As an art historian, artist, and writer I looked forward to and loved your new Elizabeth. I quickly realized that beyond the fascinating period details, a sea of colorful wigs, dramatic music, and powerful acting lays the shocking thought that we people never learn from our past.

Lust for power, wealth, all in the name of God.

Whose God and what’s new?

While the Spanish Armada is crushed a mere decade after the naval victory at Lepanto, a battle that took some thirty thousand Moslem and Christian lives, the Elizabethan world is bathed in peace and prosperity. In the new century, again the Catholics fight the Protestants, while the militant Turks gather at their doorsteps.

Is America, or the world in fact, heading in the same direction—is that what your movie is about? Or is Elizabeth: The Golden Age a prayer for peace and tolerance—in a world far from utopia? I can think of several Verdian operas with a new setting, to escape the contemporary references.

A tolerant queen of all Christian souls. I loved the movie full of symbolism, fascinating angle shots, deep thought. But I ask: why do authors, writers, and brilliant movie directors turn again and again to the same subjects? Is it because the world of entertainment can’t birth a new idea, or is it fear of an untried story?

Maddalena, my novel set in roughly the same period, focuses on Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the rich grandson of Pope Paul III. I took a decade to glue the story with 24 illustrations. Each man took several decades to take his sacred vows, a mere gesture to keep the wealth and retain power! The two great supporters of the newly-founded order of Jesuits never knew the meaning of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the humble motto of Christ’s soldiers. The real cardinal, like his grandfather, was a womanizer and the fictional love for a Jewish woman of Arab origin who converts to Christianity unfolds in the same turbulent era as in your movie. I do wonder so what you’d do to the setting.

Thanks for the new Elizabeth. A vision that moves.

Thus opens David Laskin his colorful story in the weekend travel section of the New York Times about the grandson of Pope Paul III Farnese, one of the greatest nepotists in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. If I didn't know beter, I'd say Mr. Laskin sat on my 55Plus well-attended lecture on The Cardinal Who Wanted to Be Prince.

In the article, we learn many interesting tidbits about the womanizing prelate, even if there is no mention that Alessandro's daughter Clelia became a mistress of another powerful cardinal nor that his father, Pier Luigi Farnese, a "notorious homosexual predator of handsome clerics" ended his life with a dagger in his back.

Don't we love all this dirt? Now we have politics and Hollywood. Then it was the Farneses.

There is lots to write about the Gran Cardinale: the generous prelate was indeed one of the few Renaissance men of influence to treat Rome's Jews humanely. But did his blood cool in his middle age, when he became devout as well?

Let's get serious.

If the thickening, balding, middle-aged man stopped loving women in their flesh, he "endured" Titian's nude, lascivious Danae right in his private apartments until his death. Oh, and when the Gran Cardinale prayed from the most famous book of hours, painted by Giulio Clovio, the miniaturist made sure that Alessandro looked at the faces of his mistresses. I love the illustration for the Annunciation to the Shepherds for its antique patina: a tangle of lithe nude shepherds awaiting to hear about the birth of Christ. Wouldn't Pier Luigi have enjoyed that?

Devout? Ask again.

The life-time Vice-Chancellor of the Church, like his papal grandfather, took his sacred vows after three decades, and only to save his precious post and wealth. As for Alessandro's generosity, when his final hour came he indeed gave -- more than ever before. Apparently worried about his celestial trip, he had himself buried in a simple tomb. Surely that sufficed. The magnificent piece of new architecture for the first Jesuit church in the world was the grandest tomb of all. Today's humble visitor sees the proud Farnese name carved across the imposing facade, lest he be mistaken about who built it for his own glory.

My protagonist fell in love with a Jewish woman whom he baptized Maddalena. The same man ravished his own servant, Padre Carlo, and became intimate with his young ward. History reflects in fiction. And blood is thicker than water, a trite but true way to summarize the character.

Here's an excerpt from my book, at a point where I paint the man's final picture for the reader:

"God was a link to the world beyond, where Alessandro's life would continue unimpeded. He tried to be a good bishop but was too rich, too influential. His sermons were noble, but the nobility needed little comfort, and he thought not of the poor. Ready for a far more important mission, he considered what the world, not just Rome, thought of him.

"One thing mattered, the one unfulfilled dream. He had to become Rome's new shepherd. Having lost the woman he loved through divine intervention, he was sure the Lord would finally help. Still he missed Maddalena, his other dream, and when he wanted her most, he hated his thirst for fame, knowing that without her, life was unreal.

"The price was too high. More than Maddalena, Alessandro loved fame."

As I write this, the newest church scandals taint its history and the front pages of all papers and news reports. The funds paid out by the Los Angeles diocese makes the Boston settlement paltry.

Six-hundred and sixty million.

There is so much more in Maddalena.

Art, music, history, and beaty of a mushrooming Renaissance city, the navel of the world which overpowers that which titillates human mind: scandal. There is plenty of the latter. Meet Berti Spranger, the historical painter of cardinals, popes, and emperors, known until recently as the painter of erotica.

Can you feel the knots in my stomach growing to the size of Mt. Everest? All independent book stores across the country are suffering with the publishing houses wanting only book celebrities to write "home-runs."

How many Princetonians really want Rachel Ray's Express Lane Meals? I am a foodie, as you read in one of my previous blogs, but thanks very much Rachel. I don't know anyone in Princeton who will rush to buy her cookbook, although there may be some. And when Julie Andrews decides to write a fairy tale, no lesser artist than Gennady Spirin becomes the illustrator. Will he do one for Katie Couric?

Do you sense sarcasm here? I'm just rephrasing today's New York Times article with a bit of my own color. And it's not that the problem rests only with the birth of mega-bookchains and internet venues. Indeed, life has changed and today's young generation is speeding forth forgetting old values.

Family life? Rearing children? Cooking for the family? Cleaning houses? Let's compute. Let's exercise. Let's have fun.

I did last night. I pulled out a Slovak translation of a book I loved as a teenager: James Oliver Curwood's Nomads of the North and read it in one stretch. I loved it just as decades ago and bought the English translation for my grandchildren--if I have any. You see, when my son was little, I tried to buy it, but that was before Amazon and I didn't succeed. I ended up reading it aloud while translating the book back into English. Would a young career woman do that now for her child?

Umm. Let's watch a reality show instead. I joined my own reality show when Maddalena was published and Logan Fox wished me good luck with a tight face. He had already explained that he couldn't do a book signing at Micawbers.
(Here I share another bibliophile's lament in the link.)

I know, I nodded to myself. People would rather order it on Amazon.

Should I say anything else? After all, I'm equally guilty. I ordered the Curwood book on Amazon. I had to. I've no time to walk into town. Too busy blogging so that people would buy Maddalena.

Sad. Isn't it?

Yours truly.

P.S. The real truth is that I ordered my book on Amazon because to date I haven't found the right words of symphathy for Logan, the man who brought so much happiness with his old-fashioned bookstore.

Let it be an especially good year for all of us!

Happy New Year 2007 from Maddalena!

And her author

Wouldn't it be nice if fir trees weren't grown to such a short, glamorous life, ending in a tall pile of recycling trash. All the wonderful, big trees, like the one that sparkles in the Rockefeller Center in New York? I'd like that.

We've had holidays when I decorated our palm tree in the middle of our living room, soon to be 35 years old, instead of a traditional Christmas tree. And you know what? All the wishes I made by that tree came true.

May all your wishes come true in the lucky year 2007!

The December 2006 issue of PMA writes: "Publishers are sending book-preview videos to bloggers and distributing them to targeted consumer lists via email."

Well, I've done my bit. Time will tell if that was worth it. Now I'll spent a few minutes here and then I'm going back to reading. I just finished Perfume, in the original German. It's really interesting to compare translations with originals. The translated text of the last book I came across, Under the Volcano apparently had some major flaws.

Win some and lose some. We multi-media and multi-task.

How about hoovering the house?

In the meantime -- if you want to listen to my Maddalena multi-media previewer, it is even illustrated with my own art. You'll find out why you're so lucky in escaping the Inquisition.

Seriously. You'll find out a wonderful story about a corrupt, but human cardinal who wanted to be a pope, but wasn't rich enough to buy his votes.

Am I striding with the times? Good blogger? Good puppy?

This is a farce, but I'm having fun.

Dear easel and brushes: here I come.
You're so kind. You don't talk back.
And I don't have to blog about you.
Isn't that a good deal?

No longer. I still enjoy reading the paper, but preferably in a space where I can stretch my arms far, far apart to look at the homongously-sized ads arrogantly displacing a whole page, if not the center-fold. Pretty soon, there will be a scroll-like attachment, antique style, to experience the unfolding epic story of a new fashion design or a new book that its publishing industry needs to promote "big times" in order to survive.

Many families could manage for a year on the expense for one such ad.

An uncomfortable thought.

That's it for today. My arms are still cramped from reading the morning paper, even though I no longer look at the ads.

Waste of time. And you too could be doing something interesting as well, like reading Maddalena. Alessandro Farnese's corrupt world threatened by Turkish onslaughts resembles our own.

From the jacket lined with Ingres' erotic courtesan to the rich narrative prose that transports the reader into an era now all but nearly forgotten by most of us, once again the new novel, Ruby in Her Navel propels me to become a lousy wife, bad mother, and a negligent scholar until I savor every line, every word to the last dot.

I picked up the book this afternoon, flipping through the book all the way home. Thirteen months ago--are any of you supersitious--I was hit by a car on the island of Ortigia in Sicily, without knowing my fate. Well, at least not for a while. Let's forget that part now.

Instead, I'll follow the path of Thurstan Beauchamp, a man of Norman descent who works for a Moslem Arab in the kingdom of a Christian ruler. Before I could unlock my door, I was back in Sicily, walking through medieval Palermo and savoring the old-fashioned language of a literary genius.

This blending of religions and cultures reminds me of the sequel of Maddalena I'm currently writing, a story set in Rudolfine Prague in a world which--unfortunately--also sparkled and collapsed as swiftly as the Sicilian kingdom of the Good King Roger.

Until next time.

The Sony reader promises to keep 80 electronic books or hundreds more with a removable memory card. It further assures the readers that they don't have to leave home by leaving their favorites behind.

Isn't that great news? Ohmigosh, no.

If I bought one, what would I do with my books?

My War and Peace paperback with a red wine spot on p. 51 from when our plane hit a turbulent spot over the Atlantic?

My Introduction to the History of Woodcut in which my daughter wrote with childish upper case letters I LOVE YOU MOMMY?

Would I have to replace these by a cold-hearted box spitting out paragraphs of words across its screen?

I love books. I need to touch them and nurse them until the last page. I need to be able to flip back to the spot I was reading when the phone rang with wonderful news.

I love to touch the paper, its smooth coarseness.
I love the rustle of the pages that I still hear as I line each newcomer on the book shelf.

Would I replace my paper friends with a computer-chip card in a steel matchbox? No way.

Books are like dogs with their leafy heads in man's lap while the fire crackles across the room, the stew bubbles on the stove, and yes, while he's soaking his feet on a fictional dock on the back-page of the New York Time Book Review.

That's the only way I can imagine reading Maddalena!

But how do you find good food when you eat out? Sometimes I wonder whether chefs should be enrolled in studio-arts programs, painting canvasses instead of decorating plates with little dips and dats, and circles, and strips, of this and that, and constructing sculptural groups of food that I hate deconstructing.

Do you sense frustration?

Artsy food was not my problem tonight.

Went to a lovely new place. Italian. The small, long room was a delight of decor. Gentle, lemon-maize walls, clever window decorations, lovely furniture. The staff -- so willing to please. I'm surprised that the waiter didn't sit with us at the table. He came by so often, praising everything short of the carpet under our feet.

I wanted to enjoy the food. Alone, without a waiter checking over every morsel that entered my constitution. I'm a big girl now. I won't choke.

The squash soup not only looked pretty with the colored circles painted over the surface, but was a culinary delight.

I awaited my Roman gnocchi with trepidation. Everything else sounded too heavy on the menu, that is without contorni of vegetables, so I was pleased with my choice.

I don't eat gnocchi in public places. Most of the time, the "home-made" little devils are suited only for a pellet gun, or perhaps a more serious weapon.

I was assured these were truly home-made, right on the premises, from scratch.

Six, delicious-looking soldiers of roundels sat in a delicately purified, creamy pale tomato sauce criss-crossed with shredded parmesan cheese, groaning under a mountain of ...

Was it mozarella cheese? Probably. But without a magnifying glass, I had no idea what and where the gnocchi were. I couldn't see them, and I certainly couldn't taste those delicious little fellows, lightened to a feather consistency by generous doses of mashed potatos, and coooked -- oh, for about three minutes, until they popped up to the surface and then melted in your mouth, delicious just even in their plain glory. Or a nice heap of soft roundels finished with a light sauce... If I had my way, with fresh funghi porcini.

My next round of gnocchi will cost an airfare ticket. I don't care where. Rome. Florence. Naples. Anywhere where the chef will know how to make Roman gnocchi -- the real stuff.

I don't want cannelloni cut up into six pieces and served as gnocchi. And I want to enjoy the dish without a cup of genuine camomile tea from the flowers picked right from the Campo Vaccino, the cows meadows in the Roman Forum to soothe my tummy.

I wish Maddalena were here. She'd know what to do for me right now.

A lust for women.

When Alessandro was twenty-four-years old, his miniaturist Giulio Clovio provided Titian with a sketch of his mistress, the courtesan Angela, whose lovely face was immortalized in the Venetian master’s reclining nude, kept in the cardinal’s private quarters for most of his life. To satisfy a code of propriety, the Venetian master transformed the sensuous nude in Alessandro’s painting into the mythological Danaë being raped by Zeus, the wanton god symbolized by a shower of gold.

How sensuous? The papal nuncio, Giovanni Della Casa, reported that Titian’s masterpiece would have excited even the principal Censor of the Church, and the future head of the Roman Inquisition, the severe Dominican Tommaso Badia. Although the pope was furious by his grandson’s lack of prudence, if not virtue, he was too busy having his bedroom decorated with the stories of Cupid and Psyche. And Cardinal Farnese, protected by his grandfather, and unlimited wealth, could not only buy many courtesans’ favors, but stop the wagging fingers over breaking every code of honor imposed on him as the second-in-command after the pope.

A family aberration? Surely not.

Paul III ascended the papal throne with four legitimized children, and great dynastic plans for his grandchildren. His grandson Alessandro, made Cardinal at fourteen, and life-time Vice-Chancellor at fifteen, resented his ecclesiastical career, dreaming of being a prince. Papabile three times, he didn’t take his major vows for thirty years. Unlike Paul III, the immensely rich Alessandro was not rich enough to bribe his way to the coveted papal chair.

The moral climate in the Eternal City is so severe that you can be burned at the stake for the smallest transgression from church dogma. Yet, the Vatican’s most powerful Cardinal has a mistress, an illegitimate son and a daughter, and a sexual relationship with his ward. Prudence, temperance, courage, and justice may be the cardinal virtues; the Cardinal clearly possesses none of them. That His Most Reverend Excellency, Cardinal Farnese, actually lived, adds a deeper dimension to what is already a stunningly rich tapestry of everyday life in Michelangelo’s Rome.

There's more. Read Maddalena!

At some point, I had my original website translated for the Spanish-speaking readers by Blanca Acosta. Should you be interested, would you let me know what you think about my book? To find out more, click on Magdalena and enjoy! If you have an idea about a publishing house interested in translating the text into Spanish, please write to me, OK? Many thanks!

I loved drawing since I was born. Not quite true, but close enough. Much later, at the university, I began to study the history of drawing.

It took time to truly understand the metal-point technique, in which the artist drew with a silver stick on paper coated with ground lead or chalk suspended in oil, or liquid bound by animal-hide glues. Only after I saw a few examples of such drawings in museum collections, I understood the delicate process. Yet, even great masters like Leonardo or Raphael used the medium, but preferred a charred stick or sharpened quill as a more natural tool.

Then came colored chalks, pastels, crayons and, of course, the ubiquitous graphite pencil! Did you know that graphite was known already in sixteenth-century England?

When I was trying to describe my illustrations for Maddalena, I couldn't decide what to call them, because they turned out to be water-colored pen and ink drawings. Not watercolors. Not drawings.

Being skilled in copying old master paintings and drawings, I wanted to imitate the "hand"--really the style--of sixteenth-century artists like Berti Spranger and Hans Speckaert. And I did, in Berti drawing Lucretia. But I decided that most readers would not appreciate the effort. As it happened, the grumpy lady who wrote the Greenmanreview found my drawings childish, without understanding anything about the history of drawings or their stylistic development!

A colleague of mine, an eminent professor at the university of Brussels, wrote to me how much she like the fairy-tale like quality of the illustrations. I was so pleased. I guess, Maddalena is like that. A bit of magic. We all need a bit of magic.

The birth of each drawing for Maddalena involved much thought: days, even weeks of trying to produce an image that not only satisfied the text to which it referred, but also to capture the spirit of late sixteenth-century graphic art, a time when the first drawing academies were being born in Europe.

You know what I'm talking about. Men sit at long tables illuminated by candles, look at marble busts, draw studio boys, copy prints by famous artists, using every square inch (should I say square centimeter?) of the precious rag paper.

I wish I could include the picture of the single sheet where I was trying to find Maddalena's face for the illustration where she waits for Alessandro's litter-chair to go by. I counted some seventy-five sketched faces, each with a slightly different wiggle of the nose, arched brows, round or slanted eyes; puckered, happy, sad mouth.

It's extremely hard to imagine, without seeing the stacks of rejected sketches, how much love and labor went into producing the illustrations produced--and here comes a confession--with hands ruined by thirty years of passionate gardening.

Berti Spranger, Maddalena's impetuous lothario, is on my mind, this time as the main character of Bartholomaeus, Book Two of The Golden Tripolis Trilogy. Due to his privileged position at court of Rudolf II Habsburg, he is a natural narrator in Book Two. With his friendship and blessing, Berti marries goldsmith Muller’s daughter, yet his patron dominates his life. Commanded to paint nearly exclusively in the castle studio which the emperor visits regularly, Berti’s erotic compositions offer intimate comments on Rudolf’s sexuality.

Home to Rabbi Loew and a large Jewish population, as well as numerous foreigners—mostly Germans, Netherlanders, Spaniards and Italians—Rudolfine Prague is also where the first tulips arrived from Turkey, where exotic lions and Dodo birds landed in Rudolf’s menagerie. His patronage of artists, artisans and craftsmen, scientists and quacks, scholars and pretenders; his unwillingness to marry royal princesses while fathering children with a mistress; and his religious indifference and need to rule an imaginary macrocosm alone energize a singular historical novel.

Are you ready for it? It's coming! Word-by-word, one chapter at a time. Dear reader, be patient, please.

In front of our Garden Theater, I passed two people, seeing mostly the long gray tresses of a woman carrying a large white poster. I turned sideways, being only slightly curious, and managed to catch the word "Catholic" in the short inscription facing all passersby.

One slice of my favorite pizza sat behind the showcase, and I consumed it with gusto and washed it down with a year's allotment of Coca-Cola sold to me as "small-sized." I don't know why I bought it; I suppose I don't think much of Princeton tap water. Not being in a hurry, I sat, chewing the slice absentmindedly, musing about life in a university town where people from all cultures and religions live, teach, and assemble.

Suddenly, the outside light began to fade dramatically and I thought to turn back. The first drops, heavy with moisture, began bouncing off the parked cars, stippling the sidewalks in a determined pattern, enough to open my silly umbrella just as I passed the strange couple sheltered by the awning of one of the stores.

Seeing the storm move rapidly, I pressed on. Yet, something stopped me, having read the sign large enough for a blind person to see: ONLY CATHOLICS CAN GO TO HEAVEN.

Oh, Eva, just run on! I usually don't talk to these people, I reminded myself. Actually, I never do, but something pressed me to turn and face the ascetic-looking woman with a question: "Do you mean to say, that Protestants can't go to heaven?"

The gleam of light coming from the woman's eyes, rather than her thin lips, frightened me as she replied. Lightning large enough to illuminate the whole street colored her face, and before I could breathe, the street shook, echoing the sound of thunder. That was close, I mumbled to myself. What am I doing here? To this moment, I have this vision of a self-appointed prophetess in a corner of my mind, announcing to me, and to the world, that "only Catholics can go to heaven."

"Do you mean to say that God doesn't embrace all children to his bosom?" I replied, not being interested in her hogwash how only the Catholic God speaks the truth. Nor did I have time for the man sitting on the doorstep, who reminded me of one of the senators who conspired to kill Ceasar (I did watch a bit of Cleopatra tonight, to cleanse my thoughts, yet thinking how the world has changed since Elizabeth Taylor made this film). It was not the heavy rain and unusual fear of a raging biblical storm, but my sincere contempt that made me reply: "In that case, I am ashamed to be a Catholic."

I ran through Nassau street obliterated by torrential rain, the magisterial oak trees caught in gusty wind, with orange-yellow lightning ripping the sky in all directions. Remembering how a person had been killed by lightening on the university campus a few years back, I fought my foolishness in chasing the storm, wanting to say: God, please, protect me!

Then I stopped myself. Which God? The answer was clear. The god of all people, as it was in the Beginning, as I voiced in Maddalena.