Passion Blue (review)

When Giulia’s father, a Milanese nobleman, passes away, she is left orphaned and friendless in the household of his wife, who thwarts the Count’s last wishes for Giulia to be married and sends the girl off to a convent. Before being packed off to Santa Marta, Giulia purchases a talisman from a sorcerer to help her achieve her heart’s desire, which has always been marriage and the security of her own household. Trusting in this magic, Giulia accepts an apprenticeship in the convent’s workshop, renowned for its religious paintings, while watching carefully for any opportunity to meet the man of her dreams. Such an encounter seems unlikely in a convent, but she does indeed catch the eye of the handsome artisan Ormanno, who is hired to repair a deteriorating fresco. Soon Giulia is meeting him for steamy but ultimately chaste midnight dalliances in the convent orchard, and counting the days until he takes her away. But even as she longs for escape, she finds herself drawn to the satisfaction of her personal growth as an artist, and to appreciation of the unexpected freedom of expression enjoyed by the sisters. Readers will sense before Giulia does that Ormanno is not the man she hopes him to be, and Strauss, playing against the customary behind-convent-walls tropes, keeps her audience in suspense concerning Giulia’s life decision. The talisman plotline is really an unnecessary bit of literary frippery, trumped by a thoughtful and engrossing exploration of what true “freedom” might have meant for a woman with talent and ambition in sixteenth-century Italy. An historical note on the women artists who inspired this story is appended.