In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant

Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, head for Venice, the shimmering city born out of water to become a miracle of east-west trade: rich and rancid, pious and profitable, beautiful and squalid. Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy.

Vertigo: Collecting & Reading W.G.My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.

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I wonder what Dunant’s working on now…Įnter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. ( I can’t say I’m entirely sure what Titian is doing in there, except to paint Fiammetta and add historical window-dressing.) I read this trilogy out of order - Sacred Hearts is the last in the series - but even so it’s impressive and enjoyable, dramatic and stimulating. Dunant makes much of what is remarkable about Venice, both its topography and the immensely sophisticated polyglot population.

In fact the 1527 Sack of Rome provides the launching pad for the plot, as Bucino and Fiammetta, ruined and wounded in the invasion, retreat to Fiammetta’s home town of Venice, where they must claw their way back into business in a different kind of city. I don’t want to ruin the plot by saying one more thing about it.Īs in The Birth of Venus and Sacred Hearts, In the Company of the Courtesan is set in sixteenth-century Italy.

And once she does, you absolutely must go back over the tale in your head, and you start to consider characters and incidents and even themes - glass and water, in this case - which take on a completely new meaning. It was pleasant to read, but seemed to be drifting somewhat, until suddenly Dunant turned the whole thing upside down. But I have to admit that I was wondering a little bit where Dunant was going with the story.

Dunant, as I’ve said here before, is a terrific writer so Bucino’s narrative voice is completely absorbing.

In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant