An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying
palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty,
lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young
graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a
discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable
value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.
The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was
a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal
demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns
and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another,
constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of
transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to
fame and wealth, but success didn't alter his violent temperament.
His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome
a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange
circumstances.
Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his
works are in existence today. Many others-no one knows the precise
number-have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece
lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or
hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.
Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding
journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of
Christ-its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its
disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After
Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive,
she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of
history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art
restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble
all the pieces of the puzzle.
Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling,
award-winning "A Civil Action," The Lost Painting is a remarkable
synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details
of Caravaggio's strange, turbulent career and the astonishing
beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr's account is
not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and
enthralling.
." . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will
probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the
book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of
best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less
novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, "A Civil Action," was made
into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He
almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire
conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured
or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker
for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly
reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my
favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young
colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a
forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy?
The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not
inconsiderable." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and
woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and
taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional
jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a
work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read."
--"The Economist"
"From the Hardcover edition."
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