The Birth of Venus

A Novel

By: Sarah Dunant

Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.©2004 Sarah Dunant; (P)2004 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Simply amazing, so brilliantly written...almost intolerably exciting at times, and at others, equally poignant.”
–Antonia Fraser

“A beautiful serpent of a novel, seductive and dangerous...full of wise guile, the most brilliant novel yet from a writer of powerful historical imagination and wicked literary gifts. Dunant’s snaky tale of art, sex and Florentine hysteria consumes utterly–but the experience is all pleasure.”
–Simon Schama

“Sarah Dunant has given us a story of sacrifice and betrayal, set during Florence’s captivity under the fanatic Savonarola. She writes like a painter, and thinks like a philosopher: juxtapositioning the humane against the animal, hope against fanaticism, creativity against destruction. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force.”
–Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

“Dunant has created a vivid and compellingly believable picture of Renaissance Florence: the squalor and brutality; the confidence and vitality; the political machinations. Her research has obviously been meticulous....A magnificent novel.”
–The Telegraph (London)

“It’s to Dunant’s credit that the vast quantities of historical information in this book are deployed so naturally and lightly....On the simplest level, this is an erotic and gripping thriller, but its intellectual excitement also comes from the way Dunant makes the art and philosophy of the period look new and dangerous again....Theology has rarely looked so sexy.”
–The Independent (London)

“No one should visit Tuscany this summer without this book. It is richly textured and driven by a thrillerish fever.”
–The Times (London)

“[Dunant’s] control, pace, and instinct are well-nigh impeccable.”
–The Financial Times

birth of new insight

I purchased this audio so long ago and did not listen to it right away. I forgot why I even purchased it, as it did not appear to be something that would interest me. I was wrong. Right from the introduction the mystery begins. The world of Florence came to life with the authors well researched and believable fiction. I have come away from this novel with a new appreciation of art; with awe of the religious & political upheavel; shocked by the horrendous sufferings persons forced on others because they were not "godly" enough. I wonder at the shame women endured for simply being women and yet such reverence the pious render to their "holy Mary". I loved the truth in the characters and the boldness of the author to so honestly yet delicately portray what it was like for homosexuals in such a religiously heated period in history. I believe I came away with a new respect for what I believed to be an un-natural way of life. I am not sorry now that I purchased this book. I am glad I finally gave it my ear. It was not difficult to listen to either. Although I usually find it more difficult to listen to a female reader, I found this woman easy and comfortable to listen to. Enjoy.

Pretty good

I didn't realize I bought the abridged version, but I'm glad I did. I enjoyed it but I was ready to move on to something else.

Good story

Story was interesting however the narrator’s voice was like nails on chalkboard. Couldn’t get past the 2nd chapter.

Transported

Sarah herself recommended this book as a place to begin. She said I would feel her love and passion for the city of Florence and for this historic period. I’m a hard sell, but I was all in from the beginning.
Wonderful story from a unique perspective. Brava!