Blood & Beauty

The Borgias; A Novel

De: Sarah Dunant

Narrado por: Edoardo Ballerini

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS

The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Italian Renaissance novels—The Birth of Venus, In the Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts—has an exceptional talent for breathing life into history. Now Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to one of the world’s most intriguing and infamous families—the Borgias—in an engrossing work of literary fiction.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: He is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women, and power must use papacy and family—in particular, his eldest son, Cesare, and his daughter Lucrezia—in order to succeed.

Cesare, with a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatest—though increasingly unstable—weapon. Later immortalized in Machiavelli’s The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages, and from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player.

Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex and relentless.

Praise for Blood & Beauty

“The Machiavellian atmosphere—hedonism, lust, political intrigue—is magnetic. . . . Readers won’t want the era of Borgia rule to end.”
—People (four stars)

“Dunant transforms the blackhearted Borgias and the conniving courtiers and cardinals of Renaissance Europe into fully rounded characters, brimming with life and lust.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Like Hilary Mantel with her Cromwell trilogy, [Sarah] Dunant has scaled new heights by refashioning mythic figures according to contemporary literary taste. This intellectually satisfying historical saga, which offers blood and beauty certainly, but brains too, is surely the best thing she has done to date.”
—The Miami Herald

“Compelling female players have been a characteristic of Dunant’s earlier novels, and this new offering is no exception. . . . The members of this close-knit family emerge as dynamic characters, flawed but sympathetic, filled with fear and longing.”
—The Seattle Times

“Dazzling . . . a triumph on an epic scale . . . filled with rich detail and page-turning drama.”
—BookPage

The Borgias are Brought to Life

In history, people can seem larger than life and also 2 dimensional. The author did an excellent job helping us understand this family and the good, bad, and atrocious parts of them.

The best

I loved every minute of this story at times finding it impossible to stop listening. I couldn’t believe how quickly it was over. I will be looking for the continued story hopefully by the same author and reader they are both the best. The description and detail are perfect I could see it all like I was there. A great book and performance.

Superb!

What made the experience of listening to Blood & Beauty the most enjoyable?

The writing is exquisite - mellifluous and poetic. Her psychological take on the situations and characters are interesting and plausible.

What did you like best about this story?

The character development, the plot and Dunant's skill in keeping me fully engrossed.

What about Edoardo Ballerini’s performance did you like?

His performance was impeccable and added tremendously to the richness of the story and my immersion into the characters.

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed this book so much that I am unable to read another historical fiction novel (my favorite genre) at this time. Blood and Beauty is so well crafted that it will be a tough act to follow.

Start with Other Dunant Books

I was disappointed with this novel. I've read and loved several other books by Sarah Dunant, but this one didn't live up to the others. My feeling is that she got so involved with her research and wanting to retell the historical events from the point of view she had adopted, that she somehow forgot to create credible and fully formed characters. In wanting to present a more "balanced" view of the Borgias, who, based on recent historical research, appear not to have been the monsters they've been made out to be—indeed, the current thinking is they behaved in a way congruent with the times they lived in—the story seemed to me to lack the excitement and spice one would have expected from the title. Yes, there is murder and plenty of blood is spilled, but somehow all this seems to be at a remove, as seen from the eyes of a historian rather than a talented fiction writer. While her other books have all carried me away and made me want to follow the flow of her stories and live with the characters for a while, this one felt stiff and formulaic and frankly, rather boring in the end. I'm still giving it a decent rating because I'm a great lover of historical fiction and Dunant certainly did her homework in that sense, but this is not the book I would recommend to someone new to her writing.

Breath of Fresh Air

If you could sum up Blood & Beauty in three words, what would they be?

Excellent Historical Fiction

Who was your favorite character and why?

Lucretia --- because Dunant gives her a modern feminist strength, within the restraints of the patriarchal culture of 15th Century Europe and within the Roman Catholic Church.

What does Edoardo Ballerini bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I enjoyed his narration of Beautiful Ruins, and he didn't disappoint here, except I had to get the image of Carlo Tursi out of my head and replace it with Rodrigo and Cesare Borgia! He is terrific with Italian themed stories. His use of the language gives it all its beauty and charm.

If you could take any character from Blood & Beauty out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Tough choice --- only one, probably Lucretia because of her natural resilience and depth. Other wise it would be fascinating to have dinner with Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the soon to be Pope Julius II. That would be a dinner of first rate minds and devious temperaments ---- their nonverbal communication would be more fascinating than the words they would share.

Any additional comments?

Dunant brings a fresh view of the Borgias to the over-saturated media versions on Showtime and the BBC. Her history seeks authenticity not sensationalism though rumor and innuendo. The Borgias were plenty corrupt without the titillation of incest, suspected not proven.