2007-12-17 Leaden.

I bought this on the basis of the promise of new insights into the character and history of the much-reviled Lucrezia Borgia. Whether or not the re-writing of the popular stories about her actually appears in the book I really couldn't tell you, because after three or four chapters of leaden, unengaging prose I put it down and haven't picked it up again. You'd think it would be difficult to make one of the livelier women of one of the livelier periods of history dull, but after finding myself propping my eyelids open with matchsticks and struggling to reach the end of the page I realised that perhaps this book's most remarkable achievement was just that.
There are other books about the period - I bought Mary Hollingsworth's "The Cardinal's Hat" about Lucrezia's son, Ippolito d'Este at the same time, and that's really very good indeed - and so I suggest you skip this one and go straight to something readable.