Talk:The Enchantress of Florence

"Historical Characters"
A lot of these historical characters don't actually appear in the book. For example Elizabeth I is mentioned several times but never actually appears. And Petrarch is quoted at the beginning and his poetry mentioned one other time, but he died over 100 years before even the earliest scenes in the novel would have taken place. "Angelica" meanwhile is a fictional character (yes in Orlando Innamorato but more famously in Orlando Furioso, which is also cited in Rushdie's Appendix, which is probably the stronger influence though not referred to, by my recollection, directly in the novel qua fictional work) and in no sense historical, though obviously an important inspiration. Genghis Khan doesn't really appear either, since he lived "before" the novel, though referred to a number of times; Leo X, though contemporary to the novel, I don't think ever has a "scene." "Scathach" is neither historical nor a character in the novel, but merely referred to once (there are numerous references to literary and mythological figures in this novel - for example, Shakespeare characters such as Othello and Shylock, but surely they shouldn't be included as "historical characters"). Finally Waldseemueller's map is mentioned but not the cartographer himself, I don't think. There probably are other historical figures in the novel not mentioned here however; for example people from Machiavelli's family maybe, and I think there was an Italian composer mentioned; were any of the courtesans real? Etc.(98.14.178.109 (talk) 06:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC))


 * I agree with you, and have tried to clean it up a bit. Please check. Wiki-uk (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2014 (UTC)