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The Restorer
WINNER - RUBERY INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2012
In the dying days of the 20th Century, Elfa, a restorer in Florence, is sent on a lonely assignment into the frozen hills of the Mugello. In a long-neglected church, she is to restore a 15th Century fresco by the Renaissance master, Francesco di San Lorenzo. Working alone with only the kindly local priest and his suspicious housekeeper for company, she begins to clean the painting. It is not long before she discovers the church's secret: there is another, altogether different masterpiece, hidden beneath it.
The find is unprecedented - why was this work, which rewrites art history, covered almost immediately it was finished, over 500 years before? As she carefully removes the flaking paint, going against her supervisors' orders, and the winter closes about them, Elfa discovers something even more shocking: the original fresco contains images from her own past - and a brutal incident in particular she had thought long since consigned to obscurity. Now, it is revealed before her, and the dead painter will return once more to tell his story to the only woman who can hear it.
The Restorer won the 2012 Rubery Book Award for fiction. The prize was established to profile the very best writing from independent publishers. The panel said: “The story was measured, detailed and well paced... There was some beautiful writing in this novel and lovingly careful presentation”
(Publisher's note: this is the new 2013 Kindle version with earlier errors corrected. A few, limited first edition cloth-bound hardbacks are still available - see publisher's site for details)
In the dying days of the 20th Century, Elfa, a restorer in Florence, is sent on a lonely assignment into the frozen hills of the Mugello. In a long-neglected church, she is to restore a 15th Century fresco by the Renaissance master, Francesco di San Lorenzo. Working alone with only the kindly local priest and his suspicious housekeeper for company, she begins to clean the painting. It is not long before she discovers the church's secret: there is another, altogether different masterpiece, hidden beneath it.
The find is unprecedented - why was this work, which rewrites art history, covered almost immediately it was finished, over 500 years before? As she carefully removes the flaking paint, going against her supervisors' orders, and the winter closes about them, Elfa discovers something even more shocking: the original fresco contains images from her own past - and a brutal incident in particular she had thought long since consigned to obscurity. Now, it is revealed before her, and the dead painter will return once more to tell his story to the only woman who can hear it.
The Restorer won the 2012 Rubery Book Award for fiction. The prize was established to profile the very best writing from independent publishers. The panel said: “The story was measured, detailed and well paced... There was some beautiful writing in this novel and lovingly careful presentation”
(Publisher's note: this is the new 2013 Kindle version with earlier errors corrected. A few, limited first edition cloth-bound hardbacks are still available - see publisher's site for details)
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
66 people want to read
About the author
Daniela Murphy
1 book10 followersOf Spanish and Irish descent, Daniela Murphy Corella is a PACR accredited art conservator/restorer based in Florence. She is the president of Bastioni, association for the research and study of art works, a non-profit organization of international conservators based in Florence. She runs her own conservation practice, National Heritage Conservation and for the past twenty-five years has undertaken dozens of major conservation projects both in Italy and abroad. Daniela is currently head of the wall painting department at SACI studio art centers international, Florence, where she teaches both the theory and practice of wall painting conservation and restoration. Other works published by Daniela include Tips, finding your way around workshops and sites, Nardini Editore, which she co authored with the wall painting conservator Alberto Felici and various articles related to conservation and restoration treatments. Daniela has collaborated extensively with the media for programs and documentaries related to conservation. She lives in Montececeri, on the same hill-top chosen by Leonardo da Vinci to test his flying skills and shares her garden with two donkeys, a white maremano and a vivid family of squirrels.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 8, 2012
Fantastic debut from pro art restorer, weaving in-depth knowledge of her profession with colourful storytelling and a magical time-traveller's lens on Renaissance Florence. The central character, Elfa, is complex and covert, but cannot resist the lure of a passionate, long-dead painter whose work she uncovers, only to find their lives are inextricably entwined.
A must-read for historical fiction fans. Beautiful first editions in hardback.
A must-read for historical fiction fans. Beautiful first editions in hardback.
February 21, 2012
From the first page, The Restorer is a griping read, a true ‘can‘t put it down’ book. Set in both modern and renaissance Italy, the plot weaves together the creation and restoration of a fresco, a wall painting in a shuttered church in the remote Italian mountains. As the main character Elfa works to restore the painting, she discovers the forgotten artwork may conceal a secret masterpiece and something even more startling, clues about her own tragic past.
Prepare yourself for a tour de force of mystery, romance, history, art and intrigue. Author Daniela Murphy proves the wisdom of the writers advice to write what you know. An expert on art history and fresco restoration, her unique knowledge and writer’s talent combine to deliver an unforgettable story.
For those who love a fast paced plot with perhaps a paranormal twist, The Restorer is an unforgettable experience.
Prepare yourself for a tour de force of mystery, romance, history, art and intrigue. Author Daniela Murphy proves the wisdom of the writers advice to write what you know. An expert on art history and fresco restoration, her unique knowledge and writer’s talent combine to deliver an unforgettable story.
For those who love a fast paced plot with perhaps a paranormal twist, The Restorer is an unforgettable experience.
September 11, 2013
Lovely crossing between timelines, the author really paints a beautiful world that you'll want to be submerged in. The story itself is romantic but chilly, and quite delicious.
A hypnotic read and well worth investing time in. I now know a lot more about fresco painting!
Plus - added bonus the hardback is gorgeous.
A hypnotic read and well worth investing time in. I now know a lot more about fresco painting!
Plus - added bonus the hardback is gorgeous.
February 28, 2018
I really don't know what I was expecting from this book as I bought it on a whim, but I can say now having finished it that I am glad that I did. It was a lovely piece of escapism, cleverly woven between the past and the present and I enjoyed it immensely.
June 10, 2012
Review of 'The Restorer'
This small book ( in size but not slight in nature) is an increasingly interesting work. It is also very clever. 'Interesting' and 'clever' may seem pallid adjectives for enthusiasm but that is deliberate because both reveal themselves incrementally. At the surface the interest is held by the deep knowledge of a field (restoration of frescos in contemporary Italy) where the reader is offered technical understanding unobtrusively, and also insight into the political issues that might surround the most obscure discovery in a deconsecrated church. The lonely days of a typical restorer, painstakingly uncovering, and repairing, no matter how cold or cramped among the chill stones becomes the world one enters; the writing compels us to follow, and to sustain, and willingly to abandon our slippers for another day.
So interest turns to fascination, gripped by the enigma of one particular painting, and how (and why) it absorbs the main character. Like any novel wrapped around expertise, this is the gift offered, most generously. But that is only the beginning of interest.
The cleverness in the novel's construction lies in mirroring the subject by the structure of the book itself. The uncovering of the past, and its compelling and increasing 'presence' is overlaid, as the painting is, by another less meaningful present. Or to put it another way, a present that takes its meaning increasingly from the past, initially unseen, but incrementally uncovered as the work proceeds, and as the understanding is shaped by a growing image, compelling to the main character Elfa and increasingly to the wrapt reader. The alternation between the covered past and the uncovering present initially keeps them apart, but as they approach one another they bleed into a joint vibration, where one begins and the other ends no longer matters. What really does matter is the restoration of the Restorer, renewed by her craft mending her fractured love and her life.
Yet even that is a palimpsest over a deeper philosophy, the examination of time itself, causality, and the role of the future in summoning the past towards a present where both past and future collide here and now. As in the best stories there is an immortal truth applicable universally; once this has been experienced it is validated in every life. This, for that reason, is a great novel; touching on deep truth. Where better to set deep truth but in early Renaissance Florence?
I have said nothing of plot. What I loved about this book was the plot was the book, its compulsion played out by a cast of unique characters, each one rich but wholly real and credible, even bad temper was grand. Since I have given so much away what remains is simply to say go keep the company of fierce, voluble, enigmatic, extravagant, duplicitous compassionate people and enjoy finding yourself in a play that might have been the subject for a secular Shakespeare without a court to please. There are a thousand echoes of other myths, a world of monastic privation in bleak midwinter, of hard mouthed and hard nailed contemporaries. There is not a false note, or a contrived conversation; all is of the piece.
The jewel like character of this novel is perfectly matched by the beautiful book, or casket, in which it is to be found. Lucky author to find a publisher worthy of her craft.
This small book ( in size but not slight in nature) is an increasingly interesting work. It is also very clever. 'Interesting' and 'clever' may seem pallid adjectives for enthusiasm but that is deliberate because both reveal themselves incrementally. At the surface the interest is held by the deep knowledge of a field (restoration of frescos in contemporary Italy) where the reader is offered technical understanding unobtrusively, and also insight into the political issues that might surround the most obscure discovery in a deconsecrated church. The lonely days of a typical restorer, painstakingly uncovering, and repairing, no matter how cold or cramped among the chill stones becomes the world one enters; the writing compels us to follow, and to sustain, and willingly to abandon our slippers for another day.
So interest turns to fascination, gripped by the enigma of one particular painting, and how (and why) it absorbs the main character. Like any novel wrapped around expertise, this is the gift offered, most generously. But that is only the beginning of interest.
The cleverness in the novel's construction lies in mirroring the subject by the structure of the book itself. The uncovering of the past, and its compelling and increasing 'presence' is overlaid, as the painting is, by another less meaningful present. Or to put it another way, a present that takes its meaning increasingly from the past, initially unseen, but incrementally uncovered as the work proceeds, and as the understanding is shaped by a growing image, compelling to the main character Elfa and increasingly to the wrapt reader. The alternation between the covered past and the uncovering present initially keeps them apart, but as they approach one another they bleed into a joint vibration, where one begins and the other ends no longer matters. What really does matter is the restoration of the Restorer, renewed by her craft mending her fractured love and her life.
Yet even that is a palimpsest over a deeper philosophy, the examination of time itself, causality, and the role of the future in summoning the past towards a present where both past and future collide here and now. As in the best stories there is an immortal truth applicable universally; once this has been experienced it is validated in every life. This, for that reason, is a great novel; touching on deep truth. Where better to set deep truth but in early Renaissance Florence?
I have said nothing of plot. What I loved about this book was the plot was the book, its compulsion played out by a cast of unique characters, each one rich but wholly real and credible, even bad temper was grand. Since I have given so much away what remains is simply to say go keep the company of fierce, voluble, enigmatic, extravagant, duplicitous compassionate people and enjoy finding yourself in a play that might have been the subject for a secular Shakespeare without a court to please. There are a thousand echoes of other myths, a world of monastic privation in bleak midwinter, of hard mouthed and hard nailed contemporaries. There is not a false note, or a contrived conversation; all is of the piece.
The jewel like character of this novel is perfectly matched by the beautiful book, or casket, in which it is to be found. Lucky author to find a publisher worthy of her craft.
February 20, 2013
The Restorer alternates back and forth between the end of the 15th Century and the turn of the modern millennium. Yes, this template has been used elsewhere, but the extra level offered here is what links the two epochs. I don't want to spoil the plot, but safe to say this book is also a romance across time, and not some trashy wishful thinking. What is explored is the notion, following the view of modern physics, that we can influence our material universe through psychic means, consciously or not, and that these influences can 'cheat' time.
This theme forms the basis of the respective obsessions of Elfa, the modern day restorer, and Francesco, the 15th Century fresco painter - two damaged and bereft protagonists forced to look beyond their living fellows for a reason to keep striving. They are surrounded by a small but loyal cast - I particularly enjoyed the group of elderly friars led by Padre Teodoro in the bitter Mugello winter, stuck with a painter who is for much of the time more of a beast than a man. We're also given an insight into Florence at a crucial crossroads in its history, at the time of the extremist friar Savonarola, when the bonfire of the vanities was in full blaze, and although this section slowed the pace of the narrative a little, I enjoyed a tour through the city at such a key period.
This theme forms the basis of the respective obsessions of Elfa, the modern day restorer, and Francesco, the 15th Century fresco painter - two damaged and bereft protagonists forced to look beyond their living fellows for a reason to keep striving. They are surrounded by a small but loyal cast - I particularly enjoyed the group of elderly friars led by Padre Teodoro in the bitter Mugello winter, stuck with a painter who is for much of the time more of a beast than a man. We're also given an insight into Florence at a crucial crossroads in its history, at the time of the extremist friar Savonarola, when the bonfire of the vanities was in full blaze, and although this section slowed the pace of the narrative a little, I enjoyed a tour through the city at such a key period.
March 17, 2015
1st Prize Winner of the 2012 Rubery Book Award
A beautifully presented book in hardback and consistently well set out. The story was measured, detailed and well paced. Murphy has a fluid style and knows her subject. She is clearly familiar with the region of Florence from both a historical and geographical perspective and also has a deep and intimate knowledge of the business of restoring wall paintings. She makes good and imaginative use of both past and present tenses and switches effectively between first and third person narrations. There was some beautiful writing in this novel and lovingly careful presentation.
From the judges at RBA
A beautifully presented book in hardback and consistently well set out. The story was measured, detailed and well paced. Murphy has a fluid style and knows her subject. She is clearly familiar with the region of Florence from both a historical and geographical perspective and also has a deep and intimate knowledge of the business of restoring wall paintings. She makes good and imaginative use of both past and present tenses and switches effectively between first and third person narrations. There was some beautiful writing in this novel and lovingly careful presentation.
From the judges at RBA
December 26, 2011
Don't start this book unless you have time enough to read it in one go!
Breathtaking!
Art as word as history as romance ....
and a mystery novel.
The author is in complete control.
Can't wait for her coming novels
Breathtaking!
Art as word as history as romance ....
and a mystery novel.
The author is in complete control.
Can't wait for her coming novels
December 22, 2014
A blend of 1400's and the present, as artist and conservator paint the wall of a monastery in the Italian hills. While the story alternates between the original artist and modern conservator, lines between both times blend and blur with a surprising ending.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews