The Painter of Souls
This novel follows the early life and career of one of the Renaissance’s most gifted artists, Fra Filippo Lippi. The author admits that much of his story has been built around a skeleton of facts, but from that framework, Kazan has built a beautiful novel, lit from within by the luminosity of the art he describes. The half-feral child Pippo is saved from the streets of Florence through charity and brought to a monastery. His talent for drawing cannot be suppressed, and the abbot gives him permission to study with one of the painters currently working on the frescoes being painted for one of the Church’s wealthy patrons. And so we see Masaccio paint the Brancacci chapel and are taken by him to wonder at his Holy Trinity in Santa Maria Novella.
This is more than a novel about the wonders of Renaissance art, however. Pippo struggles between what we think he should be, and what he is. He is a ‘bad’ monk – he drinks, gambles, seduces women and escapes from the cloister whenever he gets the chance – but he sees beauty and the potential of the divine in everyone he meets and everyone he draws. It is also a novel about loyalty, about holding to your roots and those you love, even when it is easier to walk away. These elements make for a highly enjoyable novel. Kazan effectively draws the reader into the world of Renaissance Florence in all its glory and squalor. His main characters are believable and complex, and the language he uses is precise and luminous. Recommended.
