Finishing Dunant's "Sacred Hearts"

I have really taken my time with Sacred Hearts - often reading just five or ten pages a day, rarely as many as twenty-five. I don't read a lot of fiction, but have enjoyed this work more than probably any other over the past few years. In part this is because the period in which this is set is one which I have been actively studying over the last year. In part it is because of a couple of articles by Dunant that I have read over the last couple of years. One was about living part of the year in rented accommodation in Florence as a base for research. The other was a more recent article about the convent communities and focused on O'Faolain's Women in the Walls. Partly it is due to the level of research involved - an excellent use of sources I thought (about one-fifth of which I know).

But of course it is, in the end, down to the quality of the story and writing. The characterisation of the two main leads - Serafina and Zuana - was magnificent. I particularly felt for Zuana and the gradual realisation that her life of learning was under threat. The decision towards the end to use some of her precious books to provide weight for a coffin was, I thought, deeply moving. Like all great fiction, it was sad to come to the end. I would love to have read a continuation of the story into the period when the Council of Trent reforms began to make themselves felt. There is a suggestion at the end that these met with strong resistance. It would have been good to see this addressed. But I do have other books that cover this

Serafina and Jacopo are in rather a difficult situation by the end. She has been badly affected physically by the fasting regime in the convent, he from the street attack. I was particularly taken by a piece from one sentences towards the end - "That for all that they had been through, they will care for, as well as love, each other . . ." I found this an incredibly sad line and one that has prompted lots of thought about other areas of my life.

I have, of course, started on another Sarah Dunant renaissance novel on finishing this one, The Birth of Venus