The deadly sisterhood : a story of women, power, and intrigue in the Italian Renaissance, 1427-1527

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Title:

The deadly sisterhood : a story of women, power, and intrigue in the Italian Renaissance, 1427-1527

Author:

Frieda, Leonie

ISBN:

9780061563089

Edition:

1st U.S. ed.

Publication Information:

New York : HarperCollins, 2013.

Physical Description:

xi, 403 p., [24] p. of plates : ill. (chiefly col.), map, geneal. tables ; 24 cm.

Contents:

Prologue : She-wolf of the Romagna -- pt. 1. 1471-1484. Power from behind the veil -- The princess bride -- La Dame de Petit Sens -- Fair is foul and foul is fair -- Mistress of the Revels in Rome -- The Virago holds the Holy city hostage -- pt. 2. 1477-1503. From kissing cousins to killing cousins -- Queen Mother of Florence and the princess brides -- A wonderful family man -- Sibling rivalry -- Pandora's box -- The immaculate Duchess Lucrezia -- Fortune's child -- 'You are only a woman. I forgive you' -- Caterina's loss, Lucrezia's gain -- Lucrezia and Isabella do battle -- Lucrezia's embarrassment -- Cesare's troubles -- pt. 3. 1500-1527. The Duke of Romagna and the Borgia die out -- The Medici restored -- Lucrezia the Duchess -- Saving face -- The last man standing.

Personal Subject:

Tornabuoni, Lucrezia, 1425-1482

Beatrice, consort of Lodovico Sforza il Moro, Duke of Milan, 1475-1497.

Isabella d'Este, consort of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, 1474-1539

Sforza, Caterina, 1463-1509

Isabella, d'Aragona, Duchess of Milan, consort of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, 1470-1524.

Borgia, Lucrezia, 1480-1519.

Subject Term:

Women -- Italy -- History -- Renaissance, 1450-1600.

Women -- Italy -- Intellectual life -- History.

Geographic Term:

Italy -- Kings and rulers.

Summary:

Tells the story of the famous and infamous women of the late Italian Renaissance, tied together by political marriages and bloodlines, and reassesses the reputations of such celebrated figures as Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	945.06 FRI	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	945.06 FRI	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From Leonie Frieda, critically acclaimed biographer of Catherine de Medici, comes The Deadly Sisterhood: an epic tale of eight women whose lives--marked by fortune and poverty, power and powerlessness--encompass the spectacle, opportunity, and depravity of Italy's Renaissance.

Lucrezia Turnabuoni, Clarice Orsini, Beatrice d'Este, Isabella d'Este, Caterina Sforza, Giulia Farnese, Isabella d'Aragona, and Lucrezia Borgia shared the riches of their birthright: wealth, political influence, and friendship, but none were not exempt from personal tragedies, exile, and poverty.

With riveting narrative, Leonie Frieda's The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power, and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance, 1427-1527 brings to life a long-gone era filled with intrigue, corruption, and passion.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Frieda (Catherine de Medici) recreates the glittering, turbulent, and densely entwined lives of eight intrepid, highly intelligent Italian Renaissance "consorts and ducal daughters," who greatly influenced the fates of the men who ruled their milieu. Among them were Lucrezia Tornabuoni, a "trusted emissary" for her husband-Florentine leader Piero Medici-and later a "principal adviser" to their son, the famous statesman and patron of the arts Lorenzo the Magnificent. With Lucrezia's death, her overshadowed daughter-in-law, Clarice Orsini, took "a more prominent role as Lorenzo's proxy," helping him expand Medici alliances with Naples, Rome, and the papacy, "while securing a consistent power base within Florence." Caterina Sforza, Countess of ForlI, was a beautiful virago who "led troops into battle," commandeering Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo and threatening the city's "great men" to protect her family's interests. Lucrezia Borgia's three marriages into the powerful Sforza, Aragona, and Este clans furthered the political ambitions of her father, Pope Alexander VI, and brothers, but she was reviled for rumors of having an incestuous relationship with her father and blamed for a husband's murder. Although too much information is crammed into one book (though, thankfully, there are detailed family trees), this is still an alluring and worthy study of the powerful matriarchs at the helm of Italy's great Renaissance-era dynasties. 24 pages of color illus. Agent: George Capel, Capel & Land, U.K. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

A biographer delivers the scholarly yet very human story of some talented women who held surprising sway in the incredible clutter of city-states that composed Renaissance Italy. Noting that Italy comprised some 250 individual states, Frieda (Catherine de Medici, 2005) focuses on three powerful families--Sforza, Este, Gonzaga--though others rise and fall throughout her tale, as well, principally the Borgias and the Medici. The stories (and families) are interconnected and extremely complex--witness the 10 pages of family trees preceding the text. (Assiduous readers will want to keep a finger among those pages.) The author follows the fortunes of such women as Caterina Sforza, her husband brutally murdered and mutilated, who flashed traitors in a crowd. Frieda also shows us the vilely corrupt papacy of the time. Greed, violence, sexual depravity, incompetence--all flourished. Throughout, the author wields a sharp rhetorical razor, too. Of Duchess Bona, she writes: "it would have been hard to find a stupider woman," and Angela Borgia was a "brainless beauty." Frieda does some restoration on the reputations of the Borgias, particularly Lucrezia, calling much of what had circulated at the time (and later) "a heap of fantastical stories and lies." Among the most compelling of her accounts: the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI) and the quest for power that consumed his son Cesare, who became a Spanish prisoner. Frieda also follows the international politics and military maneuvers of Italy, especially the incursions of France. Shifting alliances, deceptions and lies, the struggle for wealth and power--all are revealed in the stories of women who held (or manipulated) the reins of power when men were incompetent or away battling one another. Richly researched and deeply complex--at times sufficient to bemuse as much as inform.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

The author of Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France (2005) provides a collective biography recounting the exploits of eight women whose actions and experiences often rocked the Italian Renaissance world. Most of the familiar dynastic ?houses Borgia, Medici, Este, Aragona, Gonzaga, Rovere, and Sforza are represented by their cleverest and most cunning and courageous female members. By serving up these brief biographical sketches, Frieda not only illuminates the significant political, economic, and military power-roles these women played within their families but also untangles, a bit, the complicated city-state system that characterized a fifteenth-century Italy fraught with territorial and familial jealousies, rivalries, and intrigue. By shining the spotlight on these women, she presents Renaissance history in a fresh, new light.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal Review

In this fast-paced, vivid book, Frieda (Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France) examines what she describes as the "hidden histories" of eight noblewomen of the later Italian Renaissance: Caterina Sforza, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Clarice Orsini, Isabella d'Aragona, Lucrezia Borgia, Giulia Farnese, and Isabella and Beatrice d'Este. While the political activities of these (and many other) women have traditionally been concealed beneath those of their husbands, Frieda relies on diaries and personal correspondence to reveal less sanitized accounts of events. The reliability of her accounts is somewhat undermined by a lack of notes and a bibliography that lists only the locations of source material, with no discussion or identification of specific documents. Additionally, the author's admiration of her subjects occasionally leads her to employ a near-hagiographic tone when describing them. VERDICT Although the book's multiple interwined threads and nonlinear chronology can occasionally lead to confusion, Frieda's lively, intimate descriptions are exciting and informative. Any reader interested in the Renaissance will find something to enjoy here, although the author's casual use of sources will limit the book's usefulness for scholars.-Fred Poling, Long Beach City Coll. Lib., CA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Summary

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Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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