To Die in Tuscany, David Wagner [best novel books to read .TXT] 📗

so its isolation is a small price to pay. For the most prominent Duke of Urbino, Federico II da Montefeltro, that isolation was just fine, a splendid location to hold court when not fighting wars. Federico took seriously the “fortune” part of the term “soldier of fortune”: he never formed alliances but instead fought strictly for cash. And he was good enough at warfare to amass a treasury that allowed him to enlarge his territory and create one of the most enlightened courts in Europe. The duke’s greatest pride was not his considerable skill in battle but a library that rivaled those of Italy’s great universities. Federico was also the patron of several of the finest artists of the time, including, of course, Piero della Francesca, whose work is frequently described in this book.

The reader will not be surprised that Piero is one of my favorite Renaissance artists, and you can check out his paintings on my website to understand why. Naturally, this book is a murder mystery, not an art history text, so my descriptions of his work are superficial at best, but I tried to be accurate. The best way to appreciate Piero is to go to Italy and seek out his work in Arezzo, Sansepolcro, Monterchi, and Urbino, as well as in museums in Florence and Milan. On one post-retirement trip, when my wife was studying art history at the University of New Mexico, we parked outside the walls of Rimini and hiked the length of the town just to see his faded fresco portrait of the young Sigismondo Malatesta. It is found inside the Tempio Malatestiano, designed by an architectural genius of the period, Leon Battista Alberti. (Alberti’s final work is featured in book five of the Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries, A Funeral in Mantova.) The trek to the Tempio was worth it.

You could say that Piero actually wrote the book on perspective—Di Prospectiva Pingendi was the title—and he used its mathematical principles in everything he painted, including the human figure. I have always found it fascinating that he died on October 12, 1492, the day that, thanks to Columbus, may have marked the beginning of the end of the Renaissance. If you are interested in learning more about him, I would recommend Piero della Francesca by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, the book I had in mind for one scene involving Betta.

Urbino’s most important native son is of course Raffaello, whom we know in English as Raphael. The house where he was born, now a museum, is featured in a final scene of the story. If you want to explore it without going to Urbino, you can do a virtual tour of its rooms and courtyard on the museum’s website: casaraffaello.com. When I finished writing the first draft of this book and was checking the veracity of some of its details, I noticed a news item in an Italian newspaper about some faded frescoes found in a chapel outside Urbino that one expert thought had been painted by a young Raphael. Tucked into the story was a mention that 2020 would mark five hundred years since the death of the master. I checked other sources and found that a series of major Raphael exhibits would be mounted during the quincentenary, including in Paris at the Louvre, Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale, and of course Urbino at the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, which is the scene of some of the action in this story. So, even though it was pure chance that I discovered it, I thought why not tie this real anniversary into the plot of a book of fiction? Obviously, I have no shame.

Sansepolcro, which Rick and Betta pass through all too quickly, is another small Tuscan city worth a visit. Most people, understandably, go there for the Civic Museum and its collection of Piero’s works, but there are other things to see inside this walled town, like its cathedral and the church of San Francesco. I must note that it has another famous native son besides Piero: Luca Pacioli, the mathematician who invented double-entry bookkeeping. Well, famous among accountants. West of Sansepolcro is the town of Anghiari, mentioned in the book as the birthplace of Somonte’s Italian mother. On the plain below the town, the Battle of Anghiari took place in 1440, one of the more famous engagements of the period, fought between a Milanese force and an army of Florentine and Papal troops. The victory was so important for Florence that it commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint the action on a wall in City Hall, but the work never got beyond the drawing stage and is still the subject of conjecture among art historians.

At one point in the book Rick is looking at a painting and wishing he had his book of Christian symbols to help him appreciate it. The book he refers to is one I have recommended to many a traveler to Italy, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art by George Ferguson. Why does the baby Jesus have a piece of coral hanging around his neck? Who is the saint filled with arrows? What’s the significance of the number seven? Ferguson explains it all. The book comes in paperback, so it’s easy to carry when walking through museums.

There is frequent reference in this book to the great Italian crime writer Andrea Camilleri. Just as I was finishing it, the news came that the author of the Montalbano series had passed away in Rome at the age of ninety-three. Whenever people ask me about other crime novels set in Italy that they should read, I always recommend his books, and I do so here.

My thanks go out to my good friend Richard Draper, a true Italophile, whose menu suggestions found their way onto the pages of this book.

As always, my wife, Mary, kept my feet to the fire and was the perfect sounding board for ideas and plot lines. She also helped with key details about the artists mentioned on these