Lives Hidden from History in Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait

Works Cited

1. ↵
   1. Bestor, Jane Fair

   . “Bastardy and Legitimacy in the Formation of a Regional State in Italy: The Estense Succession.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 38, no. 3, 1996, pp. 549–85.

   OpenUrl
2. ↵
   “Biography of Lucrezia de’ Medici.” Palazzo Pitti, www.palazzo-pitti.net/lucrezia-demedic-biography.html.
3. ↵
   1. Boldrini, Lucia, et al.

   , eds. The Routledge Companion to Biofiction. Routledge, 2025.
4. ↵
   1. Browning, Robert

   . “My Last Duchess.” www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess.
5. ↵
   1. Bucknell, Clare

   . “A Plucked Quince.” Review of The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell. London Review of Books, vol. 44, no. 19, 2022, www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n19/clare-bucknell/a-plucked-quince.
6. ↵
   1. Burke, Jill

   . How to Be a Renaissance Woman. Pegasus Books, 2024.
7. ↵
   1. Canning, Elaine

   . “Remaking the Duchess: Underpainting and Overpainting in The Marriage Portrait.” Maggie O’Farrell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, Bloomsbury, 2024. pp. 121–28.
8. ↵
   1. Charles, Ron

   . “In Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, Matrimony Leads to Death.” Review of The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell. Washington Post, 30 Aug. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/08/30/maggie-ofarrell-marriage-portrait.
9. ↵
   1. Chiappini, Luciano

   . “House of Este.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Este.
10. ↵
    1. Elias, Amy J.

    Sublime Desire: History and Post-1960s Fiction. Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.
11. ↵
    1. Gallagher, Catherine

    . Telling It Like It Wasn’t: The Counterfactual Imagination in History and Fiction. U of Chicago P, 2018.
12. ↵
    1. Hibbert, Christopher

    . The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. 1974. Harper Perennial, 2003.
13. ↵
    1. Hutcheon, Linda

    . The Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, 2000.
14. ↵
    1. Hutcheon, Linda

    . The Politics of Postmodernism. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2002.
15. ↵
    1. Kelly, Stuart

    . “Book Review: The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell.” The Scotsman, 28 Aug. 2022, www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/book-review-the-marriage-portrait-by-maggie-ofarrell-3818484.
16. ↵
    1. Lackey, Michael

    . Afterword. Authorizing Early Modern European Women: From Biography to Biofiction, edited by Sara Jayne Steen et al., Amsterdam UP, 2021, pp. 271–74.
17. ↵
    1. Lackey, Michael

    . Biofiction: An Introduction. Routledge, 2021.
18. ↵
    1. Langdon, Gabrielle

    . Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love, and Betrayal in the Court of Duke Cosimo I. U of Toronto P, 2006.
19. ↵
    1. Layne, Bethany

    . “Beyond the Cage of Facts: Liberating the Subject in Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (2020) and The Marriage Portrait (2022).” The Routledge Companion to Biofiction, edited by Lucia Boldrini et al., Routledge, 2025, pp. 412–27.
20. ↵
    1. Lee, Alexander

    . The Ugly Renaissance: Sex, Greed, Violence and Depravity in an Age of Beauty. Anchor Books, 2015.
21. ↵
    1. O’Farrell, Maggie

    . Hamnet. Vintage, 2021.
22. ↵
    1. O’Farrell, Maggie

    . “Maggie O’Farrell.” www.maggieofarrell.com.
23. ↵
    1. O’Farrell, Maggie

    . “Maggie O’Farrell on The Marriage Portrait: A Look at Scandal, History, and the Future.” Interview by Emma Levy. Seattle Times, 30 Sept. 2022, www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/maggie-ofarrell-on-the-marriage-portrait-a-look-at-scandal-history-and-the-future.
24. ↵
    1. O’Farrell, Maggie

    . The Marriage Portrait. Vintage, 2023.
25. ↵
    1. O’Farrell, Maggie

    . “The Painting Tells a Story: ‘The Marriage Portrait’ Author on Love, Loss, and Layers of Meaning in the Italian Renaissance.” Interview by Shannon Henry Kleiber. To the Best of Our Knowledge, 24 Sept. 2023, www.ttbook.org/interview/painting-tells-story-marriage-portrait-author-love-loss-and-layers-meaning-italian.
26. ↵
    1. O’Leary, Jessica

    . “In the Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell Distorts the Historical Record to Suit Modern Sensibilities.” Review of The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell. The Conversation, 16 Oct. 2022, theconversation.com/in-the-marriage-portrait-maggie-ofarrell-distorts-the-historical-record-to-suit-modern-sensibilities-192182.
27. ↵
    1. Rademacher, Virginia Newhall

    . “Biofiction’s Overlays and Hidden Underpaintings in Lauren Groff’s Matrix and Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait.” The Routledge Companion to Biofiction, edited by Lucia Boldrini et al., Routledge, 2025, pp. 428–49.
28. ↵
    1. Strathern, Paul

    . The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance. Pegasus Books, 2017.
29. ↵
    1. Struzziero, Maria Antonietta

    . “‘The Underpainting and the Overpainting’: Layers of Power and Powerlessness in Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait.” Humanities Bulletin, vol. 7, no. 1, 2024, pp. 119–34.

    OpenUrl
30. ↵
    1. Thomas-Corr, Johanna

    . “The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell Review: The Doomed Duchess.” The Guardian, 28 Aug. 2022, www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/28/the-marriage-portrait-by-maggie-ofarrell-review-the-doomed-duchess.
31. ↵
    1. Ziegler, Luke

    . “Art and Power: How the d’Este Family Ruled Renaissance Ferrara.” Tenor of Our Times, vol. 12, 2023, pp. 122–56.

    OpenUrl