Review: THE LOVER'S PATH by Kris Waldherr

In the intricate, exuberant manner of the Renaissance art to which it pays homage, Kris Waldherr's lavishly illustrated novella THE LOVER'S PATH tempts and tantalizes the reader into a unique reading experience. Originally released as a print book in 2005, Waldherr has recast her tale of forbidden love as an interactive iPad e-book. Convincing in itself, the fictional confession of a female musician's journey on the path of true love gains a patina of authenticity from the nest of maps, scholarly articles, museum brochures and other ephemera which encompasses it. The result is an intriguing artifact that blurs the boundaries between word and image, fact and fiction, myth and lived experience and haunts the reader's thoughts long after the screen goes dark.

The kernel of Walderr's book is Filamena Ziani's personal narrative, purportedly published in 1543 and dedicated to the musician's patroness on the occasion of her wedding. Wishing to demonstrate that, in order to truly love another, it it necessary to follow the lover's path wherever it might take one, Filamena reveals her own story. Orphaned in infancy, she is raised by her older sister Tullia, a famed Venetian courtesan. Tullia's assiduity in securing generous patrons allows the sisters to live in luxury, yet Tullia yearns to provide Filamena a future independent of the favor of men. Accordingly, she confines her sister to the house and limits her interaction with guests. Chafing at these restrictions, Filamena schemes to use her voice to win the patronage of a visiting cardinal. Her plan founders when Angelo, the cardinal's illegitimate son, falls in love with her after hearing her sing at Tullia's feast. Filamena surrenders her heart to this youth who sends her a book of maps and myths to guide her along the path of love. Fueled by startling revelations and mistaken identities, events mount  to a bittersweet conclusion, one that ultimately teaches Filamena that, though the world be "a place of wondrous complexities, of unreasonable sorrows and unimaginable triumphs," it can never part her from the love she finds along the path.

Waldherr takes pains to create an aura of authenticity around Filamena's confession. She models Filamena's voice on letters and dialogues penned by Renaissance women writers. Weaving archetypal stories throughout Filamena's tale, she provides the allegorical commentary typical of sixteenth century narrative. Her stunning visual design evokes an unmistakable Renaissance aesthetic in its scrollwork borders, illustrated capitals, and fanciful section markers, elements that counterbalance the more modern sensibility of the book's lavish illustrations.

Waldherr's efforts to further an illusion of authenticity do not end with the material of the narrative itself. In a daring creative ploy, the author creates an elaborate extra-textual scaffolding to validate Filamena's sixteenth century world. The book opens with a letter from the supposed curator of the Museo di Palazzo Filomela that discusses Filomena's life in its historical context and celebrates the present book as the first English translation of her original Italian work. Following the story, the interactive article "About the Museo" outlines the museum's history as Filamena's former residence and provides a map that ingeniously displays the book's archetypal illustrations as frescoes on its gallery walls. By clicking on various rooms, the reader may examine artifacts from Filamena's life "currently on display," such as her travel journal and a decorated violin. The assurance that additional artifacts and documents will join the current exhibits as soon as they are uncovered contributes to the unsettling feeling that this museum, and the life it chronicles, might just perhaps be real.

So convincingly does Waldherr present her material, I must admit I did a little Googling to make sure  the book, the museum, and Filamena herself were but the products of the author's fecund imagination. My admiration for Waldherr's impressive talents quickly overcame my disappointment at never being able to visit the Museo di Palazzo Filomela in person. Yet I can, and will, return to Filamena's imagined world again and again. Obtain a copy and travel THE LOVER'S PATH for yourself. This marvelous e-book is as seductive and satisfying as the love it purports to relate.

[Please note: Only the iPad edition of THE LOVER'S PATH is interactive. The other e-book formats contain identical content, but without the interactive features. ]

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You can learn more about THE LOVER'S PATH and how to order at loverspathbook.com. For a deeper look at Kris Waldherr's books, art, and apps, visit her website.

The Captive King

Last we saw of King François, he had been taken prisoner by imperial forces at the disastrous Battle of Pavia (24 February 1525). French troops, fighting to recapture the duchy of Milan that François's predecessor Louis XII had lost, were surrounded and roundly defeated by Charles V's army. The King of France's captivity at the hand of the Holy Roman Emperor would last a little over a year and color the two monarchs' relationship for the duration of their reigns.

After the battle, François was taken to the Castle of Pizighettone near Cremona, where he remained for three months in the custody of the Spanish captain. Captured companions accompanied him, including his childhood friend Anne de Montmorency (who would remain François's most trusted counselor and eventually rise to the most powerful political position in France). These men were eventually given safe-conducts that enabled them to travel back and forth between Italy and France to negotiate the king's release. François appointed his mother, Louise de Savoye, regent during his absence. Louise established her court at Lyons, near the Italian border, to facilitate communications with her son and the emperor.

If François and his mother had hoped that Charles would quickly release him for a cash ransom, they were mistaken. Charles presented a long list of demands that included paying Charles's debts to Henry VIII, abandoning French claims to Milan and Genoa, and most importantly, ceding the duchy of Burgundy. The emperor planned to seal the settlement through the marriage of his niece, Mary of Portugal, to the Dauphin. Although François appeared amenable to some of the terms, he refused to negotiate as long as he continued to be held prisoner. He forwarded Charles's terms to Louise, who rejected them outright.

Hoping to cut short negotiations made all the lengthier by the distance separating the two courts, François begged for a face-to-face meeting with Charles. In June, he was taken to Spain on a fleet of galleys decorated in his honor, given a royal welcome in Barcelona, then moved to Valencia. He asked that his sister Marguerite be given safe-conduct to negotiate a peace, that he be moved closer to the site of negotiations for easier consultation, and that a truce be declared while the talks were in progress. Charles agreed to all three requests, yet continued to avoid meeting with François in person.

When the French ambassadors met with Charles in Toledo, the emperor continued to dismiss any discussion of a ransom. He was willing to make some concessions in his original demands, but claimed there could be no lasting peace as long as Burgundy remained in French hands. France, however, refused to consider surrendering the region; in fact, François, now in Madrid, made a secret declaration to the French ambassadors that he would never surrender Burgundy freely and that, if forced to do so, his action would be null and void.

Charles almost lost his opportunity to profit from the situation when François nearly died in September from a combination of acute depression, anorexia and a nasal abscess. The French king ran a fever for twenty-three straight days and lapsed into a semi-coma after Charles did, finally, come to see him. Later in the month, the abscess burst and François unexpectedly recovered. Peace talks resumed, this time facilitated by Marguerite, who had arrived during her brother's illness, but were suspended once again when Charles found the proposals unacceptable.

By the end of the year, the strain of the king's absence was growing too great for the kingdom. Louise de Savoye decided to abandon Burgundy and convinced François to accept Charles's terms. On January 14, 1526, the parties signed the Treaty of Madrid. In return for his freedom, François ceded Burgundy and abandoned his claims to Italy. He also agreed to hand over his two oldest sons as hostages until the terms of the treaty were fulfilled. In return, he demanded the hand of Charles's sister Eléonore in marriage, in order to keep her from marrying Charles de Bourbon, the prince of the blood who had sided with Charles during the war. Charles, swayed by advisors who believed the French king could be trusted, agreed. Little did he know that two days before the French king signed the treaty, he had made another secret declaration nullifying the surrender of Burgundy.

Betrothed by proxy to Eléonore in January, François remained in Madrid until mid-February, possibly for health reasons. Charles arrived, and together they traveled to meet Eléonore. A few days later, Charles set off to Seville to marry Isabella of Portugal, and François began the long journey back to France with his Spanish escort. The heartrending exchange of the monarch for his two young sons, which deserves a post of its own, was set for March 17 on the river Bidassoa.

[Source: The material for this post was condensed from R. J. Knecht's account in Renaissance Warrior and Patron, pp. 216-48.]

The Impossible Dream

François I had a dream, a single goal that motivated the foreign policy of his entire reign: the recovery of the duchy of Milan, a region of Italy he had inherited from his great-grandmother, Valentina Visconti, and which had been lost by his predecessor, Louis XII. In 1515, very first year of his reign, François launched an expedition into Italy and succeeded in securing Milan after a stunning victory at Marignano. It was an auspicious beginning which brought him much glory and established his reputation as roi-chevalier, or knightly king.

However, to retain control in Milan, the French needed the support and cooperation of the Pope, Leo X. François initially received Leo's support, but in 1520, the Hapsburg prince Charles V was elected Holy Roman Emperor and Leo signed a treaty of alliance with him instead. In August 1521 the Emperor (who controlled Spain and Flanders and was promised Naples by the Pope) attacked the north-east border of France. The first of an ongoing series of wars between François and Charles began.

After a significant loss to imperial forces at La Bicocca in April 1522, the French lost much of the area they had seized; only the castle of Milan and Cremona remained in French hands. Henry VIII soon entered the war on the imperial side. The rebellion of the duke Charles de Bourbon, Constable of France (a story worthy of its own post), complicated things immensely for François, for Bourbon entered into league with the Emperor and the English king. François's enemies plotted to attack on three fronts. When Bourbon was routed from Marseilles in 1524, François saw the opportunity to invade Italy, a plan he had deferred for years. He crossed the Alps at the head of his troops, determined to recreate his earlier success at Marignano.

Milan had been abandoned by the imperialist troops, so the French army followed them to the city of Pavia, a heavily fortified town whose garrison was commanded by one of the best generals of the day. For four months the French lay siege to the town but refused to be drawn into the open. Finally, during the night of 23 February 1525, the imperial forces staged a surprise attack on the French, who were camped in the walled park of Mirabello. François, forewarned, charged at the head of his cavalry but got in the way of his own guns. This blunder destroyed any chance of victory and the French troops, exposed to imperial arquebusiers and left shorthanded by the failure of their Swiss mercenaries to arrive, were quickly decimated. The French noblemen fought bravely, many in hand-to-hand combat on horseback, but were unable to hold back the imperial tide.

François himself was surrounded by imperial soldiers, each of whom wanted to claim the honor of capturing him. A steward of Bourbon, La Mothe, finally took him prisoner, but François refused to surrender until Charles de Lannoy, the Viceroy of Naples (who shared command of the imperial army with the duc de Bourbon), arrived. To him François gave up his sword, along with his dream of another glorious Italian victory. Adding to the blow was the loss of many of the king's closest childhood friends and comrades in the battle. Topping everything, François, along with Anne de Montmorency and a dozen or so other high-ranking noblemen, became prisoners of his arch-enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. François's captivity at Charles's hands would last more than a year and permanently color relations between the two rulers ever after.

[Source: R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron, chapters 8-11]

Tapestry of the Battle of Pavia

Remote Viewing

A few weeks ago, I posted about the exhibit "Art and Love in Renaissance Italy" at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Blogging friend and travel writer Angela Nickerson had the opportunity to view the exhibit and wrote up her impressions. Visit her blog Just Go! to learn more. Thanks, Angela!

Art and Love in Renaissance Italy

I just discovered this exhibition running at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art through February 16: "Art and Love in Renaissance Italy." Here is the description of the exhibit, taken from the Met website:

This exhibition explores the various exceptional objects created to celebrate love and marriage in the Italian Renaissance. The approximately 150 objects, which date from about 1400 to the mid-16th century, range from exquisite examples of maiolica and jewelry given as gifts to the couple, to marriage portraits and paintings that extol sensual love and fecundity, such as the Metropolitan’s Venus and Cupid by the great Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto. The exhibition also includes some of the rarest and most significant pieces of Renaissance glassware, cassone panels, birth trays, and drawings and prints of amorous subjects.

There is a link to view photographs of various objects displayed, as well as links to the Met's excellent essays on Renaissance art topics. What a wonderful exhibit! Anyone had the good fortune to attend?