His Last Duchess (32 page)

This novel was originally inspired by Robert Browning's monologue “My Last Duchess,” rather than by historical events. It was only after beginning to explore the poem in greater depth, as I began to rough out the initial outline of my book, that I discovered—much to my surprise—that Browning's eponymous characters had really existed.

While I have taken every care to research my novel meticulously, and while the social history is as accurate as I can possibly make it, this remains at heart a work of fiction, and where I have needed to tweak historical facts or rejig geographical locations to allow the smooth passage of my plot, I have taken the liberty of so doing.

The actual facts pertinent to the story are these.

Alfonso d'Este (Alfonso II) was the fifth Duke of Ferrara and in 1559 he married the Medici heiress, Lucrezia. Three years later, she disappeared from the records. The various sources I have explored have differing opinions on the matter: some suspect foul play, some believe she died from natural causes. Browning himself said that while he had toyed with the idea that Alfonso had had Lucrezia committed to a convent, he preferred to think that the duke had ordered her demise.

Alfonso married twice more after Lucrezia: Barbara of Austria, and Margherita Gonzaga, Barbara's niece.

Alfonso spent much of his childhood in Ferrara without his mother, Renée, a Calvinist Frenchwoman, who was banished from court by her husband over a matter of blasphemy. As I understand the accounts, she stood in defence of one of her French servants, who had been accused of blaspheming before the Blessed Sacrament in the duchess's chapel and because of this she was sent away from court for many years.

It is also a matter of historical fact that the Vatican reclaimed the rights to the Duchy of Ferrara, because of Alfonso's lack of legitimate issue. The Este family retained rights to Modena and Reggio, and—as in the novel Alfonso fears will happen—their importance as a dynasty was drastically reduced.

I suppose in the end it was not an unpleasant evening.

As I lay wrapped in silk like a spider's supper last night, waiting for Vasquez to arrive, I passed the time wondering what my new patron would be like. And, now that I've lain with him, I know that he's greedy. Maestre Miguel Vasquez is a greedy man—greedy for me, greedy for food, greedy for life. His appetites for both his fine suppers and my body would appear to be irrepressible. At times last night I felt that he might almost devour me…my lips are tingling this morning—they're quite bruised from his attentions—and my poor breasts are almost numb.

He says little, the Maestre. But there's a fervent eagerness about him—an unsettling intensity that seemed not far from desperation at times yesterday. Has he always been like this, I wonder, or is it just that he has been waiting a long time for an encounter such as we had last night?

Perhaps he will relax a little more next time.

I hope so. Appetites like his often lead to trouble.

There are just so many people to thank! First of all, of course, thank you to my family—to Steve, to my lovely daughters Katie and Beattie, and to Ricky. Thank you to my sisters: Vicky Kimm, Buffy Kimm and Fiona Kimm; to my very special friends Cathy Mosely, Sahra Gott and Becky Paton; to Kate Goodhart, to Annie Thomson, to Chloe White and to Professor Michael Irwin—all of whom in their different ways and at different times have offered their opinions and their time honestly, generously and without ever pulling their punches. A big, big thank you to Rebecca Saunders, my editor at Little, Brown, and to Judith Murray, my agent. Many thanks to Shana Drehs and to all at Sourcebooks in the USA. And thanks and love to my dedicatees—my parents.

I am very grateful too, to those who have generously offered practical knowledge, expertise and assistance: the remarkable Tod Todeschini, my Renaissance Scene of Crime Officer; Mark Wade Stone, an expert on the dangerous business of lime-slaking; Dr Jono Prosser, psychiatrist; Susan North of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Roy Figgis, who advised on period lighting; my late sister-in-law, Mary Rowlands-Pritchard, for peace and solitude in Calmynsy. Thank you to all of those who offered help with early drafts of the book—even if your input didn't make the final cut, it was all of enormous help. And to Stephanie Norgate and all the tutors on the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester—thank you so much, all of you! My debt to you all is considerable.

Several books were of great value:
Daily
Life
in
Renaissance
Italy
by Elizabeth Cohen and Thomas Cohen;
The
Cardinal's Hat
by Mary Hollingsworth;
The
Story
of
Art
by E. H. Gombrich;
Practical
Falconry
by (the late and utterly delightful) Gage Earl Freeman;
Gender
and
Society
in
Renaissance
Italy
by Judith Brown and Robert Davis;
Il
Castello
di
Ferrara
by Marco Borella;
Cafaggiolo, La Villa de' Medici nel Mugello
by Mattia Tiraboschi; and
Inside
the
Renaissance
House
by Elizabeth Currie. For advice on the painting of frescos, I spent many hours poring over the invaluable information provided on the Internet by the estate of the late Lucia Wiley. Any historical or technical errors in the novel will quite certainly be mine, and not those of any of the above authors.

How much research did you have to do for
His
Last
Duchess
?

A simple answer would be—a massive amount! After I had got over the initial excitement of hatching the idea for
His
Last
Duchess
, I remember sitting back and wondering what on earth I had started. I knew next to nothing about the Renaissance and not a lot more about Italy—there was going to have to be a monumental amount of research done if the book was going to be in any way credible. So I read and read for months before starting to write, learning about fresco-painting, sixteenth-century food, clothes, architecture, the politics and geography of the country…the list goes on, and the research didn't stop when I began the narrative: it has continued right the way through the writing of the book. New plot ideas continually throw up new areas of ignorance, and then new research can in turn inspire alternative plot developments. I also did a fair amount of hands-on research: I spent a day flying falcons, for instance, and passed a fascinating evening with a psychiatrist friend, analysing Alfonso. I struck up email correspondences with costume curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum; I was introduced to a historical forensics wizard who helped me set up my “scene of crime” at the end of the book, and, perhaps best of all, I made a magical visit to Ferrara and to Cafaggiolo, which was truly inspirational for me—to be in the place where the real people had once lived, even as I was dreaming up my own version of their lives.

What made you focus on the story of Lucrezia and Alfonso in particular?

Browning's poem. I first met Browning's “My Last Duchess” as an undergraduate, and loved it. I was fascinated by the character of the duke and found him irresistibly sinister. He seems to revere this painting of his wife, describing the “depth and passion” of her “earnest glance” with enthusiasm—but then, within a few lines of these compliments, he admits to having loathed her enough to have had her permanently silenced. The complex psychology behind these contradictory stances fascinated me; I wondered whether the duke's description of his wife's thoughtless and promiscuous flirtatiousness could possibly be trustworthy. Could I believe anything said by such an apparently amoral character? What had the duchess
actually
been like? Were her husband's accusations justified, or were they merely the misperceptions of a damaged mind?

I don't know exactly what it was that gave me the idea of turning these musings into a novel—all I remember is that I was listening to something entirely unconnected on the radio a few years ago, and then it was like one of those moments in cartoons where a character has a light bulb appear over their head—I just suddenly knew that turning it into a novel was what I had to do. In that instant, the basic plot and who my characters were and what the outcome of the story would be came to me. One minute the idea for the novel didn't exist and the next minute it did. It was a wonderfully exhilarating moment. The book has been through seven or eight major re-drafts since then, but the germ of that initial inspiration has remained intact throughout.

What would you most like your readers to get out of this novel?

Oh, that's a difficult question. Although
His
Last
Duchess
is, technically, a “historical novel,” I have always seen it as being much more character- and plot-driven than history-driven. In the end, it's a story about people who just happen to live where and when they do. So I suppose I would most like readers to empathize with my characters and to feel fully involved in their story and their world for the duration of the novel—and I hope very much that they'll enjoy what they learn about sixteenth-century Italy along the way.

Were there any things you found particularly difficult to write?

Probably some of Alfonso's scenes. Right from the start, I found it fairly oppressive spending any significant amount of time with the Duke of Ferrara. Although I found him challenging and fascinating to write, he is such a difficult, damaged man, and some of the things he thinks and says are so unpleasant and misogynistic. I frequently found that on occasions when I had spent hours intimately cooped up with him, as it were, I ended up feeling quite tense and tetchy, and on one occasion, trying to commit to paper one of his more appalling utterances, I sat with a pen in my hand for literally twenty minutes, physically unable to write what I wanted him to say.

Which authors of historical fiction do you admire?

I grew up with Rosemary Sutcliff's wonderful historical children's novels, of which my favourites were
The
Queen
Elizabeth
Story
and
The
Armourer's House
. They are charming and atmospheric and beautifully written, and have truly stood the test of time (I re-read them a few years ago with my own children and enjoyed them all over again). In terms of modern historical fiction—difficult to pick favourites, but I particularly like Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters and Sarah Dunant.

Can you tell us something about your next novel?

When I came to the end of
His
Last
Duchess
, I felt that I had discovered all I wanted to know about almost all of the characters—except Francesca Felizzi, Alfonso's long-suffering mistress. Francesca continued to intrigue me, and I began to feel that I really ought to give her some more space to develop. At the end of this book, she runs away from Alfonso and from potential trouble, and sets off for Napoli, ready to face whatever life throws at her. As I imagined her there, the idea for
The Courtesan's Lover
began to burgeon. I would, I decided, set the scene some three years after the end of
His
Last
Duchess
; and Francesca would be forging a new career…as a courtesan.

So is it a sequel to
His
Last
Duchess
?

No, not really. I suppose you could describe it more as a spin-off. Anyone who has read this book will be familiar with Francesca and her children—the twins play a much more significant part in
The Courtesan's Lover
than they did in the first book—and there are one or two passing references to events in
His
Last
Duchess
, but the story does definitely stand alone.

How is it different from
His
Last
Duchess
?

I suppose the flippant answer would be…further south, and more sex! But seriously, the two books are very different in tone.
The Courtesan's Lover
centres around the character of Francesca and how she experiences the complicated psychological burden of the life of a courtesan.

I have moved away from the noble court into the lives of working people in this book. The cast of characters includes not just the courtesan but (among others) a university professor, a castrato soprano, a scurrilously immoral entrepreneur and a privateer.

I've told the story in a different way, too. I divided the narrative in two—Francesca narrates her own chapters, while the rest is told in the third person. As well as creating a sense of isolation for her, this first-person narrative strand has allowed me—and will hopefully allow the reader—to experience Francesca's emotions particularly intensely. She has some horribly difficult choices to make in this book, and working with her as she made those choices has been a very liberating experience for me as a writer.

1. Is Alfonso beyond redemption? Or is it possible to forgive him in the light of his damaged character?

2. Discuss the Castello Estense as a “character” in the book. To what extent do you think its imposing physical presence impacts the people who live in it?

3. What is it about Lucrezia that renders Alfonso impotent, when he so clearly has such a vigorous sexual appetite elsewhere? Discuss his relationships with the various women in the book—Lucrezia, Francesca and Agnese de Rovigo. What do you think the liaison between Alfonso and Agnese was like while it lasted?

4. Why do you think Lucrezia and Jacomo were so quickly drawn to each other? How do you imagine their life unfolding beyond the end of the book? Will they be good for each other?

5. If you could pick just three words to describe Alfonso's character, what would they be and why?

6. And Lucrezia—which three words would best sum up the last duchess, do you think?

7. To what extent in the novel can you see the influence of the Robert Browning poem that originally inspired it?