Vittorio, the Vampire
by Anne Rice
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anne RiceEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-02-27
ISBN: 0345422392
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Vittorio, the Vampire
Book Review: New Blood!
Summary: 5 Stars
The unique thing about this novel is that it is not connected in the slightest way to the other vampire novels by Anne Rice.
This beautiful piece of work is historical and fascinating.It never fails to keep you turning pages...It is a must read whether you are a fan or not...It would leave you amazed...
In the twentieth century, from his castle in the northern part of Tuscany, Vittorio writes the tragic tale of his life.
In 1450, Vittorio is a sixteen-year old nobleman and his family is murdered by a powerful and ancient coven of vampires. The image of his siblings' severed heads with eyes staring fixedly at him strike him permanently. Vittorio, however, escapes such a dreadful ending because of a vampire's intervention.
After taking care of his family's burial, Vittorio gathers what riches he can and prepares himself for adventures as he flees towards Florence, away from the perilous crowd of vampires, under the sun's protecting wing.
By nightfall, Vittorio arrives at the most strange of villages, for there are no beggars at the street, no elderly, no sick or dying. Yet his mournful spirit prevents him from taking notice of it. He soon realizes that someone is stalking him, and, worried enough, he seeks shelter at an inn.
Ursula, the vampire who prevented the other members of her coven from killing Vittorio, lurks behind his room's window. She seduces Vittorio, night after night, until he takes her blood after struggling in vain to avoid that moment -- both hating and yearning for it, the very cause of his family's doom.
Vittorio is led by Ursula to the coven's lair, as she attempts to make him part of their gatherings. It is an ancient castle, where he discovers its many gardens filled with old people and sick children; he suddenly realizes that some of these people he had met at the village. Vittorio then witnesses an important feast that is carried on as a ritual by the leader of the vampires' group. In it, some people who were selected from the gardens are sacrificed to satisfy their thirst for blood.
After refusing the dark gift, the vampires do not kill him (thanks to Ursula) but rather leave him in a village. As he is walking, he sees two Angels arguing in a doorway. The angels are just as surprised as he that Vittoria can see them. With their help, the help of his own angels, and a very powerful armor wearing angel, Vittorio plots his revenge against the vampires who are invading the lands and killing the innocents.
The attack takes place in the day and involves decapitating the vampires as they sleep. The heads are then thrown into the sunlight where they wither and die. When it comes time to behead Ursula, Vittoria finds that he cannot do this even as the angels urge him on. Instead, he frees Ursula in the hopes of saving her soul. Within minutes, Vittorio is tricked into becomming a vampire and a yearning for blood conquers everything he knows.
In the closing pages we find Ursula and Vittoria performing as an age old Bonnie and Clyde, killing and drinking until they had their fill. These two lovers stay with each other for many years to come
enjoy...Nigel.
Summary of Vittorio, the Vampire
Educated in the Florence of Cosimo de' Medici, trained in knighthood at his father's mountaintop castle, Vittorio inhabits a world of courtly splendor and country pleasures?a world suddenly threatened when his entire family is confronted by an unholy power.
In the midst of this upheaval, Vittorio is seduced by the beautiful and sinister vampire Ursula?setting in motion a chilling chain of events that will mark his life for eternity. Against a backdrop of the wonders?both sacred and profane?and the beauty and ferocity of Renaissance Italy, Anne Rice creates a passionate and tragic legend of doomed young love and lost innocence.
Tired of the same old vampires? Check out Anne Rice's new race of undead bloodsuckers, independent of the Lestat series. Her alterna-vamp books began with Pandora, but the second of her New Tales of the Vampires, Vittorio, is truly a new beginning--a more controlled story and probably the best of her last half-dozen books.
Rice has called Vittorio her vampire version of Romeo and Juliet. The hunky Vittorio is sweet 16 and "incalculably rich" in 15th-century Italy, the epoch of the Medicis and Vittorio's favorite painter, madly passionate Filippo Lippi. Florence is to Vittorio what New Orleans is to Interview with the Vampire.
One night, Vittorio's family is butchered by vampires. The gorgeous Ursula spares Vittorio to make him her reluctant undying sweetheart. Ursula's ravishings of Vittorio recall the erotica Rice wrote under her own name and the pen names Anne Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure.
Vittorio flees to the creepy town of Santa Maddalana, which has made a pact to sacrifice its young to Lord Florian's vampire horde. Vittorio is bent on revenge as he invades the eerie Court of the Ruby Grail (i.e. blood), as angry with the child-sacrificing humans as he is with Florian's fang gangsters. Torn between lust, murderous rage, and vampire thirst, Vittorio is one interestingly troubled soul.
Rice urges readers to enter Vittorio's world by reading the sources she embroiders, Fra Filippo Lippi and Public Life in Renaissance Florence, and to get a feel for the scary communion Vittorio sees in the Court of the Ruby Grail by listening to All Souls' Vespers. --Tim Appelo
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