Perspective(s): Historical Detective Novel Set in Florence

Nothing goes as planned. In 2012, Laurent Binet made it the title of a story about the victorious campaign of François Hollande (Grasset, like all his books). Nothing went as planned for his novel either Perspective(s). After three ambitious projects, around the Nazi Reinhard Heydrich (Hhhhh2010), of an improbable assassination of Roland Barthes (The Seventh Function of Language2015) then a conquest of Europe by the Incas (Civilizations2019), the fifty-year-old had thought of returning to “something simpler”he confided to “World of Books”: “A good old detective novel”, he anticipated. Missed ! His taste for history and literary challenges led him on an adventure lasting more than three years, culminating in an unusual text: perhaps the first epistolary historical detective novel ever written. “At least, I don’t know any other”nuances the author.

It all started from a desire: to continue exploring the 16th century^e century begun with Civilizations. One of the chapters took place in Florence. While scouting on site, the novelist was struck by the major role of Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), painter, architect, but above all art historian and inventor of the concept of Renaissance. “I thought he would make a good investigator for a criminal case.”, he says. He starts looking for a victim. Why not the young Maria Strozzi, née Medici, who died in 1557 in obscure circumstances? The author ultimately preferred Jacopo da Pontormo, a mannerist who died the same year, while he was finishing the decoration of the choir of the San Lorenzo church for the Medici – frescoes mysteriously destroyed.

An investigator, a victim, an enigma, an exciting context, Italy being at the heart of the then confrontation between France and Spain… These elements in hand, detective Binet makes the rounds of neighbors, friends , enemies of his first characters. Pontormo leads him to his disciple Bronzino, Bronzino to his assistant (and perhaps more) Allori, Vasari to their common idol Michelangelo… Around twenty protagonists, all historical, thus enter the computer’s “casting” file . With each one a name, a social status, characteristics, a role in the plot to come. The cards are yellow for the painters, red for the workers and craftsmen who work for them, orange for Catherine de Medici and her allies, purple for the Duke and Duchess of Florence. The architecture of the novel takes shape.

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