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A review by caitlinxmartin
The Medici Boy by John L'Heureux
3.0
Every now and then I pick up a book and it captures me within just a few pages - The Medici Boy was one of those books. I started during a short afternoon break at work - a mistake since I really just wanted to sit in the sun and read once I started. The Medici Boy is historical fiction set in Renaissance Florence in the studio of the sculptor, Donatello. The book captures the essence of the Renaissance as I imagine it in my head - the writing of place is very vivid filled with all the beauty and brutality of the age.
Our hero, Luca, is devoted to Donatello and spends his time helping to keep the artist's business affairs in order. His journey to Florence is a long and strange one and that's fitting for Luca is a complex and stranger character conflicted in almost all ways about his life. Luca's past comes to haunt the book in the presence of Agnolo, a beautiful model and prostitute who disrupts the studio at every turn. Well-written and interesting, The Medici Boy is a good read, although I wish Donatello had a stronger presence in the book. The portrait of him in Vasari's The Lives of the Artists is still the one that resonates with me, but that didn't stop me from tearing through this book.
Our hero, Luca, is devoted to Donatello and spends his time helping to keep the artist's business affairs in order. His journey to Florence is a long and strange one and that's fitting for Luca is a complex and stranger character conflicted in almost all ways about his life. Luca's past comes to haunt the book in the presence of Agnolo, a beautiful model and prostitute who disrupts the studio at every turn. Well-written and interesting, The Medici Boy is a good read, although I wish Donatello had a stronger presence in the book. The portrait of him in Vasari's The Lives of the Artists is still the one that resonates with me, but that didn't stop me from tearing through this book.