The SECRET BOOK OF GRAZIA DEI ROSSI: A NOVEL - Hardcover

Park, Jacqueline

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684816032 ISBN 13: 9780684816036

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Synopsis

Set against the backdrop of the religious persecution and papal politics of the Italian Renaissance, the story of Grazia dei Rosi, heiress to a Jewish banking dynasty and lover of a Christian lord, unfolds through her secret diary

About this title

About the Author

Jacqueline Park is the founding chairman of the Dramatic Writing Program and Professor Emerita at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Reviews

The splendor and tumult of the Italian Renaissance live con brio in this page-turning tale of a remarkable young Jewish woman whose love for a Christian nobleman divides her heart and soul. Parks, a professor emerita in the NYU dramatic-writing program, draws upon a brief reference to this young woman in a period history and develops it into a story as rich as Raphael's tapestries--which her Jewish heroine, Grazia, must guard when the Germans sack Rome in 1527. Grazia, her young son Danilo, and her employer Madonna Isabella, the Marchesana of Mantova, are eventually allowed to leave Rome--but at a high price. Grazia's life seems, in fact, to have been shaped by a series of upheavals and flights. Remembering them now, she is taken back to her first flight, in childhood, from Mantova, during a pogrom, when her family takes shelter with her wealthy grandparents, the Rossis. The Rossis are bankers and humanist scholars, and Grazia gains a remarkable education. But while her scholarly talents bring her fame--she publishes a book--and work (she eventually becomes the secretary of the Marchesa, a woman close to the center of power in Renaissance Rome), her life, shaped by war, plague, and persecution, is changed forever by her encounter with the dashing Lord Pirro when he arrives, still a student, at the Rossi bank in search of a loan. The two become lovers but are parted when the reluctant Pirro is compelled to marry his family's choice. These meetings and partings are repeated though the pair's event-filled lives as Pirro becomes a soldier and Grazia marries Judah, who becomes a physician to the Pope. At one unexpected reunion with Pirro, Danilo is conceived. But history is indifferent even to the most intense of lovers, especially in troubled times, and the estimable Grazia will meet an unhappy fate. A genuine Renaissance woman memorably struts her stuff in a first novel that consummately mixes fact and fancy. Historical fiction at its best. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Two letters from the court of Isabella d'Este found in an attic and published in an obscure Italian journal provide the inspiration for this historical novel. Park, a founder of the Dramatic Writing Program at New York University's Institute of Film, brings both considerable writing experience and thorough research to her first novel. Building on the hints of a romance between a Christian nobleman and a young Jewess, Park successfully evokes the tensions underlying the luxuries of 14th-century Italian court life. Her heroine, Grazia Dei Rossi, is the finely educated daughter of a well-to-do Jewish family. Despite their wealth, her family remains on the edges of society and subject to the capricious whims of their court patrons. Bearing witness to family intrigues, religious persecution, and changing political alliances, Grazia pens her memoirs as a legacy for her son. The result deftly mixes romance, historical details, memorable characters, and drama. Recommended for all fiction collections.?Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., N.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684816032
• ISBN 13: 9780684816036
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 576