⋙ Descargar Gratis The Malice of Fortune Michael Ennis Books

The Malice of Fortune Michael Ennis Books

Download As PDF : The Malice of Fortune Michael Ennis Books

The Malice of Fortune Michael Ennis Books

The name Machiavelli and its related adjective, Machiavellian, summon up an image of clever, convoluted evil, gaining its ends through deception and manipulation of others. Many people therefore assume that Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote The Prince, the book from which these ideas grew, was himself a person of this kind, or at least approved of such behavior. As this fictional mystery—and the history on which it is based, apparently—make clear, however, this was not the case. On the contrary, Machiavelli was a thoughtful, honest, and (at least as portrayed in this book) even kind individual, a serious student of political science. The description did, however, apparently fit the “Prince” he described, Cesare Borgia, here usually called by his nickname of Valentino—even if Borgia may not have been guilty of the exact crimes Ennis ascribes to him.

Most of the characters in this story are real historical figures, and they make quite a lineup: not only Machiavelli and Borgia, but Borgia’s father, Rodrigo, who became Pope Alexander VI, an all-powerful political figure in the Europe of his time; Leonardo da Vinci; and Damiata, the mistress of Rodrigo Borgia’s murdered son, Juan. Much less is known about Damiata than about the others, so she is fairly heavily fictionalized in the book. Damiata, Machiavelli, and Leonardo all have reasons to want to identify the murderer of a series of women whose remains are treated in a particularly complex and gruesome manner, and they work together to trace him and try to work out the reasons behind his bizarre actions.

The characters were appealing, and I enjoyed the interaction between Damiata, Machiavelli, and Leonardo, different as they were. The mystery was intriguing, though the most likely murderer was not very hard to guess; his motives, however, remained fairly obscure. I think my greatest pleasure, though, was learning more about Machiavelli and finding that he was not a villain after all, but merely the observer of one.


Tags : Amazon.com: The Malice of Fortune (9780385536318): Michael Ennis: Books,Michael Ennis,The Malice of Fortune,Doubleday,0385536313,Thrillers - General,Courtesans;Fiction.,Illegitimate children;Crimes against;Fiction.,Serial murderers;Fiction.,Courtesans,Crimes against,FICTION Mystery & Detective Historical,Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction Historical,Fiction Thrillers General,Fiction Thrillers Suspense,Historical - General,Illegitimate children,Mystery & Detective - Historical,Mystery And Suspense Fiction,MysterySuspense,Serial murderers,Thrillers - Historical

The Malice of Fortune Michael Ennis Books Reviews

The Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, sends the "honest courtesan" Damiata, former lover of his favorite bastard son, Juan, out from Rome to learn who murdered Juan on his way from the Pope's palace to Damiata's home. Alexander holds her young son (his grandson) hostage in Rome as guarantee for her behavior.

In a dense tale of the politics, religion and witchcraft of the Renaissance, Damiata struggles to pierce a web of intrigue woven around Alexander's older bastard son and general of his armies, Duke Valentino, Cesare Borgia. She finds assistance from his engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, and the frustrated representative of Florence to the Duke, Niccolo Machiavelli, long before he wrote "The Prince." As Damiata struggles on the edge of battles and sieges to survive long enough to learn the truth and retrieve her son, Leonardo traces the actions and mind of a vicious serial killer, and Niccolo falls helplessly (and probably hopelessly) in love with her.

Michael Ennis tells a compelling tale of power, war and the perversity of man with marvelous detail, elegant description and intense suspense.
If you’ve read The Prince, you probably think you know the work of Niccolo Machiavelli. Chances are, you think of him — as I always did — as the Renaissance figure who lionized a lying, cheating, brutal scoundrel as the ideal political and military leader. Having read The Malice of Fortune, I know better now.

This historical novel, framed as a murder mystery in which Machiavelli plays the part of the detective, lays out the basis on which he wrote The Prince and illuminates his relationship with Cesare Borgia, known widely then as Duke Valentino, the subject of that famous book. The Malice of Fortune is based on historian and journalist Michael Ennis’ intensive research into primary sources, its characters and the events it portrays all solidly grounded in historical evidence. Machiavelli and Borgia did, indeed, have a relationship that verged on intimate.

The novel is set in Central Italy in 1502-3, with the action moving to and from Rome and through a succession of minor cities and towns where Duke Valentino and his troops were billeted. Machiavelli has been dispatched by the town fathers of Florence to follow Valentino and report his observations along the way, as their city feared a calamitous attack by the mercenary condottieri with whom Valentino was then negotiating a peace treaty. In the town of Imola, Machiavelli meets the bewitching courtesan known as Madonna Damiata, who has come in search of evidence that will point to the murder of Duke Gandia, her lover and father of her son. She quickly embroils Machiavelli in her search. They proceed on the assumption that one of the leaders of the condottieri is the murderer — but which one, and under what circumstances, is entirely unclear.

The Duke of Gandia, born Giovanni or Juan Borgia, is Duke Valentino’s (Cesare Borgia’s) younger brother. The two are sons of the then-reigning Pope, the notoriously corrupt Rodrigo Borgia, who ruled as Pope Alexander VI. (He was the same Pope who dictated the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 that divided the New World between Spain and Portugal, which resulted in Brazilians speaking Portuguese today while the rest of region speaks Spanish.) The two men’s notorious sister, Lucrezia, also figures in the story but in the background, never appearing on-scene.

Together, Machiavelli and Damiata, now a couple in love, pursue the truth through a tangle of murky circumstances that grow more confounding by the day. The quartered remains of a woman’s headless body are found in the vicinity of Imola with an amulet that had belonged to Juan Borgia. The two amateur sleuths uncover a lead to a brothel in Imola inhabited by whores who are also witches, and through them they learn that a certain Zeja Caterina, a noted witch, may be the key to learning the truth of Juan’s murder. Their visit to her home in the countryside triggers a number of new murders (including Zeja Caterina’s) and thrusts them into such great danger that they must go into hiding. Yet more murders come to light — and it becomes apparent that a single man, a serial murderer, is responsible.

Ennis’ story is told in four parts, the first couched as a letter from Damiata to her young son, Giovanni, for him to read when he turns twenty. The remaining three parts are written from Machiavelli’s perspective. The language mimics the formality of Renaissance Italy and employs a generous number of Italian words. Interestingly, regional linguistic differences play a part in the tale as well it was not until the nineteenth century that serious efforts got underway to establish a uniform national Italian tongue; during the Renaissance, such differences as those between Tuscan and Romagnola made the various dialects almost mutually unintelligible. Ennis, a more than competent historical scholar, appears to get it right.

Ennis’ introductory and closing remarks about (not in) the novel considerably enrich the reading experience. He first sets the historical context and lists the principal characters, then, at the end, clarifies Niccolo Machiavelli’s views on leadership and on Duke Valentino, his subject in The Prince.

The Malice of Fortune is an amazing story, and it just might be true.
The name Machiavelli and its related adjective, Machiavellian, summon up an image of clever, convoluted evil, gaining its ends through deception and manipulation of others. Many people therefore assume that Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote The Prince, the book from which these ideas grew, was himself a person of this kind, or at least approved of such behavior. As this fictional mystery—and the history on which it is based, apparently—make clear, however, this was not the case. On the contrary, Machiavelli was a thoughtful, honest, and (at least as portrayed in this book) even kind individual, a serious student of political science. The description did, however, apparently fit the “Prince” he described, Cesare Borgia, here usually called by his nickname of Valentino—even if Borgia may not have been guilty of the exact crimes Ennis ascribes to him.

Most of the characters in this story are real historical figures, and they make quite a lineup not only Machiavelli and Borgia, but Borgia’s father, Rodrigo, who became Pope Alexander VI, an all-powerful political figure in the Europe of his time; Leonardo da Vinci; and Damiata, the mistress of Rodrigo Borgia’s murdered son, Juan. Much less is known about Damiata than about the others, so she is fairly heavily fictionalized in the book. Damiata, Machiavelli, and Leonardo all have reasons to want to identify the murderer of a series of women whose remains are treated in a particularly complex and gruesome manner, and they work together to trace him and try to work out the reasons behind his bizarre actions.

The characters were appealing, and I enjoyed the interaction between Damiata, Machiavelli, and Leonardo, different as they were. The mystery was intriguing, though the most likely murderer was not very hard to guess; his motives, however, remained fairly obscure. I think my greatest pleasure, though, was learning more about Machiavelli and finding that he was not a villain after all, but merely the observer of one.