Dimensions
129 x 197 x 16mm
Surrounded by the warmth and colour of Tuscan life, but cocooned in the silent pressure of his studio, life for Tullio d'Attore has become a see-sawing of inspiration and deflating disappointment at his inability to be the artist he aspires to be. Feted as a young painter, but now unable to make a living he makes ends meet by acting as a cultural guide to parties of tourists. In contrast to his fortunes as an artist, "Tullio's Tour" of early Renaissance art achieves something of a cult status in the United States, and is booked up for years in advance.
As another Tuscan summer begins, the arrival of a strange and exceptionally gifted young artist at the seventeenth century palazzo in which Tullio lives with his wife, Claudia, promises to intensify the tensions in his life. While Tullio works in his studio, in the apartment below Giuliano Amadei begins a portrait of Claudia. To the sound of Giuliano's cello playing, which pervades the Palazzo Lanzi in its quietest moments, Tullio's story is played out to its surprising end.
In his seductive second novel, Peter Adamson movingly captures the struggle for purpose at the heart of artistic creation and the agonising, uncrossable line between technical mastery and instinctive brilliance, and celebrates the art, history and street-life of Italy.
