Murder of a Medici Princess
by Caroline P. Murphy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Caroline P. MurphyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-18
ISBN: 0195385837
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Murder of a Medici Princess
Book Review: Exhilarating History Made Humdrum: Caroline P. Murphy's Quest to Rankle Her Readers
Summary: 2 Stars
For any true bookworm, investing the time to read 351 pages of text hardly seems to pose much of a challenge. In fact, most avid readers might reasonably polish off a book of that stature on a lazy Saturday, well within the boundaries of breakfast and supper. The Murder of a Medici Princess is a cultural biography of the historically-wayward Isabella de Medici. If the bibliographical information is ignored, there are exactly 351 pages of pertinent (I use this word loosely) text. The ability of this devoted reader notwithstanding, Murphy's work consumed the hours between far more breakfasts and suppers than is readily acceptable.
If simply browsing the very first and last chapters of the book, the reader would never suspect the literary mess that abounds between the two. It seems that these are the only chapters to which Murphy gave any sort of organized thought. One has to wonder, in that case, if the time taken to read the book would be better spent walking barefoot on broken glass. To that end, the reader would at least have the option of feeling something. Murphy's writing is as lifeless as the paper upon which it is printed--it evokes no emotion, even though for these characters, being histrionic was a way of life. Nevertheless, with meticulous digging, an intriguing story can be extracted from the tedious drivel sprinkled throughout the rest of the work.
Falling in love with Cosimo de Medici is no great pain for the reader. He was equally palatable to the sixteenth-century Florentine citizens, not least of all, to himself. How fitting then, to find that Cosimo's portrait bears an uncanny resemblance to the twenty-first century figure, Bobby Flay, who finds himself just as tasty as his culinary creations. From pauper to big-shot, Cosimo de Medici had cunning. His words could caress like the finest pashmina, or be as caustic as lye. His mother Maria, wife Eleonora, and daughter Isabella seem to have taken up every last inch of room in his heart and every last ounce of his effort to keep them from harm; even with something as mundane as the loss of Isabella's milk teeth, Cosimo wished for them to be "extract[ed]...gently, causing her as little pain as possible" (35). This `babbo' ("daddy") calculated his acts with warm intentions. In betrothing Isabella to Paolo Giordano Orsini, arguably the most ill-suited match in world history, Cosimo granted his daughter with a rare prize for women during that period--identity. His untimely gift, in retrospect, also doomed her. Cosimo was audacious enough to ignore his own mortality while raising his daughter to be her own worst enemy, but he was so charming that the reader finds it impossible to take him to task for it. From the very moment of his birth there was a roller coaster ride that outlined his rise to power. The reader will eagerly sit in the cart beside him, without restraint, until his descent into death.
Isabella de Medici was as delightful as she was wretched; she both graced and defiled the world with her presence. If it were possible, she might be plucked from Renaissance Italy and placed, seamlessly, into twenty-first century America. Certain cohorts would include the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears. Contrary to her modern pals, however, Isabella's head was good for things other than sprouting hair. Because of her eclectic wit, the most agreeable prose in the book comes from the sixteenth-century hand of Isabella de Medici, and not from Murphy. It is shameful that a modern woman with a PhD would allow a long-dead, already-marginalized historical figure pull her through a publishing deal; but then again, to each her own. Isabella's writing is absolutely delicious, and the only reason that even two stars are earned for this poorly-crafted book. It would serve the reader well to covet every shining morsel, if for nothing else, than to have "Everything I have ever seen from you makes me feel as if my stomach is suffering from bad digestion" printed on a t-shirt (129).
All of the other figures in the book, and there are countless, pale in comparison to Cosimo and Isabella de Medici. Of the dwarves and dancers, popes and peasants, and multitudes of kith and kin, none manage to make any sincere impression upon the reader. It is bewildering, then, why Murphy would take such great pains to catalog infinite details about their names, lineage, home design, battles, and minor tribulations, ad nauseam. Murphy allows minute details to swallow her narrative, when the minimal would have sufficed. Although their genres differ, Murphy could learn quite a bit from historical novelists Tracy Chevalier and Lisa See, two authors who never fail to please.
One cannot help but notice that Murphy's project seems to have taken on a life of its own. When faced with a choice of historical inclusion, she has erred on the side of caution, to a serious fault. With ubiquitous unnecessary information, the tale that is aimed to "swoop and dazzle" the reader (as one reviewer has undeservingly touted the work), fails to shine through. In fact, it is wildly uncontrollable, and Murphy seems to have been unable to take the reigns and drive her own composition. Not just the story gets lost within the pages. Murphy is tangled within her own prose and her writing is inconsistent, at best. With blatant repetition of buzz-words like "keen," "indeed," "small wonder," "countenance," and "fecundity" (to name but a few), several purposes are served; none are to the credit of Murphy's status as an author. The reader may already be so jaded as to begin counting the duplicate words, and then doubt the credentials of a PhD with such a stunted vocabulary. The reader is also led to speculate whether or not there was ever any interest on the editor's part to trouble himself with the business of tidying up Murphy's work, or if he simply found the task of reading and correcting anything between the first and last chapters entirely too daunting.
Although it may not be immediately clear to the weary reader, Murphy's aim was not to publish a cure-all for insomnia with her insipid prose. In penning this work, she wanted to create an all-encompassing anthology for a sparse cross-section of Renaissance history. She most likely wished for the book to read like a juicy tabloid, but this goal fell short. Instead, it reads more like stereo instructions. This is to say that some of the reasoning within the book would confuse even the author. At times, it seemed that Murphy had no defined function for Isabella. It should never be the reader's job to connect the dots. In one sense, she would have the reader believe that Isabella de Medici was nothing more than a spoiled, overgrown cheerleader. Isabella was portrayed as an impudent brat when she ran to her babbo for the Baroncelli villa. He said, "Give it to her...as if his two children were fighting over a toy," since Francesco had denied her immediate satisfaction (144). In other instances, Murphy canonized Isabella into some peculiar form of delinquent sainthood. In the end, Murphy peppers the reader with so many questions that one is left to suppose that her work is actually an emphatic request for someone else to write a biography of Isabella de Medici covering the topics in which she was too deficient.
Murphy clearly employs an archive of sources which might rival that of even the library of the Holy See, but the reader gets a distinct sense that she has found no way to organize them. Instead, it seems as if the `Italian Art History' section of the library had indigestion and vomited all over the pages. Murder of a Medici Princess is an attempt, albeit feeble, to claim that the brother (Francesco) and spouse (Paolo) of Isabella de Medici took exception with her because vaginas and personalities should never be allowed to join forces. Murphy's thesis states that "ultimately [Isabella] was punished for being female. Had she been male her life would not have ended as it did" (350). And thus, in the game of life, Isabella de Medici was dealt a rotten hand; "In the harsh light of reality she was the loser" (350). The truth is that Isabella bluffed quite well, until driven to ante up with chips that she could never have afforded. It is true that "death at the hand of [her] husband [was] justifiable within the context of [her] time," but so was it true of any nobility, in any era, who tarnished a family name or squandered a family fortune, male or female (328). Even today, when money and prestige are at hand, the powers that be have a way of forcing anyone standing in the way to mysteriously disappear.
Following a reading of Murder of a Medici Princess, it should come as no great shock that Murphy studied art history at University College London. It is because of this education, it appears, that she has played up the style and color of every palace, painting, and article of clothing in the book. While some of the information might have been practical (the description of the Medici balls, `palle,' for example), the inclusion of the rest was incredibly indulgent on the part of Murphy. After examining the personalities of the book's prime figures, the reader might conclude that Murphy's education was seriously lacking in the social sciences. Isabella de Medici was, almost undeniably, a very early victim of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. Subsequent to the death of her parents, Isabella remained either a Munchausen patient or, at the very least, an excessive hypochondriac. Furthermore, she pushed a preoccupation with physical ailments on her children, even in the very few years she remained alive as their primary caretaker. For Murphy to have skipped over these timeless issues in favor of tapestries and bridge design is foolish, as it does not seem that she has intended her book for the rather limited audience of Renaissance art enthusiasts. Why should Murphy bother to enthrall readers with a sizzling psychological scandal when she can dangle her knowledge of "inflated hyperbolic volutes employed under the window sills...[of]...anthropomorphically kneeling...windows" (122)?
By omitting any matters that the modern reader would genuinely care to explore, it is possible that Murphy was simply trying to instill the same sense of longing into the reader that Isabella de Medici might have felt. Just as Isabella futilely yearned to take charge of her own existence, outlive her repressors, and imprint her voice upon the future, so too, is the reader dealt the same fruitless hand. After 351 pages, there is an unfulfilled void. It begins as a dull throb, escalates to a pressing ache, and ends in raw agony as the reader still wants. The reader does not want for terminology, ancestry, blood, money, sin, sex, food, or art. Of these, Murphy gives freely; some might say, to excess. Instead, the reader is deficient in the matter of truth, of which Murphy was unable to deliver. She is either not concerned with it, or she is too ambivalent to declare anything with real confidence. If Murphy imagined that she was facilitating the women's movement with her poorly-executed diatribe against the patriarchal domination of Italian ducal culture, she was mistaken. As a writer, she came across as insecure and obtuse. Instead of having tackled issues head-on, she avoided judgment and chose to dangle shiny words in front of her reader. This accomplishes little more than to bolster the stereotype of the inept woman in need of rescue. It has set back Isabella's cause, almost five centuries in the making. Murphy has succeeded only in having painted herself into a corner by having written herself into a cliché.
Summary of Murder of a Medici Princess
In Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany.Murphy is a superb storyteller, and her fast-paced narrative captures the intrigue, the scandal, the romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court. She brings to life an extraordinary woman, fluent in five languages, a free-spirited patron of the arts, a daredevil, a practical joker, and a passionate lover. Isabella, in fact, conducted numerous affairs, including a ten-year relationship with the cousin of her violent and possessive husband. Her permissive lifestyle, however, came to an end upon the death of her father, who was succeeded by her disapproving older brother Francesco. Considering Isabella's ways to be licentious and a disgrace upon the family, he permitted her increasingly enraged husband to murder her in a remote Medici villa. To tell this dramatic story, Murphy draws on a vast trove of newly discovered and unpublished documents, ranging from Isabella's own letters, to the loose-tongued dispatches of ambassadors to Florence, to contemporary descriptions of the opulent parties and balls, salons and hunts in which Isabella and her associates participated. Murphy resurrects the exciting atmosphere of Renaissance Florence, weaving Isabella's beloved city into her story, evoking the intellectual and artistic community that thrived during her time. Palaces and gardens in the city become places of creativity and intrigue, sites of seduction, and grounds for betrayal.
Here then is a narrative of compelling and epic proportions, magnificent and alluring, decadent and ultimately tragic.
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