The Day Laid on the Altar

Despite near-flawless prose, this closely observed foray into the 16th-century art world offers little emotional ballast in its enveloping, ambitious range. Bernardi, best known as a translator of Italian authors, won the Bakeless Prize for first fiction with this novel, which juxtaposes the experiences of both famous and obscure painters in an Italy gripped by religious fervor, racked by plague and on the verge of developing new techniques that will transform the powers of art. Loosely intersecting characters drift in and out of the narrative, with little plot to structure their movement. Bartolomeo de Bartolai, an isolated shepherd in the Apennines, creates elaborate drawings and mosaics with near-religious devotion on the threshing floor of his barn; indeed, the peasants call his painting surface an ""altar."" While Bartolomeo toils in obscurity, his irreverent schoolboy friend, Martin de Martinelli, heads to Florence and then Venice to make his fortune as a fresco painter. Martin meets with luck as an artist, but ends up imprisoned by the church for his radical religious views. His life intersects with members of the household of the legendary Titian, depicted here as a charismatic but demanding old man. Titian's children--failed Pompiono, loyal Orazio and beloved Lavinia--also figure in the narrative. Bernardi delves into the consciousnesses of half a dozen characters, but her book would have benefited from a tighter focus and less sweeping scope. (Aug.) FYI: Bernardi's collection of short stories, In the Gathering Woods, won the 2000 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press this fall.