ANVIL OF THE HEART
A novel of Albrecht Dürer
Anvil of the Heart
What is truth? What is beauty? What is love? These were the three great quests of Albrecht Dürer's life. The novel, Anvil of the Heart, is a fictional account, based on meticulous historical research, of Dürer's journey to answer these three questions.
Though graced with extraordinary artistic talent, Albrecht Dürer spent his life steeped in conflict, within and without. He swung between extremes of sensuality and religious devotion. He was encouraged by his father to marry Agnes, a woman with her own demons. Her intelligence and business acumen made him wealthy but she could not accept him as her husband. He never forgot Gabriella, his mistress in Venice, who nurtured his talent and taught him how to experience pleasure. And there was another: the fourth key relationship in Dürer’s life was his bromance with Willibald Pirckheimer, the wealthy scholar whose influence on Dürer's art and philosophy was profound. There was the mutual jealousy and animosity between Pirckheimer and Agnes, and between Agnes and Gabriella. Four lives intertwined in love, resentment, and codependence. In spite of this, or because of it, Dürer's genius arises, and he becomes the artist Giovanni Bellini said, "Could be the best of us all."
Set primarily in Venice and Nuremberg and told in first person in the four characters' unique voices, Anvil of the Heart will make readers fall in love with Dürer--extraordinary painter and engraver; passionate lover; intelligent skeptic. Ultimately, he shoulders all his duties to his family, his countrymen, and his God, even as he is inspired, always, by Gabriella, absent but never truly lost.
P R A I S E
“A stunning feat of storytelling. I have not felt a novel this deeply in a very long time. Alison Taylor-Brown captures the flesh and blood and heart and humanity of each of her characters with clarity, insight, and tremendous compassion, while reawakening the passion in us all. This novel inspired me as a person and as an artist. My heart broke and rejoiced and swelled with hope as I experienced the brilliant Renaissance artist, Albrecht Dürer, stumble toward grace and become the artist Bellini said ‘could be the best of us all.’ Simply magnificent!”
“Alison Taylor-Brown writes the kind of historical fiction that always feels present, never antique. Because her prose is so vivid and assured, her characters so lush with consciousness, the world of Albrecht Dürer and those who knew him absorbs and welcomes us, instantly suffusing the imagination.”
“Hugely moving...staggeringly good.”
“A novel of grace and insight and great, great compassion.”
“In Anvil of the Heart, Alison Taylor-Brown artfully intertwines the personal and the historical, offering a window into Albrecht Dürer’s world that is as vivid as it is insightful. This novel is a testament to the transformative power of art and the indomitable spirit of those who create it. ”
