100 Books Like Signora Da Vinci

I’ve never read a book as quickly as I read this one. Our eponymous lead character is quirky and odd, but the story is written with so much empathy, depth, and humor that I was rooting for her from the start.

I loved how the relationship between Eleanor and Raymond plays out and avoids the predictable ‘boy meets girl’ ending. It doesn’t surprise me that the book is ‘in development’ as a movie, as the story plays out like a film when you read it. Definitely read this one first before you see the film! (It probably won’t take long as I couldn’t put this book down.)

This isn’t a book about middle age as much as it is a book about a middle-aged woman. Margery Benson, schoolteacher and spinster, has been overlooked and overworked. She’s ready for an adventure and to find the beetle she’s been obsessed with since childhood.

Margery doesn’t go on this adventure alone, and the friendship between Margery and the younger, flashier Enid Pretty is the real heart of this novel. Adventure, friendship, women finding their strength: it’s exactly what I want from a book.

This book turned me into an avid Wesley fan. Aside from her genius at creating characters that face their flaws head-on and then blow a giant raspberry rather than conform—parts of Poppy’s situation mirrored my own at the time. A longtime love had dumped me, then promptly changed his mind, leaving me questioning everything I believed to be true. Poppy bravely takes on a slew of challenges with humor and grace, grabbing back the reigns of her spiraling life. It’s easy to fall in love with a gutsy character like that.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a 17th-century Italian Baroque painter. One of the most fascinating and progressive artists of her time, she was also the first woman ever accepted into the prestigious Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. Her personal life was riddled with turmoil—from rape to torture and public humiliation, but she endured it all to pursue her passion for painting. Many artists sacrifice for their art, but this woman took on an entire city and the Inquisition, and still went on to paint what are considered some of the most brilliant paintings of all time. For me, she is the quintessential feisty female protagonist, beating the odds and the establishment and standing tall. 

Many art historians consider this book sacred and the best first-hand account of the wondrous artists of the Renaissance. I found the stories extremely interesting about the character of these artists. Vasari was the biographer who gave the original account of how Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci hated each other. It also told the story of how both Michelangelo and Leonardo were hired to paint significant battle scenes on the same wall inside the Palazzo Vecchio. It was considered the greatest painting competition of all time as both men completed massive cartoons (preliminary drawings) on The Battle of Cascina and the Battle of Anghiari respectively.  

Joy McCullough’s Blood Water Paint is historical fiction that tells the story of Artemisia Gentileschi, a Renaissance painter who survived a sexual assault and persevered to see her assailant convicted in an Italian court. If the true aspects of the story weren’t compelling enough, McCullough contrasts her fictional character with the biblical heroines Judith and Susanna, using prose and verse strategically to weave the stories with their counter-narratives. McCullough’s experience as a playwright shines through here and her poetic devices are downright Shakespearean, revealing clues to her characters’ emotional truths through the deceptively simple arrangement of words on the page. This book is astonishingly good and a must-read for anyone intrigued by novels in verse.

After a trip to Florence to see Michelangelo’s earlier works and then David, I struggled to understand the genius, his intense pursuit of excellence, and how his surroundings influenced his art.

The author set me in one of the most fascinating eras of history and made me feel as if I were an apprentice in Michelangelo’s shop. I wept to comprehend the artist and realized that perfection was not a choice for Michelangelo, but a non-negotiable burden.

As I now observe genius in a musician, a scientist, or a mother caring for an autistic child, I give credence to what I learned from Oliver Stone’s portrayal of Michelangelo.

Every Renaissance fan loves a bit of Leonardo, don’t they? And I was intrigued by the relationship between the older, established artist Leonardo and the hot-headed Michelangelo.

This is a brilliantly written book with lots of glorious details about art and painting. These are two giants of their time, and it was a brave subject to tackle–Storey manages to convey their intellect as well as their art.

Reading about the sheer labour involved in carving a block of stone into something human was really awe-inspiring, and Stephanie Storey does a great job of getting inside the heads of these two men.

In modern-day England, a teenager, George (Georgia), has lost her mother. In Renaissance Italy, Francesco del Cossa, a young and talented fresco painter, is motherless as well. Smith gives us a choice: Read George’s half of the book first, or read Francesco’s. Whichever we choose, the lives of these two young people are intricately interlaced. Their sadness and joy; their way of looking at the world around them. George has been to see a fresco in Italy created by Francesco. She is in a complex, post-death conversation with her mother, filled with longing. Francesco (or should that be Francesca?) tells his/her own life story and observes George in hers. I loved the challenging, poetic, playful, and tender nature of this book.

Mary Hoffman has said that what she likes best when writing historical fiction is plenty of facts but a great big gap at the centre. That’s how she came to write about Gabriele, her imagined model for Michelangelo’s iconic sculpture.

Renaissance Florence is full of rivalries, intrigues, and conflicts, into which this unworldly youth is plunged, at first manipulated, later learning to find his way and decide where his loyalties lie. With a strong narrative pace and sumptuous detail of fashionable Florentine society, the story creates a believable background to one of the world’s most famous and recognisable masterpieces.