My Gratitude Journal: Research

What was the most prominent Protestant church in Sydney in 1857? What was the name of the Catholic church nearby?

How were executions conducted in Renaissance Florence? What kinds of crimes were considered worth the death penalty, especially for Florentine women?

How did a goldsmith operate his bottega, and where did he fit in the social structure of Florentine citizens? How might a daughter come to be part of a goldsmith's business practice, even though officially forbidden that masculine role?

If you want to know it to create versimilitude (read that: It didn't happen, but it could have) in a work of fiction, you can find it on the Internet these days.

Okay, that's not always true. In fact, if you want to know much about train schedules in the East prior to the Civil War, you won't find that online and it's pretty tough to find that info anywhere since train stations were frequently war targets and their records burned with them. (Ask me how I know! I ended up in the white-glove library affixed to the Railroad Museum in Sacramento, looking through precious copies of the few old schedules that remain, and in the end, I never wrote that book, either.)

Today I am grateful for research, and I have found that -- except in rare cases like the railroad schedules -- there is plenty of it available for almost anything I want to know.

Lately I've been writing a book set in Sydney in the middle 1850s. When I need a fact (What newspapers were printed in Sydney in 1857? Did they cover social news?), I can find it online. At the same time, I have been doing research for a BIG BOOK I want to write someday soon, which I'm setting against the life of Lorenzo di Medici, Il Magnifico himself, in Renaissance Florence. In the process I've begun collecting a rather impressive library of everything from academic textbooks on the social structure of Florence, circa 1400-1480, to other fiction set in that period.

The scope and range of material is astonishing and there's always more where that came from. In the cases of both these books -- the one set in Victorian Australia and the other in Renaissance Florence -- the question is not whether I can find the material, but where to stop the research and get the writing done, and that is a conundrum for another day.

Today I am grateful for research -- for the wealth of information made readily available by others, and for how much fun I've been having turning the academic and scholarly into imaginative fun. So historians and researchers, this bud's for you: My thanks to you all.

The Back Story

One of the problems every writer of prose narrative encounters is the question of back story. Who are your characters? Where did they come from and how did they get where they are? Handling that without going on for pages is always a delicate matter.

My new Work-in-Progress, set in Australia, begins with former Englishman James Martin working in a general store and reflecting on how he came to be there. Here is the next short section:

News of a gold strike in the Australian colonies had reached his family when James had been an adventuresome lad of only sixteen years. Work was hard to come by in their small village in Wiltshire County, and he had begged his father to consider what huge stacks of gold nuggets might buy. In a few weeks the gold fever had overtaken even his practical father, who helped James gather the passage money.

James had bid his family farewell and started for the port in Liverpool with a small satchel of personal belongings and just enough hard cash to book passage to Melbourne, in Victoria Colony. He wouldn’t need much more, after all, since gold was practically lying about, just waiting for him to pocket it.

How green he’d been! And how foolish! His only comfort was that a number of other young fools had been taken in just as he had. The foreman called Murdoch was there at the docks when they debarked, looking for the young ones and bragging up the easy digs and rich wages. Neither James nor his several companions who had signed on together had realized they would be working for weekly wages on a rich man’s claim, searched every evening before they left the mine lest they dare to pocket even a smidgeon of the man’s great wealth, and watched over by armed guards at night while they slept in a bug-infested tent village erected along Burra Creek, allegedly to protect them all from robbers and claim jumpers.

Nor had he spent his time picking up nuggets. Ah, no! This had been down-and-dirty hard rock mining with pick, shovel and strong back, and most of what they’d mined in the end had been copper, not gold – a fine enough vein of that, to be certain, though it all belonged to the wealthy man who owned the mining company and James had not so much as a fraction of an ounce to claim for himself.

So whaddya think? If you have comments or questions about James and his background, I'd love to hear them.

A Happy Meeting

In my current historical work-in-progress set in Sydney, I have young James Martin at the dock checking out the folk who've just arrived on the latest passenger ship from Southampton, in England. He looks up just in time to catch the eye of one young lady, and here's what happens:

A second glance showed him there was nothing exceptional about this one. She was of average height and average-to-slim build and she wore a simple, tailored dress in dove gray with just a touch of lace at the collar. Her hair was cut shoulder length, styled up on the sides in the current fashion, and it looked a medium, mousy brown – although he had to admit that it shone like spun honey when she moved into the sunlight. Her face was a fine oval and her features were even and soft, surely not the prettiest he’d seen, though he wouldn’t call her plain. Then she looked up at him, caught his eye, smiled like the radiant sun bursting over the sea at dawn, blushed, and shyly dropped her eyes.

James listens as she comes ashore and learns her name is Eliza Wells. When she steps off the boat, he volunteers to help her. Here is how that goes:

“Miss? May I help you with your satchel?” James asked, approaching her.

She refused to meet his eyes, looking determinedly at his collar. “I do not speak with strange men, Sir.” The color was rising in her cheeks again.

He chuckled. “I’m a strange one, I’ll grant ye’ that, but I’m also a friend of the official who checked you in. If you want to walk back a step or two, he can perform a proper introduction.”

“No, um, thank you,” the girl said, rather more stiffly than James thought necessary. She took a long, deep breath and turned away from him.

Impatience sneaked up on James. “Look, Miss, I’m not tryin’ t’ give ye trouble. I thought from the way ye smiled at me –"

“I .. I didn’t smile at you.” She looked up at him, and then quickly back down at her feet, blushing furiously. “I just smiled, and ye … ye happened t’ be there.”

James nodded. “Ah, I see.” He let his tone and his look tell her how little he believed her protests. “So, since I just happen t’ be here now, is there somethin’ I can help ye find?”

I'm having such fun with James and Eliza. I promise to share more as their story develops.

Florence Facts

For the rest of November, I'm going to write random thoughts about things that interest me, bother me, or just tweak my imagination. It should be an interesting ride. I invite you to come along.

Most folks who've looked at the Renaissance realize it began in Italy. As they narrow down, they give credit to the flourishing of art that happened largely in Florence in the late 1400s (think Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael...). What I didn't realize until I started studying it carefully is this: Had it not been for one man, Lorenzo di Medici, the Renaissance as we know it might never have happened.

To make my point, let me take you to Florence, circa 1450:

The old feudal system of kings, knights, and so forth is gone, but the aristocratic families still proudly claim knights as ancestors. Slavery is still widely practiced; Circassian slave girls are especially popular and many prominent men have an acknowledged child or two with their slaves. People are openly pious in proclaiming their religion, yet they often profit openly from business practices that are condemned by the church. (In a city built on banking, usury is one of the most serious of those sins.)

The Tuscan city-state ruled by Florence is one of many rival kingdoms on the Italian peninsula. Among these, the papal states, where the pope rules as unrivaled "prince of the church," has one of the strongest armies. In the midst of this, Florence manages a nominal democracy where even lowly craftsmen can rule for a time alongside the most vaunted names in the city.

And into this mix steps Lorenzo di Medici, known even in his lifetime as Il Magnifico. He organizes the Plato Academy where, for the first time, the greatness of God is celebrated together with the greatness of human form and thought: a combining of Christian and humanist thought that has never been rivaled. He creates a sculpture garden, finds talents such as the young Michelangelo Buonarroti (13 years old when Il Magnifico took him in) and nurtures them in the traditions of Greek sculptors. He holds contests for poets to equal Dante, hires Brunelleschi to complete the dome on the cathedral (which has stood uncovered for 100 years) and creates a library of manuscripts to rival the fabled library of Alexandria. What a fascinating man!

I'm imagining my story, set against the backdrop of Il Magnifico's magnificent life, and I'm enjoying the process of studying and researching for it. In time I hope to share it all with you. Stay tuned!

Fascinating Florence

For the rest of November, I'm going to write random thoughts about things that interest me, bother me, or just tweak my imagination. It should be an interesting ride. I invite you to come along.

So yesterday I wrote about Australia and said I couldn't think of a more fascinating place to be. How about another that fascinates me just as much?

A little over a year ago, I visited Italy for the first time, and I fell in love with Firenze, the city we call Florence. For one thing, I love my home in northern California. It's one of the four places on earth, outside of the Mediterranean nations, that has a Mediterranean climate. So the landscape and the flora that I love every day here at home are there, too. Gorgeous!

At the same time, we here in nor-Cal consider something old if it's been around for a century. Century-old objects in Tuscany are just getting started. Then too, for someone who loves beautiful art and architecture, every day in Florence is a visual feast.

I intend to go feasting again next spring. My excuse is another historical novel, this one set during the early Italian Renaissance. If nothing else, that book will give me a chance to indulge in Florence fancy. I can hardly wait!