Galileo’s Revenge: Or, A Cure for the Itch
Poison is quickly suspected in the sudden fatal illnesses of Francesco de’ Medici, Grand-Duke of Florence, and his duchess at Poggio a Caiano in 1587, where they had dined in the company of the Grand-Duke’s brother Cardinal Ferdinando, ultimately heir to the dukedom. Lewis extends the time it took Francesco to die and imaginatively makes the young Galileo a suspect.
The author starts by ‘telling’ us what is happening; the story really takes off later when he allows his characters some lively dialogue. Though Lewis is rumbustiously enthusiastic about his subject and knows his poisons, minerals, contemporary medical treatises – and his Ariosto – there are some oddities, such as the singing of “I am a jolly forester,” an English traditional song, and another by William Cornysh. Occasional puns that work only in English (like “hairy Mary, full of grease”) tend to dent authenticity and although Lewis has some delightful turns of phrase, such as “the collar of a mantle…so worn and slick…that a louse would slide off it,” he lapses sometimes into jarring modernisms like “Piss off. I’m well set up there.”
Some details needed closer checking: for instance, Carlo dal Pozzo is described as “from a good Roman family” (he was from Biella), and there is no Belgian language, but Flemish (Belgium as such did not exist then). Naming a character Dionysio Font is slightly too clever. But Lewis captures the sheer nastiness of Florence’s ruling family, their cruelty and their utter lack of moral compass, and the ending of his thriller – for that is what this is – has a most satisfying twist.
