Set
amid the twisting streets and sunlit piazzas of medieval Italy, The Towers
of Tuscany tells the story of a woman who dares to follow her own path in
the all-male domain of the painter’s workshop. Sofia Barducci is born into a
world where a woman is only as good as the man who cares for her, but she still
claims the right to make her own mistakes. Trained in secret by her father to
create the beautifully-crafted panels and altarpieces acclaimed today as
masterpieces of late medieval art, Sofia’s desire for freedom from her father’s
workshop leads her to betray her passion and sink into a life of loveless
drudgery with a husband who despises her when she does not produce a son.
I never expected to launch a career as a
writer of historical fiction. Fiction, yes. Historical fiction? Well . . . It’s
true that I love history and I’ve certainly been known to pick up novels set in
the past (most novels are when you come to think about it!), but surely to
write historical fiction, I must need a Ph.D. and an office filled from floor
to ceiling with musty tomes that I’d actually read.
It turns out that all I really needed was a
spark and I found that spark one day while thinking about San Gimignano, a hill
town in Italy that includes at least thirteen medieval towers and commanding
views of the iconic Tuscan landscape. During its heyday in the fourteenth
century, San Gimignano had over 70 towers. Why was I thinking about San
Gimignano? I had visited the town a few times over the past two decades (I also
love traveling) and I had fond memories of it. Why it popped into my head one
day while I was trying to come up with a subject for a novel is anyone’s guess.
But what happened was that I got to
wondering how the town of San Gimignano had looked with 70 towers crammed into
the same space as the town occupies today. Had a painter from the period
actually depicted them? The answer is no, so far as we know. Landscape painting
was in its infancy in the 14th century and highly stylized. I decided
to invent a painter who departed from the usual religious iconography and
painted a view of the towers of San Gimignano in the style of the time. My
painter is a woman because I was also intrigued by the possibility that women
must have painted in medieval times, even if they did not become known.
Medieval painting was a family affair, so after consulting with experts in medieval
art, I concluded that it was plausible that a painter could have trained his
wife or daughter in the painter’s craft.
And then I got a sign that my novel was
destined to be written.
While surfing the Web for sites on Tuscany,
I stumbled upon the website for San Gimignano 1300, a museum in San Gimignano
that includes a large scale model of how the town appeared in the year 1300. I
couldn’t believe it! Two artists had painstakingly recreated the city complete
with all seventy of its towers. As soon as I could, I caught a plane to Rome,
the train to Florence, and the bus to San Gimignano. My morning spent at San
Gimignano 1300 was one of the most productive of my writing career to date.
Over the next year, I immersed myself in
the fascinating history of the period. It turns out that I already had the main
pre-requisites for an author of historical fiction—I was curious and I could
read. I also have a graduate degree in Drama with a major in History so I guess
I’m not totally devoid of background, but I learned early on that researching a
period to add flavor and verisimilitude to a work of fiction is not nearly as
onerous (or dull) as academic research. I could pick and choose what I needed
to include and I had experts to call on when I got stuck. I carefully avoided
including “info dumps” in my novel and only snuck in the results of my research
when needed for the story. I’m now hooked on writing historical fiction.
The
Towers of Tuscany is my first historical novel with
an “arts twist.” I have dipped my toe in most of the arts over the years and my
goal is to combine my love of the arts with my love of history to produce
novels that celebrate an individual’s journey with his or her art during a
particular era. My next novel, tentatively titled “Nocturnes” tells the story
of a concert pianist in Vienna in the 1820s—shortly after the death of
Beethoven and during the last year of Schubert’s life. I plan to release that
novel in the fall of 2014. And the next one is about an actress embroiled in
the “Old Price” riots of 1809 in Covent Garden Theatre in London. History and
the arts are full of great stories! A sequel to The Towers of Tuscany is also
not out of the question.
The
Towers of Tuscany is appealing to people who are
fascinated by fourteenth century Italy and by Tuscany, particularly the towns
of San Gimignano and Siena, where the action of the novel takes place. Readers
interested in the glorious art of the period and in workings of a medieval
painter’s workshop are also enjoying the novel.
But most of all, people are enjoying The
Towers of Tuscany because of Sofia Carelli, my spirited, talented, kick ass
heroine who never gives up her passion for painting or her search for love,
even in the face of almost insurmountable limitations. I was recently honored
to receive a review of The Towers of
Tuscany by bestselling SciFi author Spider Robinson who happens to live on
the same rain-soaked island as I do. Spider calls my Sofia “one of the most
endearing protagonists in years” and the novel itself a “startlingly first-rate
piece of historical fiction.” Another reviewer gave the novel “six stars out of
five” and called it a “beautifully crafted masterpiece of historical fiction.”
For an author, nothing beats knowing that
someone who does not even know you has read your work and enjoyed it.
# # #
About the Author
Carol M. Cram has enjoyed a wonderful career as an educator, teaching at
Capilano University in North Vancouver for over twenty years and authoring
forty-plus bestselling textbooks on business communications and software
applications for Cengage Learning. She holds an MA in Drama from the University
of Toronto and an MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Carol
is currently focusing as much of her attention as she can spare between walks
in the woods on writing historical novels with an arts twist. She and her
husband, painter Gregg Simpson, share a life on beautiful Bowen Island near
Vancouver, Canada, where Carol is also very active in the local arts council.
Visit her online at www.carolcram.com and find Carol on Twitter @carolcram.
