Allison & Busby
Featuring: Francesco Rondinelli; Antonio della Fontana; Elena Morandi
291 pages ISBN: 0749031840 EAN: 9780749031848 Kindle: B0D689YH13 Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Bologna, a walled city in Italy, prospered in 1575. Elena Morandi, a young orphan, can think of no better place to work with fine fabrics than this CITY OF SILK. Her father was a tailor and, having left the Baraccano orphanage, she works as a seamstress. Her life is about to change again.
Antonio della Fontana is a wealthy and morally corrupt merchant, who enjoys carrying influence through the city. He mistreats the orphan girls on a regular basis. Elena hopes she has escaped the man, but that’s not the case. We mainly see the merchant and guild class of characters, such as Francesco Rondinelli, a tailor with his shop and staff, who concedes an apprentice tailor’s job to Elena provided nobody finds out. Girls should know their place, which is not working alongside men. The seamstress Signora Ruffo had trained Elena for three years, but the girl would only ever sew women’s clothing with her, and she wanted to do more. I don’t understand why Elena wanted to leave the sure and comfortable work of sewing dresses, though, at the time, she just needed to leave the seamstress’s employment. The orphanage only contracts girls for three years and then requires a respectable marriage.
No wedding is considered for another seamstress, Sofia, a West African woman; she was taken from her home and sold. While now free, she can’t walk across the piazza without being stared at or jeered in this landlocked city. Both girls display fine craftsmanship, and anyone who enjoys working with fabric will feel the sensory delights of this tale.
This is women’s historical fiction and is not suitable for young adults under sixteen. The medieval city, with its trades, arts, plagues and reeks, is brought skilfully to life. While we are told Bologna produces its silk from mulberry trees and silkworms, that’s the one area we are not actually shown. Elena gets a whiff of the stench – which I would think is from the worms killed in vinegar and rotting – which attaches to the low-paid, low-regarded, women who are employed to wind the silk threads from cocoons. Like everything in those times, finery came with a cost, and luxurious lifestyles were only for the tip-top of the populace.
Glennis Virgo won an award for the first novel produced by an author over 50, with CITY OF SILK. I believe this was very well deserved, and I will look forward to her next novel. She lives in England and has worked as a teacher and principal. A visit to Bologna, and much research, inspired her impressive, exciting, historical debut.
Elena Morandi has gained a fragile foothold in the workshop of a master tailor, despite the profession being officially barred to her as a woman. But then a powerful man from her past crosses her path and threatens everything she has worked for. Antonio della Fontana has every corner of the city in his pocket and, as Elena knows all too well, he abused his position of power at the Baraccano orphanage. Driven to fight for justice against a man seemingly above the law, Elena hatches a plan to get retribution for herself, a lost friend and those still prey to Fontana's abuses.
With sumptuous detail that brings the sights, sounds and textures of Renaissance Italy to vivid life, City of Silk is a breathtaking historical fiction debut.
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