Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey

 

Chosen by the Gables Book Club for our April 2021 discussion was the historical fiction novel Oil and Marble.  It is a recounting of the rivalry between Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo in the first years of the 16th century. Each was working on a piece of art that would eventually define them through the centuries. Most of the members liked, but did not love the book. 

The novel is told in alternating chapters focusing on each of the artists. Michelangelo returned to Florence from Rome where his emotional sculpture, The Pieta, had recently been unveiled. It was not a triumphant return to his family, which was not enamored of his work as an artist. At the same time Leonardo had been commissioned to work on a mural, The Battle of Anghiari in Florence, while working on a dam and way to prevent the flooding of the Arno from washing out the city. The rivalry between the two artists started over the commission of a piece of stone, destined to eventually be sculpted into a piece of art. Leonardo lost that battle when Michelangelo created drawings that more impressed the city and church leaders. At the same time Leonardo meets Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a silk merchant. He is smitten with her and desires to paint her, a proposition he makes to her husband. 

Throughout the novel the reader is  privy to the hardships and struggles of both men to complete their projects. The physical pain and suffering of Michelangelo as he carves and polishes David, is intense and can almost be felt by the reader. The emotional battles of Leonardo as he falls in love with his Mona Lisa are almost as painful. As a backdrop to their hardships is the flooding of Florence, the burning of the Michelangelo home, and the conflicts of the Medicis, Borgias and the influence of Machiavelli. 

In her notes, Storey describes the liberties that she took in retelling this historical account. It was that liberty that many of the book club could not fully condone. However, for this reader, with that understanding, it was not unacceptable. Oil and Marble is an interesting read about the two men whose art is so important and well known over 500 years from its creation. The history of Florence as a city state is quite interesting and gives a perspective of life in that time frame. At the conclusion of the novel, Michelangelo meets a budding artist and encourages him. It is a direct tie-in to Storey's next novel, Raphael, which I will put on my "to be read list" for future considerations.