Monika



** The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm-and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia-decadent children of a wicked pope-no one can claim innocence for long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest, he leaves Bianca under the care-so to speak-of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest salvation can be found as well... **

“Wildly inventive…Every bit as good as //__Wicked__//: wicked good, in fact.”-//__Kirkus Reviews__//



This photograph is symbolic to the novel because Bianca, who is Snow White in the book, befriends the seven dwarves, who are made of stone. The names of the dwarfs are Blindeye, Lame/Gimpy, Bitter, Deaf-to-the-World, Heartless, MuteMuteMute, and Tasteless. These names were based on a characteristic and sense that they didn't have and wanted very much. For example, Blindeye was blind, but he the longed to see. No matter how non-human they were, Bianca loved them very much. She would make them meals and interact with them as much as she could. In return, the dwarves provided her with a place to stay, clothes and people to take care of her. They help her through the time she is in their care, and she is grateful, yet she longs for her true life, which is missing.

“I intend to save my daughter, he said to himself. With faith or against it, that is what I intend. I have no papal father, like Cesare, no army behind me, no coffers to plunder. I have only my sense of that Borgia family, and the way that they turn, they turn; they always turn. If I’m not back quickly, and successfully, they will turn, against my Bianca if they can’t reach me.” Passage shows how much Vicente loved his daughter, Bianca. He loved her so much, that he even continued on an almost unsuccessful quest that led to a separation from his daughter. Bianca loved her father as much as he loved her and it tore her heart when he first left for the mission. He wrote to Lucrezia and Cesare of untrue facts as a ruse, so they wouldn’t harm his lovely, little Bianca. Vicente had the courage to go farther away from his daughter to keep her alive while she is with the Borgias. The more time he was away from his daughter, Vicente started to forget his old life, and began to create a new one in his mind; although, it was erased once he returned to Montefiore.



Lucrezia adorned herself with her finest garments, soaked her hair in lemon, and strung pearls in her golden locks. To finish off her look, she tied a red cloak that belonged to Bianca’s mother, Maria Ines. She poisons one half of and Apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Michelotto, the gooseboy, leads her to the abode in the woods where Bianca and the seven dwarfs were habiting. Lucrezia fed Michelotto a piece of drugged bread. He fell asleep after a few moments. Lucrezia went to the house in the hill where Bianca was. She tricked Binaca into letting her into the home. Lucrezia showed Bianca the Apple from the branch of the Tree of Knowledge. To mislead Bianca into eating the poisoned half, she took a bite of the non-venomous side. Bianca didn't think of turning the Apple to see if it was different, so she took a big bite of the lethal part. She crumpled to the floor.

“Maguire restores the edge to an oft-told tale and imbues it with a strange, unsettling beauty.”- //__Publisher’ s Weekly__// (starred review)

media type="youtube" key="xsHAWQQCiZ0" height="363" width="459" align="right" Barbara Streisand sings the beautiful song, “Someday my Prince Will Come.” //Walt Disney Studios// turns it into a lovely music video with clips from the animated movie, //Snow White//. This is to symbolize Bianca’s wait in the dwarfs’ home and how she dreams that someday she will be able to leave without fear or anxiety to see her family and her world again. She didn’t want Lucrezia to harm her and knew that Lucrezia would stop at nothing to do so. The song is the path of the mind of a girl who thinks of freedom as constantly as the times she saw the sky. Michelotto reminded her thoughts of Montefiore that she had forgotten within her imprisonment with the dwarfs.

“Mirror, mirror,” I spoke aloud, to steady my nerves, “who is the fairest of us all?” This simple phrase is the well-known verse from the fairy tale Snow White. It is important because Lucrezia is just muttering this phrase to herself, when the mirror begins to cloud and shows and image of Bianca and the seven dwarfs. She uses this mirror to find out that Bianca is still alive after all those years and repeats this phrase after each of the three times she tries to murder Bianca. The dwarfs actually made this mirror and lost it on their way back to the woods. Bianca saw Lucrezia from the mirror’s perspective when the dwarfs showed her the outside world, when she was trapped in a cave and not comfortable living quarters. The view frightened Bianca so much, that she didn’t ask the dwarfs if she could look outside again.

media type="youtube" key="MnmmKajG9Sc" height="382" width="443"media type="youtube" key="N14Ho-VVPgA" height="382" width="472" ​ These miscellaneous videos from the //Walt Disney// film, //Snow White//, shows various clips of the evil queen. The first clip is when the queen asks the mirror, “Who is the fairest one of all?” Then she instructs the hunter to kill Snow White and bring back her heart wretched from her chest and put in a coffin. The mirror now tells the queen that she was tricked; is not the heart of Snow White. She makes a potion to turn her into and old hag and a poison to coat an apple. She then delivers the apple to Snow White in the dwarfs’ cottage. Snow White bites the apple and falls in an extremely deep slumber…Lucrezia also consults the mirror to know about herself. She asks Ranuccio to murder Bianca, with her heart brought back to her. Lucrezia knows that he tricked her because she saw Bianca in the mirror many years later. She disguises herself as a crone with a wardrobe change. She poisons only half of the Apple to trick Bianca into eating it. Bianca falls for the charade and chews a bite of the Apple, causing her to faint…

 “You won’t correct me,” said Lucrezia. “You won’t dare.” I chose this quote because it represented the willpower of Lucrezia and the Borgias. Vicente did everything he could because he knew no one could obstruct Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia. She persisted in her fight to kill Bianca and succeeded for the most part; if it weren’t for the kiss, Bianca would have been sleeping for a long, long time. Lucrezia could make herself do the impossible just to get what she wanted. Before she died, she was determined to go to the Doge to claim and eat the last fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.



Lucrezia disguised herself as an old, homeless monk by wrapping a cloth around her face and darkening it with soot from the fire. She had Michelotto lead her to the house where he first saw Bianca after all those years. Lucrezia enjoyed acting as an old crone, hobbling along the path, while she was still a healthy thirty-two. She had prepared an exquisitely carved comb, and dipped the ends in a lethal substance. As she approached the tiny cottage, Lucrezia feigned as a poor friar from a monastery. Bianca gave this friar some food, but all she got in return was a stab in her scalp and a meal tossed on her body as it fell to the floor. Lucrezia left as fast as she could and joined Michelotto at the bottom of the hill.

“To accomplish this metaphorical feat, Maguire pulls in everything from the biblical ‘tree of knowledge’ to the conniving but oppressed Lucrezia Borgia, who serves nicely as the tale’s wicked queen, to eight (count ‘em) distinctly non-Disneyesque dwarfs with a knack for mirror making.”- //__Village Voice__//