Gilbert Reid ANDREA MANTEGNA’S HOUSE IN MANTUA: Andrea Mantegna, the court painter to the Gonzagas of Mantua, had a talent for conjuring magical spaces out of square boxes – his “bridal chamber” – or camera picta – in Mantua’s Ducal Palace, with its trompe-l’œil oculus, is one example, creating as it does a complex sense of space, …
While writing the novel “Son of Two Fathers” – (2019 House of Anansi Press) – set in the Renaissance between 1536 and 1543, I plunged into the life of Isabella d’Este, ruler of Mantua, a brilliant, talented, highly cultured woman, an effective ruler, a promoter of women’s education, and one of the great patrons of …
I may be old-fashioned, but I believe that bodily, visceral energies are essential for writing fiction. When I was asked to complete the late Jackie Park’s historical novel Son of Two Fathers, I had a few chapters she had written and some ideas she had sketched and discussed with me. But, with Jackie gone, I …
A few small insights from my recent visit to Sicily. Unlimited migration or immigration is not necessarily a delightful thing. In Palermo, sub-Saharan Africans were camped out next to people’s homes, and in public parks and public squares, cooking their food, washing, defecating, etc. Improvised tents. Quite a lot of this. Little hygiene, little or …
John Ralston Saul recently wrote a paean to Canadian multiculturalism indicating that multiculturalism is a panacea and that the ‘nation’ is an outmoded concept. I commented as below: John Ralston Saul makes a number of good points; however, I think we are a bit complacent and smug about our superiority as Canadians as regards multiculturalism: …
This is a nice lively dialogue and as I am someone who is decidedly secular (agnostic in theory, atheist in practice) and as I have written about France and frequently lived there, I am tempted to comment. First, the link between France and Christianity is very deep, from King Clovis to Joan of Arc and …