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Renaissance, Medicis, and Magic, oh my
Nov. 2nd, 2009 07:59 amWhen I did my Renaissance Artist Project on Benvenuto Cellini in the ninth grade, none of my sources told me that in addition to thinking he was the best artist ever, he was also pretty convinced that he was a mage. So I was wholly surprised to find out that Lois McMaster Bujold's The Spirit Ring is a fantasy novel written on the concept "let's assume that everything Cellini said in his autobiography was true and set a novel in THAT world."
I wish, though, that I'd known that before reading the book rather than finding it out in the afterword, as it would have saved me a lot of energy thinking "but why does this novel have to be set in Renaissance Italy? Do I really want to read yet another novel about someone who has done magic for Lorenzo d'Medici?"
I mean, I see why Renaissance Italy is an appealing place to set a fantasy novel. As long as you mention that Medici's in Florence and Sforza's in Milan you can make up whatever names you like for your Duke and City-State and people will just sort of go along with it.
And there's also, of course, the appeal of taking the spirit of the age and writing about it as applied to magic along with the arts and sciences. (There's a cute throwaway line in Spirit Ring when the Bishop is complaining about how all the mages come up with new magic tricks in secrets, and he should really set up a journal to see if it will encourage them to trade having magic power over one another for having fame.)
Maybe I'm just burned out on the Italian Renaissance, and Medici Florence in particular--this morning while thinking about the book in the shower I found myself grateful that Gregory Maguire at least used the Borgias instead of the Medicis in Mirror Mirror.
Flist, a question--is the world really as filled with fantasy novels set in Renaissance Italy as I think it is, or is it just that I am prone to stumble across them?
I wish, though, that I'd known that before reading the book rather than finding it out in the afterword, as it would have saved me a lot of energy thinking "but why does this novel have to be set in Renaissance Italy? Do I really want to read yet another novel about someone who has done magic for Lorenzo d'Medici?"
I mean, I see why Renaissance Italy is an appealing place to set a fantasy novel. As long as you mention that Medici's in Florence and Sforza's in Milan you can make up whatever names you like for your Duke and City-State and people will just sort of go along with it.
And there's also, of course, the appeal of taking the spirit of the age and writing about it as applied to magic along with the arts and sciences. (There's a cute throwaway line in Spirit Ring when the Bishop is complaining about how all the mages come up with new magic tricks in secrets, and he should really set up a journal to see if it will encourage them to trade having magic power over one another for having fame.)
Maybe I'm just burned out on the Italian Renaissance, and Medici Florence in particular--this morning while thinking about the book in the shower I found myself grateful that Gregory Maguire at least used the Borgias instead of the Medicis in Mirror Mirror.
Flist, a question--is the world really as filled with fantasy novels set in Renaissance Italy as I think it is, or is it just that I am prone to stumble across them?
