The Keeper of Lost Art
Many great works of art survived World War II only because concerned people cooperated to hide them. This includes Botticelli’s exquisite Primavera, a celebration of love, youth, spring, and hope that spent the war imperfectly concealed under risky conditions in a Tuscan villa.
Inspired by the Primavera’s true story, Laura Morelli has produced an uplifting novel that’s both deeply felt and deeply informative, creating a vivid picture of the villa, its inhabitants, and the war-torn Italian countryside. We see all this through the clear eyes of Stella Costa, a young girl sent to the villa from Torino to stay with her harsh aunt and kindly uncles. She’s been evacuated just like the Primavera, which is locked away upstairs along with other masterpieces from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Formerly villa employees, the uncles have been hired to keep these priceless treasures and Italian cultural artifacts safely out of Hitler’s greedy hands, especially while German soldiers occupy and trash the villa. Ultimately the art owes its survival to many keepers, not just the uncles, including Stella, her friend Sandro, Uffizi curators, Allied officers, a librarian, and finally one of the now-famous Monuments Men.
War rages around the villa, which also hosts a cellar full of fugitives and refugees. Life is brutal and fearful. Yet Stella and Sandro manage to grow up, forge a special bond, and learn a great deal about art, as does the delighted reader (the multi-talented Morelli is also a noted art historian).
One minor correction: in the British title system, which figures slightly in this rich and complicated novel, there is no Sir [Surname]; it’s always Sir [First name] [Surname], as in Sir Paul McCartney (Sir Paul for short, never Sir McCartney).
