The Deadly Sisterhood Quotes

“The Italian Renaissance was as much an age of culture and learning as of violence and deceit.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Francois I had commanded that the French speak one tongue, and the Langue d’oil triumphed over the Langue d’oc.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Although still driven by curiosity and ambition, she did not realize quite how much she had herself become viewed as a curiosity of her time. Still less could she know how, much later, she would come to be seen as the paradigmatic woman of the High Renaissance.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Isabella had spent her whole life chasing the capricious goddess Fortuna: what we call Chance or Luck. She held the Humanist belief that the vicissitudes of Chance could be managed-if not entirely, then to a greater extent than if she succeeded them, the result would be Virtú. In some senses this encapsulated the meaning of the Renaissance.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“She had watched Rome burn down, taking with it her own world.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Isabella, Ferrante, and Alessandro quickly identified an opportunity to compassion with commerce.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“What followed seemed barely unbelievable, in the sense that Europe reeled from an assault that seemed impossible, heretical, demonic.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The fact that Isabella had failed her friend in the hour of her greatest need and effectively stolen her possessions was forgotten in her touching display of grief.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“His mother might claim to be a loyal light in the shadows, but he was determined to shove her even further into the shadows.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“It is a peculiarly Renaissance conundrum that each and every deadly sin could happily join hands with the virtues, that the crimes of the body could coexist with a sincere desire for purity of soul.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Back in Mantua, Isabella’s visit had reportedly caused her to lose weight, but not enough to prevent the makeshift stage erected outside the convent at Porta Pradella, where Isabella attended a play about Mary Magdalene, from collapsing under the burden of her bulk. Unfortunately the stage had been built over a lake, though Isabella reported cheerfully that no one had been killed. The lake was shallow, but Isabella’s presence in it may have made alarming waves as, despite her attendants’ oliginous praises, she was now quite obese-so much so that when she was obliged to vacate her apartments in widowhood, she prudently moved to the ground floor. No staircase was safe from the mighty Marchioness.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Angela had become the spoiled monster created by a loving Lucrezia.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Tradesmen rarely pursued their rulers for payment, particularly one who could be as vicious in acquisition as Isabella D’Este.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The duchess approached her health, her style, and her entire presentation with all that she had learned at the far more exotic Vatican court, and the practices of her father’s homeland.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The marchioness would have done better to consider her immense strengths: her commanding personality, her majestic attitudes, and above all, her keen political sense would have allowed for a more even result between herself and her sister-in-law.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“When any new monarch ascends his throne some changes are made due to the exigencies of the time, others merely because of different interests, beliefs, friends, and favourites.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Lucrezia’s Borgia instincts and experience had taught her that these moments do not last long, and she lent herself to the festivities wholeheartedly.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Both husband and wife looked regal and perfect for the part life had chosen for them to play.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“A notable absentee at her father’s bedside had been Isabella; she could no longer attempt to guide the rule of both Mantua and Ferrara as she had been wont over the past years.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Duke Ercole’s condition deteriorated and he lay listening to the gentle music on his favorite clavichord. Sinking slowly, with the family gathered about his bed, Ercole beat time to the music with his hand.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The scene had been orchestrated for a display that would overpower the envoys; it did not help the visitors’ nerves when Cesare’s stern-faced bodyguards proceeded to lock the doors behind them.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Any irony intended proved words wasted, for they were drowned in Isabella’s rapacity.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Sorry as she was for the couple, the consummate actress trained at the Vatican school of drama and diplomacy may have felt more than a scintilla of satisfaction at her brother’s success.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Lucrezia knew well that Elisabeth had fallen under Isabella’s malignant thumb, and the usually kind duchess found a mean streak that Lucrezia’s sensative antennae picked up, but did not show.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Isabella did not lack for occupation, and had plenty of projects between the embellishment of her art collection and, during Francesca’s absences, the running of Mantua. The worsening situation as Cesare Borgia greedily took the weaker Romagnal states, as well as there being two French invasions, had left Isabella as regent of her husband’s small but important state for much of her married life. During that critical period, which required supreme diplomacy, she feared that her husband, a creature not gifted with the necessary slippery talents, could cause real harm to the couple and their state with one of his ill-tempered and overly frank outbursts.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance