“The Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O’Farrell
“The Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O’Farrell
Regular readers may remember that we reviewed this book briefly last month; it was received by one of our group from our “lucky dip” read in December. Our group member recommended that we should all read it as our January book.
The author Maggie O’Farrell has based this book loosely on historical characters who lived in 16th Century Italy. Lucrezia de’ Medici was a 16 year old who, it is rumoured, may have been murdered by her husband. The author came across a very small oil painting of Lucrezia and felt that she could imagine the life of this young girl who died at such a young age.
In 2020 O’Farrell started writing a novel about this imagined life. The book focuses on Lucrezia who was the third daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo de Medici of Florence. Her older sister was betrothed to 27 year old Alfonso, Duke of Ferra. Sadly, this young woman died before they married and it was decided that the 13 year old Lucrezia would become Alfonso’s wife. The marriage is one of political convenience and Lucrezia is a pawn in this power union. The story starts one year into the marriage and Lucrezia is convinced that her husband is intent on killing her. The narrative rewinds to show the reader what has happened in Lucrezia’s life to reach this point. O’ Farrell’s writing is descriptive and she paints vivid images. She beautifully illustrates life in an Italian court in the 16th century and the insignificance of women in the courts of powerful men at that time. The story alternated between two time periods and several members of the group did not enjoy this, stating that it was difficult to follow.
The group also spent time discussing whether this book could be classed as a historical novel or a novel with historical content. The majority of the group felt that they became emotionally engaged with the characters especially the main one, Lucrezia and enjoyed the surprise ending.
Although two members of the group felt that this was not one of Maggie O’ Farrell’s best novels, the rest thoroughly enjoyed the story and gave it strong recommendations. The overall score was 8 out of 10