Having read some amazing essay collaborations between Jo Walton and Ada Pamler, including the stupendously important "The Protagonist Problem", when I saw that Jo Walton had written a novel of Medici Florence, I began reading it straightway, only barely registering the title and not even glancing at the blurb—as a lover of the art of Italian Renaissance, especially Florentine art and architecture, I know I couldn't go wrong.

What a story. What verve! I have read a couple of novels steeped in the Catholic mythology (Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow) and gladly add this to that esteemed company—and am especially grateful to avoid even the slightest of spoilers.

I love the color Jo Walton gives us: scraping muck off one's shoes before entering a house, dipping bread in soup. I also find myself very thoughtfully reflecting on how the entire Christian mytho-psychology needs you to have both total confidence in your own worthiness but also simultaneously having total uncertainty about it—something Jo Walton's Savonarola had to contend with, as do today's believers. I shudder momentarily.