A brief history of the cat-flap
The cat flap was invented by Duke Ercole d’Este in the late fifteenth century. Now they’re everywhere.
‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A lot can be fatal.’
Florence, October 1587. Francesco de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany collapses whilst out hunting with his ambitious younger brother, the Cardinal Ferdinand. Soon the Duke is dead. Officially the Cardinal insists that his brother has died of a malarial fever. But secretly an investigation begins to find the killer – or a suitable scapegoat?
Galileo, a brilliant, impecunious, and unscrupulous young scientist, is struggling to make a name for himself at the corrupt court of the Medici. He is horrified to be arrested as the Duke’s murderer: nothing burns so well as a wicked magician! His only hope is to find the real killer – or, at least, a better scapegoat. His search takes him through the piazzas and palaces of Florence, through the barber-shops and brothels, the cloisters and the taverns. Especially the taverns.
The inspiration behind the book…
You can read more about how I was inspired to write this book about Galileo in a blog post I wrote for Judith Arnopp and if you like you can read an extract from the novel itself.
Writing and readability
How do the criticisms and suggestions of robo-editor Yoast relate to ‘writing’ more generally? The case of Gray’s ‘Smoking Diaries’.
Ratsbane! or: How to poison an Elizabethan (part 1)
‘Arsenic’ is sometimes called ‘the king of poisons’. But already in the sixteenth-century ‘arsenic’ was available in several different forms, each more or less suited to the job in hand. This article looks at the main alternatives, and the problems that a tyro poisoner might have with sourcing and administering their preferred choice. [The featured…
Review: Simon Gray, The Smoking Diaries
An utterly wonderful cogitation upon life, love, family, disease, infidelity, friendship, writing and aging. Gray (1930-2008) was a prolific and highly esteemed playwright and novelist. He was never a household name like his friend Harold Pinter, but then who was? The Smoking Diaries (2004) (and its sequels The Year of the Jouncer (2006) and The…
The Medici and Florence in the 16th century
My historical novel ‘Galileo’s Revenge’ is set in sixteenth-century Florence, ruled by the Medici Dukes of Tuscany. Originally a family of merchants and bankers, the Medici dominated the government and culture of Florence
Of Bezoar, and Bezoarticke medicines
In my novel ‘Galileo’s Revenge’, our hero Galileo Galilei has to solve the suspicious death of Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici (1541-87). In the course of his investigation, Galileo turns to the work of French barber-surgeon Ambroise Paré (c.1510-90), especially the treatise on poisons.
Review: Julian Rathbone, The Last English King
Julian Rathbone’s, The Last English King (1997), is one of the most memorable historical crime stories that I’ve ever read – assuming, that is, that you count pillage, rape, murder and indeed genocide as crimes. ‘The last English King’ of the title is, of course, King Harold (c.1022-1066), aka Harold Godwinson. Harold was killed at…
Review: Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower (1995). A truly wonderful book, based on a true story. It is probably the best work of historical fiction ever written. Full stop. Although, superficially, I must admit, the story is almost Mills & Boon. Germany in the 1790s, the French Revolution rumbling in the background. Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772-1801),…
Fynes Moryson, 3: Where to stay and what to eat in Padua
Fynes Moryson (1566-1630) needed to find board and lodging for the winter. The young English gentleman, a near contemporary of Galileo (and Shakespeare), had left England on Mayday, 1591. (See my first Fynes Moryson blog, A rough guide to Shakespeare’s Europe.) After two years of travel around northern Europe, he had crossed the Alps into…
Fynes Moryson arrives in Italy
Fynes Moryson (1566-1630) was a well-connected young gentleman from the East of England. In 1591 he left England to travel around Europe. For the next two and a half years he travelled through the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Prussia, Poland and Bohemia.
The Poisons of Ambroise Paré
Ambroise Paré (c.1510 – 90) was an innovative barber-surgeon, who became chief surgeon to the kings of France. His collected works, first published in 1582, discuss a wide range of surgical and medical problems, including poisons.
Fynes Moryson’s ‘Itinerary’: a rough guide to Shakespeare’s Europe.
Fynes Moryson (1566-1630) was an Elizabethan gentleman, a couple of years younger than Shakespeare and Galileo. As a young man, in the 1590s, he travelled widely in Europe, and to the Holy Land. This article is the first in a series of blogs recording his travels, especially through Galileo’s Italy.
Orlando Furioso, a sixteenth-century Game of Thrones
Orlando Furioso – that is, Mad Orlando, or Orlando goes Mad – is a wonderful 33,000-line epic poem written in Italian by the poet and courtier Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1535).
Orlando Furioso: Journey to the Moon
In Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso, the noble knight Orlando is driven mad by jealousy. Eventually, his friend, the English knight Duke Astolfo, travels to the Moon to recover Orlando’s lost wits.
Galileo’s guru: Archimedes of Syracuse
Galileo was a huge admirer of the ancient Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes of Syracuse (c.287-212BC). In his earliest published work, La bilancetta (1586), Galileo says that anyone ‘who has read and understood the very subtle inventions of this divine man in his own writings…