Loredana: A Venetian Tale

by Lauro Martines and Federico Erebia

A riveting novel of politics and passion, love and lust in sixteenth-century Venice -- the story of two lovers caught up in a dangerous revolutionary movement -- written by a distinguished historian... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312347510
• ISBN13: 9780312347512
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Time Travel to Renaissance Venice

This is the second book by Martines that I have read, the first being A Fire in the City (a history of Florence during Savonarola's time). I hope to read more books by this author, who, as a scholar of the period brings the breadth of his researches to immediacy in his writings. As Martines has steeped himself in the period, so his books breathe and encompass formal "religion" and charity, politics and political intrigues, virtue and corruption, economy (including Venice's trading and complicity in slavery) and the just plain everyday living that went on in the early 1500's. The epistolary form he uses in Loredana serves up a small taste of what he has been poring over in archives during his long, scholarly career. For those of us who thought we knew Venice from the slides shown in Art History 101, Loredana is a revelation. I didn't think the sex scenes were overdone, and they were neatly balanced with scenes of asceticism. The characters hardly knew what to think or feel, so hypocritical and stratified was their society. Loredana, especially, was well drawn, reminding of other bawdy women in literature like the Wife of Bath and Moll Flanders. I think I can say, though, that Venice is the biggest character in the book, and like all human characters, it is tortured and divided about its identity.

Historical fiction at its best

Extremely well written novel. The reader lives the times and places of the novel, getting inside the minds of the two main characters, Loredana and Orso. The descriptions of their thoughts and feelings, specially Orso's are quite impressive. You feel so identified with them that their fate hurts. For a historian, you would expect the author to provide a vivid background for the novel, you can indeed live the life and times of Venice in in the early 16th century, but the depiction of the thoughts and feelings was quite inpressive. The description of the sexual encounters of Loredana is rather explicit, probably needed to make the reader understand her actions, but I believe that, while described with taste, they cheapen the novel. They are in brutal contrast with the high aims of Orso. But maybe such was life in Venice and she was a victim of those times. The plot is as described in the book presentation above, what it is not said is that it is a very tragic story, but one that is most likely realistic for the times. Venice rulers could be very ruthless, full of intrigue and protective of their interests. The novel describes very ably the repression and the struggle between the classes. Recommended for buffs of historical fiction.