Cantarella is a rare manga that follows real historic people, in this case the Borgia family. The main character is Cesare Borgia, and the narrative follows him as he grows up and takes on his destiny. I enjoyed how it tried to follow a more neutral path than many other stories about this family. For people who have enjoyed the Assassins Creed games you might find this confusing, but then Cantarella takes a lot less artistic license than the games.
The art is gorgeous.
One thing that might be a bit off putting is the amount of violence in this series, although I don't think it's excessive considering the time period. There is also a bit of mystical stuff to hinder the true historian. Cesare's father sells his son's soul to become Pope, etc. Given that this is set in medieval/ Renaissance period I think that it still fits the the story.
I haven't read much of this series yet, but I plan to finish it soon. I really started to feel for the main characters and how they were trapped and shaped by the ambitions of the people around them. Of course it's easy to enjoy if you are new to the story, or if you already know it and can see the foreshadowing. At the very least it makes reading about history fun and rich, and oh so pretty to look at.
Cool. I read a biography of Lucretia in 1984, it was new at the time. Very interesting. It showed her as an intelligent woman more at the mercy of her father's and brother's political machinations than as someone personally embroiled in them.
ReplyDeleteDid you know there is a couple of books at the Public which are murder mysteries and have Lucretia as the sleuth?
I didn't, but that's pretty cool. I did a paper on Italian Renaissance women, they all seemed pretty cool. I think they were given a lot of freedom relative to other women of the time. Well the rich ones were at least! I think you are right about Lucretia, I get the impression that her father and brother made her very unhappy with all their scheming.
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