The Last Mona Lisa by Laura Morelli

 

First completed read of 2024 but one that I've had to be read for awhile.  Published in 2021, this paperback novel spans 461 pages and has interesting acknowledgements and  an explanation of her research, etc. by the author.  I have read others by Laura Morelli but this one was not my favorite, still it was a decent read., It switches among three main characters set in two time periods.  It opens with Leonardo Da Vinci and follows him through Italy in the 1470's and expands to the second character, Bellina a servant in the 1490's in Florence.  Bellina will interact with da ?Vinci who is commissioned to paint the portrait of her mistress, Lisa Ghiardini.  The rule  of the Medici and their  rise, fail and restoration affect much of these two characters.  The third character in a more modern era is Anne, a typist employee of the Louvre in Paris and her adventure with the rest of the staff s preserving the many artworks including the Mona Lisa from the invasion of the Nazis in World War II. 

Page 5-6 Leonardo is working for and finishing a painting for his master but wants to o more.  He is deciding to leave, and thinks" in the end we are all hiding something."

Pg 169,Leonardo again, " As much as I hate to admit it there is something comforting about returning to these old familiar places.  After months away from Florence it fels like home.  Perhaps it is when we might lose it all that we finally gain an appreciation for things we once took for granted."   

Laura Morelli does intense thoughtful research to produce her historical novels.  Her Ph.D in art history from Yale gives her a depth that would be missing if she were just a writer of fiction.   There is some very good descriptive writing on pages 265-266  1942 as the Germans approached Paris and France.  "The news had come to them the way it always did: Pierre sharing information from the wireless.  This time he was pale with shock, his usual smile beneath a scowl now wiped away.  The Germans had invaded the Free Zone at last.  After the Allies landed in North Africa and started pushing back Italian forces, the Free French--courageous citizens who refused to bow either to Nazi Germany or Viiichy, France."  The resistance will ultimately become a part of Anne's adventure, changing her life forever.  

I found this reference to books by the author in  her acknowledgements interesting.  She had written this novel during the pandemic and  could not travel to Paris or Italy instead writing at home.  So she acknowledges  the importance of books to transport us on journeys that we might otherwise not know. 
 

Back Cover

I found her pages of reflections About The Stolen Lady interesting. And she included an excerpt from  the memoir  of Lucie Mauzaric who was an archivist with the Louvre who is reference in the novel.   This is one example of how well she expands to create fiction from real events.  

  The back cover summarizes the novel.  I give this one only  between 4 and 5 stars,  Maybe I was just not into the right mood to switch amongst the characters back and forth over centuries.

  The writing is good but the book didn't resonate with me.  The research is fascinating and the inclusion of the information in the back is also interesting./  

The Gondola Maker by Laura Morelli

 

A new to me author, recommended by DIL..This one was published in 2014, is a large paperback size,  285 pages.  Laura Morelli is apparently known for the intense research she puts into a subject and that is reflected in this novel and "Dedicated to those whose hearts propel their hands."  is the inscription.,  It begins in Venice in 1581 and as the title reflects about Gondolas.  

The main character is Luca Vianello, son working in his father's shop, an ancestry of gondola making family.  However a tragic accident results in a fire burning down the business and Luca flees fearing the wrath of his father.  The novel follows him as he struggles in a new life finally becoming the gondolier to an artist.  He discovers an old gondola there and asks permission to restore it which he does in his hours while not working.  Meantime in the gallery workshop of the  the artist Trevisan,  he notices a portrait in process by the artist  of a beautiful; young woman and becomes obsessed with her.  He learns she is Signorina Giuliana Zanchi and is smitten but knows she is far above him as a mere gondolier.  Surprisingly she contacts him and asks that he meet her clandestinely.  She asks for his help to take jewelry to a man at a party, she tells him he will know him, recognizable as a Jew immediately.  Luca does this and gives her every cent of the money he gets in return.  So begins the twist. Her family has fallen on hard times since her father's death and her mother will be entering a convent. She will either be married off to someone she does not chose or have to enter the convent herself.   She is trying to sell some of the jewelry secretly to raise money without her mother knowing and gets Luca to take other pieces to pawnbrokers on her behalf which he does willingly.  He dreams of taking her for a ride in the gondola he is restoring.  The tale continues and one day after restoring the old gondola which  was built long before  by his grandfather he meets  with her on the boat.  But someone is watching and reports this to a mean Councillor in the town who had eyes on Giuliana to add to his conquests of maidens, one night stands.  The Councilior has Luca arrested and thrown into prison where he is sure he will perish. He arranges to have the gondola burned. Luca feels he has been betrayed badly by Giuliana and cannot make sense of what happened. But one day he is released to an old friend from his neighborhood, the oar maker, Master Fumgalli is old and failing and had befriended Luca as a boy back home.  Fumgalli wishes him to take over his oar making business.  Luca receives a package from the Artist Tristan with oarlock from of the old  gondola and searches the convent for Giuliiana but learns she is not there.  The novel wraps up with his reuniting with his sister and brother  but not with his father.  As the novel concludes though, his father has cone to him and knocks on the door. The inevitable. 

A moving tale although parts seemed slow to me about the details of gondolas...Nevertheless the book is worth reading.  I give it almost 4 ****

It opens: "I chew on my lip while I wait to see my father's gondola catch fire.  Beneath the boat a pile of firewood is stacked so high that I find myself in the  position of looking up at the underside of its black hull.  A meticulous servant or day laborer has split the logs and arranged them into neat stacks, then pressed dried brush into the spaces between the wood, with intention to start an impressive blaze.  The gondola has been lashed to the largest logs of the pyre, yet it remains skewed at an angle.  From my vantage point I cannot help but admire the craft's flowing lines, its elegant prow reaching to the sky as if to defy this injustice.   My father had nothing to do with the crime committed in this boat of course.  I feel certain that none of the onlookers has any idea that my father, our Republic's most renowned gondola maker and I, a young man barely worthy of note, crafted this gondola with our own hands.  Surely no one has noticed our catanella, the maple leaf emblem we care into the prow of each gondola that emerges from the Vianello workshop."  

Pg 15,  "of course this gondola burning isn't the first public humiliation that I have witnessed on this very spot in my life but I am certain that it will be the most memorable.  "

Pg. 285 conclusion"  My father stands on the other  side of the door now, lifting his right hand.  On either side of this  narrow barrier my father and I stand like reflected images.  Our hands are the same large knuckles, flat, smooth nails, his skin more lined, mine smoother but worn now from labor.  We are separated by the hardness of the oak planks, the hardness of life, the hardness in our hearts.  We are mirror images none the less.     I am so lost in my vision that when the knock comes, I doubt that it is real, but my heart which skips a beat confirms it.  I open my eyes and take a deep breath.  Gently I open the door."