The conspiracy goes down in flames literally Brother Guido puts a torch to the Navy and it all burns immediately and the conspirators are forced to sign a treaty that is the kept secret so no one will ever know. But what if Italy had unified in , instead of ? What would have been lost? What might have been gained?
That's years of history where Italy might have been a major player--and it's not clear why it was so important to Luciana and Guido that this conspiracy be foiled. Rather it seems that "well, there's a puzzle here, and a bunch of murders, so it must be bad. Therefore we should stop it.
And why was he so bad at hitting his actual targets? The immediate answer is that there is a really tall, creepy looking leper, who follows Luciana around Italy, and even ends up nearly killing her in the finale in Genoa. He is apparently in the employ of Il Magnifico, but why does Il Magnifico need her to be murdered?
And why isn't this leper assassin ever able to actually get to her.
The Botticelli Secret
It's not like she's trained at avoiding attempts on her life. And part of his creepiness is that he's silent--the disease has literally destroyed his ability to speak. So who was talking to Luciana's roommate and then killed her? I mean, sure, she had this miniature reproduction of the paining, but the painting itself was put on display at the big wedding?
So it's not like they were really trying to hide the content. Is the Pope going to get distracted and forget the date of the attack? Why does Lorenzo need to have the flowers spell out the word "faro"--to remind him to go climb the lighthouse in Genoa in order to watch the naval battle? I mean, not even that somebody might steal the miniature, but that Botticelli himself might let the information drop.
And if you can figure out a plausible reason why all the information had to be encoded into a painting, why put it into a painting being given to Lorenzo Pierfrancisco? Shouldn't it go to the actual conspirators?
Questions?
Or somebody who has anything at all to do with the plan? There had to be hundreds and hundreds of ship builders, and sailors, and suppliers for the navy alone. There was an army as well from Milan, I think which means again--armor and weapons and Leonardo's war machines required materials and builders and training.
Literally thousands of people had to know at least some of what was going on. How is it that nobody ever let any of it slip?
Only Luciana and Guido ever caught wind of it? And if you are Seven clever conspirators, why do you all wear identifying rings on your thumbs?
MORE BY MARINA FIORATO
It's not like Lorenzo and Ferrante and Ludovico Sforza and the Pope wouldn't have recognized each other and needed the equivalent of a secret handshake to identify themselves to each other. When you try to reconstruct the plot itself rather than how the protagonists learn of it , it just doesn't make any sense that the ringleaders would act that way. Which is the big problem with the book, but there are little details that popped up that were just bad research on the author's part. In Florence, there are several moments where Luciana looks at the city and notices some of the main features.
She comments on the filed marble patterns on the Duomo--the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore--marble that wasn't installed until after , when Florence was briefly the capital of the newly unified Italy. Il Magnifico hosts King Ferrante and his wife in the "Medici palace" which she describes as having a "toothed tower. The building with the tower was the Palazzo dei Signoria--it wasn't inhabited by a de' Medici until Pope Clement himself a de' Medici, son Giuliano who was murdered by the Pazzis established Florence as a hereditary dukedom some years later. There is a awkward tendency to drop as many names and cameo appearances as possible.
So while the characters are awaiting their audience with Pope Sixtus IV, in the Sistine Chapel, a helpful exposition character explains that Botticelli painted the wall frescos along with some other Florentine artists and their workshops as well and that "soon," Florence's own Michelangelo Buonarroti will come to paint the ceiling.
Except in , Michelangelo was about 7 years old. Do you wonder what happened to the doomed passion of a Florentine whore for a Franciscan monk?
- See a Problem??
- Get The Funk Out.
- In Quest of the Last Victory?
Can a man and a woman save Italy from a massive conspiracy that goes all the way to the top! Well, of course not! In fact, it turns out that Luciana is actually the daughter of the doge of Venice! She was sent away to escape some other plot never really explained and put in a convent in Florence to be kept safe. She ran way from the convent by accident, but since she was 12 by then, and still couldn't read, its not clear it was a very good place to be anyway.
As the daughter of the doge except "doge" is not a hereditary title, we are told, and is only held for a few years before being rotated, so basically she wasn't the doge's daughter when she was born? A venal, gluttonous, homosexual cousin, whose weak chin was possibly the worst flaw of all. Recruited to pose for the central figure of Flora in Botticelli's Primavera, she is in a bit of a pique afterward as she puts her clothes back on behind a screen. When she discovers the cartone , the small-scale preliminary painting Botticelli worked from to create the larger final masterpiece, she grabs it, almost as enchanted as she is piqued, and stuffs it down her bodice to take it home with her.
All hell breaks loose. The only place she can think of to find sanctuary is with Brother Guido, an idealistic young novice monk she encountered and teased mercilessly on her way to Botticelli's studio. God-smitten though he is, his intellectual curiosity matches hers, and the two of them set off on a merry chase to unlock the puzzle of the painting.
Botticelli Secret
Will they discover the meaning of each of the eight adult figures in the Primavera? Can they escape the ruthless assassin on their trail? Will Chi-Chi finally entice Guido into the sack with her? Readers will want to bookmark the small reproduction of the Primavera at the beginning of the first chapter so they can refer back to it as the complicated puzzle unwinds. Don't expect a perfectly polished reflection of Renaissance Italy, although a host of interesting factual tidbits spice up the madcap adventure along with an anachronism or two.