{"id":632,"date":"2023-08-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/?p=632"},"modified":"2024-07-02T09:41:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T08:41:58","slug":"santa-cecilia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/?p=632","title":{"rendered":"Santa Cecilia"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\"\"Publication day for The Girl Who Fled the Picture <\/em>is in less than two weeks on 21st<\/sup> August. How exciting is that! I\u2019ve had some lovely pre-publication reviews from authors and bloggers and I am so excited to think of my work soon being read by strangers.<\/p>

I\u2019m a huge fan of historical fiction. I particularly enjoy books that take me back in time and overseas. This year I seem to be reading my way through Italy. I loved Two Women in Rome<\/em> by Elizabeth Buchan. Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s The Marriage Portrait<\/em>had me awestruck (as usual, I\u2019ve been a huge fan for many years). Now I\u2019m half way through D.V. Bishop\u2019s Darkest Sin<\/em> \u2013 which is really first class. Somewhat weirdly, like The Marriage Portrait<\/em>, it\u2019s also set in sixteenth century Florence, only thirty years later. I don\u2019t read huge amounts of crime, but I love David Bishop\u2019s writing. Sarah Winman\u2019s Still Life <\/em>is coming to the top of my bedside t.b.r pile. I find Sarah\u2019s work beautiful and often heart-breaking. Should I risk taking it on an Italian train journey in October? My copy is a heavy hardback, so that\u2019s maybe daft. Also, do I want to be sobbing in front of Italian train passengers? Perhaps I\u2019ll read it here and take a cheerier paperback. What do you suggest?<\/p>

My first blog began with Isabella in Constantinople. The next stage of her adventure will take her to Rome and the start of her involvement with the Jacobites. I knew nothing about their life in Rome before I began my research and spent literally years reading everything I could find about the Stuart family during these years. When I was looking for a safe place for Isabella to hide, I went to visit this little Santa Cecilia church, which is on Trastevere island in Rome. It\u2019s a bit of a hidden gem. Our Italian tour guide had never been before I requested it and he was very enthusiastic. It is connected to the Jacobite family through Maria Clementina, Bonnie Prince Charlie\u2019s Polish mother. I won\u2019t tell you all of her fascinating life story, I\u2019ve got the bones of a novel written about it. Perhaps I\u2019ll bring that to you next year? Mary Clementina was a devout Catholic but James Stuart was keen to present himself as a suitable monarch to rule Protestants too, so he had many Protestant Scottish nobles in his court. Maria Clementina was furious when she lost easy access to her sons, when they were given over to these nobles to educate. Prince Henry was only a baby. In protest, she shut herself in this convent for three years<\/p>

\"\"Do go and visit the church if you are in Rome. You can see in the photo how beautiful it is. The very lifelike white marble statue of Saint Cecilia below the altar has a ribbon strategically placed to cover where they chopped her head off! You can book additional tours of part of the convent (I caught a tantalising glimpse of their citrus orchard). Also of a fascinating and well-preserved Roman dwelling in the crypt. Whether it was Cecilia\u2019s actual house, we will never know.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Publication day for The Girl Who Fled the Picture is in less than two weeks on 21st August. How exciting is that! I\u2019ve had some lovely pre-publication reviews from authors and bloggers and I am so excited to think of my work soon being read by strangers. I\u2019m a huge fan of historical fiction. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}