Fictional account of the life of Lucrezia d’Medici, who grew up in Florence in the 16th century and married Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrera.

I bought it, I read it, I loved it....... and was charmed by Maggie O' Farrell's descriptive and vivid portrait of a woman attempting to free herself from the role created for her in life.

I have loved some (not all) of Maggie O' Farrell's novels. Among my favourites were [b:The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox|817670|The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox|Maggie O'Farrell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1331484986l/817670._SY75_.jpg|3050927] and [b:I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death|35137915|I Am, I Am, I Am Seventeen Brushes with Death|Maggie O'Farrell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517352695l/35137915._SY75_.jpg|55835303] and her last book [b:Hamnet|43890641|Hamnet|Maggie O'Farrell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1574943819l/43890641._SY75_.jpg|68289933]
[b:The Marriage Portrait|60353768|The Marriage Portrait|Maggie O'Farrell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1655741851l/60353768._SX50_.jpg|95173614]is a beautifully drawn historical fiction story where fact and fiction blends seamlessly together. I loved the sense of time and place and Florence of the 1550s.

Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, she has a free spirit to her, but when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will ensure the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

I really enjoyed this novel, it engaged me from the very first page, I was rooting for Lucrezia and harsh times that she was born into, where men ruled the world and women had to accept the fate of arranged marriage and their lives to be dictated to them by men.

Lucrezia is a memorable character and I enjoyed reading about the Medici family. There is a wonderful sense of time and place in this novel and I just loved how the author reimagines Lucrezia's life to bring us this beautiful novel.

The perfect Autumn read to curl up with by the fire. ( )

No puedo evitar comparar El Retrato de Casada con Hamnet. Desde el punto de vista literario (narrativa, estructura y estilo) ambos libros son muy similares y de la misma calidad. La gran diferencia está en sus protagonistas: mientras que Agnes es apasionante e intrigante (al punto que terminé enamorado de ella), Lucrezia es aburrida, monótona, lo que convierte la novela en una historia muy bien escrita pero simplona, que me aburrió en varios momentos. ( )

I should have read [b:The Marriage Portrait|60353768|The Marriage Portrait|Maggie O'Farrell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1655741851l/60353768._SX50_.jpg|95173614] on my epic train journey rather than [b:The Snail on the Slope|1535134|The Snail on the Slope|Boris Natanovich Strugatskii|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390080563l/1535134._SY75_.jpg|1527250] and [b:The Morville Hours|3278582|The Morville Hours|Katherine Swift|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394313576l/3278582._SY75_.jpg|3314880]. I was expecting it to be a dense and challenging historical novel, but it read to me like YA fiction. My baseline for historical fiction was set by [a:Hilary Mantel|58851|Hilary Mantel|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1582036110p2/58851.jpg], which is a tough act for other authors to follow! I found [b:The Marriage Portrait|60353768|The Marriage Portrait|Maggie O'Farrell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1655741851l/60353768._SX50_.jpg|95173614] an engaging read without really feeling transported to the historical time (1561) and place (Italy). The plot follows Lucrezia di Medici from her early years to the age of 16, by which time she's been married off to the Duke of Ferrara and he's trying to kill her. The chapters alternate her struggles in 1561 with flashbacks to how she got there. My favourite scene was the atmospheric moment when Lucrezia met a tiger as a child. Indeed, I found her upbringing at the Medici palazzo more interesting than her unfortunate marriage.

The narrative is not subtle, so I knew there would be some kind of twist. I was a bit disappointed by the ending. Lucrezia's maid Emilia, who looks a lot like her, is murdered in her place. It was hard to feel very glad that Lucrezia escaped when she made no attempt to take Emilia with her, nor even contemplated that she was leaving her maid to die. Emilia had just saved her life! I suppose this says something about the gulf between aristocracy and servants. The narrative goes out of its way to show Lucrezia's sympathy for servants in general and Emilia in particular, though. So I found this abrupt and tonally inconsistent. ( )

This historical fiction brings a teenaged Medici daughter, Lucrezia, to life as a strong willed girl whose defiance creates disturbance in the household of her father, Duke of Tuscany, and in the kingdom of her future husband, Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, in 1560. Lucrezia would rather paint than to become skilled at the womanly arts that will make her a typical woman in a royal court, powerless and decorative, married off to strengthen alliances. When her elder sister dies of a fever, Lucrezia is chosen to replace her as the bride of Alfonso, desperate for an heir. He is mercurial and surrounded by loyalists who despise the young Duchess. When Alfonso decides to have Lucrezia's portrait painted, everything shifts as she struggles to regain some agency and to survive the plot against her, as she is barren after a year of marriage. She is a brilliant heroine and the interior of her mind and the exterior riches and rivalries of court life are vividly rendered. ( )