Bologna, 1575.
A talented seamstress
A powerful merchant
A fierce battle of wills
Elena Morandi has gained a fragile foothold in the workshop of a master tailor, despite the profession being officially barred to her as a woman. But then a powerful man from her past crosses her path and threatens everything she has worked for. Antonio della Fontana has every corner of the city in his pocket and, as Elena knows all too well, he abused his position of power at the Baraccano orphanage. Driven to fight for justice against a man seemingly above the law, Elena hatches a plan to get retribution for herself, a lost friend and those still prey to Fontana’s abuses.
With sumptuous detail that brings the sights, sounds and textures of Renaissance Italy to vivid life, City of Silk is a breathtaking historical fiction debut.
My thoughts: I loved this, I’m a huge fan of historical fiction, history and Italy. So this was directly up my street. Inspired by art hanging in the National Gallery, both by 16th Century Italian artists, and of ordinary people from that time.
Elena just wants to be a tailor like her father was, and having been through the trauma of losing both her parents and being sent to an abusive orphanage, where the benefactor would choose girls to sexually assault, with essentially the blessing of the staff, and where her best friend Laura chose to end her life rather than be forced to continue to submit to this monster, I felt like Elena deserved to find some happiness.
She was working for a seamstress, making clothes for the wives of Bologna’s great and good, but on hearing a marriage contract was being drawn up, she flees into the city and makes her way to the tailors’ quarter, hoping to find a master who might take pity on her.
In many ways Elena is very lucky in her friends, in the bonds she forms as she works for the Maestro alongside his teasing journeymen. She’s talented and capable and they see that. She and her friend Sofia (properly called Suhailah), kidnapped and enslaved, find freedom in their friendships with the artist family, the Carraccis, who invite them into their studio.
It is with these friends that she plots an audacious scheme, to expose Antonio della Fontana as a rapist, molester and monster. On his daughter’s wedding day, in front of the whole city. Revenge will be sweet but she doesn’t reckon with the city’s short attention span.
Some of her friends, like Maestro Rondinelli are outsiders as much as she and Sofia are, he’s gay, in a time where there could get you killed, and even Elena struggles to understand why he would risk everything, until she realises the importance of love. Something she doesn’t really see in the marriages around her, arranged as they are to maintain wealth and status. I think the outsider status of the characters is important, Fontana is the ultimate insider, wealthy and influential. Until he isn’t. But there’s nowhere for him amidst those he disregards.
The only off note was that Elena never explained why she wanted to be a tailor and dress the city’s men instead of dressing the women. If I remember correctly from history books, men did tend to dress more sumptuously at this time, displaying their wealth through their clothes, while women were required to be more muted and demure. Think peacocks and peahens. But it would have been nice to see her thinking. I know there’s an emotional connection to her father, but as she could never work under her own name, and he doesn’t appear to have been well known, it was a little confusing.
Overall this is a splendid tale of outsiders, friendship, revenge and taking back power from those who would exploit it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 