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The Towers of Tuscany by Carol Cram Summary Study Guide

Detailed plot synopsis reviews of The Towers of Tuscany


Plot Summary Part 4


By the way, do you ever wonder if Manzini was sent to jail when it was discovered he was employing a woman painter? So do I, but since Manzini is no longer central to Sophia's plot, he is discarded as a plot device, and we never learn what happens to him. It is another feature of this two dimensional story that characters more than ten feet away from Sophia disappear without explanation when no longer convenient to her storyline.


Giorgio locks Sophia in a tower. Sophia learns she is pregnant and tells Giorgio. Giorgio is well aware that it is Matteo's child but he is so desperate to have a boy that he says he will claim the child as his own.


However, when the child is born it is a girl, and Giorgio suddenly decides that while he would have claimed a male bastard as his own, he wouldn't do the same for a girl. This makes absolutely no sense.

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Sophia gives the baby, Antonia, away to her friend Caterina who raises her as her own. When Sophia later meets Antonia, Antonia is hostile and indifferent to her real mother.


Sophia starts painting secretly for Delgrasso, her father's former assistant. It has to be in secret because girls can't paint in ancient Italy.


Giorgio keeps banging Sophia. Here's my most favorite line from the book: Giorgio groaned aloud, shuddered, and then collapsed on top of her. Heh heh, heh heh heh.


Sophia gets pregnant again, this time from Giorgio, and gives birth to a baby she names after Matteo, her adulterous lover. Why does Giorgio tolerate that? Totally unexplained.


But Giorgio is very happy to finally have a son. At least, he is happy until he suddenly catches the plague and dies. And then his son Matteo dies of the plague, at least I think he does--he suddenly disappears from the story. Marcello also dies when he is killed by some random attackers, whose presence or purpose, like the bandits earlier in the story, is never explained. And then Sophia dies of the plague as well.


The end.


Does the abrupt ending surprise you? It surprised me. It's very poorly written, like much of this book.


Literary Criticism:


I hated this book in so many ways.


1) The storyline was two dimensional. Events--like bandit attacks, and clan attacks, and plagues, would just happen, without warning or explanation, simply as needed to advance the story.


 


2) The characters were two dimensional. Sophia good! Giorgio bad! Francisco orphan! Are there any characters with sophisticated personalities? No.


 


3) The whole premise of the story was a lie. Guess what? There were ancient Italian painters who were women. Historical fiction needs to be based on history. This is no more real than a story about space aliens invading 14th century Tuscany.


 


4) The story went nowhere. Sophia, the main character, was looking for real love, and looking for a real painting career. After much struggle, she found neither, and died of the plague. So why bother writing this unremarkable story about her? The plot went nowhere. I get the feeling that the author ran out of ideas after Giorgio caught her, and, getting a bad case of writer's block, simply killed her off to end the story.

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