Autumn/Winter 2022

lockdown, when many of us experienced that
strict confinement first hand. What better time
to try to get into the mind of a woman who
rarely went beyond the walls of her house
while waiting for her husband to claim her and
take her away to start a new life? The usual
process of first researching and then writing a
novel was reversed in the case of The Marriage
Portrait, with the writing mostly completed in
the spaces between home schooling and
escapes for a daily walk around the local park.
The research trip to Florence and Ferrara to
take notes, visit locations and sketch maps
came later, as soon as travel was permitted.
When she was finally able to see the places
Lucrezia had lived, O’Farrell was unprepared
for the emotional impact this would have
on her. “I hadn’t bargained for the effect of
walking along a corridor where a person you
have been thinking and dreaming about for
two years had lived.” A visit to the monastery
outside of Ferrara where Lucrezia was buried
left her devastated. “When the custodian of
the monastery told me that in all the time he
had worked there, not a single person had ever
before asked to see the grave of Lucrezia de’
Medici d’Este, I’m not ashamed to say that I
cried. Because she had died a long way from
72 Restoration Conversations • Autumn / Winter 2022