Bellarion

Rating:
Summary: One of Sabatini's best
Review: I agree with the other reviewer (ralo91) about what makes the title character so interesting, and I would add that this is one of the author's three or four best works. Bellarion begins as a scholar out of a monastery and in the world for the first time, ending up a nobleman and the leading mercenary in early fifteenth century Italy. All throughout, he prevails through strategy and cleverness instead of brawn or force of arms. As one character observes, Bellarion never aims where he looks.

The glory and honors he accumulates are the last thing on his mind, though. Every step he takes is to advance the cause of Princess Valeria of Montferrat--"sheer knight-errantry" as Sabatini calls it--made all the more interesting because Valeria wants to believe that Bellarion isn't the venal opportunist she perceives him to be, but for the longest time she can't get beyond appearances.

Highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Captain Blood, Scaramouche, or The Sea-Hawk.

Rating:
Summary: One of Sabatini's best
Review: I agree with the other reviewer (ralo91) about what makes the title character so interesting, and I would add that this is one of the author's three or four best works. Bellarion begins as a scholar out of a monastery and in the world for the first time, ending up a nobleman and the leading mercenary in early fifteenth century Italy. All throughout, he prevails through strategy and cleverness instead of brawn or force of arms. As one character observes, Bellarion never aims where he looks.

The glory and honors he accumulates are the last thing on his mind, though. Every step he takes is to advance the cause of Princess Valeria of Montferrat--"sheer knight-errantry" as Sabatini calls it--made all the more interesting because Valeria wants to believe that Bellarion isn't the venal opportunist she perceives him to be, but for the longest time she can't get beyond appearances.

Highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Captain Blood, Scaramouche, or The Sea-Hawk.

Rating:
Summary: Bellarion the Fortunate
Review: Wnen I was a girl, I read all of Sabatini's novels, and this was my favorite. Sometimes Jane Austen's Fitzwilliam Darcy was my ideal man, and other times Bellarion was. I just reread Bellarion more than fifty years later, and I still love him. He was fortunate, always escaping by the skin of his teeth, but also misunderstood. So brave, so self-effacing, so brilliant. Of course, it turns out all right. But on the way, one worries so about that strange but loveable boy who sets out to walk to school in Padua in the fifteenth century and ends up in all kinds of fixes, meanwhile becoming the leading condottiere in Italy. The most fascinating part about him is his inventive and slippery mind. A really good read.

Rating:
Summary: Bellarion the Fortunate
Review: Wnen I was a girl, I read all of Sabatini's novels, and this was my favorite. Sometimes Jane Austen's Fitzwilliam Darcy was my ideal man, and other times Bellarion was. I just reread Bellarion more than fifty years later, and I still love him. He was fortunate, always escaping by the skin of his teeth, but also misunderstood. So brave, so self-effacing, so brilliant. Of course, it turns out all right. But on the way, one worries so about that strange but loveable boy who sets out to walk to school in Padua in the fifteenth century and ends up in all kinds of fixes, meanwhile becoming the leading condottiere in Italy. The most fascinating part about him is his inventive and slippery mind. A really good read.