February 10, 2020
Storey’s unconvincing follow-up to Oil and Marble, which focused on Leonardo and Michelangelo, attempts a first-person narrative in the voice of Raphael Santi. In 1494, an 11-year-old Raphael promises his dying father that he will become “the greatest painter in history.” He’s a working artist by the time he’s 21, and his stay in Florence confirms that Michelangelo is his greatest rival. Raphael moves to Rome in 1508, hoping to be commissioned to paint the Sistine ceiling. Michelangelo already has the job, but Pope Julius II commissions Raphael to decorate the walls of the papal apartments. Though fame, fortune, and love follow, the wars that embroil the Italian peninsula through much of Raphael’s lifetime, as well as his obsession with besting his brilliant rival Michelangelo, keep him in crisis. Storey’s extensive research is on display in her evocation of Raphael’s art and era, but her exaggerated portrait of the artist as an OCD sufferer given to constant ritualistic counting and anachronistic addresses to the reader strains credulity. Fans of historical fiction will savor the setting, but Storey’s Raphael doesn’t do himself or his story any favors.
April 1, 2020
In her second art-history novel (after Oil and Marble, 2016), Storey reimagines the creation of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling from the point of view of a rival Renaissance master, Raphael Santi of Urbino. In this colorful and engaging tale, painter Raphael recounts the story of his life and work, focusing on his encounters with Michelangelo in Rome and elsewhere, in a lively, familiar tone peppered with Italian interjections. When Pope Julius II summons both artists to Rome, he sets one against the other. Raphael is charged with decorating the walls of the papal apartments and Michelangelo with painting the chapel ceiling. As the plot thickens, intrigue and political machinations simmer, and the result is a rich and delicious portrayal of art and its creators and the forces that drive and often work against them. More than 25 years of research in Italian Renaissance art deepens the story and renders it full of fascinating detail about people and process, while Storey's painterly prose is also sure to delight art lovers and fans of historical fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)