Summer's Lease is a novel by Sir John Mortimer, author of the Rumpole novels, which is set predominantly in Italy. It was first published in 1988 and made into a British television mini-series, first shown in 1989. The title "Summer's Lease" is a play on a line from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: And summer's lease hath all too short a date. The novel involves the leasing of a Tuscanvilla for the summer holidays. It is divided into six parts: "Preparations", "Arrival", "First Week", "Second Week", "Third Week", and "The Return".
The Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca, one of the recurring motifs in the novel and the TV series.
Molly Pargeter is a forty-something wife, and mother of three girls, who leads a stable but dull life in 1980s West London. She feels overweight and there is no passion in her relationship with her husband Hugh, who is secretly seeing another woman. For most of her life she has found escape in detective novels and books on art, especially about the fifteenth-century Italian fresco painter Piero della Francesca.
In a newspaper advertisement, Molly sees that a villa in Tuscany is to let and, after travelling to Italy to view the villa, "La Felicita", in the fictional town of Mondano, she decides to rent it for her family's August holiday. The villa is conveniently located for visits to the artistic centres of Florence and Siena, and also to Urbino, a day's drive away across the "Mountains of the Moon", where what Kenneth Clark called the world's greatest small picture awaits Molly: Piero's "Flagellation".
Water problems emerge in the first week of the holiday: the swimming pool becomes empty and there is no running water in the villa. In the second week, when the body of the ex-pat letting agent is discovered, also in an empty swimming pool, Molly suspects foul play. She becomes more involved with the local town of Mondano and its inhabitants: an aristocrat, a wealthy socialite, and several ex-pats who all seem to be hiding something, and is intrigued about the identity of the villa's absent owner, whom she knows only as "S. Kettering".
The search for the reason behind the disappearing water and the corpse, and discovering who S. Kettering is, becomes an obsession which leads Molly across the "Mountains of the Moon" to encounter more than just the small painting.
Piero della Francesca Trail
The Piero della Francesca Trail is an excursion which traces the works created by Piero della Francesca in Arezzo, Monterchi, San Sepolcro (his birthplace) and Urbino. To his contemporaries, Piero was admired as a mathematician and geometer as well as a painter, and today his paintings are celebrated for their serene humanism and use of geometric forms.
Summer's Lease has made famous the Piero della Francesca Trail, which sees Molly set out from the Chianti District near Siena and travel to view the following paintings of Piero della Francesca:
The Legend of the True Cross, Basilica di San Francesco d'Assisi, Arezzo
The Pregnant Madonna, Museo della Madonna del Parto, Monterchi
The Resurrection, Museo Civico, San Sepolcro
The Flagellation, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino
Molly and her elusive landlord Buck Kettering share a love of the art work of Piero della Francesca. The Piero della Francesca Trail ultimately leads Molly to Buck, who for reasons of his own does not want to be found.
In 1989 the novel was adapted for television in four parts by the BBC in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, WGBH-Boston and Television New Zealand. It was directed by Martyn Friend and produced by Colin Rogers. The screenplay was by the author, John Mortimer. It featured an Emmy Award-winning performance from John Gielgud, and its soundtrack, composed by Nigel Hess was awarded the Television and Radio Industries Club award for best television theme. It was filmed on location in London and Tuscany and first aired in the UK in 1989 on BBC2.
Piero della Francesca, originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.
The History of the True Cross or The Legend of the True Cross is a sequence of frescoes painted by Piero della Francesca in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo. It is his largest work, and generally considered one of his finest, and an early Renaissance masterpiece.
The Polyptych of the Misericordia is a painting conserved in the Museo Civico di Sansepolcro in the town of Sansepolcro, region of Tuscany, Italy. The painting is one of the earliest works of the Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, who was born in the town. The central panel is of the common motif of the Virgin of Mercy or Madonna della Misericordia.
Raffaellino del Colle (1490–1566) was an Italian Mannerist painter active mostly in Umbria. He was born in the frazione of Colle in Borgo Sansepolcro, province of Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy.
Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, is a town and comune founded in the 11th century, located in the Italian Province of Arezzo in the eastern part of the region of Tuscany.
Monterchi is a Comune (Municipality) in the Province of Arezzo in the Italian region of Tuscany, located about 80 kilometres (50 mi) southeast of Florence and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Arezzo. It sits in the northern part of Valtiberina, the valley where the Tiber river runs going from Emilia-Romagna towards Rome. The valley runs through Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, parallel to the Casentino Valley.
Oddantonio da Montefeltro was the first duke of Urbino in Italy.
The Basilica of San Francesco is a late Medieval church in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy, dedicated to St Francis of Assisi. It is especially renowned for housing in the chancel the fresco cycle Legends of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca.
A Madonna del Parto is an iconic depiction of the Virgin Mary shown as pregnant, which was developed in Italy, mainly in Tuscany in the 14th century. Examples include works by Taddeo Gaddi, Bernardo Daddi and Nardo di Cione, but the fresco by Piero della Francesca in the Museum of Monterchi, in the province of Arezzo, is considered the most famous one. The Madonna was portrayed standing, alone, often with a closed book on her stomach, an allusion to the Incarnate Word. These works were associated with the devotions of pregnant women, praying for a safe delivery. Sometimes, as with a statue by Sansovino in the Basilica of Sant'Agostino in Rome, the depiction is of a Virgin and Child, which was however known as a Madonna del Parto, because it was especially associated with devotions related to pregnancy. Here the Virgin wears the Girdle of Thomas, a belt of knotted cloth cord that was a relic held in Prato Cathedral, which many versions show her wearing.
The Flagellation of Christ, sometimes known as Christ at the Column or the Scourging at the Pillar, is a scene from the Passion of Christ very frequently shown in Christian art, in cycles of the Passion or the larger subject of the Life of Christ. It is the fourth station of the modern alternate Stations of the Cross, and a Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary. The column to which Christ is normally tied, and the rope, scourge, whip or birch are elements in the Arma Christi. The Basilica di Santa Prassede in Rome claims to possess the original column.
Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (Firenze).
Livia della Rovere was an Italian noblewoman of the House of della Rovere and the last Duchess of Urbino (1599–1631).
The Flagellation of Christ is a painting by Piero della Francesca in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino, Italy. Called by one writer an "enigmatic little painting," the composition is complex and unusual, and its iconography has been the subject of widely differing theories. Kenneth Clark placed The Flagellation in his personal list of the best ten paintings, calling it "the greatest small painting in the world".
The Cathedral of Sansepolcro is a Catholic church in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, central Italy.
Mario Salmi was an Italian art historian and art critic who specialized in Romanesque architecture, Tuscan sculpture and the early Italian Renaissance.
The Museo Civico di Sansepolcro or Museo Comunale is the town or comune art gallery. It is housed in a series of linked palaces, including the medieval former Palazzo della Residenza, the Palazzo dei Conservatori del Popolo and the Palazzo del Capitano o Pretorio, located on Via Niccolò Aggiunti #65, near the center of Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, in the Province of Arezzo, region of Tuscany, Italy. The museum was founded in 1975.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Arezzo in the Tuscany region of Italy.
This famed double portrait by Piero della Francesca is often mistitled The Duke and Duchess of Urbino—as it appears on the website of the Uffizi Gallery, which owns it. Since Battista Sforza died in 1472 and Federico da Montefeltro was not made duke until 1474, however, Battista never attained the title of duchess.
Robert D. Black is an Emeritus Professor of Renaissance History at the University of Leeds.
Summer's Lease is a British television drama series which aired in four parts on BBC2 in 1989. It is based on John Mortimer's novel of the same title, adapted by the author. John Gielgud won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance and the soundtrack, composed by Nigel Hess was awarded the Television and Radio Industries Club award for best television theme.
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