A Renaissance tapestry : the Gonzaga of Mantua /

Simon supplies her usual elegantly styled blend of history and travel as she considers the ruling family of the Renaissance city-state of Mantua and views the artistic and literary remains that are now the principal Gonzagan inheritance to their kingdom. As in other of Simon's works, the book does not proceed in a straight direction from beginning to end but instead wanders through history, pausing before a portrait or resting in a palace courtyard that prompts further digression on how people lived, loved, ate, and died during the period. Through this method, Simon reveals the human aspects of her subject, a humanity that resides both in the grand historical personages and in the ordinary people who fulfilled the will of the ruling nobles. And the author does not stop with Mantua itself; the whole warring community of Italian city-states, and indeed all of Europe, becomes the canvas on which she works her narrative magic. Simon is also the author of Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood (Booklist 78:1002 Ap 1 82). Bibliography; to be indexed. JB. 945'.2 Gonzaga family / Mantua (Italy)-Civilization / Italy-Civilization-1268-1559 / Renaissance-Italy [OCLC] 87-45669

The Gonzaga dynasty, which held the dukedom of Mantua in its iron grip for centuries, was as pleasure-loving and internecine as any leading family of Renaissance Italy. Simon nicely captures the excesses and contradictory passions that swept the ducal palace as she chronicles fraternal rivalries, poisonings, bribes of popes, seesaw alignments of warring states. With an eye for telling detail, the well-known travel writer (Kate Simon's Paris) reminds us that the Renaissance was a time when astrologers and alchemists were widely consulted, when the sexual use of little boys at court was common, and when processions carrying saints' images, believed to be the best cure against the plague, only furthered its spread. While the antics of the Gonzagas hold this tapestry together, the spotlight is stolen by culture-heroes such as humanist rebel-scholar Pico della Mirandola, whose death at age 31 foreshadowed Shelley. (March) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A sketch of the north Italian city of Mantua during the Renaissance by a superb author of travel books. Though small, Mantua played a crucial role in the tortuously complicated Renaissance politics. Focus is on the calculating Gonzaga family whose political astuteness, tangled network of marriage alliances, etc., kept it in power from 1329 to 1629. Simon interweaves condottiere, humanists, artists, and musicians, giving capsule biographies of famous figures. Despite some omissions in coverage, the text is splendid: Simon has an ear attuned to the apposite quote, an especially critical eye for the works of art that made the court of Mantua internationally famous. General readers and travelers will enjoy this book. Bennett D. Hill, St. Anselm's Abbey, Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

An elegant account of the ruling dynasty of an Italian city-state by the author of Italy: The Places Between; Rome: Places and Pleasures; Kate Simon's Paris, etc. Mantua is often overlooked as travellers zip by on their way from Milan to Venice. But it is, to borrow Simon's own phrase, the quintessential place between. There are splendid art treasures (Mantegna) and fascinating ghosts (Isabella D'Este) tucked into this city ""clothed in grey mists that rise from her surrounding waters like veils of antique widowhood."" By tracing Mantua's Gonzaga family, just one of the glistening threads of Italian Renaissance history, Simon manages to illuminate the whole crazy design of warring city-states, plotting popes, invading French. Blending her well-honed skills as a travel writer and popular historian, she packs her narrative with historical gossip and descriptive details. She also interrupts the great progress of the Gonzaga's fortunes with ""interludes"": sketches of artists Alberti and Mantegna and writers Ariosto and Machiavelli; of magic, the theater, and the plague. Simon does not break new historical ground, but she brings to familiar material passion and a lucid prose style. Her book is a pleasure to read. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.