Cantarella 1
December 3, 2005
I think if I hadn’t read Gregory Macguire’s Mirror Mirror and finished it, like, a day before buying and reading this, I would’ve been lost. A ton of characters get thrown at you here without explanation. I know about Caesare, Vannozza, Lucrezia, and Pope Alexander/whoever their father was, and I knew about the Borgia reputation, and I’d heard about some of the rival families. Michaelotto, in Mirror Mirror, was the illegitimate son of Lucrezia and Caesare, but I don’t know if that was rooted in even historical rumor… but the name does show up in both works, so I don’t know… I seem to remember them explaining that he was actually an assassin or something that assisted Caesare in the back of the book. Cantarella showed up, not by name, but as the most powerful poison in Mirror Mirror, the one that put Snow White to sleep.
Mirror Mirror was a good book. I’m not convinced about this manga, though. Basically what I’m saying is that it’s confusing for even people who may have a lot of knowledge about the Borgia family, and it’s also kind of boring. I know the exposition is going somewhere though, and it’s very pretty, so I’ll forgive it.
I want more titles in the Go!Comi signature series, by the way. Their presentation of this volume is unmatched.
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