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~ Musings on the Ecstasy of Italian Art and Culture

Searching For Bernini

Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review: The Ultimate Bernini Book?

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Art, Art History, Bernini, Book Reviews, Books, History, Italian History, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

 

20130504-003242.jpgA book I’ve been reading and using for research, and for anyone who wants to learn more about Gian Lorenzo Bernini, is Bernini: His Life and His Rome, by Franco Mormando (University of Chicago Press, 2011). The book is incredibly comprehensive and I’ve found it invaluable in my efforts to learn more about my 400-year-old boyfriend. It’s a bit on the academic side, but to get down in the weeds of Bernini’s life, as much as is known at any rate (how I wish there were love letters or diary entries from the man himself!), this book is very well researched. Mormando draws from biographies of the great artist written around his own time (some more reliable than others—one is by Bernini’s own son, Domenico), as well as the author’s own extensive digging into the artist’s history.

The book dwells more on Bernini’s political maneuverings and how he excelled as a courtier through the “reins” of numerous popes. The Cavaliere, it turns out, probably wasn’t a very likeable guy—intense, with a quick temper, exacting of his assistants—he clearly put most of his interpersonal energies toward schmoozing the Powers That Be, who, after all, were his meal ticket (GLB was one of the richest guys in town at the time).

This book isn’t for leisure reading—but if you’re looking for a thoroughly researched work on an artist that changed Rome, this is it.

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Book Review: Household Saints by Francine Prose

04 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Book Reviews, Books, Italian Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Books, Francine Prose, Italy, Little Italy, New York City, Open Road Media

Household Saints

Household Saints

 

After a long break, I’ve returned to Italy and am slowly gearing up again with this blog. My first entry is a book review that bridges New York (my home) with Italy, where I’ll live for a while. It was originally written for Open Road Media, an e-book publishing company that makes some print-only or out of print books available for download on various devices. I loved the book, and am now a die-hard Francine Prose fan. I hope you enjoy the review, and if you do, you can purchase it here.

Here’s my original review:

Household Saints, by Francine Prose

For anyone who’s read light-as-panna cotta romance novels, Francine Prose’s Household Saints, originally published in 1981, begins with what seems like a genre staple: Italian-American butcher Joseph Santangelo wins his wife in a card game. But within a few pages it’s clear that what Prose has created is not just a meet-cute but instead a colorful meditation on luck and love, family and faith, set against the backdrop of New York’s Little Italy in the years following World War II.

Joseph lives with his domineering and superstitious mother, who makes the much-in-demand sausage sold in his shop. While it seems Joseph is at first ambivalent about winning young Catherine Falconetti, who’s put up by her father (which only adds to her family’s reputation for bad luck), the proposal is accepted by a bewildered and naïve Catherine, and evolves into a long-lasting love match.

The marriage infuriates Joseph’s traditional Italian mother, however, and soon the new family is struggling to blend domineering Mrs. Santangelo’s superstitions with Catherine’s evolving sensibilities, such as her love of celebrity rags, or failings; she’s a terrible cook. Joseph is left to referee.

Once their daughter Theresa is born, the vivid novel moves farther from the delicious details of the Santangelos’ neighborhood streets—where old-school advice clashes with the modernizing New York around them—into the otherworldly mind of a girl obsessed by living a life that emulates her own name-saint, Theresa. Their daughter’s severe and single-minded spirituality at turns irritates and confuses her parents.

The novel builds to an unexpected and shocking conclusion that, while as satisfying as a home-cooked meal, nevertheless leaves one wondering about the meaning—or possibility—of miracles. —Lisa Chambers

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