Rome, 1636: In the scorched city of Rome, the cobbled streets hum with gossip and sin…
Costanza Piccolomini is a respectable young wife – until she meets Gianlorenzo Bernini, the famed sculptor and star of Roman society, whose jet-black gaze matches his dark temper. From the second they set eyes upon each other, a fatal attraction is born.
Their secret love burns with a passion that consumes them. But with every stolen kiss and illicit tryst, Costanza’s reputation is at stake. Meanwhile, Bernini has a dangerous desire: he wants to make Costanza immortal. He vows to possess her not just in body and soul, but also in marble.
When Bernini unveils his sculpture of Costanza, she is exposed as his lover, marking the undoing of their affair – and the beginning of a scandal which will rock Roman society. For Bernini would rather destroy Costanza than let her go.
Betrayed. Abandoned. Banished. This was meant to be the end of Costanza’s story. But Costanza is no ordinary woman: from the ashes, she will rise…
This book made me cry, for so many reasons. Was it sad? Tragically so. Was it moving? Absolutely, the lead character has a life that we can barely imagine the harshness of. But what made me cry the most, was the discovery that as we all too often find out these days…an artistic hero of mine had lead shoes!
As a huge fan of Bernini, he is certainly talented with marble, the idea of the book appealed from the moment I saw it, the tale of this young sculptor and a woman he loved. While that is a great deal of the story, it opened my eyes up to the fact that in the era he lived, life was not only horrific to women, but it was a mirror of the way things remain, to a degree.
This book is a lesson in how you must separate art from artist (historically, at least) in order to be able to still appreciate the beauty of the art they created. Because talented while he may have been, Bernini was an absolutely awful and very narcissistic man.
Costanza is a story of love, pain, discovery and self-worth. It shows the lack of balance women experienced in the 17th century. Treated as second-class citizens, punished for their perceived misdeeds while the men who should accept 50% responsibility for their behaviour are allowed to carry on without repercussions.
Married to a man who loved men, a colleague to Bernini, Costanza catches the artist’s eye and thus begins an affair that triggers damaging jealousy, not from her husband, but from Bernini’s troublesome younger brother. Unable to persuade Costanza that she would be better off with him, Bernini’s brother assaults her and then tells his brother that she has chosen to be with him.
Of course, any passionate, jealous man would react with anger, but in this day and age, you would like to think that they wouldn’t immediately go and hire someone to assault her. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Bernini does, marking her as a woman lacking morals, and for this, she is not only punished with the scars of his anger but also sentenced to time in a convent.
Costanza’s treatment because of the jealousy of her lover is deplorable and the sad thing is that women are still judged like this today, shaming and perceived differently to the men who behave the same way.
I found myself crying at the end of the book because, after the horrendous betrayal at the hands of people who she believed to be friends, she found her place and worked hard to put the horrific events of her past where they belonged.
Though the story focuses mostly on the events that lead up to her punishment and betrayal, there are moments of brightness throughout. It is Costanza’s realisation that she doesn’t have to depend upon any man, whether he is her husband, lover, or father to be strong and find the right path for herself that gives the story its true joy.
If you love historical novels and tales of growth no matter what then this is one to devour.
