THE MIRACLES OF PRATO

In Renaissance Italy, a painter who happens to be a monk models his frescos of the Blessed Virgin on a stunning maiden who happens to be a nun, in this dually written debut.

Fra (Brother) Filippo Lippi, of Prato, Tuscany, owes frescos and altarpieces to two churches, a merchant, a king and a very curmudgeonly guild of bankers. His reputation for down-to-earth representations of Mary and the saints has garnered him many commissions, but his weakness for wine, women and procrastination leaves him perpetually short of time and money. Fortunately, his patrons, the Medicis, have secured him a post as chaplain of the Convent of Santa Margherita, where two young siblings, Lucrezia and Spinetta, newly impoverished daughters of a recently deceased and posthumously disgraced Florentine silk merchant, have lately been enrolled as novices. Filippo is bedazzled when he meets Lucrezia in the garden of her elderly mentor, Sister Pureza. After a slow setup involving minute examination of Filippo’s craft and much diffidence about Lucrezia and Filippo’s growing attachment as she poses as his Madonna, the action finally accelerates. Lecherous prelate Prior Saviano catches Lucrezia alone in Filippo’s studio and rapes her. Filippo refuses to let Lucrezia return to the convent, which is under Saviano’s control. The two enter into informal matrimony with the blessing of a priest friend. Lucrezia’s pregnancy causes a scandal. The irate bankers vandalize Filippo’s studio and his chaotic domestic arrangements impede his creativity. After Lucrezia gives birth, her son is spirited away on Saviano’s orders. Sadly, the most riveting portion of the book, the hunt for the missing infant, occupies too few pages. In a foregone conclusion, the sacred Belt of the Blessed Virgin (an actual relic still housed in Prato) proves to be the salvation of the good and the ruination, or at least containment, of the bad.

Despite the convincing historical backdrop, the one-dimensional characters, whether invented or real, can’t sustain interest over long stretches of exposition.