Perspective(s)

Binet (HHhH) paints an entertaining and layered portrait of art and politics in Renaissance Florence. The novel is largely composed of letters discovered in a 19th-century Tuscan antique shop by the narrator, a French tourist, who commits to faithfully translating them. From the letters, the reader learns of Giorgio Vasari’s investigation on behalf of the Duke of Florence into the murder of Jacopo da Pontormo, a painter who at the time of his death in 1557 was finishing a fresco deemed outrageous by Italy’s religious orders. Complicating the murder investigation is the discovery in Pontormo’s atelier of a portrait of the Duke’s daughter, Maria, as a naked Venus, which could sully the princess’s honor and jeopardize her politically calculated upcoming marriage. The letters recount Vasari’s interviews with other artists as he tries to get to the bottom of Pontormo’s death and determine the origin of the portrait. The cache also contains other correspondences, notably between Catherine of Medici, Queen of France, and the Duke’s daughter. Throughout, Binet weighs in on the importance of art via reflections from his characters, an undercooked theme compared to the crackerjack depiction of the period’s political intrigue. By the end, though, Binet masterfully weaves together the story’s multiple threads. Readers will be captivated. (Apr.)