Title: City of Silk
Author: Glennis Virgo
Year: 2024
Genre: Historical Fiction
In Renaissance era Bologna, Elena Morandi dreams of becoming a tailor although the profession is barred to women. However when her fragile foothold in the industry is threatened by Antonio Della Fontana, a powerful merchant, she must confront her past to bring justice for herself, her friend and his other victims. This book is the debut novel by Glennis Virgo and it was selected to be my local bookshop’s monthly book club read at the time of writing and I didn’t have any prior knowledge of the book before reading it.
Plot
The novel opens with a snippet of a report written in 1566 about a young girl who needs a place in an orphanage. The girl is described as a recent orphan after the death of her parents, even tempered and also has excellent sewing skills.
Our story then begins in 1575, Elena Morandi is the young girl who has now grown up and works as a seamstress for Signora Ruffo in Bologna, along with Sofia, a black former slave girl who is an assistant. Elena dreams of becoming a tailor like her father was but the profession is closed off to her and all women.
To add further salt to this situation, Signora Ruffo has recently arranged a marriage for Elena to one of the tailors in the city, however Elena would be nothing more than an unpaid apprentice, keeping his workshop clean and never being allowed to work for clients. To escape the situation, Elena decides to leave Signora Ruffo’s workshop and try to get work in a tailor’s as an apprentice on her merits, eventually managing to secure a position with Francesco Rondinelli in his tailor’s workshop.
However, Elena is horrified when she discovers one of Rondinelli’s clients is Antonio Della Fontana, a wealthy and influential merchant in the city. Fontana claims to be a philanthropist, caring for the young people of Bologna and even investing in the Baraccano orphanage that Elena grew up in following the death of her parents. However Elena knows this is just a front for his much darker reasons to be so interested in the Barracano, an interest which caused the death of Elena’s friend Laura.
Will Fontana be brought to justice? As Elena hatches a plan to avenge herself, Laura and Fontana’s other victims, will she succeed or destroy everything she loves? Also will she ever fulfill her dream of becoming a tailor?
Thoughts
This novel is a debut novel by Glennis Virgo and one of the things that really impressed me in this debut is the amazing characters she has managed to put onto the page, with every character feeling like real people with flaws and stories that go in hand in hand with the beautiful descriptions of Bologna in the 16th Century.
Our protagonist Elena has many traits that we can relate to even if we don’t live in her world. She dreams of something more and wants her talent for sewing and tailoring to be recognized, even though she lives in an environment that actively tries to stop her pursuing her goals which I think everyone can relate to her strive to succeed. Her backstory is tragic and horrendous, especially the flashback scenes at the Barracano that are very emotional to read although I don’t want to spoil anything here. However there are parts of her character that are also unlikable, although understandable, with her homophobic attitude which would have been common in the era the novel is set in, as well as her overlooking of Sofia and her feelings (which possibly has some racial bias there too) but this makes her feel like a real person who makes mistakes but we still want to see the best outcome for her.
My other favourite characters were Sofia, Rondinelli and Signora Ruffo. Sofia is Elena’s stoic friend who often has to deal with a lot of negativity from her friend, yet continues to stand by her, even though unlike Elena, Sofia has the additional problem that due to the colour of her skin continues to suffer many of the torments she did when she was younger.
Rondinelli is the tailor who takes a chance on Elena and when we discover he is also living a lie and fears he might be discovered, this only serves to further humanize him to us and though he also puts Elena in some dreadful situations we can also understand why he does that.
Similarly Signora Ruffo places Elena in a bad situation at the very start by arranging a marriage for her, forcing her to live on the streets to escape the situation but she also goes through a redemption arc in the novel that feels realistic and earned for both characters.
The only character that doesn’t is the main antagonist Antonio Della Fontana and he is truly despicable and you will hate him throughout the novel as he has no redeeming qualities at all. Also as Virgo herself says in the afterword there are many men like him even in today’s world which is a sad state of affairs that you would hope the world has moved on from this although it hasn’t and definitely finding out his comeuppance is a satisfying moment for the reader.
The depictions also of a medieval city in the 16th Century are also well done with Bologna feeling like a real place and Virgo says in her afterword some of the research she did to create the feeling of a real place and it is fascinating and really feels alive when you are turning the pages.
If I was to say a negative I just feel the plot somewhat let it down as it is pretty easy to work out early on what has happened between Antonio and Elena, even the blurb makes it pretty clear so a lot of the book feels like you are waiting for this reckoning between the two characters which obviously doesn’t come until towards the end so parts of the plot feel like it’s just padding to get to this point.
Also whilst I enjoyed reading the book and being in the world Virgo creates whilst I was reading it, I also found when I put it down I didn’t feel a great pull to come back and for my book club I ended up reading it in quite large chunks to finish it, although the ending was satisfying with all the characters having fitting conclusions.
Overall though it was an enjoyable debut historical novel and I loved the character writing and the setting, the plot did meander at times and I wasn’t completely hooked. If you have read City of Silk let me know in the comments down below what your thoughts were.
