CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Goldsmiths Research Online The Angel of Ferrara Benjamin Woolley Goldsmith’s College, University of London Submitted for the degree of PhD I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own Benjamin Woolley Date: 1st October, 2014 Abstract This thesis comprises two parts: an extract of The Angel of Ferrara, a historical novel, and a critical component entitled What is history doing in Fiction? The novel is set in Ferrara in February, 1579, an Italian city at the height of its powers but deep in debt. Amid the aristocratic pomp and popular festivities surrounding the duke’s wedding to his third wife, the secret child of the city’s most celebrated singer goes missing. A street-smart debt collector and lovelorn bureaucrat are drawn into her increasingly desperate attempts to find her son, their efforts uncovering the brutal instruments of ostentation and domination that gave rise to what we now know as the Renaissance. In the critical component, I draw on the experience of writing The Angel of Ferrara and nonfiction works to explore the relationship between history and fiction. Beginning with a survey of the development of historical fiction since the inception of the genre’s modern form with the Walter Scott’s Waverley, I analyse the various paratextual interventions—prefaces, authors’ notes, acknowledgements—authors have used to explore and explain the use of factual research in their works. I draw on this to reflect in more detail at how research shaped the writing of the Angel of Ferrara and other recent historical novels, in particular Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. I then examine the issue from the opposite perspective: the use of fictional devices in history, considering whether or not this compromises or enhances historical authority and validity. I end by critically examining the prevailing notion that the borderline between fiction and history has become blurred, arguing that, while each influences the other, the distinction is one of type rather than degree. Contents THE ANGEL OF FERRARA - A NOVEL .............................................................................................. 5 DAY ONE .............................................................................................................................................................. 6 DAY TWO .......................................................................................................................................................... 13 DAY THREE ...................................................................................................................................................... 47 DAY FOUR ......................................................................................................................................................... 68 DAY FIVE ........................................................................................................................................................... 81 DAY SIX ............................................................................................................................................................105 DAY SEVEN .....................................................................................................................................................129 DAY EIGHT .....................................................................................................................................................186 DAY NINE ........................................................................................................................................................224 WHAT IS HISTORY DOING IN FICTION? ................................................................................... 236 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................237 Historical Fiction ............................................................................................................................................ 238 Fictional History .............................................................................................................................................. 239 Fiction and History ........................................................................................................................................ 241 HISTORICAL FICTION .......................................................................................................................................244 FICTIONAL HISTORY ........................................................................................................................................287 FICTION AND HISTORY ....................................................................................................................................304 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................ 314 The Angel of Ferrara - a Novel Of all the places I have seen in Italy, Ferrara is the one by far I should most covet to live in. It is the ideal of an Italian city, once great, now a shadow of itself. William Hazlitt, 1824* * Hazlitt, W, Notes of a journey through France and Italy (1826), p343 The Angel of Ferrara DAY ONE Wednesday, 28th February, 1579 She waits. She waits as she has been waiting for eight days. Eight days ago, Angelo sat just there, in that chair, sunshine coming through the gauze curtain, warming the wood of the table, as she stood behind him, looking at his reflection in the glass, delving the thicket of his unruly hair, insisting that she must trim or at least comb it. ‘Mother: your hair’s always a mess,’ he had said, batting her hand away. ‘I am not going to trust you with mine.’ They had seemed more comfortable in each other’s company that day than in months. There was no hint of trouble. And then he disappeared, vanished. He had left, heading off for choir practice, and no one has seen him since. So she waits, trapped in her own home when she should be out there looking for him. The fire in the grate is nearly cold, little more than a nest of ash. The tallow candle has burned down to its holder. Hope is burning out. Tarquinia picks up the beaker and takes another sip. The congealed syrup of poppy is thick and oily, cloying in her throat. She goes to the window and peers out. The houses opposite are dark. The bell tolls. Night is falling. Where is Elizabetta? She said she would come. She is playing a game. She is lurking out there somewhere, surely, making Tarquinia wait. 6 The Angel of Ferrara The latch of the front door lifts. The noise brings Tarquinia sharply back to the moment. She faces the door, smoothing her dress. Elizabetta totters in on chopines with heels as thick as three finger-widths. Her cloak is long enough to trip on, and she is wearing a ridiculous veil, a disguise that she surely knew would only draw attention to herself. She closes the door and looks at Tarquinia across the room. With her tiny, child-like fingers, she tries to pull up the veil, but a thread catches one of the clasps holding the tight braids in her bleached hair. Tarquinia has to go over to untangle the fabric. The girl’s face is pale as paper. She trembles as she looks at Tarquinia. ‘What did he say?’ Tarquinia asks. The girl staggers over to the chair facing Tarquinia’s, and lowers herself into it like an old woman. She has spotted the cup on the table and reaches for it, but Tarquinia snatches it away. ‘Please,’ the girl says, still trembling. ‘I need some.’ ‘First tell me what the podestá said.’ ‘Donna Molza, I beg of you—I need something, to steady me. Then I will tell you.’ She can bargain, this one, even while she pretends to be in the throes of distress. Tarquinia walks over to her and cradles the back of her head. She puts the beaker to the girl’s lips. Elizabetta sucks the liquid noisily. Putting the cup out of reach on the mantelpiece, Tarquinia moves her chair closer to Elizabetta and sits down, so their knees touch. She takes Elizabetta’s hands, which are freezing cold. ‘What did the podestá say?’ Tarquinia asks, in a gentle voice, as she strokes Elizabetta's fingers. Elizabetta looks around the room as she licks her lips. Her breathing becomes more regular, but her eyes maintain an agitated flicker. ‘Elizabetta?’ ‘I can’t…’ The girl’s lips tighten. Her nose reddens. She trembles. 7 The Angel of Ferrara Tarquinia can barely breathe. ‘Elizabetta, what is it?’ ‘He…he touched me,’ she says, her voice rising to a squeak. She pulls a hand free from Tarquinia’s grasp and touches her nose. ‘What?’ ‘He touched me.’ ‘The podestá?’ She nods, slurping a sob. ‘Keeper of the duke’s peace, meant to protect us, isn’t he? I go to him, like you asked, a married woman, a respectable married woman, and he gropes me.’ Tarquinia grabs the girl’s arms and shakes her. ‘But you did ask him, didn’t you? The podestá—you did ask him about Angelo? Why he’s not doing anything to find him?’ Elizabetta’s eyes widen in amazement. ‘Donna Molza! Did you not hear me? He grabbed me. Here.’ She thrusts a hand into the lap of her dress, between her legs. ‘Would he do that to you? The duke’s famous singer? Would he?’ The girl is playacting. Going to a man known to be free with his hands dressed like that, with her bosom spilling out of the top of her bodice, what did Elizabetta expect? ‘He is a dreadful man, I know—an oaf,’ Tarquinia says.