of HHhH.
As dawn breaks over the city of Florence on New Year’s Day 1557, Jacopo da Pontormo is discovered lying on the floor of a church, stabbed through the heart. Above him are the frescoes he labored over for more than a decade—masterpieces all, rivaling the works of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. When guards search his quarters, they find an obscene painting of Venus and Cupid—with the face of Venus replaced by that of Maria de’ Medici, the Duke of Florence’s oldest daughter. The city erupts in chaos.
Who could have committed these crimes: murder and lèse-majesté? Giorgio Vasari, the great art historian, is picked to lead the investigation. Letters start to fly back and forth—between Maria and her aunt Catherine de’ Medici, the queen of France; between Catherine and the scheming Piero Strozzi; and between Vasari and Michelangelo—carrying news of political plots and speculations about the identity of Pontormo’s killer. The truth, when it comes to light, is as shocking as the bold new artworks that have made Florence the red-hot center of European art and intrigue.
Bursting with characters and historical color, Laurent Binet’s Perspective(s) is a whodunit like no other—a labyrinthine murder mystery that shows us Renaissance Florence as we’ve never seen it before. This is a dark, dazzling, unforgettable read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Binet (HHhH) paints an entertaining and layered portrait of art and politics in Renaissance Florence. The novel is largely composed of letters discovered in a 19th-century Tuscan antique shop by the narrator, a French tourist, who commits to faithfully translating them. From the letters, the reader learns of Giorgio Vasari's investigation on behalf of the Duke of Florence into the murder of Jacopo da Pontormo, a painter who at the time of his death in 1557 was finishing a fresco deemed outrageous by Italy's religious orders. Complicating the murder investigation is the discovery in Pontormo's atelier of a portrait of the Duke's daughter, Maria, as a naked Venus, which could sully the princess's honor and jeopardize her politically calculated upcoming marriage. The letters recount Vasari's interviews with other artists as he tries to get to the bottom of Pontormo's death and determine the origin of the portrait. The cache also contains other correspondences, notably between Catherine of Medici, Queen of France, and the Duke's daughter. Throughout, Binet weighs in on the importance of art via reflections from his characters, an undercooked theme compared to the crackerjack depiction of the period's political intrigue. By the end, though, Binet masterfully weaves together the story's multiple threads. Readers will be captivated.
