Ronda - reviewed on 12/4/2011 + 214 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

I love history and architecture and this book got great reviews so I had every expectation of enjoying it. Alas, it is unbelievably boring. I struggled through a litte more than half before giving up. After looking at what else the author has written, I understood why-she wrote another book that I assumed I would like-Sudden Sea-the Great Hurricane of 1938-but did not finish. Basilica would have been much improved had she spent more time on the first 1000 years of St. Peters church, and less time on Julius II, to whom she devoted 10 of the first 11 chapters-(there are only 33 chapters in this book). I did enjoy the Michaelanglo/Leanardo/Raphael connections, but those also could have been expanded. One of her annoying habits is to go into detail about some aspect of the builders plans, then chapters later reveal, in an off hand way while writing about something else, that this part of the plan was never built. Several times I had to go back and pick up threads dropped. I just gave up. If you've read and enjoyed this author, this book might be for you.

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